MINUTES OF THE INFORMAL MEETING OF THE JOHNSON COUNTY BOARD OF SUPERVISORS:
JANUARY 12, 2007
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Discussion: Fiscal Year 2008 Departmental Budgets................................................................. 1
Auditor/Accounting (03).............................................................................................. 1
Elections (33)............................................................................................................. 5
Central Services (18).................................................................................................. 6
Insurance (22)............................................................................................................ 9
Institutional Accounts (41)........................................................................................... 9
Personnel................................................................................................................. 10
Rural Fund............................................................................................................... 11
Trails....................................................................................................................... 12
Vice-Chairperson R. Sullivan called the Johnson County Board of Supervisors to order in the Johnson County Administration Building at 9:05 a.m. Members present were: Larry Meyers, Terrence Neuzil, Sally Stutsman, and Rod Sullivan; absent: Pat Harney.
Budget Coordinator Rich Claiborne said that they will first cover the Auditor’s Office Accounting budget (Department 03). Claiborne explained that he has given the Board new budget worksheets for the Elections Division (Department 33) of the Auditor's Office. Deputy Auditor Mark Kistler explained that Elections Deputy Auditor Sarah Reisetter went over the elections budget and made a few changes. Kistler noted that Reisetter and County Auditor Tom Slockett are attending a software training and will not be present at the meeting unless they are needed.
Deputy Auditor Dana Aschenbrenner said that there were only a few changes to the Auditor's Office Accounting budget (Department 03). The first change was a minor increase to the stationary and forms line item. The Auditor's Office usage of stationary and forms increases every year due to inflation. The second item is data processing supplies which includes toner and other general usage items associated with printing. This year they have $3,500 budgeted, but last year they spent $1,500 above that so it’s been an item that has been under budgeted in the past. Aschenbrenner explained that he increased this line item by $1,800.
Aschenbrenner said that the other suggested increase was a $500 increase for staff transportation and schools. Currently they are budgeted at $600 and with the number of personnel who require education and training, he wanted to add a little bit more to that line item.
R. Sullivan said that he noticed that last year the official publications line item was increased significantly. He asked if it is now close to where they budgeted or well under. Aschenbrenner said that he would guess that it is under. He asked Administrative Secretary Casie Kadlec and Deputy Auditor Mark Kistler what publications are charged to that line item. Kadlec said that the Board's minutes fall under Central Services (Department 18). Aschenbrenner said that this line item isn't used frequently and he isn't sure which publications fall into this line item. Kadlec said that there are certain items that the Auditor's Office is required to publish by Code, such as the judicial magistrates’ publication and the semi-annual report. Aschenbrenner said that some of that is fixed because the County has to publish the semi-annual reports and financial documents in the papers, but some is widely variable. R. Sullivan confirmed that Aschenbrenner just wanted to make sure that the line item has enough money in it. Aschenbrenner said yes. He said that when he prepares the budget he looks at two prior years, and the year before last year almost $7,400 was spent. Aschenbrenner said that this line item can vary quite a bit year to year.
The next item Aschenbrenner suggested increasing for FY 08 was the telephone. Currently $1,300 is budgeted, which is running a little bit under what he expects for the current year. He increased this $100 to meet the current year, and is asking for another $200 moderate increase. He said that the Board doesn’t have the 2005 numbers, but it was $2,100.
Aschenbrenner also suggested increasing the office equipment service contract. This item is largely dependant on the number of copies that are run off of the central copier in the mailroom. Everyone in the building has access to it and uses it freely. Currently, the contract the Auditor's Office is under allows for a set amount of copies that they are not charged for. Once the copies exceed that amount, which happens every month, they are charged per copy. Currently $1,300 is budgeted, and that is probably not going to adequate for this year which is why he adjusted it because it looks like they will be well over $2,000 in actual expenses in the current year.
R. Sullivan asked about the part-time no benefit wages for Department 03. Aschenbrenner said that would be the temporary position that works for him 20 hours per week. Kadlec said that the minutes area of the office has 20 hours of part time temporary wages per week. Kistler said that he has 40 hours a week. Aschenbrenner said that there is a total of 80 hours per week of temporary hours. Aschenbrenner said that they are all student employees. Aschenbrenner said that a student comes in and helps take care of the AP duties such as physically inserting checks into envelopes and mailing them.
