BG City Court 2012 - Great Work Judge Wells!!!

Judge Andrew Wells is like a breath of fresh air.  I had my doubts as everyone knows because of his connections to the last 2 regimes but this guy has walked his talk and has EXCEEDED EXPECTATIONS with his performance to date.

He has added Southport, the Indiana State Police, Speedway, and very soon another Court will be added that I can't comment on because the deal isn't done yet.

The court used to lose hundreds of thousands of dollars.  Judge Wells as you can see is making great strides to getting past the break even point and put it into the Black!

I am working with Judge Wells and Clerk McMillan to be able to post the amount of tickets written by the BGPD which directly impacts the income the court has.  Also I will track how many code violations are written by the Code Enforcement Officer for the City of Beech Grove that was appointed by Mayor Buckley so we can see if he is staying busy.

I also want to thank Judge Wells for allowing me to post something positive about Beech Grove City Government.

Here is a letter to the Editor that Judge Wells put together as a summary of the Court for 2012.  He and Clerk Treasurer Dan McMillan are currently putting together a financial report of all expenses and revenues brought in for 2012.

If you look in the archives of the Blog you will see the examples of mismanagement and financial slight of hand that was used before by hiding court salaries in other department's budgets in an effort to show that the Court was functioning as promised.

Our Court seems to be in very good hands with Judge Wells.  It is such a pleasure to be able to report something POSITIVE about our elected officials instead of the same old games.

Here is the summary Document - the Financial ones will be posted ASAP.

Click on the document for viewing or to download for you to keep.

You might want to ask Mayor Buckley why he has been "Bumping" Judge Wells report to the City Council from the agenda and is attempting to do it again for the next City Council Meeting.

Kevin,

Attached find a spreadsheet with all the revenues and disbursements for 2012.  The first column is the total revenue to the court, the next 4 columns are the statutory disbursements send out by the court, the next two columns are the monies the City pays to Southport for their deferrals, and Marion County for a jury fee and State Deferrals.  The last column is what is left.  Dan should be able to provide you with each monthly statement that corresponds to this document, but for my purposes I keep this document so its easier to review the whole year.

The second document is the budgeted appropriations for 2012.  As you can see the Mayor's Law Department and City Court were budgeted together.  The Court only spend out of the line items that begin with Law or Judge (which was appropriated approximately $111,139.00 for 2012).  The rest were for the City Attorney.  In 2013 the Mayor's Law Department and City Court are no longer budgeted together, so going forward it will be easier to determine what specifically was budgeted for Court and for the Mayor's Law Department.  Also, I didn't think it was appropriate for them to be budgeted together because the Mayor's Law Department is statutorily different and represents parties in the Court through the City Attorney.

As for salaries, we only have two employees, myself and the Court Clerk, Cindy Johnson.  Those salaries are the first line item in the appropriations.  The only crossover with other departments and the Court is the monies the court pays to BGPD for bailiff services, that was $2600 in 2012 and will be under $2500 in 2013.

If you have anymore questions, don't hesitate to ask.

Thanks,

Andrew

 Kevin,

You might find this document informative as well.  This is the number of cases filed in 2012, we didn't start tracking this till May of 2012.  The new case management system makes it easy to assemble.  Also, Southport only started in August so the 57 number is just August for them.

Thanks,

Andrew

Dan Mcmillan

3:25 PM (19 hours ago)

Kevin,

Here is the appropriation report for the court last year. Their bank statements are online. I don't write checks or control their bank account. I also don't have financials on that account. They keep those. The city pays the expenses for the court. That includes, salaries, insurance, PERF, benefits, and other Misc. expenses. Utilities are paid out of the police budget and phone and internet are paid out of the Board of Works and City Hall budget. All city buildings are paid for. This year we took the city attorney expense out of their budget . It is no longer called the Department of Law it is now called "city court".

Thanks,

Dan

As usual, Click on the Image to enlarge it for viewing or to download it to your computer.

In an interview with the Mayor last year I asked him who the Code Enforcement Officer was and he named him.  Now I have Judge Wells who processes the violations that there is not Code Enforcement Officer.  Can someone please ask the Mayor why there isn't one when he told me in the presence of the City Attorney who signed off on the copy of the interview why there isn't one?

andrwells@gmail.com	8:44 AM (4 minutes ago)
to me

I would have to pull each months filings and look at what citations were written.  There is no code enforcement officer and the only non BGPD tickets are the 10 or so Steve Durbin the Animal Control Officer wrote.  Everything else from BG is BGPD.

andrwells@gmail.com	8:54 AM (10 minutes ago)
to me

Well there could be one.  However, that person has not filed a case in the Court over the past 14 months.  The only non vehicle related cases I have seen from BG is dog cases and under age tobacco.

Sent from my iPhone

On Feb 19, 2013, at 8:50 AM, Kevin Roessler <kevroessler@gmail.com> wrote:

The Mayor told me in an interview that there was a code enforcement officer. Interesting.

andrwells@gmail.com	9:24 AM (8 minutes ago)
to me

Enforcement is the statutory duty of the executive, I.E. the Mayor.  The Court can't dictate what codes are enforced.  We just hear the cases that are filed.  I would need to pull each month's filings to be certain, but I do not recollect any rental code citations.  I will review and get you a number.  

On Feb 19, 2013, at 8:08 AM, Kevin Roessler <kevroessler@gmail.com> wrote:

How do I track the number of tickets written by the BGPD and the amount of Code Violations written by the City Code Enforcement Officer.

Here is the Copy and Paste from an Interview with the Mayor and City Attorney on June 29th 2012, it's posted on the Blog.

 Rental Codes –  what is the % of housing in BG that is rental at this point? (houses not apartment units) 2010 Census is 33%

Enforcement? IF so, when? If not, why?  It is under consideration. 

Who is the compliance person for BG? Currently the DPW Director. Contact info for people to report issues. The DPW Director issues citations and tags properties.  Mayor’s Call Center – 317-803-9111 or you can email at mayor@beechgrove.com