MINUTES OF THE INFORMAL MEETING OF THE JOHNSON COUNTY BOARD OF SUPERVISORS:
DECEMBER 20, 2006
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Page
Discussion: Fiscal Year 2008 Department Budgets................................................................... 1
Sheriff (08)................................................................................................................ 1
Recorder (11)............................................................................................................. 8
Treasurer (14).......................................................................................................... 11
Discussion: Fiscal Year 2008 County Budget.......................................................................... 14
Chairperson Lehman called the Johnson County Board of Supervisors to order in the Johnson County Administration Building at 9:00 a.m. Members present were: Pat Harney, Mike Lehman, Terrence Neuzil, Sally Stutsman, and Rod Sullivan.
Budget Coordinator Rich Claiborne said that the Sheriff's Department budget is about $7.8 million including personnel. Without personnel, it is $1.308 million. Overall, the Sheriff is asking for a .57% increase, so it is less than a percent. R. Claiborne said that the Sheriff is adjusting ammunition and petrol. He said that the war in Iraq is pushing prices up on various things. They need to adjust gasoline up by $14,000, vehicle conversion has a $15,000 difference, and law enforcement equipment has a difference of $10,000. He said the Sheriff covers a lot of these in the decision packages. County Sheriff Lonny Pulkrabek stated that the $10,000 is for the bullet-proof vests. In the past, Federal grants have covered a lot of that, but they do not any longer. The company that makes the vests only stands behind them every five years for replacement.
Claiborne said that they are decreasing the cell phone budget by $5,000 due to the new cell phones at the government rate. Claiborne said that Pulkrabek is moving $4,680 to Technology, so Information Services Director Jean Schultz will absorb that. Stutsman asked if they spent their entire food budget last year. Pulkrabek responded that they spent $110,000. They raised their average daily population in the jail. Between the inflation costs and housing more prisoners daily, the food costs have been driven up.
Lehman asked Pulkrabek to elaborate on the vehicle conversion. Pulkrabek replied that last year, they spent $40,163 and had budgeted $15,700. This is an expense they are incurring here and not forwarding to the Technology fund, but it is for an increase in the technology in the cars. Unfortunately, every time they make a small change in the vehicle, they have to buy new equipment like cages. Some of the used cages are not that old, and they are trying to sell those to other counties. Lehman said that the cages are purchased for a certain model of car. Pulkrabek said that Chevy Impala made an engineering change to the car that changed the structural integrity of the body for crashes. That minor change changed the car enough that the old cages cannot be retro-fitted into them. There are many police agencies that still buy the previous vehicle model. Lehman asked if they have done anything with revenue adjustments on that. Pulkrabek said it is minor; they will probably get around $100 or $150 per cage. Lehman said that anything they can salvage out of those old cages would be good. He asked if the technology has anything to do with what Information Services is helping them with. Pulkrabek noted that they have cameras in almost all of the cars now. They are installing the computers for the pilot project. The cost of those conversions does add to the overall cost. Harney asked if they are adding the $15,000 to the $40,000 they had last year. Pulkrabek said no. They are adding $15,000 to last year's budget of $15,700.
Claiborne said that last year the Sheriff's Department anticipated $704,000 in revenue and had about $882,000 come in. Claiborne said that last year, they had $7.4 million budgeted for expenses and only spent $7.193 million and returned $225,000. Lehman asked if the Sheriff's Department had a budget amendment last year. Pulkrabek said it was the year before that and was for housing of prisoners. Claiborne said that the jail inmate housing line had $481,000 and only used $396,000, returning $85,000. Pulkrabek said that this year, the jail has $530,000 budgeted, but because they spent significantly less than that last year, they left the budget at $553,000 because when they put the budget together, the average was running well within the budget. Recently though, there has been a spike in that so he isn't sure where that figure is going to land this year. He said he was talking to County Attorney J. Patrick White about this and they could not come up with explanation for this hike. He said this is one of the most difficult figures to predict. Neuzil asked if the jail alternatives budget is currently $530,000. Pulkrabek said the alternatives budget is $25,000, and this is for the MECCA program. The housing inmates out-of-County budget is $530,000. Neuzil said he would consider that alternatives. Pulkrabek said that they changed that so they could identify how much they are spending on housing inmates out-of-County. Neuzil said that housing prisoners out-of-County is something the County is doing to alleviate the jail overcrowding problem. He said he is glad that that figure is not going up. Sheriff's Major Steve Dolezal said in the last two months, there has been an unexplainable spike in the cost of housing inmates. He said that they had to house half as many inmates out-of-County as they were housing in the County. R. Sullivan said that some of the difficulties are not just the raw numbers but things like how many females, how many juveniles, and how many people have special medical needs. Dolezal said that they have had an increase in the severity of crime. Pulkrabek added that there is an increase in violent crime going on right now that is causing the jail population to spike. He said that their detectives have had a spike in sexual assault investigations as well. Lehman said that this is made more complex by the fact that they are only one third through the year. Pulkrabek said that he has a list coming to him of the monthly average regarding bills, and last month's bill was $64,000. So, the average is at $42,000 a month.
