MINUTES OF THE INFORMAL MEETING OF THE JOHNSON COUNTY BOARD OF SUPERVISORS:
OCTOBER 15, 2008
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Page
Executive Assistant Mike Sullivan: Findings from GFOA Conference......................................... 1
Discussion: JECC Debt Structure............................................................................................ 4
Johnson County Strategic Plan Update................................................................................... 12
Chairperson Sullivan called the Johnson County Board of Supervisors to order in the Johnson County Administration Building at 9:01 a.m. Members present were: Pat Harney, Terrence Neuzil, Sally Stutsman, and Rod Sullivan; absent: Larry Meyers.
Executive Assistant Mike Sullivan said he gave the Board members an article by Christina Altmeyer. He was at the Government Finance Officers Association Conference on August 27 and 28, 2008 in Minneapolis, Minnesota. He said he is going to present a brief overview of the course. He does not think this is something the County would be able to implement. It requires buy-in rather than requiring it to take place. Some County departments already do this to some extent. He studied case studies from the largest county in Nevada, as well as the largest county in Wisconsin. He said at the GFOA conference they talked about finance and how to apply budget and finance to performance based management. He and a team at the conference reviewed budget presentations and materials from different United States cities. The City of Ankeny, Iowa was highlighted. M. Sullivan said that he and his team put together analysis tools to determine if the budget met the criteria for performance based management. He said he knew Budget Coordinator Rich Claiborne has a good grasp of performance based management. M. Sullivan said that he thought it was one of the most beneficial government based things that he has ever attended. The County can incorporate more of this and he does know the Board will talk about best practices at the mandatory Department Head Meeting next week. He thinks this is a good time for Claiborne and himself to meet with department heads to share this information and to gauge their feelings on whether it is something they feel like they could do.
Stutsman asked M. Sullivan if by him saying the County could not do this, he meant that the County can not implement it this year, or if he meant these principles are too hard to quantify within government. M. Sullivan said he meant both. They can't implement anything this year, and in order to set this up it would take a minimum of two years of a budget cycle. The County is unique because it has elected and non-elected department heads. The two counties that were successful in implementing this said they were successful because everyone bought into this concept. M. Sullivan said that it does not mean that the County can not do this without everybody on board, but in his opinion it is always better to have everyone buy into this idea. Stutsman said that she remembers Linn County talking about doing this and there was one elected official that did not buy into it. She said the Board’s leverage is the budget and if the department did not buy into the concept, then they received the same budget as the previous year. Stutsman said that after one year, that particular elected official in Linn County decided to get on board.
M. Sullivan said a component of this program is having other department heads analyze each other’s budgets. There is a difference between what Claiborne does as a coordinator and what an analyst would do. He said many people can analyze but not prepare the budget like Claiborne. M. Sullivan said that providing information about best practices and performance-based needs improves a department's chance of getting what they are asking for. He said that all of the department heads clearly understand they are going to have to increase revenues as well. He said there must be an offsetting of things in order to begin new projects or hire more staff. He asked the Board if it was okay for him and Claiborne to share some of this information with the departments to gauge how they feel about this and if they want to start moving toward implementing this concept. Stutsman asked M. Sullivan which departments already do this. M. Sullivan said that Ambulance was a good example, SEATS, the Sheriff's Department to some extent, the Recorder's Office, and the Treasurer's Office.
Claiborne said October 19-22, 2008 he is scheduled to be at the GFOA Conference on Budgeting Best Practices. He said he expects to return with more specific guidelines to give the Board at the budget meeting on October 23, 2008. M. Sullivan said he thinks that when the Board has information and facts based on performance measurements, best practices, and best budget practices, it will make it easier to make sound decisions and explain those decisions to the general public. R. Sullivan said one key to doing this is whether the Board can come to an agreement with department heads over what the appropriate measures are. M. Sullivan said that he can help out with that, he will make it as plain-talk as he can for them. R. Sullivan said that a department head can make soft goals with less of a chance of failure and the Board will allocate more money to the department. M. Sullivan said if this is applied as practice he thinks that everyone's expectations will be on the same page. He feels it is feasible that a department head from Ambulance can help analyze the budget from SEATS.
