Kosciusko County Sheriff Jim Smith went before the County Council Thursday for his 2024 salary contract, while local attorney Travis McConnell (sitting behind Smith) was there to make the council aware of problems at Pierceton Woods Academy. Photo by David Slone, Times-Union.

By David Slone
Times-Union

WARSAW — During its last meeting of 2023 Thursday, Dec. 14, the Kosciusko County Council made a few decisions for 2024, including the one-year council committees and appointments.

One of those committees is to revisit the wheel tax.

Councilwoman Sue Ann Mitchell asked the other council members if they were all in agreement that the wheel tax committee needed to be recreated. Mitchell and Councilman Dave Wolkins will serve on that committee.

“Absolutely,” Councilwoman Kimberly Cates said.

While Wolkins also said yes, Councilwoman Joni Truex responded, “I would not. With the economy the way it is and the costs and the property taxes, I don’t think this is a good time to reconsider that, looking at the wheel tax.”

Council President Mike Long said the committee would look at the wheel tax and then determine whether or not it needs to be addressed. “It’s basically just another look. It’s not a determining factor whether we’re going to do anything at this point,” he said.

Wolkins said he had no interest in raising the wheel tax.

“I don’t think that anyone is interested in raising any taxes, but I know it was done extensively the last time. We worked really closely with the highway department to find out exactly what funding they needed and worked backwards,” Cates said, adding that it wasn’t some numbers pulled out of the air but they really studied it. “So I think it was a very scientific way to do it, and I think whether we do it next year or in five years, we need to be paying attention to that because we don’t know what money we will get for our highways.”

Long said the committee is being formed to review what the county currently has in place for its wheel tax and then bring any recommendations back to the full council. He said when the committee was originally formed, the council agreed to take a look at the wheel tax every so often and now was the time.

“My only issue is, as soon as we increased those fees, the state came back and gobbled them back up. So we thought we were going to get ‘X,’ but we didn’t get ‘X,’ we wound up getting way less than ‘X,’” Mitchell stated.

According to an Aug. 8, 2019, amended ordinance of the council, effective Jan. 1, 2020, vehicles registered in the county and subject to the state excise tax are subject to the following surtax: $35, passenger vehicles; $25, motorcycles; $35, trucks with a declared gross weight of 11,000 pounds or less; $25, motor-driven cycles; buses, $60; recreational vehicles, $25; semi-trailers, $60; tractors, $60; trailers (7,000 pounds and less), $25; trailers (greater than 7,000 pounds), $60; and trucks, $60.

The council’s committee and board appointments were unanimously approved Thursday.

Officers for the council for 2024 will remain the same as they are in 2023, though the officers weren’t elected unanimously.
Wolkins nominated Long for president, Councilman Tony Ciriello seconded the vote and Long was elected president again by a vote of 4-3. Cates, Mitchell and Truex were opposed.

Councilwoman Kathleen Groninger was nominated as vice president by Ciriello, Wolkins seconded it and she was approved by a vote of 5-2, with Mitchell and Truex opposed.

The council also approved their 2024 budget meetings by a vote of 7-1, with Cates opposed. The department budgets will be presented 8:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. Aug. 14-15, with budget cuts scheduled for Aug. 21. The budget adoption will take place Oct. 10 after a public hearing at the council’s regular meeting Sept. 12.

Sheriff Jim Smith’s salary contract for 2024 was up before the county council Thursday, and the resolution on the agreement was unanimously approved.

The 2024 agreement is substantively the same as the 2023 agreement except that the sheriff’s salary will increase $5,000 to $120,515 for 2024.

The agreement has to be approved by the executive (commissioners) and fiscal (council) bodies of the county.
In other business, the council:

• Heard from local attorney Travis McConnell about Pierceton Woods Academy, which recently was the subject of a story in the IndyStar by the IndyStar and ProPublica. He said there’s been a number of incidents there over the years and he wanted to make sure the county’s taxpayer dollars don’t go there. He didn’t know what the council could do about it but he wanted to bring it to their attention. He also will go before the commissioners Tuesday, Dec. 19, to see if they’re interested in writing another letter to state authorities to do a better investigation.

• Approved Kosciusko County Highway Department Superintendent Steve Moriarty’s transfer request. He is moving $250,000 from the local roads and streets fund calcium salt and weed spray to stone, gravel and other aggregates.

Since the road salt barn is full this year, and he can’t buy more this year because he has nowhere else to put the road salt, the transfer will allow the department to purchase stone at a cheaper price for next year’s road program.

• Approved by a vote of 4-2-1 a $100,000 additional appropriation from American Rescue Plan Act funds for the Downtown Warsaw YMCA security system, as requested by Auditor Rhonda Helser on behalf of County Administrator Marsha McSherry.

The ARPA Committee had recommended the $100,000, and the county commissioners approved it, but the county council originally tied on a 3-3 vote. Due to some question on a council person’s vote, there was another vote a month later by the council on the funding and it passed 4-2 the second time.

Councilwoman Kathleen Groninger abstained from voting on the grant request in every vote. Opposed to the additional appropriation Thursday were Cates and Truex.

• Approved County Health Department Administrator Bob Weaver’s request for a salary ordinance amendment for a vital records registrar who switched to an open position the department had as an environmental food specialist. The annual salary for the person is $59,124.

• Approved for the Kosciusko County Sheriff’s Office to participate in the Comprehensive Hoosier Highway Injury Reduction Program grant through the county traffic partnership, pending the county commissioners’ approval.

CHHIRP consists of three different programs – Click It To Live It, Driving Under the Influence Task Force and the Stop Arm Violation Enforcement. The county’s share of the grant would be $19,000 for Click It, $8,000 for DUI and $13,000 for SAVE.
An additional appropriation of $2,000 was also approved for those funds to be used for this year.

• Approved Emergency Management Agency Director Kip Shuter’s request for an additional appropriation of $14,000 from a grant – Hazardous Material Emergency Preparedness Grant – he was awarded in October.

• Approved a year-end transfers resolution.

The resolution states that as the council has made every effort to address requests for transfer of funds at Thursday’s meeting, and that the year-end balances should be in the black, and as the county auditor is responsible for the disbursement of funds, “any account discovered by the auditor to end the year in the red, the auditor is authorized” by the council to make transfers between accounts to accomplish all accounts to end in the black.

• Approved the revised council electronic meetings policy, but tabled the meetings and travel policy until January.

• Appointed Jack Bonewits to the Lakeland Regional Sewer District Board as a replacement of Emily Shipley. His term expires in 2027.