Penobscot County Commissioners' Meeting Minutes January 16th, 2018
For a downloadable copy click HERE
Penobscot County Commissioners’ Meeting Minutes January 16, 2018 #2172
9:00 AM Commissioners Peter Baldacci, Tom Davis and Laura Sanborn 12°
Approval of Minutes -
Commissioner Davis made a motion to approve the January 2nd, 2018 minutes. Commissioner Sanborn seconded the motion. Vote to approve passed 3-0.
Commissioner Sanborn made a motion to go into Executive Session at 9:04 a.m.
1 M.R.S.A. § 405 (6) (A) Personnel Matter. Commissioner Davis seconded the motion. Vote to approve passed 3-0. Present were: Bill Collins, Chad LaBree, and Judy Alexander. Session ended at 9:15 with no votes taken.
Sheriff’s Department Update –
Sheriff Troy Morton stated that today’s jail population is 208 inmates comprising 173 males, 35 females and 51 boarded out to other county jails. There are currently 56 inmates in pre-trial services.
Troy states that the jail is struggling with hiring and retaining corrections officers. Currently the jail is down five full time corrections officers. There has been little success by attending local job fairs and visiting colleges. There will be five candidates going to the academy at the end of the month for the mandatory eight week training.
The new medical service MEDPRO and the Sheriff’s office has ironed out the overage fee that was in the contract. The contract states that any inmates over 188 will be billed at $10.60 per day/ per inmate. Sheriff has negotiated to use the formula of average daily population per month and requested a set fee of $ 200 per inmate for anything over 188 population.
Sheriff found out after the fact that MEDPRO also offers the service of handling all the medication operations. This would include pharmaceutical, medical billing, etc. operations regarding the jail. MEDPRO provides this type of service with four other jails. MEDPRO is able to contract with drug companies and negotiate pricing on drugs for the inmates. This isn’t part of the contract that we recently negotiated. Sheriff Morton will be presenting the finalized MEDPRO contract to the Commissioners for their signature next Tuesday.
Next week the Sheriff will be back with a proposal to the Commissioners to go out to bid for patrol cars and a new jail van.
Troy informed the Commissioners that on the law enforcement side, patrol is fully staffed and incredibly busy.
IT Update -
Cliff Warren came before the Commissioners in regards to the server expansion that is needed for the County. Currently we don’t have enough storage available. Commissioner Davis made a motion to purchase the processor memory expansion for $10,000. Commissioner Sanborn seconded the motion. Vote to approve passed 3-0.
Bill Collins asked Cliff to explain the controversy in regards to the Spillman system not being allowed access with the District Attorney’s office. The woman that manages the DA’s side of the computer information stated that this is not something that she is prepared to do at this time. Bill will check with other counties and what they are doing in regards to Spillman in the DA’s offices.
Executive Session---Commissioner Sanborn made a motion to go into Executive Session at 9:55 a.m. 1 M.R.S.A. § 405 (6) (A) Personnel Matter. Commissioner Davis seconded the motion. Vote to approve passed 3-0. Present were: Bill Collins, Renee Stupak and Dan Tremble. Session ended at 10:05 with no votes taken.
Jail, Unorganized Territory and County Audits –
Tim Poitras of Chester Kearney and Judith Alexander came before the Commissioners regarding the 12-31-2016 County Audit and the FY ’17 Jail and UT audits. Tim stated that all three audits had no deficiencies or areas of concern that needed to be reported or brought to the board. Tim reports that these were clean audits.
This is the second year that the County Audit included the federal single audit. The reason it had to be included was because we had over $750,000 in federal expenditures and we are the fiscal agent for the Northeastern Workforce Development Board.
Tim has a standard letter with all three audits highlighting any issues or concerns to be given to the Commissioners which were none.
Bill had Tim validate that as of the June 30, 2017 budget the jail is negative $373,193 which is a decrease of $573,000. Tim stated that other counties are in the same position as we are in regards to the jails budget where the State isn’t contributing additional funding. Currently the jail fund owes the general fund roughly $600,000. Judy stated that we did receive supplemental funding in the amount of approximately $500,000. Commissioner Baldacci noted that although funds was received in 2018, it was actually supplemental funding for the FY ’17 year.
The Unorganized Territory looked good as usual with no areas of concerns or issues. The TIF fund was new in this audit.
On the county’s budget due to the required liability increased significantly, through the year by Maine PERS, our share of liability of $3.2M managing our participants is up $808,000
Dan Tremble asked how far along we are with the contract with Chester Kearney. Tim stated that he would extend the current relationship he has with us at the current rates.
Administrative Update –
Bill reported that the Commissioners voted for Charlie Pray/MCCA to request $2.1M supplemental from the state for the jail.
Since the Maine Sheriff’s Associate will not be hosting the State breakfast this year, the Commissioners have decided to take ownership and host. Bill will speak to Sheriff Morton.
Bill presented a forfeiture of State of Maine vs Justin Grover. Commissioner Davis made a motion to accept and approve and transfer to Penobscot County 15% of the amount of $4691. ($703.65) Commissioners Sanborn seconded the motion. Vote to approve 3-0.
Attorney James Bellow spoke to Cumberland County regarding the opiate lawsuit and they are also on board along with Penobscot County.
There was a Maine human rights complaint that Bill brought forth to the Commissioners. This has been forwarded to legal counsel since the Risk Pool does not cover age discrimination.
Judy has been communicating with Mike Rogers from the Maine Revenue Services. Mike emailed Bill and told him that he will be sending in the evaluations so that we can share with the towns and what their amounts are going to be. Mike will be retiring in either February or March.
There was discussion on the tax abatement hearing held last Tuesday, Maine vs. DeRoche. The Commissioners believe that the original assessment of the building having a loft with no livable space does not constitute 1.5 story value. Also since there is no access (right of way) or development the Commissioners felt lowering the tax 20 % on the land value was appropriate. Commissioner Davis made a motion to lower the building value $ 6000 and reduce the land value by 20 % ($ 5,156).
Commissioner Sanborn seconded the motion. Motion to approve 3-0.
Bill stated he will be having a meeting with the Corrections Officers on January 26th.
Payroll change notices signed for: Linda Golden – Resignation; Stephen Marko, Noel Santiago – Promoted; Tammy Buswell – Re-hired; Nicholas Covell – Hired Full time; Aaron Smith, Seth Scholl, Ian Libby, and Erik Candage – Hired part-time.
Payroll Warrant to be approved for: $ 234,562.81
Account Payable Warrant to be approved for 2017 Invoices: $15,549.47
Account Payable Warrant to be approved for 2018 Invoices: $47,234.47
Unorganized Territory Warrant to be approved: -None-
Public Comment – None
Meeting Adjourned-
Commissioner Davis moved to adjourn the meeting at 11:00 a.m. with no further business on the agenda. Commissioner Sanborn seconded the motion. Moved to approve 3-0.
