Jennings County's Granny Punkbuster

09/09/2026

09/09/2026

CENTER TOWNSHIP: MORE STAFF, MORE PAYROLL, SAME OLD “WHERE THE HELL ARE THE RECORDS?”

Granny got into the newest Indiana State Board of Accounts report for Center Township, Jennings County, and this one has a certain aroma to it. Not corruption. Not stolen money. Don’t put words in Granny’s dentures. This report doesn’t say that. What it does say is that Center Township spent years failing to upload records the State says were required, despite already having been called out for the same problem before. And while Trustee Andrew Eder was bringing in additional staff and increasing staffing costs, apparently nobody got assigned the highly specialized position of “Person Who Clicks Upload.”

The State Board of Accounts reviewed Center Township for January 1, 2022 through December 31, 2025. Laurie Blackburn was trustee during 2022, Andrew Eder took over beginning January 1, 2023, and Daniel Fox served as Township Board Chair throughout the period. So the timeline matters here. Granny ain’t hanging four years around one person’s neck when one of those years belonged to somebody else. But from 2023 forward, Eder was sitting in the trustee’s chair, and the missing-upload problem most certainly did not pack its bags and leave.

SBOA makes clear this was a compliance engagement, not a full financial audit issuing an opinion on every dime or every action of the township. It also warns that its procedures were not designed to uncover every possible instance of noncompliance. In other words, this report tells us what they found while looking where they looked. It does not grant anybody a gold star for everything they didn’t examine.

And what they found was blunt enough. The State Board of Accounts said, “Internal controls were not in place to ensure the Township complied with laws and regulations.” The report says those internal-control deficiencies resulted in noncompliance detailed in the report. That is auditor language for something considerably less cheerful than “we could tighten things up a little.”

Then comes Gateway.

For 2022, SBOA says only four months of bank statements and two monthly ledgers were uploaded. No Township Board minutes were uploaded, and none of the required annual files were uploaded. That year belonged to Blackburn, so Granny will put that particular casserole on the proper table.

Then Eder takes office in 2023.

And what does SBOA find for 2023? No Township Board minutes. No monthly ledgers. No salary ordinance. No contracts for mowing or fire protection uploaded. That’s quite a collection of nothing.

Now here’s where the staffing angle starts giving Granny a twitch.

Eder brought in additional staff and staffing costs increased. Fine. Governments hire people. Sometimes they need them. But if taxpayers are paying for more hands in the building, it becomes increasingly difficult to explain why the State Board of Accounts is still wandering around asking where the basic required records are. More payroll ought to purchase more capacity somewhere. Otherwise Granny starts wondering whether we hired reinforcements for the coffee pot.

Then comes 2024. Surely with additional staffing, somebody conquered Gateway.

Nope.

SBOA says only one bank statement was uploaded for the entire year, and none of the other required monthly or annual files were uploaded.

One.

A whole year of township government managed to launch one lonely bank statement into cyberspace.

Somewhere that document deserves a tiny medal for making it out alive.

Then 2025 apparently decided 2024 was trying too hard. SBOA says no monthly or annual files were uploaded. None. We went from one bank statement to absolute radio silence. That is not improvement. That is Gateway flatlining while somebody stands beside it holding a larger payroll.

And before anybody trots out the old “maybe they didn’t know” pony, put that poor thing back in the barn. SBOA specifically says a similar comment appeared in a prior report, Report B59913, concerning monthly and annual Gateway uploads.

So this wasn’t some newly discovered requirement that descended from Indianapolis on a flaming tablet.

They had been told before.

That makes the staffing situation even more deserving of side-eye. If a government has already been warned about missing required uploads, then adds staff, increases staffing expense, and still winds up with years containing missing minutes, missing ledgers, missing contracts, missing bank statements and eventually an entire year with no monthly or annual files uploaded, Granny has a perfectly reasonable question:

What exactly did the extra staffing fix?

Because apparently it wasn’t this.

