Making sure the Pulaski County Highway Department will be able to update its asset management plan and continue to qualify for Community Crossings grants was the goal of a lengthy conversation during Monday’s county council meeting. The highway department’s $2,500 budget for asset management services was apparently cut out of this year’s budget. To resolve the issue, Highway Superintendent Terry Ruff asked council members to transfer $10,000 into the line item from his department’s salt budget.
The reason he asked for four times what was actually cut had to do with ongoing discussions over the county’s salary matrix. Ruff previously told council members the $2,500 had gone to his department’s secretary for her additional duties as asset management coordinator. But council members had some concerns about paying an employee what is essentially a bonus, rather than just adding the duties to the official job description and adjusting the pay rate accordingly.
At his point, Ruff felt that it would be easier to hire an outside company to do the work. “We couldn’t come together on any of this to, basically, pay Jessica a little more money for it, so we just decided we won’t mess with it,” he told council members Monday. “We’ll hire it out. We don’t know why it ever got cut out of the budget to start with. We fought for it. We had it. Mysteriously, it got taken away. I don’t know.” The two quotes he got for the work ranged from about $5,000 up to $20,000.
Council members noted that there would be some benefits to contracting out the asset management plan. They pointed out that the Indiana Department of Transportation is getting stricter in its requirements, and hiring a company that specializes in asset management plans would reduce the likelihood of errors. Others noted that hiring the highway department’s secretary as a contractor might avoid the salary issues, but it could be considered a major conflict of interest.
However, council members Scott Hinkle and Mike Tiede didn’t like the idea of paying $10,000, when it could be done for $2,500. “Sounds like we’re wasting $7,500 to me,” Hinkle said.
“Yeah, and it’d been given to somebody that lives in the county,” Tiede added.
Council member Alex Haschel replied, “Do you know how many others, though, we’ve had come to us and say that, ‘They really went out of their way, so I think we have a little extra,’ you know? If she’s doing it on her time, she’s getting paid for it.”
A motion to transfer the $10,000 to hire an outside contractor was voted down. In the end, council members agreed to transfer $2,500, to let the department’s secretary once again assemble the asset management plan. Haschel voted against the measure.
