County considers storage, tech upgrades

Monday, September 20, 2021
Jones School

The disrepair of the former Putnam County Courthouse Annex and technology at the Putnam County Courthouse — both ongoing concerns for the county — were prominent parts of the Putnam County Commissioners meeting on Monday.

The former annex — Greencastle’s Jones School before it was turned over to the county in 2001 — is rapidly deteriorating and putting the records stored inside at risk.

Though it’s been 10 years since the county moved offices out of the 1954 structure at the corner of Liberty and Madison streets in Greencastle, the gymnasium continues to be utilized for storage. However, its leaky roof is making this problematic.

“One of these days, we’re going to get a call from the fire department that the gymnasium has collapsed and every record in it is buried,” Woodall said.

Of most immediate concern is getting something built in which to store the records. Though county officials still have an interest in building a new annex, a less expensive storage building may have to be constructed in the meantime.

“We are at a point where if we aren’t going to build an annex, we have to find a place to store those records,” Woodall said.

Maintenance Supervisor Brian Smith has made drawings of what he feels is needed.

The questions of high material costs and a location remain, though costs are coming down and the building could be put on the grounds of the Putnam County Highway Department southwest of Greencastle.

Though no decision was made on Monday, Woodall urged fellow Commissioners David Berry and Tom Helmer, “We need to get moving on this.”

As for the Jones School property, Woodall said Mayor Bill Dory recently told him a company may be interested in the property for building houses.

A previous attempt to turn the existing building into senior housing never got off the ground, but County Council President Dave Fuhrman, in attendance on Monday, urged the Commissioners to listen to any offers.

County officials are also hoping to have the Putnam County Highway Department tear down the existing structure.

On the technology front, John and J.D. Hendrich of Air-Linx presented several estimates to the Commissioners, some for items in need of immediate attention and others for further consideration.

Air-Linx recently had to replace the battery backups for two of the communications systems at the courthouse, both for the network and the phone system.

The network battery backup came at a cost of $1,691.97 for an extended runtime battery.

The replacement batteries for the aging phone system are no longer available, therefore an external battery pack and extended runtime battery had to be added at a cost of $3,463.85.

Both of these items were turned over to the Auditor’s Office as claims.

However, on the subject of ongoing upgrades and maintenance, the Commissioners will have to consider further, as other companies are also interested.

The Hendrichs are offering ongoing network maintenance at a cost of $19,200 annually, as well as setting up email accounts for all county employees on the county’s domain (co.putnam.in.us). The email would come with a one-time implementation cost of $8,170 and an ongoing cost of $5,760 annually for maintenance.

Additionally, $5 per account per month would be paid to Microsoft for hosting the email, which with an estimated 220 accounts for county employees, would be a monthly cost of about $1,100.

The county had previously been quoted a cost of $15 per account per month for Google to host the email accounts.

The Commissioners will continue to consider the matter in the coming months.

In other business:

• Kristy Jerrell of Jerrell Consulting gave reports on a couple of existing grants.

Monday was the final public hearing for the county’s COVID-19 Phase 3 grant, in which 26 local businesses received $9,600 each.

“It was a great program,” Jerrell said. “We don’t hear of any other programs like that coming up but if I do, I’ll let you know.”

Woodall expressed his approval for the program, but questioned the need for a public hearing, when the checks were cut in June.

Jerrell said the hearing was simply part of the process and the final report would now be submitted.

She also gave an update on the Community Development Block Grant that Van Bibber Lake received for its water project.

The Clinton Township community was awarded the $700,000 grant from the Indiana Office of Community and Rural affairs.

This comes in addition to a $2.5 million grant from USDA Rural development and a $1 million USDA loan.

Jerrell is also hoping for an additional $4 million grant to fully fund the $8 million project.

“As soon as we hear from that, we’ll begin the bidding process,” Jerrell said.

The project will install new water lines in the conservation district. The current lines run underneath the houses, but the project will move them to the right-of-way.

• The county renewed its contract with Maximus to do the cost allocation plan for the county.

The contract comes at an annual cost of $5,350.

• The Commissioners approved repairs to the Courthouse roof at a cost of $19,823.

While the materials of the roof are still considered to be under warranty, the cost covers the labor of fixing the roof.

• With Smith retiring from his maintenance position at the end of October, the Commissioners received two applications from candidates to replace him.

