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Wednesday, February 07, 2007
Ind. Courts - St. Joseph County Commissioners balk at prosecutor's office travel request
Here are a few quotes from what James Wensits of the South Bend Tribune writes today:
SOUTH BEND -- Something kind of snapped with the St. Joseph County Commissioners Tuesday.Maybe it was years of squabbling over tight budgets, or perhaps it was all the talk about Circuit Breaker legislation and its expected devastating effect on local governments.
Whatever it was, when the county prosecutor's office representative asked permission to send 30 employees to Indianapolis for a four-day seminar, they balked, then tabled the request and asked for a do-over. * * *
[A] request presented by Patrick J. Higgins Jr., the prosecutor's office chief of staff and operations, sought permission to send six attorneys and 24 "non-attorneys" from the office's child support division to a June conference in Indianapolis.
The total bill for the visit, including registration, hotel accommodations, mileage reimbursements and meal money will be just over $13,000.
Although the state will reimburse the county for two-thirds of that total, the county's share will still exceed $4,300,
Higgins defended the request, saying that the training is mandated by the state and necessary both to keep workers current with state procedures and for their state certification.
He also noted later that half of his employees have less than two years' experience and that the state is constantly changing procedures and tweaking computer software.
"Thirty people is a lot," grumbled County Commissioner Steve Ross, D-2nd, who called the request "exorbitant."
Posted by Marcia Oddi on February 7, 2007 09:07 AM
Posted to Indiana Courts