As 2015 comes to a close, Knox County Council President Bob Lechner urged council members to set goals of what they want to accomplish next year.
Lechner says as the fiscal body for the county he’s going to continue to push for internal controls over spending. In fact, Lechner says the county is being pushed in that direction by the state board of accounts and the Indiana General Assembly. A bill passed by the legislature this past session will require counties to establish minimum standards for internal controls and provide training for personnel. All counties have until June 30th 2016 to comply with the new law.
Lechner added as the fiscal body they could face penalties for not adopting the new practices. Lechner also wants to set-up a transparent financial portal on the county’s website where taxpayers can go to see how and where their money is being spent. He calls it an important education tool for the public and one that could reduce the number of phone calls to the court house.
Steps are being taken to reign in pauper attorney fees have risen dramatically over the last two years. This year alone the Knox County Council has received requests totaling over 250-thousand dollars above what was budgeted for pauper council.
Bob Slayton with the County’s Pauper Defense Board says steps are being taken to more closely scrutinize claims before they are submitted to the auditor’s office for payment. He says they’ve reached out to the county’s 3-judges for help in setting up a system to review the claims. The state’s pauper defense commission is also working with the pauper board and will offer some recommendations.
The commission previously had suspended reimbursement of payments in felony cases to Knox County because of what they viewed as some pauper council having exceeded their caseload. Slayton says the commission is expected to reinstate payments now that the situation has been rectified. He added that the county will not be losing any money and that they expect to be receive 300-thousand dollars in past due revenue when the commission meets on Friday.