MINUTES OF THE GIS POLICY COMMITTEE MEETING:

NOVEMBER 22, 2004

Chairperson Dan Swartzendruber called the GIS Policy Committee to order in the Johnson County Administration Building at 2:04 p.m.  Johnson County Elected Officials, Department Heads, and Staff present were: Carol Thompson, Jean Schultz, Harry Graves, Todd Kruse, Tom Slockett, Dan Swartzendruber, Rick Havel, Bill Greazel, Ralph Wilmoth, Pat Harney, Mark Kistler, John McKiness, Sally Stutsman, Tom Kriz, Rick Dvorak, Andy Chappell, Denny Baldridge, Tom Brase, Lori Phillips, and Steve Spenler.

Thompson: The memo says that the change in procedure would be to set a goal to have the maps completed accurately and within 20 days of the time the task leaves the Recorder’s Office.  This could be accomplished by hiring additional staff in the Information Services department, a specialist who could start off on this project and then also be available to the other departments for the projects that they have coming up in GIS and two GIS technicians who would work primarily on the mapping system.  It includes hiring a contractor to clean up the backlog using the revised workflow.  The change would be that transactions would go to GIS staff at the same time as they go to the Auditor’s Office straight from the Recorder’s Office.  This would allow simultaneous work on the real estate system and GIS mapping.  Once the mapping protocol was completed the Auditor’s Office would have a specified length of time to review the work before the maps were finalized.  Traditional real estate functions would stay in the Auditor’s Office.  I don’t have to read it to you but we saw some real benefits here.  One is that the Assessors could discontinue doing duplicate mapping because they would have the system to produce maps on time.  Another benefit would be that the possibility of errors would be reduced because there would be only one data input and one set of maps.  The City Assessor could discontinue updating addresses.  Addresses would be current so the Treasurer would have many less items mailed to the wrong addresses.  The GIS database would be the primary work focus of the new staff.  County departments would have up to date maps to work with.  The system would provide more accurate information for public access.  We shouldn’t forget that we have some partners in GIS, people who are letting us share data with them and they would have a more accurate information system available and it would increase their buy-in to our system which has been really valuable to us.  I think discussion would be appropriate.

Stutsman: We’re here to see what people feel about this plan.

Assistant Planner Dan Swartzendruber: I would ask for any comments at this time.

County Assessor Bill Greazel: It sounds good to me.  I think it will improve the quality of our GIS and the speed in which the data is done, which I’m all for.

County Treasurer Tom Kriz: From the Treasurer’s Office standpoint we would love to have stuff updated on a more timely basis so we don’t continue to send out things to the wrong people.  From that aspect that would be a tremendous gain for us.  (Inaudible) mailing stuff to old owners who are at the wrong address after they’ve requested stuff to be changed so from that standpoint anything that speeds that up helps with complaints we have to deal with.

Real Estate Clerk Todd Kruse: That’s one question I would have.  Has the Recorder’s Office been talked to about data going to both the Auditor and the GIS piece?  That would require an extra copy of things.  Has that been addressed or did I misunderstand that?  As they are now they only submit surveys for example, three copies, one for them to keep, one for the Auditor and one for the Assessor’s Office to have.  There isn’t an additional copy of data or information necessarily in that.

Lead Dispatcher Lori Phillips: Good point.

Swartzendruber: Anyone else have any comments?

Public Health Department Director Ralph Wilmoth: From a Public Health perspective anything we can do to make the system cleaner, faster, more efficient I’m real supportive of.  We don’t use GIS nearly enough.  There are a lot of things we could do with it but we don’t do with it.  It’s mostly staffing issues on our part and I would like to see us collectively get more out of it than we do now.  It’s a robust tool and we just don’t have the staff to take advantage of it.  Finding new staff in this area seems like a good idea to me.

Phillips: From the beginning I think this is where we were trying to head anyway with the GIS department and it’s moved along swiftly and I think it’s time to go to that next level.

