County wooing back Paulding inmates

DAVE MOSIER/independent editor

The Van Wert County Board of Commissioners is taking a look at finding a way to woo prisoners back to the county from Paulding County, while also holding discussions with new Sheriff Tom Riggenbach about possibly making the county dog warden an employee of the sheriff’s office.

Commissioner Thad Lichtensteiger and colleagues Stan Owens and Todd Wolfrum talked with the new sheriff about what it might take to bring Paulding County jail inmates back to the Van Wert County Correctional Facility.

According to Lichtensteiger, Sheriff Riggenbach and new Paulding County Sheriff Jason Landers have had preliminary discussions on returning to a previous policy of housing Paulding County prisoners in the Van Wert jail facility.

Lichtensteiger noted that Paulding County currently houses prisoners in Putnam County, but noted that bringing those prisoners to Van Wert would be a “win-win” situation for both Paulding and Van Wert counties, since doing so would cut travel time and fuel costs for Paulding County, while bringing needed revenues back to the local jail.

Lichtensteiger said Paulding County spent approximately $350,000 in prisoner housing costs last year, while estimating making some changes in the correctional facility staffing, as well as increased food and housing costs, would cost Van Wert County between $100,000 and $175,000 a year.

That would still leave an additional $175,000-$200,000 that could be used to offset expenses in the sheriff’s office — money that could stay in the General Fund to be used by other county agencies and departments.

Lichtensteiger noted that Van Wert County Common Pleas Judge Charles D. Steele would have to approve some of the procedural changes at the jail, while further talks would have to be held with Paulding County Sheriff’s Office people before an agreement could be reached.

The commissioners and Sheriff Riggenbach are also “quietly” talking about the possibility of making the county dog warden a member of the sheriff’s office.

“Tom got the idea from one of his sheriff’s seminars,” Lichtensteiger said of the reason for the discussion. According to Sheriff Riggenbach and the commissioners, making the dog warden a sheriff’s office employee would have a number of benefits, including the fact that anyone with an animal control problem could make a report with the sheriff’s office, which would then relay it to the dog warden, even if he is off duty.

Even when the dog warden is not on duty, though, deputies could be trained to handle some aspects of his job, so that emergencies involving vicious animals could possibly be handled without the warden. Lichtensteiger said the commissioners have brought up the possibility to Dog Warden Rich Strunkenburg, but added that there are still several hurdles to overcome before the changeover could occur. The largest of those would be the partnership with the Van Wert County Humane Society, which owns the shelter facility on Bonnewitz Avenue.

The commissioners plan to hold discussions with Humane Society board members to see what objections they might have to the proposal.

On a not-so-positive note, Lichtensteiger said the commissioners are looking at ways to avoid having to pay back approximately $365,000 to the Ohio Department of Development from a grant filing error made back in 2008.

The commissioners learned that an ODOD audit of a 2008 grant that was conducted back in August found that the county began work on the Ohio 118/U.S.127 sewer projects before funds were released and the mandated environmental study was turned in.

“That’s a major transgression,” Lichtensteiger said, noting that the project was actually funded by the federal Housing and Urban Development (HUD) agency, which is the one seeking return of the funds.

This past week, the commissioners, Commissioners’ Clerk Larry Clouse and grant administrator Mike Jackson met with ODOD Director Christiane Schmenk and some of her staff members to seek a waiver from having to repay the grant.

Unfortunately, a waiver given to Henry County in a similar situation was found not to apply because the portion of the Henry County project did not require an environmental impact study. However, since the county had already completed the environmental study, but had just not filed it as required, ODOD officials will discuss the matter with HUD officials to see if a federal waiver can be granted.

Lichtensteiger said state officials weren’t all that optimistic that a waiver would be forthcoming, though, so county officials, none of whom were in office back in 2008, are also looking at a way to come up with the funding needed to pay back the grant money.

Also last week, the commissioners met with Adam Ries and Vicki Schulte, organizers of the Main Street Market held downtown this past summer. Ries and Schulte said the event was a big success and provided revenues to both Main Street Van Wert, the sponsoring agency, and to the vendors who sold items in front of the courthouse each Thursday.

Organizers talked about the possibility of wooing some of the farmer’s market vendors downtown to sell their wares or, at the least, maybe getting them to set up shop at their old site in the city parking lot at Market Street and Central Avenue. Farmer’s market vendors currently use the old city-county swimming pool site on Fox Road, which Lichtensteiger said was very convenient and allowed vendors to sell items off the back of pickup trucks.

Van Wert City Schools Superintendent Ken Amstutz also met with the commissioners to clarify the school district’s position on the Family and Children First funding problem. Amstutz told the commissioners that the district would like to continue doing the program, noting that school officials feel that they are the best people to oversee the program and that they feel there are important benefits area children receive from the Family and Children First program.

The reason Amstutz announced earlier that the district would have to stop administering the program was to send a “wake up call” to other stakeholders in the program to help find funding for it. A number of agencies are represented on the Family and Children’s First board, but the city school district provides a majority of the funding for the program.

With the local schools hit with state funding cuts and other revenue losses, that situation has become untenable, Amstutz told the commissioners, adding that other stakeholders need to come up with some funding for the project.

The project is another of the many “unfunded mandates” handed local governments by the Ohio General Assembly, Lichtensteiger noted, adding that further discussions will be held to try and find a funding solution for the valuable program.