SBOA explains why these records are required. Government units use Gateway engagement uploads so the State Board can perform audit planning and review records before onsite work, making the process more efficient and helping reduce audit costs. This is not bureaucratic scrapbook hour. These files serve an oversight purpose.

Bank statements. Ledgers. Minutes. Contracts. Annual reports. Salary ordinances.

Government records.

You know, the stuff that lets people inspect government.

And there is something deeply backwards about increasing the number of people taxpayers are paying while decreasing the amount of basic documentation successfully reaching the State’s required system. If staffing goes up while compliance stays face-down in the ditch, taxpayers are entitled to ask what return they received on that investment.

The report itself is dated August 11, 2026, and SBOA says its contents were communicated August 19 to Trustee Andrew Eder and Township Board Chair Daniel Fox. So nobody presently involved gets to act surprised when Granny points at it.

And Granny isn’t asking for a press conference, a strategic vision, a transparency initiative, a committee, a consultant, or another employee whose job title requires three lines on a business card.

Upload the damn records.

If you’ve got enough staff to raise staffing costs, surely somewhere in that expanding payroll there is one functioning index finger capable of clicking “submit.”

Because taxpayers shouldn’t have to pay extra for government to become simultaneously more expensive and harder to inspect.

That ain’t efficiency.

That’s just a bigger kitchen with the same dirty dishes.

09/09/2026

Granny’s September 8th County Council Rundown: Your Money, Their Votes and the Questions Still Sitting There

Alright, neighbors. Granny’s got the county council rundown. We’re going through what got approved, what didn’t, and which questions were still looking for an answer when the meeting ended. Keep your glasses handy. There are several different pots of your money involved here, and they need to stay separate.

First things first: the 2027 budget is not finished. Council approved the ordinance on first reading and waived the second reading, with final adoption described as coming in October. The ordinance language was read aloud, but an overall budget total wasn’t stated during that part of the meeting. This moved the budget forward. It did not finish the October adoption ahead of time.

Now let’s get into that fire-department building bill, because the difference between what was authorized and what is actually being paid matters. Council had previously approved up to $25,000 from Safety LIT. The department was then sent to the commissioners for their blessing. Commissioners tabled it, and the matter came back around to council. After reviewing the earlier approval, council clarified that the invoice being covered was $14,730. That’s the payment, folks. The $25,000 was the limit already approved, not another check being handed over.

And here is the statement Granny wants y’all to hear exactly as it was said: “They have no say in the safety LIT. That’s controlled by the council and the council only, period.” That was a council member explaining why commissioner approval wasn’t needed. Another member agreed and said they had probably sent the department to the commissioners because they thought that approval was required. Council’s position at this meeting was that its earlier authorization was enough to pay the bill. Members also reported approximately $3.89 million in Safety LIT cash.

That was council’s explanation of its authority, not Granny handing down a legal ruling. And there were still questions about the original request. Members discussed whether paying this expense would create an expectation for similar requests. An ownership question, attributed to the auditor, involved whether an individual owned the building. The discussion did not establish a named legal owner. One member acknowledged they “probably didn’t ask enough questions the first time” but supported honoring the commitment because the department had probably proceeded based on that approval. Members said the requested workers’ compensation and liability-insurance information had been supplied. They stood by the previous authorization and clarified the payment amount.

Next came $92,560 to relocate a Hayden Water line for a road project. Council was told Hayden Water had claimed financial hardship and didn’t have the money to move it. Under the arrangement presented, the county would pay the invoices and seek partial reimbursement from INDOT. The anticipated county share was about $57,000, with approximately $35,560 expected back from the state. Hayden Water was described as paying nothing toward the arrangement. In plain terms, the county fronts the bill, the state is expected to reimburse part of it, and the remainder falls on the county.