County Auditor Tom Slockett: From the Auditor’s Office I can say that we have proposed additional GIS staff for real estate for the base map for many years.  A GIS Deputy, Mark or someone of his caliber would have more time to supervise the mapping staff.  This is the first I’ve seen or heard of this proposal.  We haven’t had time to evaluate it.  I’m not certain why it’s been done that way.  We agree that additional resources are desperately needed.  My belief is that the Auditor’s Office is required by law to provide maps to be used by the Assessors.  If the Assessors are duplicating maps that is their choice and it is contrary to what the Code says.  The resources, in my view, should properly go to the Auditor’s Office, which we’ve requested for many years.  I would prefer to see it done that way but I’m certainly willing to take a look at it.  As I said I haven’t had a chance to evaluate it so I don’t want to shoot from the hip but I agree that additional resources are desperately needed.

Deputy Auditor Mark Kistler: A specialist and two technicians-if there were two additional staff in our office certainly there would not be a problem keeping up with any workload.

Information Services Director Jean Schultz: I know a specialist position was requested last year so it wouldn’t be doing just full time mapping on the parcel maps.

Slockett: What would the mapping people in the Auditor’s Office do?  Would you lay them off?  I don’t know what you are thinking of doing.

Thompson: There would be some work involved in reviewing the maps to get them certified that they were acceptable to your office, so that would remain.  We would have to see what would happen after that.

Kistler: Who would be splitting the database records and those sorts of things, like what Kathy does?

Schultz: Your office would still do the real estate database so perhaps they could do some of that you’ve got enough (inaudible).

Slockett: We just have one person really doing GIS now in our office.  You are hiring two new people to put in a different office.

Stutsman: You have 10 part time people who do mapping.

Slockett: Salvador is a part time person who does mapping.  Mark can address the temporaries.

Kistler: Besides Salvador we have four part time staff.

Slockett: But we would certainly prefer to have full time staff.

Kistler: One of those part time people is dedicated to helping John with the GIS and the other three spend most of their time helping Steve and Keshab get the updates of deed records, helping the public get records, and also taking requests from the public.

Map Delineator John McKinness: I think we have five student temps now including Martin and Andrew.

Kistler: Martin quit.  One of the unfortunate things is to have the most experienced in the field, Adam, Zeb, and Martin, they get to the end of their studies or get busy trying to get wrapped up and we’ve lost some valuable people.

Slockett: Sally and Carol, is it your opinion that the Auditor’s Office is not legally required to produce maps and that we should stop and use that personnel in other areas of the office?

Thompson: I don’t see anything about making the maps in GIS.  I think that what it means is that the Auditor has to certify that the maps are correct.  I think if you received maps that were made and reviewed them that would meet the meaning of the Code.  I’m not an attorney but…

Slockett: Well it’s true we don’t have to provide it in GIS but we’re required to provide the Assessors something.  If you want to end duplication it seems to me the best thing to do would be to give us the ability and enable us to produce a map that was acceptable to the Assessors, otherwise we have to provide them something that they’re not using.  I don’t know that there is any problem in our willingness to provide what the Assessors needed.  There is no disagreement in what it ought to be that I’m aware of.  It’s just the inability.  We just don’t have the staff to do it.  This has evolved.  We used to be caught up when we were using AutoCAD and when we had a database system that tracked every deed that came from the Recorder’s Office and what stage it was at and which desk it was at.  But when we moved to GIS we worked in cooperation with Rick to move that database into a GIS format that didn’t produce the same types of reports and so forth and that is the point where we started getting behind.  I don’t believe there has been any lack of cooperation with Rick, with the Assessors on real estate, or with the Treasurer’s Office, that I’m aware of.  No one has brought any complaints to me about my staff being uncooperative.

Harney: Well from the things that I’ve heard I don’t think there is any issue of your staff or you being uncooperative.  I think that the issue as I have heard it is that you are almost two years behind on the mapping and information to the Assessors, to the Treasurer, and the information coming back isn’t timely so it’s putting them behind and they get under the gun when it comes time for tax statements to be sent out and doing their appraisals and things like that.  I think that’s what the problem is.  If it’s two years behind it seems to me that we need to make an adjustment somewhere for efficiency and for the good of the County.

Slockett: I agree.

Harney: I’m not sure what the total answer should be, but we need to work something out and do that, but I’m not sure what that is.