Stutsman said the Board has talked about this issue before. She wondered if the Board needs to be more forceful with the department heads by saying that this is what the Board will expect for next year. She asked if they were to that point yet, and if the Board was comfortable going in that direction. R. Sullivan said he would want to read more about this. M. Sullivan told R. Sullivan to read more and ask him questions. He said he would circulate this information. M. Sullivan said he did not think that it was going to hurt for them to share with department heads as they meet about budgets this year. He suggested it would be okay to let them know that the Board is thinking about going in this direction. M. Sullivan said that if the Board wanted him to put together a presentation for department heads or for the public after the budget is set and meetings with department heads are complete, he would be happy to do this.
Stutsman asked if he would be giving the public the information he had given the Board today. M. Sullivan said he would hand that out. M. Sullivan said it will give them an understanding of what this is about and there are case studies the public can read, and many resources that he will give them. M. Sullivan said the two speakers at the conference admitted that it was difficult to get this established in their counties. It took anywhere from two to five years to get it fully implemented, but the speakers also said they would never go back to the way they used to do it. Stutsman asked why the speakers said that. M. Sullivan said just because of the fact they were able to show that they could finance, plan, fund, and operate all within given limits in the budget based on performance management.
R. Sullivan said asked how this compares to what Linn County is doing. M. Sullivan said he does not think Linn County does performance based management like this. He said the closest county in Iowa that is doing anything like this is Scott County. R. Sullivan said Scott County department heads break up into small groups. M. Sullivan said a segment of performance based management is having department heads act as analysts. R. Sullivan said he heard from a couple of Scott County folks that there is a downside to this. He is curious to know how they deal with a problem situation in a group setting where one department head is doing a lousy job. No one would want that department head to review their department or be perceived as someone who gets colleagues in trouble. Stutsman said it is pretty cut and dry, it shouldn't be a personality issue; the department head can either do this or not. M. Sullivan said there is always some personality involved. R. Sullivan said it is a complaint that he has heard and he is curious to know how they deal with that. M. Sullivan said he could certainly get some more information on this. R. Sullivan said he is not trying to be negative about this but that he just wants to know how they work through a situation like that. M. Sullivan said these are all questions that need to be asked in order for the Board to make a decision.
Neuzil said they have been talking about performance based budgeting for awhile and he feels the Board needs to get a better picture of what it all means. He said he hopes it puts the Board in a position of policy makers rather than micro-managers. He thinks this is good timing for performance based budgeting because of the recent economic downturns. There is a need for much more discipline and prioritizing. Neuzil said these are things former Budget Coordinator Jeff Claiborne did before he left. He tried to identify what those mandated services were and then looked at policies outside of the mandated services to justify those services. M. Sullivan agreed and said this goes way beyond that because when what Claiborne had done was over, it really did not help in the end. He said the Board already knew what they had to and did not have to do. This goes past that because the Board is going to know what level of performance based management each department will be able to adopt. For example, with Ambulance and SEATS, those departments can give data now on utilization ratios and rates which will demonstrate if there are enough vehicles and if response and service times are good enough to keep within best practices, or national benchmark standards. If standards aren't met, then they can evaluate why and make necessary adjustments. M. Sullivan said the data they collect are the tools they use to manage operations and this same information can be used to benchmark budgets as well.
Harney said he thinks they can move towards this but the issue he sees is that between department heads and elected officials. Department heads could receive training and be brought on line with departmental goals versus the goal the Board wants them to achieve. The downside of that is that other elected officials who want to do their own thing are going to manage however they want within their own offices. Stutsman said that because the Board is in charge of budget processes there are ways to make people come on board. She said that they do not want to resort to that, but if she feels that this is in the County’s best interest, and most of all the taxpayers best interests, then she thinks the Board has a responsibility to see that all department heads get on board. Harney said he understands that but he would have a hard time telling the County Auditor, the County Attorney, or other elected officials that this is what they have to do. He thinks they have to work within their own elected office budgets. M. Sullivan said they can be asked.
M. Sullivan said this program evaluated the logic model that is simple to use. Departments that request funding for whatever purpose have this logic model that shows what it is going to cost to do it. They have a real grasp of what the cost is going to be and the Board can look at it from a logical standpoint and make decisions. He said the logic model will indicate whether it is possible to allocate funds or not, because the bottom line is to provide taxpayers with the best management their dollars can buy. Stutsman agreed and said they are starting to look at a nationwide slowdown in growth and the Board has a responsibility to budget accordingly. She asked M. Sullivan if he and Claiborne are going to start talking to department heads about this. M. Sullivan responded yes.
