By Thomas B. Langhorne, Evansville Courier & Press
In about a month, a work force reduction will compel the Vanderburgh County Clerk's Office to close its library of six free public-access computers used for looking up case information.
It's one slice in local government services to the public - a loss, although not a crippling loss. But it might be just a hint of what's to come.
"People come up because they can't remember their case numbers, or they want to look up (civil and criminal, excluding juvenile) cases, and it's heavily used by abstracters who work for title companies."
Kirk says she is forced to close the library to move the employee who supervises it over to replace a small-claims clerk who left her 54-person staff in October. That open position, she said, has proved indispensable.
"The library is something we've done for the public and the abstracters, and we're not going to be able to do it anymore," she said.
After the library closes, individuals seeking the data it offered will have to make requests in writing and, by state law, wait as long as seven days to receive the requested information.
Kirk hopes to move two of her computers into another courts system office, but it's not yet clear whether that will be technologically feasible.
The library closing is necessary, she says, because the County Council declined to authorize her to fill the vacant small-claims clerk position under the county's hiring freeze when she asked for permission in October.
It was a point of contention at the time, with a visibly annoyed Kirk reminding the County Council that her office has had no staff growth in years, while its workload has exploded.
But five of seven council members voted against filling the vacancy on the grounds that current and future budget constraints compel county government offices to at least try to do more with less. They invited Kirk to try again later if she finds the vacant position is essential to providing basic services.
Hearing requests by department heads and elected officials to fill vacancies under the 2009 hiring freeze they passed in July has led members of the County Council - Vanderburgh County's fiscal and budget-writing body - to grapple with larger questions about the size of local government in years to come.
The council passed the first version of its hiring freeze - it has been tweaked since then - amid concern about the expected loss of millions of dollars from declining revenue streams for 2010 and the need to pay its share of renewed and reinstated local homestead credits.
In their Nov. 4 meeting, during which they unanimously voted to extend the 2009 hiring freeze indefinitely and to make wording changes intended for clarity, council members cast the freeze as a forward-looking economy measure.
Accounting for the possibility that certain public safety and accounting vacancies may need to be filled, County Council President Tom Shetler Jr. said the public demands smaller government.
"I think the objective here is to try to save approximately $200,000 to $250,000 in the first year of it, and it will only escalate in the years to come on that," Shetler said.
"I think people have given a pretty loud sound that county government is growing perhaps larger than what it should have over the last several years, and I think we need to look at that real hard."
County Auditor Bill Fluty Jr. flatly stated that the county cannot continue to support a work force of almost 800 people in the next few years. Fluty cited expected losses in county-option income tax revenue, which is heavily dependent on employment, and legislatively mandated property tax caps that will hit local governments harder.
"Your future revenues in '10, '11 and '12 won't support a work force of 800," the auditor said. "And it's a difficult decision of how you trim your work force and trim your expenses.
"... Right now you're doing it through attrition. If the numbers continue to get worse over the next two to three years, you may have to do it a little bit differently."