Kistler: As far as what goes to the Treasurer we are fairly quick at getting properties split out where there is a transfer and a new subdivision.  That part we work with the Assessors and as there are sales we work those up right away as they are requested.  It’s really just the mapping end that is the problem.  It’s been a problem since we did the conversion.  We converted all of this data before we had a Coordinator, so Rick comes into this situation to develop a system of maintenance when the data was already converted and out of date and there was no provision made for correcting any of the mistakes that were found in the data that we converted, so we had to do that piecemeal since we first got the data.  It took him some time to get a maintenance system that works well, and it does work well with John now, but its more than one person can handle.  It’s not really a problem that the system is broken, its just understaffed.

Slockett: The basic improvement in the conversion to the database as I understand it was that Rick provided some very helpful tools when you are drawing things (inaudible) and procedural step by step guides that weren’t available before in the old system.  But what was lost was our tracking system and the ability to see exactly where we were and what stage things are at.  And, as I said, we’re very well aware and I think this new system, while it’s much better and provides more useable data, it takes longer to do it than the AutoCAD system and we haven’t gotten the resources to do it.  We have tried and the Board has helped us try with part time temporary help.  One of the problems that came at the same time, and I’m not making excuses, but I’m just explaining the reality, at the same time we bought new real estate software, the same time we bought new financial software.  Either one of those is a major job for any office.  We did it at the same time as the presidential election year this year, the adoption of GASB 34.  It’s been an exceptionally busy time and we have been understaffed and we’ve asked for more staff.  I’m in agreement that we need more resources but I would like people to keep an open mind.  We have the ability to make some contributions to how we should address this and what might be the most cost effective and efficacious way to go about it.  We want to get caught up.  We’d love to have the maps completed in 20 minutes, much less 20 days, but that’s not possible.  It’s silly saying that but we’re certainly not opposed to having things current in 20 days.  We would love to do it and would like to have a role in it as well.

Kistler: I think the other offices that work with the new real estate software are all aware of the problems we’ve had with that conversion.  It was far from smooth.  Hopefully a lot of those problems are starting to straighten themselves out but it was a very difficult conversion from the start.

Schultz: Are you a lot more behind than you were a year ago because of that conversion?

Kistler: As far as the deeds go we were actually doing a lot better before the conversion than since.  It’s been a struggle.  I was looking at where a lot of our part time resources have gone to, it’s been doing a lot more with trying to keep up with the daily deed process because there have been so many problems with the real estate software.  With the data entry we’ve had to do it twice in many situations.

Greazel: I think you hit on one of the issues that we’re trying to avoid and that is if we have people separated from elections, from the accounting software, from the primary, from taxes, if we have them separated they won’t be diverted into those other areas, intentionally or unintentionally and they can concentrate on GIS and they won’t have those other issues to deal with.  I think that’s one of the potentials of separating them out physically.  Your job is GIS just like the custodial people, their job is to keep the floors clean and windows washed.  We don’t pull them off to do appraisals because we need extra people to do appraisals.  I think that by segregating them that way will give us a greater sense of confidence that they will be focused and (inaudible).

Slockett: Well there is no doubt that if people aren’t distracted and not doing other work they can do more of something else.  But that means somebody else is going to have to do the other things they do.  Actually Mark has been tracking it on paper, I think that he used to do it on computer, but since recently we have had that system he has been tracking on paper the amount of time that people are distracted.  The real estate people by and large don’t answer elections questions, although they do help out with satellite voting.

Kistler: They have overtime scheduled for that.

Slockett: People would all like to have a pristine environment where we could focus on less things, but if you focus on less things you have to pay more people to do the things.

Kistler: As far as real estate goes we have the phone calls that we get for real estate and counter traffic that we get go first to the part time people who work with Steve and Keshab, and then Steve and Keshab, and then if they’re all occupied it would go to the part time person working with John and we try to minimize those interruptions as much as we can.

Schultz: Kathy has been a map delineator but just hasn’t had enough time to actually do the map delineating.

Kistler: She’s working with Todd and Rhonda doing the splits.  You can look at how much time that takes people in the Assessors Offices but just that part of the job swallows up a lot of her time.  And the problem is we try to get Kathy to learn more with the GIS but John can attest that you can’t do little bits and pieces and really learn the job well, so that just hasn’t worked to get her up and productive.  With GIS you really need someone like John who is dedicated to doing nothing but GIS.

Slockett: Also, Kathy has had significant health problems.  She’s not a spring chicken.  If you hired some young new people in IS to do this they’re going to get older eventually if they stick around and you might have to deal with the same issues.  When the workforce gets older and they have more vacation and they take more sick leave then you have to adjust your workforce to deal with it.  That would be the same in any department.