Claiborne said County Treasurer Tom Kriz, Harney and himself got together because at the City Hall meeting he heard something that he did not understand. He said that there was talk about paying for the bonding for the building and the equipment for the Joint Communications Center from the Supplemental Fund. He said this did not make sense to him because it is double taxation. Claiborne did an amortization that he passed around. He said the talk was $22 million with a ten year pay back, and he used 5% interest, which a few months ago was pretty high. R. Sullivan asked if this was for building and equipment, not operations. He asked if this is what can be bonded for. Claiborne said yes, this is bonding only and Claiborne said Kriz thinks that 5% might be attainable after January 1, 2008. He said right now he knows that it is pushing 8% to 10% but the market needs to come back and calm down. Claiborne said he and Neuzil had discussed that because the Board took such a hit politically for the increasing tax that was purely due to the Joint Emergency Communications Center, that the overall impact needs to be keep at $.77 or below.
Claiborne said if the Board does a ten year payback the payment would be roughly $2.85 million a year. Based on the valuation of Fiscal Year 2009 they are not going to see big growth until everything calms down. He said it’s going to be $.51 and they are going to drop the General Supplemental Levy because operations will not be as high as the $2.7 million funded in Fiscal Year 2009 to get the building up and running. Claiborne said if the Board sticks to the $.77 overall General Supplemental Levy increase from FY09, and the departments have already been told there is a budget freeze, whatever was funded last year is the maximum that can be funded this year. He said budgets are expected to be at or below what they were last year. If the Board were to fund the Joint Emergency Communications Center the full $.77 there might be a slight overall tax decrease. Claiborne said the operational amount from the General Supplemental Fund will be $1,261,159. That might be low compared to what was expected, which Claiborne said he thinks is $1.75 million as operational, and that would bring it closer to $.87 which is another tax increase. He said the Board could consider telling the public there will again be a $.77 increase this year, which only provides $921,616 operational revenue for the JECC.
Claiborne said that along with the savings proposal that they talked about for useful life of equipment, rather than the Board constantly having to bond to fund replacement of equipment there are two thing that can be done. Claiborne said he talked with Assistant County Attorney Andy Chappell who approved the plan. The Board can take the replacement amount out of General Supplemental and collect that tax revenue, then release that revenue through Block Grant 20 and then they handle it from there. Claiborne said if the County withholds x-amount and drops that in the Fund 7 Department 44 which is a savings fund, capital expenditures, and lets that amount sit in savings to build interest over the years, then in seven to ten years when equipment needs to be replaced, the money will be available. Claiborne said that he and Chappell thought this idea was great but as a Board they needed to write a proposal to take to the JECC Board. He also said because the levy is not providing the $1.75 million, he thought savings could be pulled from the Sheriff's budget. He asked if the Sheriff was going to be saving $500 or $750 a year. R. Sullivan said it costs the Sheriff $700,000 to run dispatch. Claiborne said if they dropped that from the Sheriff's budget into capital expenditures then the General Supplemental line is not used and the General Basic Fund will be used to build capital expenditures for the replacement of equipment.
Harney said he is not in favor of that, because the Board promised the taxpayers that they would not be taxing for the money that's already going into the building. He said he is not in favor of spending the money they are already taxing for. Stutsman asked if that money would go into capital expenditures. Claiborne said yes, it would keep them steady. Claiborne said that at the meeting he attended at City Hall, their bond council said it would be a good idea to set up a sinking fund to avoid constantly bonding. R. Sullivan said if there had been a sinking fund already and the County, Coralville, and Iowa City were putting money into it, the County would not be in a position of having a big tax increase because they would have saved for it. Harney said there are factors that are not built into this yet. There are the E911 dollars that come down from the landlines, which naturally is decreasing constantly. There are also some of the cell phone dollars but the State has first option on that money and they share some of that. There is some savings put away for switchgear, provided that doesn’t go out before the new center goes up and he thinks that is around $1 million or more. Stutsman asked if that was in the E911 fund. Harney answered yes, and that there are also two other grants out there asking for nearly $3 million dollars. If some of those grants come through it will change the numbers considerably. Harney said what he was getting at earlier is the money that is going to the operation of the center right now should come off of that tax base and be included into what the Board is calculating now. He said he wanted that tax to come down some instead of taxing the full amount.
