MINUTES OF THE INFORMAL MEETING OF THE JOHNSON COUNTY BOARD OF SUPERVISORS:
JANUARY 15, 2008
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Page
Human Resources Administrator Lora Shramek: Leave without Pay.................................... 2
Human Resources Administrator Lora Shramek: Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) Notification 2
Assistant Planner Josh Busard: Leadership and Energy in Environmental Design (LEED) Certification 3
Facilities Director David Kempf: Temporary Reassignments of Space in the Administration Building. 4
Board of Supervisors: Buy Here Program............................................................................. 4
Board of Supervisors: Parking Committee............................................................................ 5
Board of Supervisors: Board Expectations Regarding both Written and Oral Departmental Progress Reports. 5
Board of Supervisors: New Hires......................................................................................... 6
Board of Supervisors: Staff Photos....................................................................................... 7
Board of Supervisors: Car-Pooling to Iowa State Association of Counties (ISAC) Events.... 7
Board of Supervisors: Items to Lobby for During ISAC Day at the Legislature.................... 7
Department Heads: Reports and Updates.............................................................................. 8
Deputy Auditor Dana Aschenbrenner: County Central Mailing System in Auditor’s Office. 8
Board of supervisors: Reports and Updates.......................................................................... 9
Date and Time of Next Meeting............................................................................................ 9
Chairperson Sullivan called the Johnson County Board of Supervisors to order in the Johnson County Administration Building as a Department Head Meeting at 1:30 p.m. Members present were: Rod Sullivan, Sally Stutsman, Pat Harney, and Larry Meyers; absent was Terrence Neuzil.
Department Heads present were: Ambulance Director Steve Spenler, City Assessor Dennis Baldridge, Conservation Department Director Harry Graves, County Assessor Bill Greazel, County Attorney Janet Lyness, County Sheriff Lonny Pulkrabek, Facilities Director David Kempf, Human Resources Administrator Lora Shramek, Information Services Director Jean Schultz, Juvenile Court Administrator Lloyd Smith, Medical Examiner Administrator Michael Hensch, Mental Health/Developmental Disabilities Director Kris Artley, Planning and Zoning Administrator Rick Dvorak, Public Health Director Douglas Beardsley, SEATS Director Tom Brase, Social Services Director Amy Correia, and Veterans Affairs Commission Director Leo Baier. Staff present were: Deputy Auditor Dana Aschenbrenner, Assistant Planner Josh Busard, and Auditor’s Office Account Clerk John Deeth.
Human Resources Administrator Lora Shramek said that all six of the County’s collective bargaining contracts and the Employee Handbooks have provisions for granting leave without pay. The decision to grant the leave or not is up to department heads.
Neuzil arrived at 1:33 p.m.
Shramek said that according to the collective bargaining contracts, employees must be non-probationary for leave without pay, but the Employee Handbook does not state that, and under the handbook, department heads can grant unpaid leave to probationary employees. Some contracts specify reasonable purpose, which must be considered very carefully, such as whether the time off is for the employee to perform another job. According to the County’s policies, Johnson County is the primary employer of full-time employees.
Shramek then addressed use of available paid-time-off. Some employees may not want to use it, or have plans to use it later. Department heads should instruct employees to use paid time off first and grant a leave of absence later.
Shramek said most contracts specify that employees must average a 40-hour workweek to maintain benefit-eligible status, and 20 hours per week for part-time. Unpaid leave could jeopardize the employee’s benefit-eligible status. A department head does not have to grant the employee’s full request up front. An option could be to approve part of the leave and then re-evaluate at the end of that period. This way the department does not commit to the whole amount up front, but does not deny it either.
Shramek said paid sick and vacation time is earned on paid time, but not during leave without pay. Appropriate prorations need to be reported to the Auditor’s Office with payroll. During an unpaid leave of absence that is not Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) qualifying, the employee must pay for any applicable insurance contributions, they do not accrue sick leave, vacation, or other forms of leave, and they do not accrue seniority or other job benefits.
Facilities Manager David Kempf asked Shramek to clarify the goal of not jeopardizing employee’s benefit-eligible status. Shramek said some contracts define full-time as 37 1/2 hours per week, but an employee should not fall below a full-time average at any time. Kempf clarified that a department head would want to be sure that an employee asking for leave without pay is averaging more than 40 hours per week. Shramek said that if you’re granting something that is going to affect that status, it will most likely be for 30 days or more, which is covered in the collective bargaining agreement.