Swartzendruber: Does anyone else have any more comments.

Planning and Zoning Administrator Rick Dvorak: Do you want a recommendation today?

Swartzendruber: I think that would be appropriate.

Harney: Do you have space down there for more people Tom?

Slockett: Well we need more space too.  Do you have space in IS for more people Jean?

Schultz: We have one desk at this point.  In the future we will be getting rid of the 3000 and then rearranging the computer room and the store room.

Slockett: We could probably figure out a way to cram some more people into the office.

Kistler: If David Kempf had other space for that one room that he’s got behind our office we could probably put a lot of people in there.  If space is a problem there is probably more useable space that could be acquired down there.

Stutsman: I think we all recognize that this is such detailed work that it needs a dedicated space where there are no interruptions, where there is no traffic, where there are no distractions.  I think it does require a space that is off the beaten path.  Jean you were talking about the server?

Schultz: The 3000 is going away and we do have a storeroom that has tile floors and so once that…  We could possibly arrange something for a person or two in the computer room that would be pretty tight in addition to Fred and the 3000.

Kistler: The floor plan has a 20 by 20 foot room with a door into our office.  If there is additional space you could put a pretty good size operation in there as far as the number of people that could work in there.

Slockett: We actually proposed that before David Kempf was hired knowing that it would be easier to do it before a new department head acquired property rights to it.

Kistler: It would be secluded and would be an excellent work space.

Schultz: Do they not use it at all?

Kistler: No, they use it but they definitely would have to find another space.  It’s full of tools and equipment.  There would have to be another space, but whether it has to be in the Administration Building or not, I don’t know, we would have to ask David.  There may be a reason for it being here, but we may be able to…

Slockett: I’m sure David wouldn’t like to give it up but I don’t believe it’s used daily for personnel. 

Harney: Is there any mechanical equipment in there?

Kistler: Not part of the furnace system, it’s tools and power equipment.

Slockett: IS has a burster in there.

Schultz: We don’t use it.  Departments sometimes use the burster.  Quite frankly I don’t know where it is.

Slockett: Right, I believe there is a burster in there.

Thompson: Space is definitely an issue that we have to resolve but we still have space in the Fischer building.  I think it can be worked out.

Kistler: It would be easier to move something like that than a mapping operation.  If we have to find space out of the building, you would certainly keep the mapping department close at hand to one department for sure.

Swartzendruber: I think certainly space is one of the issues but primarily I think the crux of this issue is whether or not we spin off a separate department or separate function under IS and start having that go forth from here on out.  If that’s the notion of the Committee I would like to know if that’s the case and hear a motion so we can get a recommendation going here to the Board.

Slockett: I respectfully request a little more time to think about this.  This is a little sudden to get a recommendation when it was just handed out in this very meeting.  We ought to take a look at Linn County, for example, the GIS department is in the Auditor’s Office.  There is a reason for that.

Greazel: What is the other’s turn around time?

Kistler: It’s quick but they have three people doing the County parcels and they don’t even do the City of Cedar Rapids do they?

GIS Coordinator Rick Havel: No.

Kistler: They have a much much higher staff to parcel ratio.

Stutsman: They have 3 people?

Kistler: For the area outside of Cedar Rapids.

Stutsman: Don’t you basically have 3 people?

Kistler: Well, we basically have one person doing GIS.  Kathy is doing other database work on the real estate system.

Stutsman: And the part timers?

Kistler: We have Salvador who is 15 hours a week and works with John, Kathy can help John, and I have one of the part time students at 20 hours a week, Andrew, who is fairly new at it because we lost a couple.  I put my most experienced part time student mappers on it and he showed the most promise so we’ve got him doing his whole 20 hours a week with GIS.  The other people will do data mapping functions on the (inaudible). 

Slockett: I would like to see you try to let us have comparable staff to output ratio that Linn County does and see how that works.  You could consider that as an option.

Schultz: Linn County, correct me if I’m wrong, just converted recently and did all of the conversion in-house and they went from Intergraph format to ESRI format and that’s part of the reason that they had that many because instead of having someone convert it they did it themselves.

Slockett: That’s one of the decisions our office really fought for was to take the ESRI route and to not go to Intergraph.  I think that’s an example where our office has been helpful in the decision making.