Claiborne said that they are looking at half a percent increase in the Sheriff's total budget. Stutsman said that that is misleading because the Sheriff's budget is huge, and half a percent of this sounds like nothing when 8% of Human Resources sounds like a lot when it is actually much less. Neuzil said that keeping the budget increase under 1% is still commendable even if that department's budget is typically higher. Stutsman said that if they go to a budget meeting and Human Resources increases their budget by $3,000 versus half a percent for the Sheriff, which is actually $45,000, which is what she is trying to illustrate. Lehman said that is a measuring tool, though it can be deceiving. Claiborne said that is meant to be budget by budget.
Claiborne said that on the revenue side, Pulkrabek is trying to fine tune the revenues closer to performance. In relation to the Sheriff's budget, he is anticipating an 8.6% increase in revenue. Harney asked if that is due to added hours in the towns. Pulkrabek said that is not all of it. When he came into office, he found that the numbers did not accurately reflect line by line what the revenues had been. So, they are changing it so it more accurately reflects what they are doing. Some of the revenues are from the contracts with small towns. Basically, they are just trying to get a legitimate figure, said Pulkrabek. Stutsman said that thinking aloud, Tiffin and North Liberty have been involved in what she calls the great Johnson County land grab. They want to take a lot of land, and they talk about the services they can provide like recreation services and library services. She said that she wants to be sure that if they are going to continue annexing ag land that goes off of the Johnson County tax rolls, that their cost of the additional services that Johnson County continues to provide are reflected in North Liberty's and Tiffin's budgets. Lehman asked Pulkrabek when they are renegotiating these contracts and if they are picking up more miles because of an annexation. He said that an annexation may not have the development yet, but they are driving through it. He asked how they get a handle on this kind of situation.
Stutsman said that Pulkrabek has done a great job on increasing these amounts. She wants to send the message to these communities that if they are going to annex land, then they have to recognize that there is going to be additional costs in services. The County isn’t going to continue to absorb that when it is left with less revenues. Pulkrabek said that he understands what Stutsman is saying and does not disagree with her. He added that message is better coming from the Board rather than the Sheriff. Stutsman agreed. Pulkrabek said that what he goes and tells others is that they want to get to the actual cost. He said he has basically forced Tiffin to increase their hours because Johnson County told them that the amount of time they are spending just handling calls from Tiffin excludes any extra patrol, so Johnson County was meeting their contract just by responding to calls. They could have basically not have patrolled anymore in that town. Of course, that is not what they want. He said he has asked them for steeper increases in the number of hours in their contract, but there is only so much he can do. Stutsman said that she is directing her comments more to Claiborne than to Pulkrabek. She wants to make sure that the County is not subsidizing cities for additional hours because it isn’t fair to the rural tax payer. Pulkrabek said that the first step toward that is doing what the Board directed him to do, which is to get the hourly rates increased. R. Sullivan said he thinks the question still needs to be asked if it is fair to the taxpayer in Coralville or Iowa City who is paying for a police department. She said that Tiffin, for example, never thought about the roads when they annexed. They just assumed that the County was going to continue to take care of the roads. She said that the same should go for Sheriff services.
Harney said he disagrees with R. Sullivan in that the Sheriff’s Department provides a great number of services to the cities that they aren’t paying for, particularly the prisoners that come into the jail. He said that he understands what Pulkrabek is saying as far as patrol, but there is a large amount of services provided and backup services provided that they aren’t paying for. Pulkrabek said that their deputies don’t turn a blind eye when they see something happen in the city limits. R. Sullivan said that he thinks that is what he was saying. Stutsman said that when a city like Tiffin says that they want more patrol, that is the issue. Pulkrabek said that there is a particular entity that draws in a lot of people on certain Saturdays in the Fall. They think about the amount of people and the amount of revenue that is drawn in, but it does put a burden on local law enforcement and on the jail. They are talking about a jail that has a capacity of 92 people, and in a 24-hour period, booking in 106 people and booking out 36 people. That is a burden that they are absorbing, he said. Pulkrabek said that the Supervisors do fund the jail, yet the influx of prisoners has the University behind it. Lehman said that they've talked in the past about a surcharge for Iowa City prisoners. Stutsman said that maybe the cost should be part of the football budget. Harney said that is complicated because the influx in dollars in revenues is huge. He said it doesn’t matter if it is a football game or an event at Hancher because there is always going to be someone who is going to offend the law.