Neuzil said the fundamental question is whether this is a separate entity. The community and committee have all determined that this is a separate entity. The State has said that it ought to be funded separately, because it is now a countywide initiative, not just the Board of Supervisors. He would not have a problem taking dollars from the Sheriff's Office and applying them to this separate entity, as long Iowa City and other communities do that. He said he did not think those communities have any intent to do that. Stutsman said that is one of her concerns also. The Board approached this with the idea there would be some efficiencies and cost savings. She knows there will not be cost savings because of the expense of operating a joint dispatch center. She added that she didn't know there was going to be all this back filling and she really thought different entities would take their monies they were using for the dispatch and keep a steady taxing. Instead, the Board is getting the hit for raising the levy while the entities are taking all their dispatch money and spending it on who knows what. She said she feels that it is disingenuous with the taxpayers. Stutsman said she does not know how to get around this. She asked if they should hold a meeting with everyone and ask them if this is really in the taxpayers' best interest. She said for some of these entities it’s almost become a way to get additional revenues into their budget.
R. Sullivan said he thinks Iowa City has been pretty open about this. He said this is a way to take the money they would have spent on dispatch and put it into a new fire station and fund the fire fighters for that station. He said one can argue whether that is acceptable, but Iowa City has never hid that, and he thinks they felt as though the public gave them the blessing for that. He said the Board talked about not trying to respend that money because there are going to be some increases, such as salaries. Harney agreed and said the downside of putting a savings account aside like Claiborne is talking about, is that everyone will not pay fairly. He said the money would be coming out of the Supplemental Fund, whereas if they bond for it, they get into the TIF area, the areas actually utilizing the services, yet escaping paying taxes for the services. Harney said he thought everyone should pay their fair share.
Claiborne said his idea is instead of bonding every time equipment needs replacing, money could be drawn from the General Basic Fund, which is existing money on the $3.50 levy. He said that the Sheriff's Department’s budget is existing money that is already included in the $3.50. Neuzil said but then that's County dollars, and again the State has said this is a project that ought to be funded through the General Supplemental Fund countywide, separate from County expenditures. He said he does not have a problem taking additional money from the General Supplemental Levy, and telling the committee this may be a better way of holding dollars back in order to avoid bonding. He said doing anything that affects the General Fund of Johnson County is a mistake because that is not the intent of the law.
R. Sullivan said that Neuzil has said this many times before; that this may come back and bite the County so the County isn't able to hire new staff if needed, or buy new equipment. Everyone had said this would not be an issue, it's going to be separate. R. Sullivan said the way it's looking now is that Johnson County is the only one cutting back. Iowa City gets a new fire station, North Liberty gets millions of dollars of new infrastructure, and the point is that nobody cuts back except Johnson County. Stutsman said that one of the local fire department chiefs is thinking about putting sirens for his community into this levy. She said that does not fit in with joint emergency communications. She said those things should be funded within the communities' general funds and not out of the County's levy.
Neuzil said there are a couple of things that need to be worked out, one of which is giving this authority some direction on where the Board is, and what they would like to see happen. He said the other issue is what the Board is going to do with the excess dollars from the dispatch that now gets transferred into this new entity. The Board will need to know what to do with that excess. He thinks if $1.261 million is remaining, if they use partial out-of-debt services and use the rest out of the General Supplemental Fund, it will be sufficient because they are talking about half a year of funding for this coming year. He said the Board has been told that this would not come into operation until January 1, 2010. Harney said the problem is that these numbers are best guess numbers, they do not know exactly where everything is at now. He said that this tax year they have $3.7 million to get the building started, the director hired, and staff in place.
Harney said there are going to be some costs but not too much, so some of the money is going to be able to transfer towards the building, but they still need to figure out exactly where they are at. Claiborne said $22 million might be a little high, it might be more like $18 million or $19 million. Neuzil said even if it's $18 million, $19 million, or $22 million, when a 5.5% interest rate is factored in, that is $6.5 million of interest. Bonding for $22 million is really like bonding for $28.5 million. M. Sullivan said it just depends on what the markets are doing. Markets are very uneasy and they could change from that 2% area down to 5% after the first of the year. Neuzil said he hopes that they live within that $.77 because whatever the request from this entity is, the Board has to give. He said he hopes $3.7 million will be recognized as a benchmark of the limit the Board wants to tax. Claiborne said his worksheet shows both the Debt Service Levy and the Supplemental Levy equal $.77 or below. Neuzil said it would be nice if the Board could tell this particular entity that they don't want them to go beyond this. Claiborne said exactly, and that it is $1.26 million. With this bond, $.51 is already used and they have $.26 left to use. Neuzil said it would be nice to tell the taxpayers that their taxes are not going up any more and that taxes will remain level.