Harney: Another question I have for Rick is I don’t know if it takes more staffing or how this works but as far as putting the information together for the Sheriff’s Department or Emergency Management and places like that, is that something that just pulls off of something that you put in the computer or how is that going to tie in with this?

Havel: It compliments it, there is some data, and especially the centerline file comes from data derived from the parcel map so that assists it in that framework.  Just to start off, I want to go on record saying that I’ve had excellent support from the Auditor’s Office over the last few years.  I haven’t had a problem working with them.  It’s been enjoyable except for this fact of lack of production.  I guess several counties out in Iowa contract this data out to contractors, the parcel development, the parcel mapping.  To address the question of does it have to be in house and done by Auditor’s Staff I would say no.  Does it have to be reviewed and authorized, I would say yes.  I think in the current workflow that we’ve put together it includes that authorization so we’re not just producing maps and saying that the Auditor’s are OK.  The way I look at it is this technology has evolved quite at a bit in the last 5 years from the software that has been used and the techniques and the resources that require some of the functionality.  It’s a distributed type of system.  It’s not one person generating a database.  It’s multiple persons working together.  Information Services provides the network system, the web based development for ArcIMS, ArcSDE management, which is a system to use sequel database administration as the database storage tool and that opens up a lot of functionality.  With the functionality comes complexity.  Getting back to the question of time spent, I feel that it’s important that these people working on this, and this comes out of the experience over the past few years, is that they need dedicated time in a dedicated place, and quietness.  You could say that for a lot of other positions as well.  I’m the champion for GIS and I work for the GIS staffing and how that plays out.  That’s my perspective on it.  It’s more technical than ever.  It’s a lot more technical than AutoCAD mapping, and similar, but there are a lot of extra steps involved now to get it to that point.  There are a lot of enhancements that can be done that I feel are possible once the data is pulled up to currency and we’re moving forward to build more opportunity for future development, going back through the existing database and building more functionality into it.  One idea in particular is encoding a link to the scanned plat.  Now that the Recorder’s Office has been scanning the plats and it’s online we can build in some code but each parcel has to be touched to build that functionality.  It’s just an extra icing on the cake in terms of what the system can provide.  Once again it’s a technical thing.  There are trends out there by counties to contract it out completely and then have that data reviewed.  There have been movements to create new GIS departments, and that is not exactly what we’re proposing here but there have been movements to rearrange workflows and how it is positioned.  It just depends on how we move forward in terms of how it’s going to develop for the County.  My perspective is that these people need a quiet secluded place to do their work because it’s very detailed and it takes a lot of concentration and time.  And that’s not to demean the other staff members in that office, I’m just coming at it from the GIS perspective.

Slockett: I agree but there is a space right next to our office that would be a real asset.  I would also like to ask, you said that you envision many enhancements that are possible when the data is current.  What’s to stop you from having those enhancements before the data is current?  In other words, it’s not the fact that the data isn’t current that you don’t have the enhancements, it’s because you don’t have the staff to make the enhancements.

Havel: Right.

Slockett: Obviously we all want it to be current but that’s not keeping the enhancements from going into effect.  We could do enhancements with outdated information.  You wouldn’t want that.  So yes, you need more staff and we understand that and that’s fine.  So do we.

Havel: Pat brought up a point.  There are other databases in development.  One of those is a series of layers for 911 purposes which are going to require more staffing to keep that up to date, especially part of that in the job description is to help with those databases.  I guess one other vision the way I looked at it was if we could build a tight little team to do database development on a broad scale then there is a little work group environment that could feed off of each other, share techniques, tools and so forth.  Because long term my optimistic view is that we get to a stable point and then the investment in the staff members can be used for other databases as well.  Obviously the parcels will always be the priority.  Right now, Linn County, I talked with Jason and I think they’re kind of getting to the point where they’re overstaffed because the process of conversion for Linn County took about four to five years once they started to do it in-house.  They completed that last year to 100% and now they’re kind of looking for work for those employees to do.  They’re kind of kept up with the parcel database, they’re able to keep up with that work flow and now it’s like, now what do we do, we have some extra time.  That extra time, if we run into that, which would be great, would be used in my opinion to go back and help build up some of those enhancements that I was talking about and also use those invested resources in staffing, education, and experience to help build some other databases in a more timely fashion.  That may not obviously relate to Auditor based functions, but we would be able to widen out some.  Also, I feel that we’re trying to help you guys in doing this.  We’re not trying to slam you but we’re trying to relieve some of this extra maintenance burden that was put on you because of the GIS implementation.  I speak to a lot of other coordinators and they wrestle with the same issues, maintenance and staffing and how to get things done and budgeting and so forth.  Most of them would like, I hate to say it, more control, more involvement in terms of how those resources are allocated.