The Commissioners and Smith will be scheduling interviews with both during the coming week or so.

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  • Commissioner Woodall says "We need to get moving on this" regarding the county records stored under a leaky roof at the old Jones School (understatement of the year). They have been discussing this for what seems like forever. When are they actually going to take action? Their own meeting records dating back to the 1800's are in there, inaccessible to the public. Maybe that's their intent?

    -- Posted by Ben Dover on Tue, Sep 21, 2021, at 9:37 AM
  • Surely there’s an empty building somewhere in the county that could be used to store the records until a new building could be built, or maybe permanently. Seems there are empty buildings everywhere. Why not be resourceful? Just a thought!

    -- Posted by howsthishappen on Tue, Sep 21, 2021, at 9:47 AM
  • The Marsh supermarket location has been empty for some time.

    Just a suggestion. It's available, easily accesable.

    -- Posted by Lookout on Tue, Sep 21, 2021, at 11:51 AM
  • *

    Ben - Those records cannot be inaccessible.

    Any county employee that tells you those are inaccessible should be fired on the spot.

    They are public records.

    -- Posted by dreadpirateroberts on Tue, Sep 21, 2021, at 4:31 PM
  • DPR, that is a little extreme. It’s not the random county employees fault the records are where they are, it’s the County Commissioners fault.

    You want to speed up the process of getting those records to a better location? Ask to see one, when they say they cannot currently do that, file a lawsuit. That’ll get their attention.

    -- Posted by Koios on Tue, Sep 21, 2021, at 6:51 PM
  • DPR, I can tell you've never tried to get the minutes of commissioners' meetings. They posted a few on the county "website" for awhile and then stopped. Try it yourself and see.

    -- Posted by Ben Dover on Tue, Sep 21, 2021, at 8:37 PM
  • Ben, I don’t believe they are currently required to post those online. You should be able to get them at the courthouse though.

    -- Posted by Koios on Tue, Sep 21, 2021, at 9:35 PM
  • You are correct Koios

    -- Posted by beg on Wed, Sep 22, 2021, at 12:27 AM
  • It's ironic that the worst internet service provider in the area gets called to do so much work at the courthouse with the computers. I guess it really does pay to have friends in high places.

    -- Posted by Raker on Wed, Sep 22, 2021, at 7:53 AM
  • Lookout…the old Marsh building’s rent was around $6,000 monthly when a friend inquired about the space a few years ago.

    -- Posted by kbmom on Wed, Sep 22, 2021, at 1:39 PM
  • The old Jones school does need something done. I have found out that a few kids were caught by police trying to vandalize it.

    As for the old marsh building I think Heartland has been storing stuff in there/

    -- Posted by joyo on Wed, Sep 22, 2021, at 5:17 PM
  • *

    I understand it's a hassle to retrieve them.

    And I have no problems with waiting for the county to send over and get what is requested, or better yet, allow the public into the space they are stored.

    Apparently I didn't do a well enough job of explaining my thought:

    If a county employee tells you that they are inaccessible (leading you to believe that they cannot be retrieved), then that person should be fired. As an employee of the county, they are in fact a representative of the county, and can (and should) be held liable for their professional actions.

    There are those in the county courthouse who would have no problem telling you a lie (that they are inaccessible) merely to avoid their own inconvenience.

    I have run into this first hand with other county records and court documents.

    -- Posted by dreadpirateroberts on Wed, Sep 22, 2021, at 6:48 PM
  • In regards to storage of County Records at the Courthouse Annex... please reach out to the Indiana Archives and Records Administration. They will help you with Local and County Records and may even provide a place to store them! You can reach the Records Management Liaison at 317-591-5326. You may find this online handbook helpful: https://www.in.gov/iara/files/handbook-countylocalrecordscustodian.pdf

    -- Posted by bannerfan on Thu, Sep 23, 2021, at 8:47 AM
  • Bannerfan: thanks for the link. On page 6 it states there is a County Commission of Public Records in all 92 Indiana counties, and they should meet at least once per year. The secretary is either the county recorder or clerk. Does anyone know if there is actually such a group in Putnam County, and does the Banner attend and report on their meetings?

    -- Posted by Ben Dover on Thu, Sep 23, 2021, at 8:13 PM
  • This could be interesting- asking government to do something they are supposed to do.

    -- Posted by beg on Thu, Sep 23, 2021, at 9:37 PM
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