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Kosciusko County employees will get an extra day off this year for Christmas.
At the Kosciusko County Commissioners meeting Tuesday, County Administrator Marsha McSherry presented an amendment to the Kosciusko County 2025 holidays.
“Employees will be off Wednesday, Thursday and Friday for the Christmas holiday. That would be the 24th, 25th and 26th,” she said. “And then there’s an amendment to the meetings for this year. There’s a meeting scheduled for Dec. 30. That will be off the calendar and that meeting actually will be held Dec. 23 due to the holidays.”
Commissioner Cary Groninger said they looked through the calendar trying to accommodate everyone for the holiday season. This year there also weren’t any election holidays for the county employees, so it was decided to give them an extra holiday the day after Christmas - so county employees will have Christmas Eve, Christmas Day and the day after Christmas off.
“It gives them a little extra boost there at the end of the year for all their hard efforts they gave us this year, so a little token of our appreciation as commissioners,” he stated.
With the weekend, Commissioner Bob Conley said the county employees will have five consecutive days off so they can “go to Florida for a couple days.”
Conley made the motion to approve the amendments, Commissioner Sue Ann Mitchell seconded and the motion passed 3-0. McSherry said she was sure the county employees will appreciate it.
In other business, the commissioners approved:
• A memorandum of understanding (MOU) between the city of Warsaw and the Kosciusko County Highway Department for snow plowing, road maintenance and patching of roads that the city and county share, as requested by KCHD Superintendent Steve Moriarty.
He said the MOU is a continuation of the one they’ve had in the past, but they revisit it every so often. Warsaw Public Works Director Dustin Dillon will take the MOU before the Board of Public Works and Safety to be signed as well.
• Moriarty’s request to purchase two trucks, one a tandem axle and a single axle, through Sourcewell, for $288,247.52 for the single axle and $337,321.68 for the tandem dump truck. He said he had the money in his budget.
• A bid for $18,250 from Custom Fencing Inc. to replace the fence at the coroner’s building on Lake Street, as requested by McSherry. The other two bids were $19,350 from Mike’s Fencing and $19,443 from Muller’s Fencing & Supplies. The old fencing will be torn down, removed and disposed of, she said. The new fencing will be chain-link with slats.
• A quote for $32,200 from Jack Laurie Group, Fort Wayne, to continue the renovations in the old county courthouse, as requested by McSherry.
She said the county recently just completed renovations of the surveyor’s office and the assessor’s personal and real property offices. “This would allow us to continue that project and this would be for the treasurer’s office.” The quote is for paint and carpet flooring, moving the furniture and doing repairs to the walls as needed.
Groninger asked if, while they’re doing those renovations, they’re incorporating the handicapped accessibility, and McSherry said yes.
The project will not start until the beginning of 2026 because of the timeline of collecting taxes.
• The 2026 terminal services data interlocal agreements with local police and fire departments, as requested by McSherry.
“What that does is gives them access to what the sheriff’s department has here. So each year we send an interlocal agreement out, they have to go through their processes included in their budget, have their councils approve it. So this is just approving those agreements. This is an annual thing that we do,” she explained.
The interlocal agreements are with Claypool for $582.75; Mentone, $582.75; Milford, $582.75; North Webster, $1,160.25; Pierceton, $582.75; Silver Lake, $582.75; Syracuse, $5,790.75; Warsaw-Wayne Fire Territory, $1,575; town of Winona Lake, $1,160.25; and city of Warsaw, $34,725.75.
• A resolution approving the appointment of the members of the board for the Northeast Indiana Regional Development Authority, as presented by county attorney Ed Ormsby. He said it is the reappointment of those members already serving.
• A professional services agreement between the county and Abonmarche, as requested by GIS Director Bill Holder’s request.
He explained that back in March he got approval from the commissioners and county council to apply for an Indiana SEED Grant through the Indiana GIS Office. In July, the application was officially made and then in August the $30,000 grant was awarded to the county.
The grant was set up to work with a vendor, and Holder said they were going to work with Abonmarche out of South Bend to do that. The agreement will allow for Abonmarche to do a lot of the “heavy lifting” on the project.
Groninger asked if Abonmarche was going to “help us understand some of the center lines on our roads? What all is (involved)?”
Holder said the major goal is to get the county’s data up to what’s called NextGen911, to be able to support 911 operations and clean up the county’s data. The state wants all 92 counties’ data to match so they can merge it all into one.
• Systems Administrator Eric Sorensen’s request to apply for a $40,000 2026 Court Reform Grant.
“We’d use this in Superior I to start off with. We just have some aging technology in all of our courtrooms, and we’re just trying to figure out how to get them upgraded,” he said.
• A $3,850 change order increase to put some bollards back in the Chinworth Bridge Trail extension, as requested by Kosciusko County Parks and Recreation Board President Rob Bishop. With the change order, the new contract sum with Niblock is $964,084.50.
The commissioners also approved an invoice for $4,687.50 from VS Engineering, the engineering firm for the trail extension project. Bishop said it’s still within the contract sum and it was from April, but somehow got missed.
• The annual contracts with CSI, as requested by County Recorder Deb Wright but presented to the commissioners by County Auditor Alyssa Schmucker. The contracts are for system support, microfilm services and disaster recovery services.
Schmucker also reminded the commissioners that the tax sale is next Tuesday, Oct. 28, at 10 a.m. in the old courtroom of the county courthouse.
The next commissioners meeting is at 9 a.m. Nov. 4.