Slockett: The best way to help people is with their cooperation and informing them and having a two way conversation about the help.  I think as far as I know my office has been nothing but supportive of Rick and the GIS function.  We’ve never opposed any funding for him or for IS.  We’ve never tried to remove any functions from his office into ours.  It seems to me we could cooperate and work together.  For some reason there has always been this impression that you can’t have GIS functions in more places than in IS.  It’s a big job.  There is a lot of work to do.  It seems to me it’s possible we could work out a way where we could help each other and work in a cooperative way to solve this problem.  I would like to give some thought to an approach like that.

Swartzendruber: Where do we want to go from here then?

Slockett: Is it possible that we could give it a reasonable period of time and have the ability to think this over and talk to each other about it and see if we can’t come to an agreement before a recommendation is made under objections.

Schultz: Are you talking a few days?

Slockett: I’m thinking a month.

Schultz: A month?

Stutsman: There are budget implications with this so that was what I was wondering to make sure that it’s included, if we do decide one thing or another, in the budget process and that’s coming up.  It’s here.

Kistler: We might be able to decide fairly quickly on the number of people that are needed if you can build that into your budget and then make a determination where they would go. 

Thompson: Ever since GIS started, I was on the first Advisory Committee.  We’ve talked about this backlog and we don’t ever get it resolved.

Kistler: We’ve asked for a full time position for years.

Thompson: For whatever reason the Board has been unwilling to give you the deputy position.  This sort of takes it away from the politics.

Slockett: What do you mean by politics?  I would like that defined.

Thompson: Anything that goes on between elected officials I put in the category of politics.  I figure if the Board is unwilling to give you the deputy and you can’t do the job without the deputy this might be a good compromise.  How long has it been that we’ve been talking about this?  I was on the Committee for two years.  Pat you’ve been on for a year.

Stutsman: I was on before then.

Slockett: You can’t solve a problem just by talking.  We’ve got to recognize the need for additional staff and supply it when it’s needed.  If you stubbornly refuse to do that and then say well how long have we had the problem, maybe you have some responsibility for the problem if you’ve been talking about it for that long and ignoring the recommendations.

Stutsman: But Tom, we gave you the part time staff and my understanding was when the Board agreed to that staff that was to bring the system up to date.  The system is further behind than it’s ever been.  I have to look at that and say what did the County get for its investment in that staff, and a system that still isn’t up to date.

Kistler: We’ve gone through a full real estate conversion.  That’s what we got out of it.

Stutsman: That’s not what I thought we were putting those dollars into.  Maybe Mark that’s part of the problem, in the Board room we approve dollars for what we think is going to be used and then come to find out it’s not used for that.  That is part of the thinking of getting it into a separate area where we know the only use of these dollars will be for GIS, that it won’t be used for the elections.  Tom that’s fine.  I support you in what you do with elections, that’s the most important thing.

Slockett: It takes people to do it.

Stutsman: I agree, and resources.  I couldn’t agree more, but when you take those resources away from something else and I’m faced to the taxpayers who say why am I not getting accurate information?  We’ve put hundreds of thousands of dollars into this and people aren’t getting accurate information and then I have to say OK how can we make sure that that’s going to happen?  This is just a proposal to see that it does happen and that it gets taken care of.  The bottom line is responsibility to the taxpayers.

Slockett: I think the most cost effective approach is also for the taxpayers… I think if you look at the cost of the IS department and all of the resources there it’s a higher dollar cost per FTE than in the Auditor’s Office.

Stutsman: But I look at what we get for those costs too.  We get a department that I hear very few complaints where people aren’t getting the service from that department in a timely manner.

Slockett: How many times have they requested funding from you that you said no?

Stutsman: I would have to go back and look.

Schultz: We did request a GIS specialist last year and they said no.

Slockett: I think there is a relationship there.