Claiborne said that to get back to what Stutsman was talking about, when a city asks for more coverage, Pulkrabek can adjust the revenues. He said that the Sheriff is completely funded out of the General Basic Fund and they could have a policy that the Board could look at. They only use the Rural Fund for the libraries and transfer to Secondary Roads. Maybe some of the patrol could come out of Rural Fund, but that is the Board’s decision. R. Sullivan asked if there are some national standards about how much police presence there ought to be per capita. Pulkrabek said that the standard is one officer per one thousand people. So, if they just took rural unincorporated Johnson County, that means they should have at least 21 patrol deputies. If they add in the incorporated areas, that would more difficult to figure. R. Sullivan said that Tiffin is getting close to 2,000 people, so it makes sense to tell them that best practice means that they should have X amount of hours of deputy patrol in their town. Harney said that one of two things needs to happen. Either the revenues coming from those services need to go back into deputies or they need to be paying flat out for a deputy. Neuzil said that they could have in-take fees or booking fees to try to recoup the cost, similar to the way that they are asking cities to pay for patrol hours. Harney said that the argument is that they are already paying for that in their taxes. Neuzil responded that they are already paying that in their taxes for the other. Stutsman said it is beyond what is outlined in the Code. She said that they are not required in the Code to provide deputy service. Pulkrabek said that Lone Tree brought that up. They were the only town that brought up what their taxes pay for when it comes to public safety. Dolezal said that the contract is with the Board, so if they designate that the City shall pay for one deputy, they could. Pulkrabek said that they have a good relationship with all of the towns now, and that might not be the case if some of the towns say they aren’t going to do that. R. Sullivan said that some of the towns in Iowa are breaking the law. Pulkrabek said that the Board is going to have to be the ones to tell the town because he knows what the towns are going to say. They are going to say that they can just lower their hours because the County Sheriff has to respond if there is an emergency anyway. Stutsman said that they can respond to emergencies, but they won’t respond to stray dogs or traffic control or any of the things that aren’t required. Pulkrabek said it is a delicate situation. He doesn’t want them to get to that type of situation. Stutsman said that none of them want that. Stutsman said that for her it is more the dialogue that matters so that communities understand that this is how the funding works.
Pulkrabek said that maybe in two years if he is still here and he goes to speak to the towns, maybe the Board would want to delegate a Board member to attend each one of the City Council meetings. R. Sullivan said that each of towns has a liaison. Stutsman said that she doesn’t want to take advantage of any town; she just wants to make sure they are paying their fair share. Neuzil said that for it to be fair the patrol services offered in the rural area should be paid for out of the Rural Fund. Pulkrabek said that is a fair counter argument. Neuzil said that the County could pay for emergency calls as taxpayers. Pulkrabek said that in the personnel request, they are asking for two patrol deputies. In there, they have that broken down. Right now, 40% of a patrol deputy’s time is spent meeting the obligations of a contract town. Stutsman asked if that is for each patrol deputy. Pulkrabek replied yes. R. Sullivan said that they wish there could be a way to do a different tax rate. An area like River Heights is as densely populated as a city, but Lincoln township has many fewer people. Harney said he hopes the legislature will make it Rural Residential over Rural Ag. Stutsman said that she has a hunch that they aren’t getting as many calls from River Heights as they do from some of the other areas. Pulkrabek said that the big thing in River Heights is traffic. Dolezal said they get their fair share there but not as much as from Iowa City Regency. He said that they get an amazing amount of traffic complaints in River Heights and in that area. Stutsman said that in her township, there is one family that is rowdy. She wondered if she should have to pay because that resident needs a particularly high amount of oversight. Pulkrabek said that when he worked patrol, he always wondered how he could meet the same people over and over and have thousands of residents whom he will never meet.
Lehman said that there is a $10,000 increase and wondered where that was coming from. Dolezal said that last year's figure was $11,000. Pulkrabek said that could be a grant for work release. R. Sullivan said that this is where the guys who are sentenced are actually paying. Claiborne said that on the capital technology side, Pulkrabek is keeping his savings for vehicle replacements. Then, all of the technology goes over to Information Service's fund. R. Sullivan asked how many cars they are replacing each year. Pulkrabek said it varies. They use 100,000 miles as a guideline. They do use a higher threshold for the jail transport vehicles because those are highway miles; they run those up to 150,000. So, in a given year, the replacement number runs from five to eight. This year, they are replacing five Chevrolets and one civil car.