Shramek said if an FMLA leave is estimated to be three weeks or more, the employee or department should contact Human Resources so they can get the appropriate paperwork out to the employee and doctors as soon as possible.
Assistant Planner Josh Busard mentioned that through the Cool Counties Initiative, Johnson County will be conducting a Greenhouse Gas Emissions Analysis to determine the amount of greenhouse gas emissions produced by daily County operations and facilities management. It will take into account things like the gases produced from Planning & Zoning site visits and the quantities of waste generated. From this analysis, the next step of the Cool Counties Initiative is to develop a goal targeting the amount of greenhouse gases to reduce and an action plan of how to reach that goal.
Busard said that Johnson County set a goal of constructing one of the very few Leadership and Energy in Environmental Design (LEED) certified buildings in the county. There are less than five LEED-certified government buildings in the State of Iowa and very few in the nation overall.
Busard said he recently received his LEED professional accreditation and can help those who occupy spaces outside of the Administration Building or Health and Human Services to explore options of potential to construct a LEED-certified building. LEED certification is available for new construction or for existing buildings. LEED standards for jails, hospitals and other government buildings are being developed. LEED buildings have lower operating costs which increases the value of the building, reduce waste into landfills, conserve energy and water, promote healthier and safer workplaces, and encourage more productive workers. Most importantly, it demonstrates the County’s commitment to environmental stewardship and sets an example.
Kempf said it will cost about $77,000 for the County to get LEED certification for the Health & Human Services Building, which includes the documentation process. The County went ahead and put all the necessary specifications into the project for an environmentally-friendly, energy-efficient building before deciding to formally seek LEED certification. This saved a little bit of money. A large chunk of the cost is the actual certification, for which an independent third-party must be hired for tracking and documentation. The third party does things like tracking all the products that go in, documenting the recycled content, and making sure each of the HVAC systems are operating where they are supposed to. The actual certification costs will be around $40,000 or more of the total $77,000 figure. Kempf noted that it is certainly a commitment on the Board’s part to move forward with this. Percentage wise, it is difficult to determine because it varies so much based on the size of the building, so there is no average available. But more and more the industry standards are that people are going ahead and designing buildings to be more energy-efficient and more cost-effective in the long run. Busard said the LEED process is fairly new, as the first pilot program was in 1998. Busard said there are five or less certified government buildings. Kempf said it’s not as common as people think; even the green building at the park in Coralville did not get LEED certified, but he does not think there will be a problem achieving certification for the Health and Human Services Building.
R. Sullivan said Busard and Kempf will be the point-people for the Cool Counties Initiative. Departments may be asked to provide some information to one of the two of them to be entered into the computer.
Planning and Zoning Administrator Rick Dvorak asked Busard if he could certify a building of a specific size himself. Busard said he was unsure, but thought that he and Kempf as a team could get a building certified. He said he did not have the expertise to certify something as big as the Health and Human Services Building. Kempf said one of the requirements is the need to hire an independent third party to perform part of the certification. He said he and Busard may be able to help with getting LEED for existing buildings. Busard added that buildings less than 50,000 square feet are much less expensive and much easier to certify as a LEED-certified building because a team like Busard and Kempf could do the paperwork and commission the building and the HVAC.
Kempf said it costs $5,000 to file for LEED certification, there must be someone to do all the documentation and collect all the data, and there has to be an independent third party to do the commissioning. Kempf said it is optional, but that they had already designed the building to be highly efficient.
Kempf said he is currently working with architect Jim Novak to come up with a plan to temporarily relocate departments, because the new skywalk will come into the Administration Building through the center of the City Assessor’s current office. He and Novak are working on a plan to temporarily relocate the City Assessor within the Administration building. Kempf and his team will be meeting with City Assessor Denny Baldridge soon. R. Sullivan said plans could include the downstairs conference room and the break room. Kempf said they’re looking at relocating into the break room space and moving the break room down to the first-floor conference room, or some combination thereof, depending on square footage. Kempf said he will need to speak with Baldridge about how many files they need on-hand and how many could be temporarily stored in a different part of the building. Kempf said it will be an inconvenience for a while, but they’ll try to make it as un-intrusive as possible.
R. Sullivan said the Board decided to sign onto the Chamber Buy Here Program, which is trying to get member organizations to take 5% of what they spend outside of the County and spend it back within the County. He clarified that it is not 5% of the overall budget, it is 5% of what they spend outside the county. The Board has made the commitment to do that and hopes that the department heads will give it a shot and report to the Board on how it’s going.
Kempf asked if that will require documentation. R. Sullivan said every vendor has a ZIP code, and Information Services can automatically track the ZIP codes that are Johnson County versus those that aren’t.