Swartzendruber: Presumably if the Committee decided to go ahead with a recommendation today it would be some time before it comes to the Board.  Would that give you ample time to come up with a counter proposal?

Slockett: No I would rather be part of the recommendation instead of having the recommendation made at the same meeting that the proposal has been made.  Obviously people have been working on this and thinking about it without consulting the Auditor’s Office and I don’t think we deserve that kind of treatment.  It’s only fair to give us a little time to react to the proposal that you all have been thinking about for a considerable period of time.

Harney: I wouldn’t say that it’s without consultation because you’ve been in the meeting with us to discuss this before.

Kistler: This is the first I’ve seen this.

Harney: This is new.

Phillips: This is the first any of us have had it.

Harney: But the problem we’ve discussed is in the past.

Stutsman: Part of the thing is timeliness.  We knew how busy your office was Tom with the election and whatnot and we knew the budget was coming up so it was just unfortunate that’s how it unwound.  I agree too that it would have been better to have your input all along but we just felt we needed to move along with something or come up with something to react to and not wait any longer.

Dvorak: Would it be out of line budget-wise to continue this meeting until a week from today?  I know that’s not the month that Tom would like but it’s better than making a motion today and not involving him.

Slockett: Well Thanksgiving is this week.  I think being realistic…

Dvorak: I tried.  I’ll withdraw.

Slockett: I appreciate it but I’m just saying…

Dvorak: If I was put under a gun I would get it done in two days if I had no other options.

Schultz: A week from Wednesday would be a full work week.

Slockett: I don’t know Mark, what do you think?  We’ve got human tragedies to deal with.  You can just jump into it but maybe other people can’t.

Kistler: I won’t be available next Tuesday and I might not be here the day after that.

Dvorak: How many part time staff people does the Board budget for you currently?  Is it four or five, currently for mapping and real estate?  Are you full staffed at part time?

Kistler: Yes.  We’re short one person.  He wasn’t working many hours.  He was scheduled at 12 hours.

Slockett: I want to say I have sympathy for Sally’s argument.  You did say to make a proposal and tell us what you need and I did tell Mark at the time don’t lowball it, don’t tell them the answer they want to hear and tell them that we’ll do what can’t be done.  We did feel the part timers would allow us to get caught up.  We didn’t anticipate all of the problems we had with the conversion.  When you’re faced with realities, are you going to get the taxes out?  One of the things we actually looked at, the Treasurer’s Office decided not to go with the conversion this year due to the problems.  Jean I think will verify that I had Mark discuss with her, because I was on sick leave at the time, the Auditor’s Office backing out.

Schultz: That was the problem, you were already converted and then it had to be within a week or two of total conversion back which (inaudible).

Slockett: I’m not saying I disagree with the ultimate decision not to back out but we were having a lot of problems and we considered doing the same thing as the Treasurer’s Office and going back to our old system and IS said that it was impossible to convert back to the old system and use that.  Those were the kind of unanticipated problems that we’ve been dealing with this year.  It’s really been an extraordinarily difficult year.  Let’s face it, if you do this, this is a permanent change.  It’s not a temporary change and I think you’re basing it on a lot of information that is very unusual and won’t reoccur.  I think maybe you’re jumping to a conclusion without the benefit of thinking carefully about what led up to the problems and what potential solutions may be.

Schultz: How far behind were we a year ago before all of the conversion?  Are we more behind now or are we about the same as we were a year ago before the conversion?

Kistler: What do you think Rick, about the same?

Havel: I don’t have the numbers.

Slockett: Is that something we could get the numbers for?

Greazel: Let me interject one thing and make it clear where I’m coming from.  I’ve gone to my Conference Board for hundreds of thousands of dollars in the GIS system that I’ve asked for personally.  I’ve said look at these plat books and how ragged they are and how much time we spend with all of the other inefficiencies and if we invest in this GIS system we can be much more efficient and it will be a real cost savings for not only my department, but for all of the departments.  We have been working on this for several years that I’ve had to go back year after year and ask them for money and to be honest with you I’m still using the old plat books that my people need so we know where to put houses when we go out to look at properties.  One of my concerns is the accountability issue.  I’m accountable to my Board.  When my Board asks me what we’ve got for all of this money I can’t say well the Auditor had this conversion for real estate.  They hold me accountable.  That’s what I’m asking for, the money that I spend, I want to hold Rick accountable and say Rick we’ve given you this money and you haven’t done the job, why?  But when we deal with your office and it’s within your office and we kind of have this bifurcated structure and some of it is in IS, some of it’s in the Auditor’s Office, there really isn’t any accountability from my Board when they ask me this question.  I just can’t say they’ve had some trouble down at the Auditor’s Office therefore, sorry.