R. Sullivan said that Kistler has 40 hours of part-time no benefit wages. He asked if Kistler has considered a way of creating a half time position or a full time position out of that. Kistler said that it is a good fit to keep the student positions. He said that there are people who are really eager to do it as a way of training and getting experience. He said that they give them the tasks that they don't need the more experienced people to do. Kistler explained that he tries to hire people who have GIS experience but at a classroom level so they are able to apply that. They do simple mapping tasks and keep that type of duty off the shoulders of the more experienced GIS Technicians so that they can focus on the more complex work. The students also field phone calls and help the public with real estate inquiries. They also help the Account Clerks process ownership changes from deeds and platting. R. Sullivan asked if it is four 10 hour positions. Kistler said that he generally hires two people at 20 hours. Stutsman said that she thinks it is a good opportunity for students to get experience to put on a resume. Kistler said that if he has a couple of people who want fewer hours than 20 he will hire three people. R. Sullivan said that he knew that Kistler had high school kids in the past. Kistler said that the high school student was unpaid and just for the experience in working with GIS.
Aschenbrenner said that he has an accounting student who he budgets at 20 hours a week but who generally works closer to 10 to 15 hours depending on how heavy the duties are that week. There are certain duties that only he can perform because if the AP clerks prepare the checks they aren't allowed to touch the checks after they are printed because of accounting control issues. Kistler said that the high school student position was something that he tried. It is for students who are interested in GIS and so he brings them in and gives them basic training. He has them do fairly simple repetitive tasks. They were able to put the section corners on GIS so that a surveyor can access them on the web and can go to the Recorder's image directly from the map. Another high school student started a GIS layer of historical annexations because the Auditor's Office often gets requests for information about when certain areas were annexed. The Office gets something out of it, as do the students.
Aschenbrenner said that regarding revenues, the Auditor's Office is not a big revenue generator. The changes that Aschenbrenner suggests are a $100 decrease in beer sales permits. Aschenbrenner is suggesting a $200 decrease in map sales. There is another $200 decrease in copier fees and a $50 decrease in fax fees. Aschenbrenner said that with a total of under $9,000 budgeted in the current year for revenues, it is not something that affects them a lot. He said that he doesn't know how they could increase revenues a lot.
Aschenbrenner said that between now and December of 2008 the County will be required to replace the current mailing system located in the Administration Building. This is a new requirement coming from the Federal government. New mailing systems will have an increased security mark on them. Anybody will be able to take the postmark and analyze it to know exactly where the postmark was generated from. The location that the parcel of mail came from will be coded into the marking that is placed on it. Every automated mailing system will be required to have that by December of 2008. R. Sullivan asked if this will come out of the technology budget. Aschenbrenner said that they would like to earmark half of the expected cost into FY 08 and earmark the second half in FY 09. Claiborne said that it is included in the Technology (Department 44) decision packages.
Neuzil asked if there are other mailing systems in other departments. Aschenbrenner said that the Attorney's Office and the Public Health Department use their own. Kistler said that there is one postage meter in the Administration Building. Neuzil said that the Board has discussed creating a copying center at the new Health and Human Services (HHS) Building. He said that if this happens they might need to purchase a different meter. Aschenbrenner said that in saving they targeted the top end of mailing systems. He said that it is possible to buy all kinds of bells and whistles with these machines. There are some that will weigh an entire stack of mailing documents and meter them correctly individually. He said that most of the time when departments do large mailings they are uniform in size and weight, so one item can be weighed using the "total mail" button and the meter will mark each item with that amount of postage. Aschenbrenner said that this type of system is obviously a little cheaper but it may not meet the needs of everyone in the Administration Building or the proposed Health and Human Services building.
Stutsman asked if the Auditor's Office is thinking about the new building and accommodating that. Aschenbrenner said that this will have to be revisited in the future and suggested that it might be an item for a Department Head meeting. He said that if they want to spend a little more they will get more bells and whistles. Stutsman said that if it saves staff time it might be well worth it, if they use the features. Aschenbrenner said that from his perspective, most AP checks are generally uniform and he just sets aside the few larger pieces of mail. He said that he thinks this is true for most departments but he doesn't know for sure. The Board agreed to place this item on a future Department Head meeting agenda. Neuzil said that this item might also be talked about when they decide what offices will be located in the new HHS building. He said that there might be space for a general purpose copying facility.