Pulkrabek said that regarding the decision packets, they have had no personnel increases in the patrol division since 1999. He offered a graph of the calls to service that the deputies will have to handle. They have had a 7% increase in the calls they are handling and yet no patrol increase. There are times when the entire County is covered by only two deputies. The state patrol has cut its officers. They may have had as many as 14 covering Johnson County, but now have five or six. This is therefore a hidden mandate on Johnson County to fill. Lehman asked if they are driving down the interstate or covering calls. Pulkrabek said they mainly cover crashes. They don't have an opportunity to work the interstates much, except for some drug interdiction. There is also an increase in demand from local governments for patrol services. This would be a nearly budget neutral increase based on increased revenues in the town contracts. Stutsman said that $112,000 would be offset by the additional moneys. Pulkrabek said yes, it is nearly neutral. Stutsman asked if they would have to buy more cars. Pulkrabek said not right away. Pulkrabek said that more than likely the new people would go to the evening shift because that is where the highest demand is as far as calls for service. Neuzil asked if they would be able to then say that there are never only two deputies on duty at any given time. Pulkrabek said that he isn't sure they could comfortably say that because they are that far behind. Dolezal said that they could comfortably say that it would narrow down the hours when they have only two officers. Dolezal said that the biggest calls to service are from the 4:00 p.m. to 10:00 p.m. when people are commuting home and students are coming home from school. There are times when both of their officers are busy or when one person is in Hills and the other officer is in Swisher. Then, if one needs helps, it takes a long time for them one to reach other. An extra person could allow them to get help sooner.
Lehman said that the third person would really help with response time. Pulkrabek said there are many examples he could give where this would be helpful. He explained that when they get a domestic assault call, which is one of the most dangerous calls for a police officer, a minimum of two deputies have to respond to that. Those are the dilemmas. He said that if they had 5 new patrol officers, then he could safely say to Neuzil that they will never have any fewer than 3 patrol officers at any given time. R. Sullivan said that the cities that they cover must be around 7,500 people or so. Pulkrabek said he thinks it would be more. R. Sullivan noted he wasn't including North Liberty. With the rural areas, that makes around 30,000, which means they should have 30 patrol deputies. But they only have 22. Pulkrabek said that one of those deputies can't get out of the office unless in an extreme emergency. Otherwise, he has to handle paperwork.
Claiborne said that the next personnel decision package is for a Detective Sergeant Deputy Sheriff. Pulkrabek said this is self-explanatory in the request. Johnson County joined the clandestine lab taskforce, and the agreement means that they have to backfill and replace that person. That was a two-year grant that ran out. Last year, they were able to obtain more funding that would cover 75% of the cost of that salary. The other 25% they have absorbed by not hiring right away when they have had retirements. They are going to continue to try to obtain Federal grant money. If they are successful, then Pulkrabek is willing to come back and have the money taken back out of the budget. Neuzil said that he knows that ISAC had wanted to make this a priority for the State, but he wondered if Byrne/Jag is Federal. Pulkrabek said yes. Pulkrabek said that this is something that the National Sheriff's Association continues to work on. He had a chance to bend one congressman's ear about this. The bottom line is that if the Federal money is going to be used on the local level, people want it to be used to decrease methamphetamine labs. Johnson County used to have 11 labs in Johnson County but that number has dropped dramatically due to the new pseudoephedrine limitation law. Now, they still have a large amount of meth flowing into Johnson County, but the manufacturing isn't as much of an issue. Dolezal said that there have been several large drug seizures in Johnson County. He said that in the City, they found 200 or so pounds in a vehicle on the interstate. Stutsman asked if they just accidentally find that stuff. Dolezal said that they teach people in drug interdiction courses what to look for. They often use dogs to sniff out drugs. Pulkrabek said that Johnson County could be the first one on the meth lab dump case based on a finger print. Neuzil clarified that the issue is that the County may not get the 75% funding from the Federal government and so the department wants the County to pick up the cost just in case. Pulkrabek agreed. He said that if the Board does approve the position, the Sheriff's Department will continue to fight for the Federal funding. Stutsman asked when they will know if they get it. Dolezal said he thought June or July. They keep a record of the activities funding by the Federal government, and this has helped them continue to obtain money. R. Sullivan said that Kevin Bell is just one piece of this project. They have Coralville, Iowa City, and the University who are also players in this. Do they all have a similar commitment to put money into their budgets for the projects, asked R. Sullivan. Dolezal said that currently Iowa City has an officer who is funded by Federal grants and another entity. He said that Coralville has someone on the taskforce who is not Federally funded. Other entities are involved that don't supply full time members but offer assistance when needed. R. Sullivan said that the commitment seems strong from all of the participants. He said that if he were the Feds, he wouldn't be granting to anyone who didn't have a full buy-in.