Slockett: Well another way to look at it is the Auditor’s Office needs your support for the staff we have and we’ve asked for that staff and we would still like to have it.  We would like a chance to show you we can do it.

Greazel: Tom you’ve had several years, almost 10 years, and we’re not any further along.  What I’m looking for if I’m going to invest any more money is accountability.  I want to be able to say that this person is responsible.  If you give me this money this year this person is responsible and I can make them responsible because I can say that this is your job and if it’s under Rick or IS, I don’t care where it’s at, but I want to have some accountability so that I can point at them and say they didn’t do it and that’s why it’s not done.  I can’t do that.

Slockett: Why not?  Why can’t you do it in my office?

Greazel: Because the same reason I do it now I always say why didn’t you get this done and you say well we had this conversion and we had the elections and we had this and we had that.  I don’t care about any of that.  I just want to know that it’s going to be done and I have no guarantee if it’s in your office that it’s going to be done and something else won’t come up.

Kistler: You’re talking about creating additional staff to get it done.

Slockett: Give us the staff and we’ll do it.

Thompson: But Tom the Board isn’t going to give you the deputy.  It’s been discussed two years in a row.

Slockett: How about two clerical staff?

Stutsman: What it boils down to, Tom we gave you the staff and we can’t manage it.  We know if we give it to IS we can manage it and we hold it accountable.  That’s what it boils down to, because you’re another elected official.  We fund your budget and then we’re out of it.

Slockett: So it is politics.  You’re unwilling to give the staff to another elected official but you are willing to give it to yourself.

Thompson: I don’t feel badly about that.  To me that’s accountability.  Just like he’s accountable to his Conference Board I feel accountable to the taxpayers.  I voted for some huge budget amounts for GIS and I expect to see it come to fruition.  I think we’ve tried this.  Every time we’ve talked about it the only solution that you’ve talked about is give you another deputy.  We’re at an impasse then.  The Board isn’t willing to do the other deputy and so to me that says try another way.  That’s what this is all about.  This is the other way that might make it work.  I’m not saying it’s the best way, I just think it would work and that’s very important to me when I face voters.

Slockett: What the Board is willing to do changes on a yearly basis.

Stutsman: No, I think we’ve been pretty consistent.

Dvorak: Mr. Chairman, I would like to make a motion that we send this recommendation to the Board of Supervisors.

Swartzendruber: Do we have a second?

Phillips: I’ll second.

Swartzendruber: All of those in favor?

Several Group members: Aye.

Swartzendruber: All of those opposed?  It shall be then.  We’ll send this forward to the Board.

Thompson: Now there is one thing that Mark mentioned that we might need to still talk about, that’s the real estate software requiring dual entry.  Is that something we need to do something about?  I’m not technical enough to understand that Mark.

Kistler: Splitting the database records and the tax, is that what you are talking about?

Thompson: I don’t know.  I just wrote down that you said the new real estate software requires dual entry.  Anytime I hear dual entry I think that you could probably fix that and that was my question.

Kistler: That was a programming error in our software that we lost lots of records.

Thompson: But it’s fixed now?

Kistler: We think so.

Thompson: OK.  Thank you. 

Slockett: Well it wasn’t actually lost was it?  It just got put into the wrong area.

Kistler: With a multipage record we would lose two out of three pages of information.

Thompson: But you’ve fixed that now.

Kistler: Well we hope the programmers at Incode have made it go away.

Schultz: That wasn’t something we could do, that was the outside vendor.

Kistler: That was the outside vendor.

Thompson: I wrote down the extra copy of the data from the Recorder’s Office that we’ll have to address that somewhere.

Swartzendruber: Is there any other business?

Greazel: Move to adjourn.

Swartzendruber: Second.  It shall be.  Thank you very much for coming.

Adjourned at 3:08 p.m.

Transcribed from tape by Casie Kadlec, Recording Secretary

Attest: Tom Slockett, Auditor