Two positions may be added

Jay County Community Corrections may be adding two part-time positions soon.
If the office receives the Indiana Department of Correction grant that would pay for them, executive director Yvette Weiland wants to be prepared.
The employees — an educator and a case manager — would help expand the office’s services to Level 6 and Class D felony violators, Weiland told the Jay County Commissioners Monday morning.
Currently, no one is teaching “cognitive programs,” which address topics like reasoning and moral thinking, to these offenders. The new employees would start that work, and potentially become full-time if the programs go well.
Weiland has written job descriptions for the positions, and asked that they be forwarded to Waggoner, Irwin, Scheele and Associates, the firm that designed the county’s pay scale, to determine a pay scale for the potential positions.
She also asked that new line items be created in the Community Corrections budget so that they are already in place if the office receives the grant.
Weiland said if she receives the $25,680 that she requested, she needs to have someone trained by November. The state will announce grant recipients in about two weeks.
In other business, the commissioners:
•Learned from Ami Huffman, director of community development for Jay County Development Corporation, that the county’s fair housing ordinance needs an update to match federal requirements. The definition of “family” has been “revised to include family regardless of the actual or perceived sexual orientation, gender identity or marital status of the members,” Huffman said, reading the updated language, which the commissioners agreed to adopt.
Huffman also told the commissioners she’s working on another grant for senior housing in Dunkirk. The county had previously committed to a 16-year, $150,000 loan of economic development income tax funds toward the $4.5 million project if a grant was awarded.
Huffman said that based on a new state formula involved in awarding the grant, a 25-year loan would produce a number looked at more favorably by the state. The commissioners agreed to the longer term.
•Heard county engineer Dan Watson’s recommendation that a stop sign for eastbound vehicles on county road 300 South be switched to stop southbound vehicles on Blaine Pike.
This addresses the potential for accidents between southbound Blaine Pike traffic and westbound county road 300 South traffic, neither of which had to stop before. Pat Miller lives near the intersection and brought the issue to the commissioners’ attention last week.