The Decatur County Commissioners met on Monday.
Mark Mohr gave an update. There is a double barrel culvert replacement happening on CR 800 E. Three of the 5 Community Crossing Grants for 2021 are completed and there still needs to be some shoulder work completed. They are currently in the process of hiring a foreman and would like Mark Koors to join the review committee for this. They turned in Bridge 131 to INDOT who gave the ok to put a contract together to not exceed more than $480,000 for preliminary work. This was approved.
Kenny Buening gave an update. There have been 39 building inspections, 10 new building permits, 3 permit renewals, and 2 red tags. There was a call received on faulty plumbing in one of the schools that will be further investigated.
Minde Myers came to the board to talk about the recent seizure of animals. When the sheep are moved they must be tagged to be tracked unless they are sent to market. Doug Brown stated that the sheep are technically not in procession of the county yet, so any action now would be premature. There is a party interested in the purchase of the sheep dependent on the outcome of the hearing.
Sheriff Durant came to the board to discuss commissary. They provided the board with the statute and what items commissary is used for. This is a separate fund from the general fund and the two cannot bleed over by statute. In 2021 commissary paid for 2 vehicles and the maintenance salary and in 2022 it was used to pay for the programs director. There was a question of how they jumped from a profit sweep of $87,000 to $296,000 in one year. They looked at how they were doing commissary and decided to set it on a business model in order to reap the highest benefits. They repriced the highest demand items and bought them from the places with the best bulk prices. A large part of the increase is also due to the new facilities which has allowed for more opportunity and storage. This led to higher supply, demand, and purchase within the jail.
Sean Durbin came to the board to thank them for the funds they were given to remodel the health department. Their intern Darian Krafton was introduced as well.
Morgan Schofield
WTRE News
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