Neuzil asked if the elections division uses the postage machine. He asked if part of the cost of the postage meter can come out of the elections budget. Aschenbrenner said they discussed the idea of posting these expenses to the supplemental side. They already have the technology to do that, he said. They do this now to invoice the City and County Assessors. Administrative Secretary Casie Kadlec said they also do this with payroll. If she were to come in during election season on a Saturday, she marks the elections overtime on her time card. That portion is then paid out of the elections budget. Neuzil asked if the regular hours are pulled out. Kadlec said she isn’t sure if the regular 40 hours a week are pulled out, but the overtime definitely is. R. Sullivan liked the idea. Stutsman said the bottom line is that this will mean an increase in taxes. Moving one expense from one fund to another simply allows them more room in another fund to tax. She said that they need to think about their motivation.
Aschenbrenner said that they were approached about changing that central mailing system in the current year. There was some concern about a federal mandate that allows schools to get a discount from all suppliers of these mailing systems. One vendor said they should do this now because it is not assured that the discount will carry over in future years. They are not actually required to comply with this new federal standard until January 2009. They weren’t prepared budget-wise to do that. They were also given the option of fixing their current system for about $200 so that it could work for another two years, so they decided to keep what they have. In a year and a half, they will have to make a decision about what level of machine they would want to replace it with.
Kistler said that elections is looking at an increase in expenditures of $58,350, but that is more than offset by the increase in revenues of $128,070 for the Elections budget. This fiscal year, there were two regularly scheduled elections: the school and general. Next fiscal year, there will be four: school, city primary, city, and countywide primary. The reason the revenues are much higher is that they don’t get any compensation from other jurisdictions for a primary or general election, but they do get reimbursed from the schools for the school elections and cities for city elections.
Kistler said that the first increase in the elections budget is in fuel. Also, periodicals increased by $250 in order to stay current. There is a $3,000 increase in supplies. That is a result of all the new equipment. They have had some new requirements for publications. This year, they had to publish a set of maps of all the precinct changes over the past four years. There are no real changes for postage or transportation, meals, and mileage. The cell phone is going up $600. One additional notary will be up for renewal this year. They also need stationary and forms for the primary. Some line items will need to be compared to two or four years ago in order to compare the election to an analogous previous one. The printing programming for primary election used to be called printing. The new voting system has allowed ES&S to do the initial printing of the ballots. They are also doing the programming for the ballots at the same time. The staff is currently training to learn the programming. Now that the State has certified a paper trail, they have some software changes and new programming to keep up with. With that in mind, this is budgeted for a situation where they might be having ES&S do the programming. There are offsetting reimbursements for some of the elections. If they do the programming in-house, there would be a drop in expense and revenue for the three elections.
Kistler noted that mileage reimbursement for the primary has increased as has the cell phone cost for primaries. The primary mileage is for the election officials. The cell cost is for reimbursing poll workers to have their cell phones available during election time. They also have rental fees and mileage for the primary. There are several re-estimated line items including van rental-special and such. These are the estimated costs for the special election. R. Sullivan said he didn’t realize they spent that much on van rental. Kistler said for a large election, they usually rent three or four vans. Kadlec said they also use the Planning and Zoning van. Kistler explained that they need enough vans to get people out at satellites. They have their own vans for setup. Kistler said that for Countywide elections, they will often keep a van for a whole week. There is $9,500 additional for printing and programming for the school election. Stationery and forms have increased. Stutsman asked if they get total reimbursement for the cost of these elections. Aschenbrenner said he doesn’t know about the programming. Kistler said that is something they are going to look at. They might not have to reduce the reimbursement for that. Some things that are considered administrative costs are not billed for. It might be a billable item though. They will look into that. Cell phone costs are up a little as are publications for satellites.
