Vigo County Emergency Management: No Staff, No Building

When Vigo County Emergency Mangement Director Doctor Dorene Hojnicki took office, she said she needed 30 days to do housecleaning at the building on Fourth street and Farrington Street in Terre Haute. Now it`s been more than 2 months since Hojnicki locked the building and sent 3 county employees home. Since then, they`ve all moved out of their positions. While Doctor Hojnicki is without a building or a staff she says she`s meeting department objectives. Vigo County Commissioner Bill Bryan says the 30-day estimate was innacurate. He says the commissioners want Hojnicki to get the office open and get back to running Emergency Management properly. Right now Hojnicki makes up the entire department, after the Assistant Director retired, and two part-time employees resigned. "We were going to make that full time," says Hojnicki of the positions, "it was offered to them, which they both declined, so at this point, we have 3 job openings." While those jobs go unfilled Bryan says Hojnicki is holding her own. "She`s very good at writing grant money," says Bryan. "Right off the bat, she got a $47,000 grant for a new detector at the courthouse." While she waits for electrical parts and a building inspection to re-open the Emergency Management Office Hojnicki says she`s meeting all the department objectives. "We have quite a bit of equipment coming in that we need to inventory and be sure it`s meeting the grants, we`re in communication with 1st responders on almost on a daily basis." She says she`ll keep working hard even without a homebase. But how long will the office be closed? "I don`t have a hard answer for you, I wish I did," Hojnicki told WTWO Tuesday. "There are just some things that are in a state of flux." Doctor Hojnicki currently works out of the Vigo County Health Department, where she is an independently contracted public health preparedness coordinator.