Claiborne said that two departments that they have to cover along with the Sheriff's Department are Department 47 Court Services and Department 68 Law Enforcement Proceeds. Court Services is remaining the same. They actually spent less last year at $31,197 and budgeted $44,200. Claiborne explained that there are no revenues for this department. Dolezal said that there is no controlling that. Claiborne said that regarding Law Enforcement Proceeds, there is some equipment purchases budgeted.
R. Sullivan said that in the past couple of years, there have been three or four cases of departments that have had some difficulty accounting for all of their revenues. He asked what the protocol they use is. Pulkrabek said that they use proper protocol that is well-documented. R. Sullivan asked when something comes in, what they do. Pulkrabek explained that in the case of a seizure, multiple people are involved. The Sheriff isn't going to say that he'll transport that $2 million. Claiborne said that they are holding expenses the same. The actual for Fiscal Year 2006 is $82,210. The budget is $200,000 for 2008. Revenues will be at $200,000. The actual for 2006 was $55,135. R. Sullivan confirmed that if they do not generate the revenue then they don't spend. Claiborne said that Law Enforcement Proceeds is totally separate from General Basic. Lehman said they are limited to what equipment it is. Pulkrabek said they can't use it for personnel. Lehman wondered if they would reduce something out of the General Fund because they are able to buy it. Dolezal said it would have to be for drug-related things because the money is designated for that. So, if they were going to do surveillance, then they could use it. Pulkrabek said that an example is the community block grant money; that is how they bought the cameras for the vehicles. That is Federal tax dollars paying for them to increase their technology. That is something they did jointly with Iowa City.
Dolezal said that they are in the process of putting Emergency Medical Dispatch (EMD) out January 1, 2007 thanks to the Board's approval. They are waiting for a doctor to sign off on their EMD cards. They have to make sure that their policies and procedures are in place. Pulkrabek said that EMD teaches dispatchers some of the more appropriate questions to ask the people regarding medical questions so that that information can be given to the ambulances and first-responders. He guaranteed them that anybody who is associated with EMS believes this is an absolute necessity.
Recessed at 10:30 a.m.; reconvened at 10:40 a.m.
Claiborne said that County Recorder Kim Painter is keeping her budget exactly the same. He said that he included personnel so the Board could see that the actual budget is around $550,000 with personnel. They are looking at $35,090 non-personnel. He noted that Painter is just changing things item by item to closer reflect performance with the zero dollar. There are no personnel changes. Painter said that she wanted to make things like conversion, storage, and microfilming a priority so she moved some of that spending around. Claiborne said that they are moving revenues a little up to reflect performance. He explained that Painter's department is one of the few that actually would show a profit if it were a company. Her expenses are around $550,000 and she brings in around one million. Stutsman asked if they keep all of that. Claiborne said that it goes into the General Fund. Neuzil asked what the increased percentage will be. Painter said that she raised revenues a little bit. Painter said that under documentary stamps or revenue stamps, that number has been traditionally been estimated at a lot lower than what it actually comes in because of growth and the value of property.
Neuzil asked about the trend. Painter thought that it looks as if they are going to be over a million dollars every year until something big changes in the market. There are always peaks and valleys. Right now, they are a little bit lower in their volume at this point than they were a year ago, but, overall, monies are still looking good because of how they distribute them. That is why she bumped that up. She explained that she didn't put that up to the actual of Fiscal Year 2006 because she wasn't sure what might happen with the real estate, where things are a little slower. She said that she didn't want to claim more revenues than they actually come up with. She also thinks it is pretty realistic to say they are going to be in the million dollar range. Lehman said that in the case of the Recorder's Office, they are the originator of some of these fees. The paper, though, is going to pass through the Auditor, the Assessor, and so on, and they don't get to collect fees when they also do some work. It is just that Painter's office is the one that collects. Painter said that whenever she talks about revenue coming into the office is when she is trying to make a point as she did a few years ago when they went from doing approximately 25,000 documents a year to doing 55,000. That was a huge increase in their workload and because the revenue on the real estate side is directly tied to the number of pages, then it is fine to say that. Unfortunately, some people interpret that as her saying because her statutory duty is to collect money, the department should get more money, and this is not what she is saying. Lehman specified that he is not indicating that.