Kistler explained that regarding revenue, big items include reimbursement from the school election and from the City election, including the City primary. That is much more than in the current fiscal year. R. Sullivan asked if any other cities have anything in their charters that allow for primaries. Kistler said each city has its own charter. Iowa City does have that, and he thought one other city might have that option. Most cities use run-off elections as the way to deal with multiple candidates if they have a large number. R. Sullivan said if that happened, they would have a corresponding revenue. Kistler said they would have to amend the budget at that point for that election. Decision packet one is about going from two regularly scheduled elections to four. This has made expenditures go up $58,000 and revenues up $128,000.
Kistler said that decision package two is a request to increase the precinct election official’s hourly wage from $9.00 to $10.00 per hour. He said that Reisetter has a worksheet used to calculate what the wages would be for each election. The increased expenditure would be $19,304 of which $10,803 is reimbursable because the hours would be for a school or city election. The Countywide primary election would not be reimbursed. Aschenbrenner said it is getting harder and harder to find good people to cover the precincts on election days. It is a thankless job, so any incentive they can offer would help. R. Sullivan asked what Linn County pays their election officials. Kistler said he can get that information to the Board at a later date.
Kistler said that the hardware maintenance contract and software license agreement costs $27,200 and that covers all three sets of the new equipment. Aschenbrenner said they don’t have much choice on this one, if they want the equipment to run.
Neuzil said that the Board might be able to amend the budget so they can do the salary study next year. R. Sullivan said the long-term plan is to have this be an on-going line item funded at $50,000 a year and then have the study done every five years or so. Neuzil said the question is whether they should tax now for that. Aschenbrenner said that they can. Then, in the year they expect to use that money, they need to make sure there is budget room to spend that money without cutting into other areas. R. Sullivan said the money is for the cost of the person who would do the study and for the bump up in pay that some positions would get. He said they could conceivably pay the consultant but wait on the pay increase. Aschenbrenner said that if they have a higher fund balance going into the year, it will affect the next year’s tax askings. It will essentially lower the tax for the subsequent year. R. Sullivan said it really doesn’t matter unless they can’t afford that. The Board decided to go with $100,000 for FY 08 with the intent to amend the FY 07 budget if they can.
Claiborne said that he just added the block grant for JCCOG to the Central Services budget yesterday. Neuzil said that when they meet with the townships, those townships complain that they aren’t getting paid enough. Aschenbrenner said that Slockett is pushing to increase their hourly rate to $10 per hour for every meeting. In FY 05, the cost of this wage was estimated at about $283. This year, it would be $50 more than the budget from last year. This is about a 20% increase. Stutsman asked what the Ag extension line item in Central Services. Aschenbrenner explained that the County allows one of the Ag Extension employees to buy into the County's life insurance group. The County gets reimbursed for that. Neuzil asked if they are proposing to go up to $10 for the township meetings. Aschenbrenner said to be honest, he did not consciously budget that in; he received the notification by email this morning. Neuzil said it seem reasonable. Aschenbrenner agreed. Kistler said they will have to bring it to the Board as a motion to vote on for FY 08. Aschenbrenner said that he thinks that most of the township trustees are already paid $10 an hour because it is rare when their meetings go over an hour.
Aschenbrenner said that will probably be some wiggle room in this part of the budget depending on where animal control comes in. Stutsman asked if they put an increase in for the animal shelter. Aschenbrenner said yes. Neuzil said they had had a conversation about not continuously increasing the funding to the animal shelter. Aschenbrenner said that is up to the Board. He was just basing it on the past. Stutsman said that they need to focus this next year on getting this taken care of. They need to get out of the contract with the animal shelter. Aschenbrenner said the contract does set certain rates and fees. Executive Assistant Mike Sullivan said the shelter wants to change the per diem rate that they had in the past and go to a rate per animal per day. That would bring them to the number that he and Aschenbrenner talked about. Neuzil said they still need to talk about the money coming out of the rural fund and getting the small towns to pay for their animals. Iowa City residents already pay for Iowa City services. They are duplicating taxes for the same service. Aschenbrenner said it makes sense that those growing communities should be asked to shoulder their fair share of the cost. M. Sullivan said it is difficult to discern whether an animal comes from the City or the County or a community like Hills. The issue is with the shelter’s internal policy of being a no-kill shelter. They have an average of 21 to 24 days per animal.