Expected reimbursement is not money already back in the account, honey. Nobody had a repayment date to give council. Members asked whether the water line had been missed during planning, and the presenter said that wasn’t his understanding. They also asked about contingency money, but no clear answer about available contingency funding came out of that exchange. Construction and billing schedules remained uncertain, too. Council approved the full $92,560 appropriation because the county needs to cover the invoices before reimbursement arrives.

There was another expense nearby, but don’t lump it into the water-line quote. Duke Energy was described as covering the tree removal, while county highway would pay $1,200 for stump cleanup and handle the larger wood. That was separate work discussed alongside the project.

On the consulting bills, a $475 balance from an older invoice was tabled. Members weren’t clear on which work it covered or who should pay it. They discussed whether it belonged with TIF-related services rather than council expenses, but that question wasn’t settled. A separate $1,800 invoice for a department-head meeting was approved. So one bill went through, and the disputed balance stayed put until somebody could straighten it out.

Then council approved $500,000 in additional paving funding from the county garage fund identified during the discussion as 1176. When a member asked what they were going to pave, the answer was, “It’s already done.” Another member questioned voting on it after the work was finished. The response was that the bill had to be paid, and members also referred to an earlier discussion and vote.

Now, Granny is keeping both halves of that exchange on the table. Yes, this additional appropriation came after the paving was described as completed. No, that alone does not establish that the work was unauthorized, because members also referred to a previous vote. What we did not get during that discussion was a list of the roads covered by the half-million-dollar appropriation. That is where the information from this exchange stops.

The newly hired highway supervisor received $22,000 in funding to finish out the year, with a starting date announced as September 15. Members said the following year’s funding was included in the annual budget. There was also a reminder that somebody needs to check whether the supervisor is doing the expected work, rather than simply continuing to fund the position. Commissioners were identified as overseeing it. A specific review date and actual performance measures weren’t established during that conversation. The expectation of a review was discussed; the details of that review weren’t laid out.

Now we come to the $104,000 equipment item, introduced as a new tractor. This was equipment already acquired, not a request to buy another one. The discussion began with members saying it had been paid for but still needed an appropriation. Later, they were asking whether the invoice had actually been paid. The Local Road and Street account, identified as 1169, was discussed as the original funding source. Those are two different payment-status descriptions in the same conversation, and Granny is not going to pick whichever one sounds tidier.

What council ultimately approved was a $104,000 funding adjustment, with discussion of reversing or reimbursing the Local Road and Street charge if that account had already paid it. Members explicitly distinguished the county funding they intended to use from the county garage allocation. So keep this straight in your own tally: the action concerned funding for equipment already acquired, with a correction to the earlier account if needed. The conversation did not clearly settle whether the invoice had been paid.

Near the end came another highway request: replacement equipment tracks and an air-conditioning recovery machine, described as costing approximately $47,000 combined. The people presenting the request did not have the itemized split available. Estimates for the recovery machine ran from roughly $7,000 to $10,000 before the discussion moved to allowing up to $11,000. Members then subtracted that $11,000 from the estimated $47,000 total and arrived at $36,000 for the tracks. One participant said, “I feel a little unprepared here.”

Council ended up approving up to $40,000 for the tracks through the county garage funding discussed at the meeting. Another participant thought the tracks might only need about $25,000, but members proceeded with the higher ceiling because the full amount would not have to be used. That distinction belongs in the article: $40,000 was the authorization limit, not a confirmed invoice amount. The recovery machine was to come from bond-capital money. Up to $11,000 had been discussed for it, but members said the people controlling that bond funding did not need a council appropriation for the purchase.

The funding discussion underneath that request deserves attention, too. The maintenance fund was described as depleted, and the county garage allocation was described as “already over.” Members discussed overextending it and adding funding. But listen carefully: that does not give Granny enough to announce that “the county is broke.” The exchange did not clearly establish whether they meant available cash, an appropriation limit or a particular budget line. Those are different things, and we don’t get to treat them as interchangeable just because it makes a louder headline.