Harney said realistically it is going to come down quite a bit from that because the company itself will do the bid so he expects the bids to come in fairly low because they want to get their name on equipment within the facilities. He thinks it is going to be considerably lower, dropping that $22 million mark way down, just like the building dropped almost a million dollars when the actual bids came in. Neuzil said they are not factoring in the potential revenue that is still out there with the grants and cell tower revenue. Harney said the last report was they were only going to need to build two towers instead of five or six, which is a huge savings.
M. Sullivan said they are in the process of hiring a new executive director and he would assume one of the first things the JECC Policy Board is going to want is a budget. He said at that point they will have accurate information about what operations are going to look like the first year. Harney said they are interviewing on October 17, 2008 for a director position, which is the one the Board is really going to rely on so it is really important they get a good individual. M. Sullivan agreed and said he was sure they will have this person meet with the Policy Board and construct a budget. He said it is something the Board could certainly help with. R. Sullivan said there is a lot of reason to believe that in year five there will be the need for a software upgrade. He said he thinks there may be less cost up front but there will be more ongoing costs than the Board suspects. Harney said that those costs will be over a period of time. R. Sullivan said, yes but what he means is that even though there is going to be less up front there will be additional expenses as the years pass. M. Sullivan said that is the advantage to having a sinking fund. Neuzil agreed and said he thinks the Board should be giving direction.
Stutsman said unfortunately the Board gave up some control when they entered into the 28E Agreement. Neuzil said they can lobby. Stutsman agreed and said Harney has done a great job of voicing the Boards' concerns. R. Sullivan asked if the Board would be interested in scheduling a joint meeting. Stutsman, Neuzil, and R. Sullivan said yes. Neuzil said that would give the Board the ability to explain to the community where they are on the matter. He said he would like to hear from the City of Iowa City officially, if they are going to be using those dollars for a fire station, and he also would like to know how the City plans to use the money they have been saving for communications. He said he, like others, is an Iowa City taxpayer. He said he thinks the Board needs to have a better understanding of what the goals are for that committee. R. Sullivan said they have Harney as representation but they need to get all seven members together and let them know how the Board feels. Harney asked if he was talking about just the Policy Board or all the communities. R. Sullivan said he was talking about just the Policy Board. Harney said he would not mind having Coralville City Manager Kelly Hayworth and Iowa City City Manager Mike Lombardo come as well. Neuzil said they should be invited. He said he wanted to get back to the Boards' role as members of different committees. Once appointed to the committee, they are the voice of the Board of Supervisors. He felt the Board has not given enough direction to Harney. Harney said that is the fallacy with any of the commissions. Neuzil said that at that joint meeting he would like the Board of Supervisors to give Harney direction to say that the Board would like them to live within their budget of the past year, and to work out the levy together. Stutsman said she thought the Board had done this.
Neuzil said if they go beyond $ 3.7 million like last year with this last project, taxes went up and that was an eye opener for everyone. Stutsman said it was unfortunate that it was a reassessment year also. Taxpayers' assessments went up and that is what really hurt. Neuzil said taxpayers looked at their tax bill and saw the percentage increase for Johnson County, and remember that the Board had talked about putting this as a different line item on the tax bill so people understood that this is countywide. Harney said like they did for the schools. Stutsman said she thought that it was going to appear as a communications levy. Neuzil said it just comes out of the General Supplemental Fund. R. Sullivan said that was unfortunate because again Iowa City has total cover on this. The City could say their taxes went up two cents. Stutsman said Coralville could say their taxes went down.
Claiborne said he was hoping to get approval today to schedule the joint meeting. R. Sullivan said he would like M. Sullivan to schedule that. Harney said it is very important to have the new director at the meeting. M. Sullivan asked if they wanted to wait to schedule the joint meeting until after the new policy manager has been hired. Claiborne said that is why he asked M. Sullivan to put this on the agenda. If the Board is interested in setting up the sinking fund in the budget, a proposal needs to be written and taken to them quickly because they are moving awfully fast. Harney said they need to have a discussion with them about the sinking fund. On the surface he agreed with it when it was first proposed, but the problem he has with it now is he thinks they need to get into the TIF area. He said there are huge areas out there that are going to fall in on the property owners who are not involved in that. R. Sullivan said there needs to not be $750 million in TIFs. Harney asked if that makes $.08 on the bonding itself. Stutsman responded that is what was estimated. R. Sullivan said he would like to get a meeting scheduled, and if the director could be there that’s great but they are probably going to just have to schedule something.