Harney entered at 10:12 a.m.
M. Sullivan said that they need to draft an agreement with the City. Neuzil said that obviously Iowa City doesn't want to set up contracts with every other community, so there is no incentive for them to move really fast on this. Stutsman said that she would rather spend the money that they spend on the shelter for wages or free spaying for dogs in the rural area. She said that every town maintenance person is going to haul the dogs out into the unincorporated areas. R. Sullivan said that doesn’t cost them any more than they are paying now. Stutsman said that if the County says they won’t pay for the cities dog care, then people will haul animals out to the other areas. Neuzil said if the city’s maintenance people are doing that, they will be arrested if found out.
Stutsman said she would like a comprehensive program on dealing with this. She suggested they get control of the puppy mills. M. Sullivan said they could require that animals be microchipped so they know where they are coming from. Iowa City could do the chipping cheaper than a vet. R. Sullivan said they need to put this back on the key issues list. R. Sullivan said he doesn’t know if he wants to be in a 28E agreement with the City animal shelter. Stutsman said they have to look at the consequences of that. Aschenbrenner said the cost is going to shift to somewhere. Stutsman said they could form another dog rescue with Coralville and the small towns where they can set up their own policy about keeping the animals alive for two or so days before they are anesthetized. That could be cheaper, she thought. She said that she lives in the unincorporated area, and if she were to have a dog that is running around, then she would want to have an option. They have a responsibility to provide some option.
Neuzil said he wants to do a 28E agreement with the unincorporated areas only, not with Iowa City. M. Sullivan said that statutorily, that is all they are required to do. This should be on the rural levy, said R. Sullivan. Stutsman stated that as a rural resident, she doesn’t want to be paying for the dogs that the people from Iowa City come out and dump in the country. When the University lets out, there are a bunch of dogs that are dumped out in the country. M. Sullivan said that cats are a bigger problem than dogs as far as number according to the Director of the Iowa City/Coralville Animal Shelter. Neuzil said it looks like they are going to keep this in the budget and go with $100,000, but there needs to be a priority to figure out over the summer what to do in the future about animal care. Stutsman said that she thinks that every community other than Oxford has a vet in town that could help. M. Sullivan said those are the kinds of things they could suggest to the local vets. Neuzil said that they should put animal control on the next key issues meeting’s agenda.
Aschenbrenner said that the Systems Unlimited block grant will be dropping off, but that doesn’t have an effect on the County’s real expenses. JCCOG is coming out of this department. R. Sullivan asked if ECICOG is also moving into another department. R. Sullivan said it is in Department 20. Aschenbrenner said he bumped up the budget for Iowa City Press Citizen publications based on their year-to-date numbers. Stutsman asked if the legislature passed an increase in minutes for all the 28E people. M. Sullivan thought it had not kicked in because of the big huff about how much that would cost. Auditors were pretty opposed to it based on cost, he said. Kadlec said that she hasn’t had to make any changes as the person who files the 28E agreements. She said that she has read the code on this and hasn’t seen any changes. M. Sullivan said that one of the universities has a list of all the 28E agreements on file. Kadlec said they are required to be filed at the Secretary of State’s Office, so it might be on that website.
Aschenbrenner said that it looks as if they are going to be over budget on civil service tests based on his projection for this year. The current year budget is less than the two prior year actuals, so that needed to be increased. Planning, consultant fees, and general management is severely under budgeted. This was used for the North Corridor. Kadlec thought it might have been used for the Board's strategic planning also. Aschenbrenner noted that general interest revenues will increase by $150,000. Flex spending deductions for revenues and expenses should be equal at $170,000. Aschenbrenner said that $800,000 decrease is from the Systems Unlimited line.
