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County council approves personnel, training and program funding across departments
Summary
Dearborn County Council approved a set of departmental funding and personnel requests March 18, including a probation promotion and raise, opioid settlement allocations for leadership and school prevention programs, additional veterans‑service staffing and a Health First Indiana clinic allocation; a larger health‑department generator request was tabled for quotes.
Dearborn County Council approved multiple budget and personnel items during its March 18 meeting, voting to fund promotions, training and prevention programs across county departments while tabling larger requests that need further cost information.
The council approved promotions and payroll adjustments in the community corrections office: Steve Kelly said Jamie Billingsley would move into a quality‑assurance officer role and requested a $5,000 base raise; accounting for PERF, FICA and other fringe the total recurring cost was estimated at $5,943 to be paid from probation user fees. Council moved and approved the action.
From opioid settlement funds, council approved a $15,000 allocation to send 17 county staff and partner practitioners to a six‑month leadership program run by Gilman Partners and a $13,500 allocation to bring national speaker Chris Herren to the county’s three middle schools for substance‑use prevention. Kelly said the leadership program includes probation officers, JCAP therapists and case managers.
Veterans Service Officer Dave Currence requested and received approval for additional part‑time staffing to handle increased caseloads and an additional $600 for training required by new state standards. Currence told the council the office has seen an 89% increase in visits (386 to 731) and a 115% increase in claims processed (245 to 527) since 2021, which he said justified the additional personnel and training funding.
Health Department director Amy Rose asked for two items from Health First Indiana funds: an operating bump for clinic operations and funds to replace or add a generator to protect vaccine refrigerators during prolonged outages. The council approved the operating bump (amount listed in the packet) but tabled the generator request pending bids and clearer cost estimates.
Other actions: the council approved an interlocal agreement with Ohio County to accept $200,000 for circuit court salaries and $21,718 for part‑time drug testing services, approved an appointment to the BCA and accepted routine administrative items including meeting minutes and a salary ordinance update.
Each funding motion was moved, seconded and approved by voice vote unless otherwise noted; where exact line‑item amounts were discussed in the packet, council actions followed the figures submitted by department staff.