There was also an invitation for a rural-health-care presentation. The invitation identified Dr. Eric Fish as Schneck’s president and CEO and gave the event time as September 29, from 12:15 to 1:30 p.m., at the library, with lunch mentioned as being provided. The subject was the challenges and opportunities facing health care in rural Indiana, and community leaders were being invited. General-public attendance arrangements weren’t explained, so Granny is passing along what was announced, not promising everybody a seat.

As the meeting wrapped up, the transcript captured these remarks: “I don’t know what we’re doing. I don’t think anybody does.” Then: “We don’t have numbers. We don’t have anything.” The transcript does not identify the speaker or speakers for those lines. Granny ain’t attaching somebody’s name just because a name would make the post hit harder.

09/07/2026

💋💋💋

08/31/2026

August 25th Jennings County Park Board meeting.

The park board meeting started quietly enough. They approved the minutes, gave a small master plan update.

One of the biggest issues was staffing. The park director said the department is severely understaffed, and data presented during the master-plan process apparently confirmed what they already suspected. According to Jones, they’re basically doing the work of two or three people while trying to maintain two parks fifteen miles apart with only four staff handling much of the day-to-day workload. Somewhere in the middle of all that, the board also approved a $250 sponsorship for an FC Tucker event.

Then things wandered into the budget, where the park’s non-reverting fund, apparently being renamed the “project fund,” has more than $200,000 sitting in it, but the department says it has been told it can only spend about $55,000 from the account per year. Even figuring out how much had already been spent got interesting. The park director’s numbers showed a little over $44,000, while other records apparently showed more than $70,000.

The explanation was a Community Foundation donation for a bathroom project. That money was apparently supposed to move through a separate pass-through account, but according to Jones, he doesn’t believe that account ever got created. Instead, the donated money went into the park’s non-reverting account and then back out again, making it look like the department spent more of its own money than it actually did. They said the financial adviser was working on getting that corrected.

And then came the star of the meeting: the splash pad.

The county doesn't want to fund it and eliminated the $10,000 budget allocation that had been helping operate it, meaning the park department would have to pay for it itself if the board wants to keep the thing alive. Jones came prepared with a pros-and-cons list. There were two pros and nine cons, and he said even after asking his staff for help, nobody could come up with any more positives.

That was probably not a great opening argument for the defense.

According to Jones, the splash pad costs roughly $7,000 to $10,000 a year to operate and maintain, and that doesn’t include the extra water expense. It currently needs repairs. The surface is deteriorating. A pump has problems. A solenoid has problems. The diverter valve needs work. Somebody apparently managed to shove a stick down into the drainage system and damage part of it, because apparently even municipal plumbing occasionally has to deal with vandalism by stick.

There are also sanitation problems because people don’t always follow the rules. Jones described people coming off the trails and rinsing off in it, and even someone putting a child in a diaper directly into the water. Because the splash pad only uses about a thousand gallons of recirculated water, contamination can become a much bigger problem than it would in something like the city pool.

Then we got to the part where the splash pad somehow became connected to sewage backing up into the dining hall.

According to Jones, heavy rain and excess water from the splash pad can overwhelm the system feeding toward the dining hall sewage tank. When that happens, sewage and wastewater can back up into the building. He said rentals have had to be refunded because people showed up for events and ended up dealing with wastewater inside the facility.

Nothing says “Happy Birthday” quite like a municipal sewage refund.

As if that wasn’t enough, a malfunctioning float in the splash pad system recently helped produce a $4,500 water bill, roughly $2,500 higher than normal. Jones said the splash pad has basically dominated the department for six years, and at that point it became pretty clear why his pros-and-cons list looked less like a balanced debate and more like an obituary with two compliments at the beginning.

The board discussed whether the area could eventually be converted into something more useful, possibly a large shade structure with picnic tables near the playground. They also talked about whether spending somewhere around a fifth of the roughly $55,000 they’re apparently allowed to use from the non-reverting fund every year on one splash pad makes financial sense when the department has plenty of other equipment and maintenance needs.