Claiborne noted that the budget amendment is for insurance due to tornado damage claim reimbursements. Harney said that 40% of the cost of the proposed joint communication center will be covered by the County. M. Sullivan said that they will talk about the debt service levy when they talk about capital improvements. He said it could come out of general basic or out of debt service. Claiborne said that for the next meeting or two, they will be looking at what to bond for and what not to bond for. Aschenbrenner said that regarding insurance, workman’s comp is down, as is workplace safety. Those two line items have been broken down when they used to be together. For this year, they are fine, except that they are paying for reconstruction after the tornado. R. Sullivan asked where they have insurance for a case like an intern cutting checks to him or herself. Aschenbrenner said those are the security bonds or officer fidelity. R. Sullivan asked if that covers things like professional liability. Stutsman said these are just the premiums. R. Sullivan said he wants to be sure they are covered. Aschenbrenner said he is sure their key personnel are covered. He said they don’t like to see good-sized revenues in their insurance funds. That means that cars are crashing and buildings are falling. Stutsman asked if it is still the policy that if there is a claim, it comes back to the General Fund not to the individual departments. Aschenbrenner said that is right. Every claim and every reimbursement has to flow through this fund so they have a good idea if where they are at.
Neuzil asked where Institutional Accounts got its name. Aschenbrenner explained it is because they are dealing with State institutions like the Toledo Boys’ Home. Most of this is required by Code, so it can’t be avoided. They often entail court-ordered commitments for chemical dependency. The figures are hard to predict because they are based on usage. FY 05 expenses for the Toledo House was $20,000, and FY 06 was half of that. Year-to-date usage indicates the cost will be $48,000. M. Sullivan said that even Chief Juvenile Court Administrator Lloyd Smith finds this hard to estimate. R. Sullivan said that part of what makes these institutional is that they are court-ordered, not voluntary. Aschenbrenner said he doesn’t have a lot of background in the area of the legal ramifications of the institutional accounts. He said that Edwards is more knowledgeable in this area.
Recessed at 11:12 a.m.; reconvened at 11:18 a.m.
The Board agreed not to fund the Education/Training Supervisor for the Ambulance Department because it is a want and not a need.
Claiborne said that it wasn’t clear when County Attorney Janet Lyness was here that she wanted an immediate $40,000 for this fiscal year to adjust the Assistant Attorney. He asked what the Board thought. Neuzil said that he thought the Attorney’s Office was going to try to live within their budget if they wanted to do that. Claiborne asked if for FY 08, he should tack on an extra $40,000 in the personnel. M. Sullivan said that Lyness is absorbing the $40,000 this year. Neuzil said that basically what Lyness is doing is bringing back an administrative deputy similar to what other elected officials have. Harney said that White used to have that but didn’t use it. Stutsman said that there are five attorney classifications, and she needs $10,000 to $15,000 more to move everyone up. She thought the department just wanted to move people up who have been there a long time. Neuzil said the Office needs to come to the Board to say what they want to do. He said he doesn’t want to amend anything at this point. R. Sullivan said he thought their budget was so tight that they couldn’t buy a new desk. Claiborne said he will check with Lyness and find out what is going on.
Regarding the Secretary II for the Attorney's Office, M. Sullivan said it would boggle their minds to know how much the current secretary is doing trying to keep up with the workload. Stutsman said she wants to see a pattern of the staffing changes in the different departments. She asked when the last time was that they added a secretary to this department. Claiborne said that should show in the decision packages. R. Sullivan said that they spend a lot of money on software, and he thought sometimes they duplicate efforts regarding input. M. Sullivan said they added a legal assistant in FY 05, but that is a completely different position. M. Sullivan said that he is astounded by the amount of work the current Secretary II has to do. Harney said that the Board agreed to hire a ten-hour position last year. The Board agreed to tentatively approve the Secretary II for the Attorney's Office for the time being. They decided that they also need clarification on staffing issues in the Attorney's Office.
The Board decided not to approve the position of the clerk in the Health Department. They also decided not to approve the .5FTE Disease Prevention Specialist.
The Board decided to approve the upgrade of the position to lead for the Physical Plant.
The Board decided to approve the $11,000 for the Medical Examiner.
The Board agreed to approve the Human Resources Coordinator position.
The Board agreed to approve the new PC Desktop Technician position for Information Services after checking about the total cost.
