County council discusses youth services, energy funds

The Monroe County Council decided to postpone a vote Tuesday night on raising the juvenile county option income tax, which funds the Youth Services Bureau of Monroe County and juvenile probation officers.

But it did pass a motion to transfer funds from the county to the Energy Conservation Non-Reverting Fund.

Steve Gavin, Monroe County seventh circuit court judge, presented the JCOIT, ultimately suggesting the tax rate be raised from 0.05 percent, set in 2007, to 0.095 percent based on an estimate of future youth-related service expenses.

“If we set a rate that was high and generated more money than was needed, we would certainly be able to come back in later years and pull that back,” Gavin said.

Troy Hatfield, Deputy Chief Probation Officer of the Probation Department, presented the JCOIT and per diem five-year projections. The council members could not see the screen because it was too small and could not comment on any specifics.

Council Member Cheryl Munson asked about the flat expenditure projections over the next five years. Hatfield said he estimated the total one-time expenses and divided it by five, though he recognizes some years will be more costly than others.

Hatfield said that although the tax increase will go into effect Oct. 1, Monroe County will not see the money collected until January 2015.

“It would receive a lump payment, and then the monthly payments will continue on after that,” Hatfield said. “So, you’ll see a large cash influx in January. That would provide a cushion for any problem you have with a one-time expense.”

A number of the council members agreed that a JCOIT raise is not only beneficial to the children participating in these youth programs, but also to Monroe County residents.

“Juvenile COIT is about the only way we can go about freeing up some money in the general fund and in some other funds,” Council Member Lee Jones said. “If we don’t, we ultimately are looking at the overall services that the county can offer decreasing because we simply don’t have the money to keep on offering them.”

Gavin said the county’s detention costs were about $1.2 million throughout the last five years, much lower than surrounding counties.

“The manner that we’ve implemented the COIT has saved county taxpayers literally millions of dollars,” Gavin said.

Council Member Marty Hawk also applauded the county’s detention center expenses and attributed them partly to Monroe County’s youth shelters. She said the city needs to watch any funds that come from the JCOIT tax raise closely.

“I hate new taxes, you know I do, but this is something that I’ll be supporting,” Hawk said. “But I’ll be watching how the dollars are spent, so there’ll be nobody that says, ‘Oh, now we have a pot of gold, we can do whatever we want to’ because this is supposed to be for the children.”

Later in the meeting, the council discussed transferring the energy savings accumulated from 2013 toward energy efficient upgrades for county buildings through the Energy Conservation Non-Reverting Fund.

The savings totaled $33,456.

Council Member Ryan Langley was the first to object to the fund, although he said he supports the energy efficient initiatives it was created to achieve.

“I look at this as money we could have spent elsewhere,” Langley said.

Hawk said she agreed fully with Langley’s opinion. However, she acknowledged they were the only two council members against the motion.

“I just don’t think it’s fair to the other departments to not put it right back in the total fund and then see what we really have to spend the money on,” Hawk said.

The rest of the council said they believe the funds should be transferred because of the positive monetary effect they’ll have in the future. Ashley Cranor, grants administrator for Monroe County, discussed a couple of initiatives implemented in the past to increase energy efficiency, like using lower watt light bulbs and reducing water usage in the Justice Building. 

“It’s certainly an extremely worthwhile effort,” Jones said. “Worldwide, everyone needs to start thinking much more about their water usage. We cannot survive without good clean water, and this is something we have taken for granted for too long.”

Paul White, a Bloomington resident, stood up to voice his support as well.

“If we can do things to make electricity more efficient, we should,” White said. “If we can do things to get our water consumption lower and have extreme cost savings for doing these things, we should.” 

The council passed the motion 5-2-0. Langley and Hawk opposed.