Stutsman said the Board made the commitment to building the ramp and the next question is whether to build a third floor on that ramp, which would be a sizable increase in the cost. She said that the idea is that is it better to build it now and have it, rather than decide later on that a larger parking facility is needed. The Parking Committee will meet on January 23, 2008, and the main topic of discussion will be whether to charge employees for parking and developing policies along those lines.
R. Sullivan noted that department heads should pass their employees’ comments on to the Board who will pass those on to the Parking Committee. Neuzil asked if anyone on the Committee is from Health or Human Services. Stutsman said Human Services Accountant Kathy Lynch is a member of the Committee and has relayed several employees’ concerns already.
R. Sullivan said the Board has asked department heads for progress reports but was not clear about what those ought to be. Neuzil said there have been good presentations but some of them have been up to 45 minutes. He had thought it would be more like a ten-minute synopsis of what the department does and department goals, with follow-up and questions from the Board. R. Sullivan said that some Department Heads send regular e-mail updates to the Board and some don’t . He said there has never been a rule about it, but the Board members seem to agree that SEATS Director Tom Brase does it well.
Brase said he tries to break down what he covered since the last update and what he’s working on presently, and also views and observations of what he’s learned from different meetings he’s covered. He looks to what the Board will be covering in the future and gives his perspective on those matters. He sends email updates once per month, plus other times as needed.
Stutsman said Dvorak and County Engineer Greg Parker also send good updates which help the Board answer public questions. R. Sullivan said that it’s helpful for those who have Board liaisons to periodically update the other Board members as well. Medical Examiner Administrator Mike Hensch said giving an update to a liaison and also giving an update to the Board could be burdensome for very small departments, and said it would be beneficial to have clear instructions from the Board as to what they want. Neuzil said taking a half-hour out of a month doesn’t seem too burdensome to identify a few key issues. He said Hensch provided very good updates to his two liaisons, and he would only have to forward those on to the rest of the Board.
Neuzil said one of the problems with the liaison process is the ability for liaisons to be able to create dialogue with the other members of the Board without causing open meetings issues. There may also be times when during a report to the full Board, department heads may wish to consider what they want to discuss in a televised meeting. Communication is one of the categories for department head evaluations, and those who score higher seem to be ones who keep the whole Board up to date some time in a month. He suggested that department heads let the Board know if, for example, they went to a conference. Kempf asked about the timing and structure of the updates. R. Sullivan suggested that Brase forward his updates to the other department heads as an example.
Neuzil asked what people feel comfortable with for department presentations at televised Board meetings. Stutsman said 20 minutes seemed more reasonable than ten minutes, as this is the department head’s opportunity to share things with the Board and the public on television as to what the department is doing. Neuzil reminded department heads to set progress reports up with Executive Assistant Mike Sullivan one month before the department head evaluation.
R. Sullivan said once a month should be adequate for email updates. Stutsman said that whenever something comes up it is appropriate to email an update. Neuzil said the way to justify going to conferences and getting training is to make the Board aware of what was learned.
R. Sullivan reminded the department heads to inform the Board about new hires, who they are and what they are doing. Shramek said Human Resources likes to introduce new hires to the Board, but it is problematic when not everyone is present. R. Sullivan said this is a good example of something for an email update.
Hensch suggested County employee nametags and said getting to know someone’s name is very important and nametags would add to accountability. Stutsman said it was brought up before with Emergency Management. Neuzil said some departments were hesitant about nametags because some employees were uncomfortable, and said tags with only first names might address that. Sheriff Lonny Pulkrabek said he gave his deputies the option of full name or first initial and last name, but his records staff would be very uncomfortable with nametags. Stutsman said the Treasurer's staff also had concerns, since sometimes members of the public got very upset. County Attorney Janet Lyness said her staff felt strongly about not wanting nametags. Kempf said with the new building there would be more keycard access, and a keycard/ID combination could be useful. Neuzil said such an ID/keycard could either be displayed prominently or kept in an accessible but less visible location such as on a belt. Hensch said when he is at death scenes he wants family members to know who he is, and an ID would help. R. Sullivan suggested having the Communications Committee explore what other counties and municipalities do and reporting back with a recommendation. Stutsman inquired about cost. Pulkrabek noted that the County already has the equipment to make IDs.