Claiborne asked if they want to discuss the Sheriff’s request. Stutsman said that she needs to review her notes on that. R. Sullivan said that he thought only the patrol could go out of the Rural Fund and not the detectives. Claiborne said that using the Rural Fund was a big discussion last year. R. Sullivan said that he would like to see them use the Rural Fund. Stutsman, Harney, and Neuzil did not want to use the Rural Fund at this time. Stutsman said she would support one patrol deputy and no sergeants. Harney said the other cities need to pay the full amount. Then, they could fund the deputies. Neuzil said that if the public were to look at the list of things that needs to be funded and asked which of those items is the most important, they would say public safety. They at times were having only two patrol deputies in the entire County which is not sufficient. R. Sullivan said that they weren’t eligible for the grant unless they back-filled. M. Sullivan said that if they got the deputies, Pulkrabek wouldn’t have to ask for deputies for five or six more years. They would be fully staffed enough. Stutsman said she would support two patrol deputies but not the detective sergeant. She added that she would like to have a conversation with Pulkrabek about pulling out of the North Liberty contract. Stutsman said that if they want to annex and be a big city, then they need to act like a big city and pay for their services. Regarding the detective sergeant, Stutsman and Harney said no. R. Sullivan and Neuzil said yes. Meyers asked if the grant money will be available. M. Sullivan said they aren’t sure yet. Meyers said no because he is more concerned about the patrol deputies.
Neuzil said that everything is on the table until two weeks from now, even the things they have said no to today. R. Sullivan said that they tend to be very careful about hiring new personnel because once they hire, that position is here to stay. Deciding whether or not to buy a piece of equipment is an easier decision because it is rarely an on-going cost. Claiborne said if the Sheriff really sharpens his pencil, he might be able to find a way to keep the deputy sergeant. Stutsman said that is a backdoor way of approving a new position. Claiborne said he is talking about keeping the current position not a new one. M. Sullivan said that he doesn’t think the department will let the sergeant go. Neuzil said he likes the idea of looking at the number one priority among the department’s decision packages.
Stutsman said that she would like to do a study of the rural area. She doesn’t want to see a huge tax increase on the rural side of budget. Meyers said that if it is $25 per property that is one thing, but his property went up $450. The Board decided to keep the item on future agendas.
M. Sullivan said that when the State writes language about levying for construction, they use debt service qualifiers. Those are no longer subject to bidding laws in Iowa. Preparation work and design work and so on are qualified. If they put this in the emergency fund levy, they can pay themselves back out of the emergency services levy into the debt service. Then, there will be a reduction in that levy. Neuzil said that seems fair. M. Sullivan said that from the standpoint of the budget, it is just a transfer. Harney asked that M. Sullivan put the discussion of a site for a communication center on the agenda. Stutsman said they don’t need to deal with the juvenile detention center since they are just going to renew their contract.
Claiborne asked if they want any trail money set aside. At this point, he hasn’t put anything in that line item. R. Sullivan said that $100,000 is supposed to buy a mile of trail. Neuzil said that if they go with $100,000, there would also be the creation of a capital improvement line item in Secondary Roads that would also include trails. R. Sullivan said that he wouldn’t mind seeing the fund at $200,000. Stutsman agreed. Neuzil said maintenance for updating the dirt and gravel roads is probably going to be half a million, and some of that would include trails. R. Sullivan and Stutsman thought that was a good idea.
Neuzil said the SEATS facility is another issue. He asked if they talked to Coralville about what they are doing. M. Sullivan said that he talked to Kevin Olsen. Neuzil said the question is if they need to add anything to the debt service fund and to Secondary Roads that would help offset the additional money beyond $900,000. M. Sullivan said they should. Neuzil said it isn’t in their budget. He thought that Secondary Roads should be separate. M. Sullivan said the design part of the building is already going on right now and will break out what Secondary Roads’s portion is going to be based on square footage. Neuzil asked if they are putting a million dollars away each year for capital improvements. M. Sullivan said yes. Neuzil said they don’t want to get into a situation that for the next 15 years, they are paying off one building and not thinking of anything else. M. Sullivan said that their recommendation is to set aside one million a year, not necessarily to use it all to pay back the cost of the building. He just thought they should be disciplined enough to set aside one million each year. R. Sullivan said they may want to talk about one and half million.
Adjourned at 11:57 a.m.
______________________________________________________________________
Attest: Tom Slockett, Auditor
By:
On the _______ day of _____________________, 2007
By Casie Kadlec, Recording Secretary
Sent to the Board of Supervisors on Date, 2007 at TIME.