Monroe County councilor warns commissioners after IOSHA visits justice building over sewage complaints

Prompted by employee complaints in the wake of sewage overflows into office areas of the Monroe County justice building, Indiana Occupational Safety and Health Administration (IOSHA) sent two letters to Monroe County officials dated Aug. 6 (last Thursday) that asked for a response within five working days.

The letters report the complaint like this: “The office was not cleaned after this occurred.” The letters stated that ISOSHA “is not planning to conduct an inspection at this time.”

But on Tuesday this week (Aug. 11), a couple days ahead of the deadline for a written response, inspectors from IOSHA paid a visit to the justice building anyway. In addition to viewing the building, they interviewed employees.

The ahead-of-schedule visit by IOSHA was one of the topics of remarks by Monroe County councilor David Henry at the end of the council’s regular meeting on Tuesday. His main point: Responsibility for addressing the physical problems in the building rests squarely with the board of county commissioners.

That’s a matter of Indiana state law, which assigns the county executive, which is the board of commissioners, responsibility to “establish and maintain” the jail and various other public offices.

Henry said Tuesday night he has been hearing from “a number of staff” that conditions in the building remain “not cleanly” long after the widely reported sewage issue on July 24, which caused a closure of the building for the better part of the following week.

Addressing employees in the building directly, Henry said: “I just want the staff in that building to hear that we hear you on this council. … [W]e cannot throw money at the problem unless people bring us appropriations to fix the things wrong in that building.” The people Henry was referring to are the county commissioners. 

Henry continued with a warning of sorts to the commissioners: “If you have a direct responsibility over that facility and it is not still cleaned up as of nearly two weeks later, I hope you bring your body armor to budget season, because I have a lot of questions to ask as to why people in that building are still working in conditions that are unsanitary—if it is true that that's the case.”

The budget season for the county council, to which Henry referred, starts Sept. 2, with the first of seven budget sessions. In years past, the proposed budget for the county commissioners has been considered at the first budget session. 

In part, the approach that commissioners are taking to maintenance of the justice building this year includes proposals for projects to be funded from roughly $5.5 million in general obligation bonds. So far the project list is still in draft form. The GO bond project list is something that could see discussion by county councilors at their Aug. 25 meeting.