Commissioner Overmyer Questions Council's Scheduled Joint Work Session for Feb. 20th

Marshall County Commissioner Kevin Overmyer addresses the notice he received of a joint work session between the County Council and Commissioners scheduled for Monday, February 20th during the commissioner’s meeting Monday morning.

Overmyer said he was not asked about availability to attend a meeting following the next commissioner’s meeting on the 20th.  He also commented that Commissioner Mike Burroughs will be having shoulder surgery and may not be available and Overmyer will be leaving for vacation later that week and has a prior commitment.  

President of the Commissioners, Stan Klotz said he did not set the date and asked if Overmyer and Burroughs wanted to change the date.

Overmyer said some of the items on the agenda for the work session are commissioner items and don’t have council input. He said health insurance is a commissioner item to determine while the council has to fund it.  The ARP (American Rescue Plan) funds were designated by the federal government to be the commissioner’s plan for determining how they will be spent and then the plan is presented to the County Council for funding.

Overmyer also asked Klotz what “Municipal Advisors” on the agenda was and Klotz said he couldn’t answer that.  He said the council has talked to some other people about it.  Overmyer asked if it had to do with going after the Township Trustees and Library Boards and said, “I am not going to be a part of that.  They are elected officials.  They are elected township trustees with elected advisory boards.  They have their own tax rates and collect their taxes and I’m not going to be a part of that.”

Overmyer also asked Klotz what the Conflict of Interest was on the agenda of the joint work session, and Klotz said he can’t answer that question and continued saying, “I didn’t put this together.”

Commissioner Overmyer said he already has an appointment on February 20th so he won’t be able to attend.  Overmyer said, “For the Council to assume that the Commissioners want to have an executive session is wrong on their part. We are the executive branch of government, not the County Council.  If they want to be the executive branch of government then they need to go to Saint Joseph County where the County Council is the executive branch.”  

On the health insurance issue, Klotz did say the commissioners did talk about it at the end of the year when we renewed the health insurance policy.  He said, “We talked about different options and we said next year we are going to look at this earlier.”  Overmyer said that is a decision the commissioner will make, not the council. Klotz asked if they should start the discussions now and Overmyer said they have had communication with Apex and it would be good to start the discussions now but it’s a commissioner’s decision.

Overmyer reiterated that he won’t be a part of asking the Township Trustees or their advisory boards why they have so much money.  He explained that the townships save money to purchase large items such as ambulances and fire trucks with cash instead of doing a bond and the State Board of Accounts understands their savings plans.