But they did not vote to kill it.

Instead, the board agreed not to spend more money trying to get the splash pad reopened for Labor Day and tabled the long-term decision until the next meeting so everyone could think about it.

Over at Eco Lake, there was another wonderfully government-flavored moment when they started discussing a $5,510 pump replacement and nobody seemed completely sure whether they had already approved it. Somebody checked the email trail and, sure enough, four board members had already voted yes by email earlier in August.

So yes. Approved.

They just had to rediscover their own approval during the meeting.

By the end of the report, the park’s non-reverting or project fund was sitting just shy of $260,000, with Jones projecting it could be somewhere around $282,000 by the end of the year if revenues and expenses come in roughly where expected.

So that was the Jennings County Park Board: understaffed, sorting through some accounting confusion, staring at a $4,500 water bill, dealing with sewage backups into the dining hall, and deciding whether a splash pad that has spent six years kicking the department in the shin is finally ready for retirement.

Next month: Splash Pad Judgment Day.

08/30/2026

THE PAIN DEALER: AUGUST EDITION

North Vernon brought the excuses.
The Pain Dealer brought the bu****it detector.

Just post the damn packet.

08/27/2026

Hangry Jack, the Little Red Baron & the Missing Packets

North Vernon apparently decided Granny needed a translator Monday night, so Granny figured she’d return the favor. Because once you strip away the municipal word salad, some of this stuff gets remarkably easy to understand.

Hangry Jack Kelly started with the claims. Actual version: “So, we catch some heat on these claims because we just give one big number.” He then explained that if council went through every claim and payment individually, they’d be sitting there for “a good hour.”

GRANNY TRANSLATION: “Granny keeps giving us s**t because we approve giant lump-sum claim totals without showing everybody what’s actually in them, so instead of addressing her actual suggestion to POST THE DAMN PACKET, we’re going to pretend she wants us to read every invoice aloud for an hour.”

Then Hangry Jack reminded everyone that the claims are public records, that people can go down to the clerk’s office, pick them up, look them over, ask staff questions and even come back to a meeting if they still have questions.

GRANNY TRANSLATION: “Yes, Granny, the paperwork already exists. Yes, council already has it. No, we still aren’t just putting it online with the agenda. Your nearly crippled butt and every other unable person can come fetch it yourself, study it afterward, and then come back to another meeting to ask about the vote we already took.”

Then another little show happened. Someone asked if there was anything notable in the claims, and suddenly council managed to explain that roughly $245,000 was a debt payment, about $31,000 was street-department equipment and $20,000 was going to the EDC. Holy sharted britches. Almost some useful information. POST THE DAMN PACKETS instead of wasting your time with this silliness.

Then came the Little Red Baron. Jarrod was kind of thanking people for showing up and talking about how attendance shows people still care, those that don't, do not come to the meetings because they are just mad. (Since meetings are almost always empty. What he really said was everyone is always mad at the city) Just think about it, If they didn't think their attempted shade toss at Granny through very well, imagine everything they miss doing their actual jobs!) And completely unprompted, Baron Wilder swooped in from the Circle of Avoidance: “Don’t discount the people that are online. They’re actual people, at least some of them are.” He continued that they could “make their posts and whatnot” however they wanted about the meeting, before declaring that “everything here is transparent, contrary to what you read online.”

GRANNY TRANSLATION: “Jarrod, don’t forget Granny and all those people reading her page. Unfortunately, they are real people. Granny is absolutely going to make another post about this meeting. No, I am definitely not thinking about Granny right now while voluntarily bringing up online criticism nobody asked me about. Also, everything is transparent, despite Granny constantly pointing out the things we don’t actually put online.”

Nothing says “Granny is not living rent-free in this cockpit” quite like banking the Little Red Baron around and bringing her up without anybody mentioning her.

But wait. Immediately afterward, another explanation began “just to clear the air.” Council members explained that they look at the claim vouchers before the meeting, discuss questions before the meeting, talk with department officials before the meeting, and get everything clarified before they vote.

