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John H. Oxian, President South Bend and St. Joseph County HISTORIC PRESERVATION COMMISSION 227 WEST JEFFERSON BLVD. SOUTH BEND, IN 46601-1830 Thone:574-235-9798 Fax: 574-235-9578 e-mail: historic@michiana.org A Certified Local Government Karen R. Hammond -Nash, Director Friday, July 18, 2003 Ms. Cynthia A. Bodle, President St. Joseph County Board of Commissioners Mr. Rafael Morton, President St. Joseph County Council RE: 2004 Budget Dear Commission & Council Presidents: In past years, there was a line item in our budget for "Historic Preservation" (Acct. No. 39211). My understanding is that it was primarily used for activities related to community educa- tion and outreach. As recently as 1999 and 2000, the amounts budgeted for that line item were in the range of $20,000 to $30,000. Former director J. Edward Talley used that account mostly to transfer funds to other accounts, which may be why he or you decided to make it an empty account for the years 2001 and 2002. This is, as you know, not the only financial management decision of his with which the HPC now has problems. In our 2003 budget request last year, we sought to re -fund that account, though only for $3,000, and we proposed that our Auto Lease account (No. 37100) be decreased by $3,000, so that our total budget for the year 2003 would not increase over the 2002 budget. Our Auto Lease ac- count was accordingly reduced, but our Historic Preservation account evidently remained at Zero. It is the philosophy and belief of the HPC that we have an obligation to provide information to the community actively as well as passively. We do maintain a small library of useful books, and we regularly publish brochures. However, these are passive things, which citizens generally obtain only if they come seeking them, and too often people only find out that we are an available source of information after we have accused them of some violation, or blocked them from doing something they want to do. For these reasons, it is important to the HPC that we be, again, allo- cated a budget line for community outreach and education in historic preservation. We are seeking restoration of the $3,000 to our budget, which will actually just bring the non -salary portion of our budget up to its 2002 amount. If, however, that is not possible, we would ask that we still be allowed at least $1,570 in Account No 39211 (Historic Preservation), and that our Account No. 39750 (Data Processing) be reduced to $ 3,570, from its present amount of $5,000. That would keep our budget at its 2003 level, about $3,000 less than its 2002 level. You , Karen R. Hammond -Nash, Director COMMISSIONERS Mary Jane Chase Virginia O'Hair (Secretary) Gerald Ujdak (Vice President) Martha Choitz Lynn A. Patrick Diane Wrobel-Illes Catherine Hostetler (Treasurer) Joann Sporleder (Architectural Historian) John Livingston (Attorney)