Lehman asked about document management and if they are going to increase the request for technology to manage documents. Painter replied that is a sensitive area. She said she tends to use Department 26 Record Management Fee. She said she is very careful about she asks for in the Technology Fund for document management. She has made a few requests for $2,400 as they were back-file scanning plats. She said that she has always tried to be a good team player with document management. She said that she knows that other departments don't have anywhere else to go for technology funds, and she does so, she tries to use what she has. She said she did put a little more money into her Department 11 for conversion. They have had some requests to do more scanning of older files. If she can successfully go back further, that might be something that they do in a couple of years. Lehman said that there was a big push a couple of years ago when they hadn't done much at all. Painter said they went back all the way to beginning of their index, which is 1983, and that was a big expense.
Claiborne said that under capital technologies, there is cell phone maintenance. He asked if that is a shift over to Information Services. Painter responded that that has been there forever. It is not a new package, but Schultz always wants to see it in a technology package. Claiborne said that Department 87 is Recorder's Records Management. Painter said that this fund was created under the Iowa Code in the 1990s to allow Recorders to have some technology money coming in with their documents. She has estimated that at around 35, they may have less revenues coming from that. It does carry forward from one year to the next, and she typically doesn’t spend all of it. She noted that she keeps track of both what she has in the budget and what has accumulated to that point.
Claiborne said that the Recorder's expenses are holding steady. The actual for 2006 was $5,100. Stutsman asked if they still have to send some of this money to the State for the State Recorder's website. Painter said no, that is a separate one dollar fee per document. That is a separate account that she thinks the Treasurer controls. She said that she does still collect that money though. That is a dollar per document in addition to the record management dollar. Instead of thinking of it as $5 for the first page plus $1 for document management, it is now $7 total due to the addition of electronic recording. Stutsman asked if Painter thinks that is fair. Painter replied that at this point, it is just a straight dollar per document, so she would say it is fair because it goes to a state-wide site for recording. She said that larger counties do put in more money. They are at a point as an association where it would be good to talk about the redistribution of that money, aside from the maintenance aspect. If there is money sitting there, it is time where they could have large counties talk about a proportional fund. She said that she is willing to raise that conversation; it is kind of on her agenda to do that. They will also get from the website the dollar per each document for document management. So, that will come back into the County even though that dollar may not be processed here.
Lehman said it is interesting that the volume of records is so different across counties. R. Sullivan said that as the Register and others continue to push the idea of consolidation and sharing of services, one thing that gets mentioned is that some County Recorders do not have a lot of work. How does she see that ever affecting Johnson County in any way, he asked. Painter said that in the same way that a Treasurer in a small county doesn’t have as many taxes to collect or vehicles to worry about, the Recorder is proportionally facing the same issue. She said that she doesn’t think that recorders in small areas have dramatically less to do than other positions. So, the change over time is pretty much the same for everyone. She guessed that while real estate might not be as hot in certain areas, plenty of people have to get birth, death, and marriage certificates copied on a regular basis. People applying for Medicare and Medicaid now have to have a birth certificate. They have to prove their validity as citizens. She said that her department has seen an increase in their own vital records processing over the last year and that is spreading across the whole State. She noted that philosophically, the day could come when a lot of functionality could be done in some centralized way. For example, property taxes are being collected over the web now. She said that in ten or twenty years, they may be able to centralize much of this. Yet, she doesn’t see anything imminent in that regard. She said that the work load is holding steady. She said that when they went from around 33,000 to 55,000 documents during the real estate boom, the small Counties also saw an increase and were not given any additional staff. In contrast, Johnson County moved a half-time position to a full-time position. No one had money to add new staff really, yet the workload increased dramatically. R. Sullivan wondered if that happened to many counties. Lehman said that they could be dealing with refinancing instead of sales. Painter agreed.
Regarding Department 11, Painter said that she adjusted revenues a tiny bit. She said that both of these budgets are status quo. She just changed a few things to reflect what the priorities will be and where they money will come in. Harney said that at one time, they were considering doing passports as a source of revenue. Painter replied that the Federal government made that decision for them. They decided that it is too much of a risk to have birth certificates and passports being issued by the same personnel, so the government is not allowing people to add passports to their range of responsibilities right now. She said that she has some capacity to appeal that process and she is going to. She has heard from people that they have had letters from Senator Harkin on their behalf and they were denied. So, that is something that she doesn’t think they will be able to do. The government came very close to taking passports away from all Recorders in Iowa because they issue birth documents. She said that there aren’t many states that have local registrars for death and marriage records. Only 15 out of 50 states have them. They have held off on taking away passports from offices that have that capacity, but are not allowing anyone to add.