Neuzil asked when the JECC Board meets. Harney said they meet Friday mornings. Neuzil said he wondered if they could get this on the agenda. M. Sullivan said that he would contact Iowa City Planning and Community Development Director Jeff Davidson to get that scheduled. Harney asked to have the meeting at the Administration Building so that the Auditor's Office could be present. R. Sullivan said wherever the meeting is held the Auditor will have to be present. Neuzil asked if the Board Harney sits on has come up with a budget. Harney responded not at this point. He said the Board is waiting until the bids come in. They are basing them on what they know now, the $1.7 million between the two operation costs. Neuzil said it would be nice to know what they are anticipating because obviously they are going to be requesting those dollars to come through the County's budget.
Stutsman said she would like a definition of a communication center. She said when they started this she thought is was just going to be dispatch, and now it sounds like anything that has to do with emergency management is going to go into that. Harney said that emergency management is a separate entity that will be located there and it is not going to be part of operations. Stutsman asked how the fire sirens fit into the mission of the Joint Communication Center. Harney said that had come up in a separate conversation with the fire chief in Coralville. The idea portrayed to him that the sirens are a form of communication because sirens warn people about tornadoes and things like that. This has not come before the board for a decision, it was just a superficial conversation. Stutsman said the argument can be made that the phone system be paid through this because that is communications. She said she thinks that it needs to be clarified. Harney said he did not see that happening, but he can't rule it out with certainty.
Neuzil said Stutsman brought up a good point and it would be nice to know the parameters of communication and dispatch expenses. There are going to be responsibilities that Johnson County, Iowa City, North Liberty, Coralville and anybody that has local law officers in Johnson County, to know what the parameters of these expenses are going to be. R. Sullivan asked M. Sullivan if he was going to work to get that set up. M. Sullivan responded yes. Harney asked for clarification on routine phone calls. He asked if departments will still be listed in the phone book so if there are questions for the Iowa City Police Department or Johnson County Sheriff's Office that those will go to the individual office. He said it will be the emergency 911 calls that go to the communication center. Stutsman said that is what she thought they were funding. She said she thought that it was for when people dialed 911, not for the business lines.
R. Sullivan asked, in terms of the budget proposal, does the Board want to wait on discussing this further until they have the joint meeting or does the Board want to give direction now. Harney said he would prefer to do this at the meeting but he would like to have Claiborne and M. Sullivan there if possible because they can explain things. He said he has a concern about not getting the TIF areas if they do not bond for something in the future, but it's great to be able to save and pay for it. Neuzil said this should be on the Key Issues agenda for October 22, 2008. M. Sullivan said Claiborne won't be here on October 22, 2008. Neuzil said to put the discussion on the agenda for October 23, 2008. He said if the Board wants to give direction not to use just the General Supplemental Fund but to use the Debt Services Levy so that the Board can access the TIF dollars, they need to tell them that.
Harney asked if the emergency management fund gets into the TIF areas. M. Sullivan said no, the only levy that accesses Tax Increment Financing districts under law is debt service or an enterprise zone and Johnson County does not have either. R. Sullivan said he agrees with Harney that the communications center should get into the TIF, but so should the whole General Fund. He said there are probably 50 counties that do not have $750 million in taxable valuation. M. Sullivan said there will be a fine line between the Supplemental Fund and the Debt Service Levy because if it is not looked at carefully it could end up being a tax increase. Neuzil said only if they lower the General Supplemental Fund to fill in what is being paid for out of the Debt Services Fund. Harney said he would prefer to see a constant instead of spikes. R. Sullivan said that is the problem with trying to get into the TIF areas. Claiborne said the only way to see a tax decrease is to take from the existing General Basic Fund and put that into a sinking fund because it is already there and will not go up. Then there is a reduction in the Debt Services Levy, which is a separate tax. To get a true tax decrease they would need to lower the Debt Services Levy and use existing money, but then TIF is not being utilized. R. Sullivan asked if that was fair when talking about negotiating a 3% increase for County employee’s salaries. He said it will eat that up so the idea of taking it out of the General Fund severally limits what the County can do. Claiborne said he was just looking at it totally from a tax paying standpoint. Harney said the normal operation would come out of that levy through emergency management which does not get into the TIF areas and the only way the Board can get into that is to bond for future replacement.