Neuzil said an internal directory with photos would be nice to have. County Assessor Bill Greazel suggested publishing the photos on the internet as his office has done. Neuzil said that an internal document, not necessarily public, would be beneficial. Pulkrabek said he was uncomfortable with putting photos on the web. R. Sullivan noted that Iowa City and Coralville Police have photos of their officers posted inside their offices. Greazel said his staff was often out in public and in people's homes, and the website helped reassure homeowners of their legitimacy. R. Sullivan suggested having the Communications Committee doing research to figure out how other entities handle it and coming back to the Board with a recommendation. Neuzil voiced his desire to get to know the employees of the County.
R. Sullivan noted that Iowa State Association of Counties (ISAC) meetings have been highly attended by Johnson County employees, but at the last one, 25 people went in 19 cars and the County has to pay for that. Stutsman said that some sort of central sign-up or message board would be beneficial to share car-pool information. R. Sullivan wants to make this a voluntary system to minimize the expense, because the County paid $1500 in mileage for the fall school. Brase said that if he goes, he could drive a 14 passenger van and people could sign up. Greazel said an online signup would be helpful. Information Services Director Jean Schultz said she and her team could look into it for the spring school in March. Neuzil said his church has an online volunteer signup system and he would forward that to Schultz.
Stutsman and Harney left the meeting at 2:22 p.m.
R. Sullivan said instead of each county having their own lobby day, now it is done by districts. Johnson County is in District 6, comprised mostly of northeastern Iowa counties, and the Board will go to Des Moines to lobby on February 20, 2008. Department heads should forward their legislative priorities to the Board as soon as possible. Neuzil said some departments will be asked to assist with Board priorities such as the road use tax fund, local smoking policy, mental health, and Ambulance employee retirement.
Social Services Coordinator Amy Correia said a free tax help program will begin soon. She said Big Brothers Big Sisters is organizing Bowl for Kid's Sake. Lyness said her office is organizing teams and people from other departments are welcome. Juvenile Court Administrator Lloyd Smith said he had added a new staff member for a total of six in the office. Baldridge said new construction was picking up. Conservation Director Harry Graves said his department is doing a lot of preparation work for the summer. Schultz said this year's computer purchase program had been a success and everyone who wanted to purchase a computer was included. Ambulance Director Steve Spenler said the Annual Ambulance Conference will be February 16, 2008 at North Liberty. Brase said he had attended the groundbreaking for the new SEATS/Secondary Roads building and was exploring various grant opportunities. Kempf said the Health and Human Services Building was moving forward. Dvorak said all building permit information was now available on line, and land use plan review was near completion. Public Health Director Doug Beardsley said he hopes to meet everyone soon and work closely with all the other departments. Shramek said the fourth collective bargaining agreement was now settled. MH/DD Director Kris Artley said the department is almost at full operating capacity, and the Federal government is re-defining targeted case management which will cause a billing nightmare. Veterans Affairs Director Leo Baier said the application deadline for the second Vietnam Era bonus is June 30, 2008, and his department had been approved for a $10,000 housing grant. Pulkrabek said his department is participating in a robocall alert program called A Child Is Missing, and his annual report will be ready at the end of the month. Lyness said the School Attendance Task Force has been very active, and said National Association of Counties (NACO) prescription cards were available through her office.
Deputy Auditor Dana Aschenbrenner said because of federal requirements, the current postage meter will be decertified and the County will need a new system. The cost will be between $10,000 and $12,000. He asked department heads to let him know if they would be using the new system, how often, and if mailings are usually uniform in size and weight, in order to determine which features would be needed. Sorting and weighing features are available on new machines. He said vendors would be coming in to do demonstrations and asked department heads to let him know if they were interested in attending.
R. Sullivan said it is the Board's understanding that departments in the Administration Building and in the new Health and Human Services Building will be using this system, but there is some question about departments located in other buildings. Kempf said Human Services had its own system. Aschenbrenner said that contract will eventually expire. Correia asked if this meant departments would bring their mail in and the Auditor's Office would mail it. Aschenbrenner said that was not correct and someone from the department would have to operate the system and do the mailing.
Neuzil said budgets were nearly done except for identifying final staffing requests. Those would be determined at a January 23, 2008 meeting. The state budget deadline is March 15, 2008. He said he was appointed to the NACO Environment and Land Use Committee.
The Board scheduled the next Department Head Meeting for 1:30 p.m. March 18, 2008.
Adjourned at 2:51 p.m.
_____________________________________________________________________
Attest: Tom Slockett, Auditor
By:
On the _______ day of _____________________, 2008
By John Deeth, Recording Secretary
Sent to the Board of Supervisors on February 20, 2008 at 11:17 a.m.