Claiborne presented personnel costs for the Treasurer's Office which are at $855,000. He said that they did budget $1,080,000 last year and did not use it all. Actually, they decreased $400 off of the budget for 2008. Lehman said that he sees they took the postage up and wondered if they changed other areas. County Treasurer Tom Kriz said that postage is a tough thing to get a handle on because it keeps changing. He thought it is probably the hardest item to budget. He said that they have been trying not to send out three separate statements for three cars owned by the same individual in order to cut down on postage. Counteracting that is the growth they have in the County in vehicles. They approach 120,000 vehicles registered in the County. That is an ever-fluctuating number though. Lehman asked if electronic payment has saved them any money. Kriz responded that it has saved them time and efficiencies, meaning that they don’t have to have the time consumed by having an employee processing the document. This means they have fewer people at the window and less mail to process. So, the electronic is marvelous. They hit their new high total for electronic payments last month in both tax and motor vehicle of about $90,000. They continue to push hard to have people use it, yet they don’t want to discourage people from coming to the window and getting a flavor for County government.
Lehman said that sometimes people will pay the full year’s taxes in one payment, which means the County only has to handle the money once. Kriz said that they still apportion out 85-90% of that money through taxing bodies. Stutsman asked if they do that immediately. Kriz said that they get their full apportionment on the tenth of the following month. Neuzil asked when they do the transfers. Kriz explained that they apportion everything out that they get on the tenth of the following month. So, if it comes in early, they could have 35 to 40 days, but if payment comes in at the end of the month, they might hardly have time for it to earn credit. Kriz said that the tax department is more than a tax department, so it is kind of a misnomer. It is a receiving department for all of the funds that come through the County. They also do the balance and receipts for those and bank the money. He said that the tax department is extremely busy for six weeks in March and April and then again in September and October. Everything else the tax division does goes on year round.
Stutsman asked if it will mean more funds for the County if the legislature is successful in changing the pickup tax registration. Kriz responded that it will be to the extent that they don’t change the percent that the County gets. He said that right now, they get 4% of a registration fee. They could also lower that percentage. Stutsman said that she thinks the cities and the Counties are on the same wavelength with this in that they have to have more money somewhere for basically keeping ahead of the curve or even with construction costs. R. Sullivan said that he thinks there are a lot of districts where either a Republican or a Democrat won by 100 votes. Then, there are about 2,000 trucks in the district, so that is the politics of it. Kriz said that what is right and fair is not what always happens. He said that he has advocated for eight years that this needs to be at least looked at.
R. Sullivan said that the Story County Treasurer is not part of the group that others have formed with most of the urban Counties. One of the concerns that they talked about is what happens to the money that comes in and where does it sit and how is it accounted for. He wondered if Kriz could speak to this. Kriz said that there are nine counties that have split off and developed a new website. Story County has been on the opposite side of this from Johnson County and Polk County. What happens to those monies is that they come in via internet payments. That could be taxes or tag payments. The money comes in and is held in a holding account at an institution. In this case, it is held at Bank of America in Des Moines. They use Polk County for treasury management. Polk County balances to make sure the money is right. Once it is balanced, the money is forwarded on to Johnson County. So, if $23,000 came into Johnson County, then once the figures are balanced, that money is immediately transferred to a bank in Johnson County. He said that for the first 4 years of this situation, Polk County handled it for all 99 counties in the State. There are a group of treasurers who said that they don’t want Polk County to do that. In this case, they went with Wells Fargo to do the treasury management. They are forming 28E Agreements to handle some of that. He said that he is one who is adamant that Polk County provide the service and the legal expertise at a fraction of the cost from the outside. He said that he had some serious questions about a 28E agreement and money sitting in account owned by 99 treasurers. He said he had the Johnson County Attorney Andy Chappell work with Polk County on that. They thought there were still some questions on the protection of that money even with the 28E agreements. So, that influenced his decision to stick with nine counties that broke up for security. He said that they do pay Polk County for their services just like they would in any system. It is a percentage of what comes out of the interest earned. The interest earned on this account is proportionally split up and returned to the counties. There was an idea that the other 90 counties wanted to look at that interest money and use that to enhance or split evenly. But larger Counties have a much bigger stake in the amount of money that comes back. This new system has split the Treasurers’ Association somewhat. Kriz said that he is happy with the contract. Polk County spent about two hundred hours with their legal staff designing the contracts that they have. They were also gone over in detail by Chappell, and he was more than pleased with the contracts. But, it has split the association. The nine counties represent about 48% of what goes through in those payments. He said he thinks he made the best decision he could have for the people of Johnson County in terms of security. Kriz said that last Wednesday he was in Des Moines at a Joint Senate and House oversight Committee hearing where the nine of them were attacked again for splitting off. They just have a different vision and he wholeheartedly stands behind his decision. He explained that if something goes wrong, it is much easier to deal with one County than 90.