Stutsman asked if this is something they need to go back to the legislature for and say this needs to be revisited. Claiborne said he thinks it would allow the Board to get into the TIF without bonding. M. Sullivan said he thinks it's the reason counties across Iowa don't jump on Supplemental Levies to do joint communications things. They see the benefits of the TIF districts large communities have and they'd like to do that as well. He said that would be a benefit for everybody if the Supplemental Fund could be used for this distinct purpose within the purview of the way the law is written to access TIFed areas. Harney said that is why he thought it would be a good idea for the Board to put this back on the legislative issues agenda for November 12, 2008. Stutsman said she thought it was good for the legislators to understand the unintended consequences of large TIF districts. She said she thought the Board supported the original intent of TIF districts for economic development, but when entire areas are TIFed it does have a consequence for budgets. Stutsman said the only thing she would ask is that the Board has a proposal to take to the legislators. Claiborne said that could be very general. As a Board they could propose that the sinking fund is their Fund 7 Department 44. R. Sullivan said he thinks they would be asking to allow a joint communications levy to access TIF districts. Stutsman said for operation as well as the bond.
M. Sullivan said he thinks that shortly after the legislature passed the law concurrently, which he didn’t think was the legislature's intent at that time, they passed the law allowing the Supplemental Levy to be utilized the way it is currently being utilized. Then shortly after that, they amended the language of the law to say debt can be issued out of the Debt Service Levy for emergency communications equipment. He thought the initial draft had construction/building language that they pulled out of the final draft. He said that maybe they realized at that time that if they allow the Supplemental Levy, but get a lot of flack from counties and cities about the fact that it doesn't allow them to capture any of that increment, and they thought they would be allowed to issue Debt Service for this, then the Supplemental Levy would be utilized in theory just to fund operations and/or create a sinking fund to put money aside like it is done for County operations now. He said it is worth talking to the legislators again when they are here. He said the two laws passed so close together, the Supplemental in the spring and then by July 1, 2008 they approved issuing debt from Debt Service for construction. He thinks they realized that this new center is starting from scratch.
M. Sullivan said in order to do that the location must be declared an urban renewal district which can be done through a series of public hearings. R. Sullivan said they will be using this equipment countywide, from Swisher all the way down to Lone Tree. M. Sullivan said that is what the law limits, if they are going to do this, use the Debt Service Levy for this essential county purpose. R. Sullivan said it seemed useless to be forced to create a district when the district is the whole County. M. Sullivan said it would have been better to allow TIF access through the Supplemental Levy just for this specific purpose. R. Sullivan said that is what he thinks the Board should ask the legislators for. M. Sullivan said he would put this on the agenda and call Davidson to have him schedule the meeting for one of the Fridays. Stutsman said she thinks that the concept is so new and it seems to be what the public wants governments to do, to have regionalism and joint projects, but if this becomes a burden on one governmental entity no one will do it again. M. Sullivan said that is the other side of this issue, people start doing this and realize it isn’t what they expected, so they don't do it in the future. Stutsman said like anything new, the details need attention and she is willing to sort out the details so that it benefits the County too.
R. Sullivan said Linn County has a contested Sheriff’s race, and at one of their forums this issue came up. One person at the forum said he did not want Linn County to go down the path of Johnson County where it’s all being placed on the County. M. Sullivan said that is why Scott County was willing to work with Davenport because Scott County can utilize the Supplemental, but Davenport is issuing the debt for construction. He said they have a unique relationship because it is a county with a charter city in it.
M. Sullivan said he is still working on the long range plan for the strategic plan, but he has yet to meet with his counterpart. Stutsman said she is confused, and asked if they were supposed to take each of the performance activities and plug those in and talk about all of the tasks. M. Sullivan said yes. He said they are completing a logic model which shows what needs to be done to achieve each goal. Then it can be reviewed. Neuzil said that Meyers and he got together to talk about green initiatives. He said their issue mostly was their ability to communicate with the other entities. He said it sounded like at the last Joint Cities meeting there was agreement to work together on all of the communities that are part of the Cool Counties or Cool City initiative. He also said there was talk about the recent economic downturn and whether there is any funding for the green initiative, rural economic development, or the jail issue. He asked Claiborne and M. Sullivan if money will be set aside for strategic planning as they go through the budget process. If not, development of a green team is going to be much more difficult. M. Sullivan said it is a policy decision the Board will have to make for the budget. Claiborne said probably towards the end when the Board discusses block grants, which are intentionally the last budget meeting.