GRANNY TRANSLATION: “We already have the exact information Granny keeps asking us to make easier for taxpayers to see. We already review it. We already discuss it. We already resolve questions about it. We just apparently cannot imagine a technological solution somewhere between ‘tell the public almost nothing’ and ‘read every receipt aloud for two and a half hours.’”

That technological breakthrough is called "posting the meeting packets."

Granny has compared North Vernon’s process with other cities before. Most governments manage to put agendas, ordinances, resolutions, claims and supporting documents online before their boards vote on them. No dramatic invoice recital. No municipal endurance event. No citizens chasing paperwork around City Hall afterward. Just documents on a website.

But apparently Granny is the difficult one.

Bless their transparent little hearts.

And yes, it really has gotten this bad. Somewhere along the way, parts of North Vernon’s city government appear to have completely lost touch with the people they are supposed to represent and serve. An embarrassing amount of this meeting was spent not explaining decisions, improving access to information or answering the criticism being raised, but talking about the people watching and asking legit questions.

These aren’t some invading army from Facebook. They’re your constituents. They’re taxpayers. They’re residents asking why they can’t see the same paperwork council sees before voting, questioning how decisions are made, and posting about public meetings because, believe it or not, public meetings are public business.

And instead of hearing that criticism and thinking, “Maybe we could do better,” we got imaginary requests nobody made, lectures about how public records can be hunted down afterward, jokes about whether the people online are even real, and another declaration that everything is transparent “contrary to what you read online.”

That is how far out of touch they have become.

When elected officials spend this much energy being bothered by the people watching them, rather than asking themselves why so many people are watching them critically, the problem probably isn’t Granny.

You might want to look in the cockpit.

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
P.S. You get five gold stars for the excellent unpaid marketing. At least ya get something right from time to time!

08/25/2026

Granny Accepts the Municipal Excellence Award

Ladies and gentlemen, department heads, board members, commissioners, councilmen, attorneys, assorted public servants, and anyone currently fighting the urge to mention Granny into a microphone...

Thank you.

Granny is deeply humbled to accept this year’s **Municipal Excellence Award for Outstanding Achievement in Living Rent Free Inside Local Government’s Head.**

Frankly, Granny didn’t even know she had been nominated.

Apparently there was no need.

The campaign committee has been working tirelessly on her behalf at public meetings all across town.

While Granny has been sitting at home drinking coffee, clipping public records together and occasionally asking a question, local officials have been doing the heavy lifting.

Discussing Granny.

Government-splaining Granny.

Complaining about Granny.

Answering questions Granny never asked.

Warning people about things Granny might post.

Discussing what people online might think.

Discussing how people online don’t understand.

Then discussing the people online some more.

It has been an extraordinary grassroots effort.

There are candidates for public office who would kill for this kind of recognition.

Granny would especially like to thank every board and commission that has managed to turn an otherwise ordinary agenda item into a brief emotional support session about Facebook.

Without you, none of this would have been possible.

To the officials who have carefully avoided saying “Granny” while describing Granny with enough detail that everybody in the room immediately knows they mean Granny, your subtlety has been breathtaking.

To those who insist they don’t care what Granny says, only to spend several minutes explaining precisely how little they care...

Your dedication to not caring has been inspirational.

To those who have answered accusations Granny never made, thank you for expanding the franchise.

Sometimes Granny learns what she allegedly believes right along with everybody else.

And finally, Granny would like to thank the taxpayers.

Because technically, some of these Granny discussions have occurred while everybody involved was on the public clock.

That means the taxpayers helped finance the award ceremony.

Granny accepts this honor on behalf of nosy citizens everywhere who discovered the easiest way to become unforgettable in local government:

Read the paperwork. Watch the meetings. Ask questions.

And apparently...

exist on Facebook.

Thank you all.

Please continue discussing Granny at your all of your meetings. She always loves the free advertising.