Stutsman asked if there was a difference of opinion about how the revenues from the interest were being distributed. Kriz said that last year, Johnson County got about $40,000 for interest over the past four years on the account. Some people thought that Polk County held the money for too long. They thought that Polk was making more interest than they should. Some people thought that Polk County had no intention of returning the money. What was forgotten is that a statewide system never would have come to fruition without Polk County’s help to manage that the first four or five years at no cost to any of the treasurers. They did the accounting, the website, the maintenance, and made it a no-brainer for 98 other counties. There were some abnormalities where funds stayed in the account for more than the usual several days due to balancing problems or problems with Iowa Interactive, the company that hosts the website. The other thing that changed is that interest rates went up from 1%. They went up fourfold in the last year. There was always an unwritten agreement that if there was interest earned on this account, that a majority of that interest needed to go to Polk County just for what they had put together and for what the Polk County taxpayers paid for this. There was a lot of pressure for all 99 counties to go to the new system. He said that he for one feels that any interest in that account earned on Johnson County money belongs to Johnson County; it does not belong to the State Treasurer’s association or to Story County. That is the stand he took along with nine other treasurers.
Lehman asked if it is possible to do this accounting for themselves. Kriz said that it would be possible. Clinton County has looked at doing their own treasury management. He said that he can’t do treasury management to the level of what Polk County does and for that cost. He said it is a terrific bargain for them. Harney asked what the turnover time is. Kriz said two to four days. It can stretch up to a week sometimes. He said that Polk County, second to Johnson County, has the highest return on their investment. R. Sullivan said that he is pleased that Kriz put the people who elected him before the people in the Treasurers’ Association. He said that Polk County has offered to have this account audited independently and are in the middle of doing that. He said that he thinks Polk County’s system is probably the finest in the U.S. Stutsman said that they have gotten national awards for the system and have gone to states all around the Country to demonstrate. He said that anytime they can get 99 players on the same field is pretty amazing. They go back to 2003 when they had a Treasurer who didn’t have email. He said that large amounts of money can cause squabbles. They now link their site to the other sites, but the other 90 counties will not link Johnson County to their site, which is where the junior high aspect comes in. He said that Johnson County is just not going to do that. Harney asked if they see revenues increase due to the pre-payment of taxes on the internet. Kriz said that they haven’t yet, but he thinks they will eventually. He said the faster they can get it processed, the better for the County.
Kriz said that 92% of his budget is salary and benefits. As Claiborne will tell the Board, Kriz will spend 98% of his budget; that is how close they are. They have good people tracking things and are able to keep the figures pretty stable. Claiborne said that on the revenue side, that has been moved up for vehicle registration. Claiborne said that they were over budget there. Claiborne said that they have two open positions that they are in no hurry to fill. Kriz explained that they keep that open for two reasons. They are never sure when the State is finally going to say that they are losing enough money in the arena of drivers’ licenses and are going to let the County start losing. There is also new legislation to collect fees for the Clerk of Court and to collect parking tickets for cities if they want to. He said that they are going to look into that to see if it is feasible and profitable. They have the ability to put stops on Department of Transportation if they haven’t paid their mobile home taxes. He said the big thing is that they have cut their staff by five full-time and three part time people since 1999. That has been a payback to the taxpayers by about a million and five.
Kriz said that in 1999, they were losing about $270,000 running the motor vehicle division. This year they got to number one in the state, actually making a profit. Kriz emphasized that they have really good County employees in the Treasurer’s Office who went along with a very big change. They have a good vision of where they are going and enjoy their jobs. Any hassles are because people don’t like the rules not because of how they are treated at the counter. They have a dedicated staff who know how to work hard when they are busy and have some fun when it is not quite as busy, though those less busy times don’t come very often. He said that they will not find a better Deputy Treasurer when it comes to motor vehicle than Jim Pregon. He said there is no one even close in the State who has his kind of ability. He said that he gets to come to work and direct the band; it is the others who have to play the instruments. So, it is as good or as poor as those players, and they are very good.
Claiborne said that yesterday, Deputy Auditor Chris Edwards got a head start on his part of the payroll, and so Claiborne has the software ready for his input. This was not until the second week of February last year before he was able to input the GEMS information. That wasn’t due to any problems, but the good thing is that they are about a month and a half ahead. He is hoping there will be a lot more time in January for the Board to deliberate on who gets what, rather than last year when they had one hard week when they had to make all of these decisions. They are well ahead of schedule. Lehman said it almost seems as if it going too smoothly. Claiborne said that these sessions are mostly informational; the real deliberation comes in January when he has the numbers and they see what they have to work with. Then, the Board decides the actual dollars.
Adjourned at 11:20 a.m.
Attest: Tom Slockett, Auditor
By Casie Kadlec, Recording Secretary