R. Sullivan said he'd like to find a means for the Board to have available to them extra money if needed. He said it is silly that the Board has to scrounge for $500 here and there but at the end of the year, if a department needs a budget amendment for $85,000, that would be available immediately. He said he doesn't know quite how to address this issue, but somehow the Board needs to have $5,000 to access if needed. Stutsman said she thought money was put aside for unexpected expenditures. R. Sullivan said they put a little aside but it is real targeted. The Board can not anticipate what is going to happen 16 months from now. Neuzil said the Board can put $5,000 towards strategic planning initiatives. R. Sullivan said then, if something falls under the broad umbrella of strategic planning the Board would have something to tap into.
Neuzil said he knows there will be more train studies, particularly with Amtrak. He asked if the Board would be willing to put any money towards that. Harney said in a conversation with a Linn County Supervisor, he learned a large amount of money is now available that is going to Denver. However, there is talk about sending $50 million back this way because of the floods and because transportation is going to be a huge portion of that. He said the Board will be contacted about that. Stutsman said she is concerned about setting up too many non-specific emergency funds which then become just a bunch of slush funds. R. Sullivan said it wouldn't be right to set aside $100,000 just in case it's needed, but on the other hand, the Board should be able to come up with $500 pretty easily. Stutsman noted that the Board always has a decent balance at the end of the year. Neuzil said some extra money may be available through grants such as the Englert Theater.
R. Sullivan said he wants the Board to think about strategic planning as an umbrella in order to gain a bit more flexibility. Neuzil said that instead of paying down the debt they might have to put some dollars away for cash reserve. Stutsman said she thought the strategic planning process includes identifying specific needs, such as the Green Team, and budgeting accordingly. R. Sullivan said he agrees but thinks it will be hard to do that. He said the Board had previously discussed the transportation issue and it was left off because the Board agreed it falls under JCCOG. However, now there is this opportunity, and he would hate to not be able to come up with $1,000, if the Board only needs $1,000 to become a player. Stutsman said coming up with $1,000 should not be a problem. R. Sullivan said the issue though is where to include it, in the budget or just take it from somewhere. Neuzil said he and Meyers struggled with the question of whether they should ask for monies in the budgets now, even though they are not quite ready for it.
Harney said that somewhere, the Board needs to have money set aside. He recalled the issue with the Local Food Initiative when the Board was worried about where they were going to come up with the money. Stutsman said again, the Board has a fund for this very thing. She said the Vision Iowa Funds came through. R. Sullivan said he'd like an update on what money is there and how much. Neuzil said the Board had taken some from the Social Services' budget two years ago and Social Services Coordinator Amy Correia requested being added to a brochure as a sponsor. R. Sullivan said Correia would have liked a bit extra but this year and that Social Services extra $2,500 all went to flood recovery. Stutsman said again she is concerned when everyone asks for a little bit of flexible money. She thinks that is the wrong path to go down and she is not at all supportive of this. If the County doesn't need the money, they should not tax for any extra money. She is aware that unanticipated situations occur, but that is what budget amendments are for. She said if department heads ask for flexible money, her answer is no. R. Sullivan said it made sense in Social Services' case. He noted that in the first year Correia did not spend the extra money and the next year it went towards flood recovery and was gone right away. Harney said sometimes one department borrows from another to pay bills, then pays the loan back, and it seems like there is always money somewhere.
Stutsman said that instead of thinking to over budget, department heads need to think about budget management and recognize where to make cuts if money is needed elsewhere. She thinks the Board needs to keep a tighter reign on departmental budgets. Claiborne said the Finance Committee is the watchdog. R. Sullivan said he doesn't want people thinking they won't get any flexibility and therefore build in extra dollars to their budgets. Stutsman asked how many budgets come in under budget at the end of the year. Neuzil said he thinks that for the next few months, strategic planning will be on hold until budgets are prepared. Stutsman said she is concerned because the last strategic planning discussion was in August, 2008. Neuzil asked if the Board is prepared for four and five hour meetings if the Key Issues Meetings are lasting three hours and Strategic Planning Meetings last at least an hour. Stutsman said if any Board member has something specific they want to budget for, they need to be thinking about that now. M. Sullivan said to give that information to Claiborne.
Neuzil said the two students in the audience are from Iowa City West High School and are job shadowing today. M. Sullivan asked the two gentlemen if they are shadowing in the government part of things. They responded, yes they are in the business professionals program.
Adjourned at 10:23 a.m.
By Nancy Tomkovicz, Recording Secretary