MINUTES OF THE INFORMAL MEETING OF THE JOHNSON COUNTY BOARD OF SUPERVISORS:
NOVEMBER 17, 2008
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Page
Discussion: Fiscal Year 2010 Department Budgets............................................................... 1
Physical Plant (17).................................................................................................... 1
Capital Improvements (85)....................................................................................... 4
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, Larry Meyers, Terrence Neuzil, Sally Stutsman, and Rod Sullivan.
Budget Coordinator Rich Claiborne said he is hoping to find a better system to give information instead of large books but otherwise he plans to address budgets the same as in past years. He said years ago they discussed having budgets all be electronic. Stutsman asked if they have enough laptops for Supervisors to use if the budgets were electronic. Claiborne said the County only has a couple of laptops. He thought the idea was better than using all the paper to put the books together. Claiborne said the budgets would be in the S drive on the computer network so all the Supervisors have access to the information. R. Sullivan said he likes the idea if everyone has access to a laptop computer. The Board agreed.
Claiborne said when Facilities Director Dave Kempf talks they will develop Department 85, but as of right now everything is complete. There are some changes to Department 17 like figuring out utilities for the new building and two additional staff positions for cleaning. Neuzil asked if he could discuss the staff requests compared to other options because it is a big change. Kempf said the change was made last year and the Board approved the two new positions in August, 2008 but Kempf has not hired them yet because of construction delays. He wants to make the hires in late November or December, 2008.
Kempf said currently custodial services are outsourced at a cost of $55,000 for services in the Administration Building, Public Health, MH/DS, and the HIV clinic. When these contracts end, the County will take over custodial services in-house. Stutsman asked what it will cost to have custodial services in-house. Kempf said since he does not address the payroll part of the positions he can't say what the figure is. In addition DHS is paying for custodial services as part of their contract at the Eastdale Mall location. Kempf said they will calculate that into the reimbursement claim process. The same will be done with Juvenile Probation because they currently pay for their own custodial services. Kempf said they are working out a reasonable rate for them based on square footage. The savings goes up from the $55,000. Neuzil said it is because they have increased revenues.
Harney asked where the wages are for the two custodians. Kempf said the number comes from the Auditor's Office and he does not have it yet. He said the pay is about $12 an hour. Stutsman asked Kempf to get a ballpark figure from Human Resources Administrator Lora Shramek. Kempf said the position is full-time starting out at $12 an hour plus benefits. R. Sullivan said erring on the side of caution if they estimated $18 an hour including benefits because the benefit package is around 37% and took the number times 2,080 hours in a year, the total is $75,000 for two people. Kempf said once they calculate in MH/DS and Juvenile Probation they will be a little over $60,000 in savings giving them better service for a minimal beginning cost. He said the contract with the custodial service provider is month to month and they can cancel with 30 days notice. R. Sullivan asked if he has let them know. Kempf said he has not given notice but the company knows it is coming.
Stutsman said if it is reasonable to think two people can handle the cleaning responsibilities of the facilities. Kempf said he thinks two people can do it and have better service. Stutsman asked what the hours of the position will be. Kempf said the positions will be advertised at the 3 p.m. to 11:30 p.m. shift. It will be important to schedule the time appropriately. Harney asked if they have equipment available. Kempf said he purchased part of the equipment and the additional equipment needed is in the budget. He has purchased regular vacuums and wide area vacuums with leftover funds from last years budget. Harney asked if the custodians will handle snow removal and will they have the equipment to perform those duties. Kempf said they will have the additional piece of equipment that is in the budget amendment but they will be using Iowa City Excavating for snow removal at the Courthouse, Administration Building, and the parking ramp for the new Health and Human Services (HHS) Building. They will be adding the HHS Building but dropping Carquest, Public Health, and MH/DS.
Neuzil said he is curious about parking equipment like bars and the computer system. Kempf said the hardware, software, and gates on the ramp were included in the building cost. He has money in the budget for doing keycard access and fencing at the Carquest building. Neuzil asked when the parking ramp will be available. Kempf said they want all the locations for employee parking on a keycard access before they open it up to everyone. The keycard access for the parking ramp is included in the building and ramp project. Kempf said he has budgeted money for the other two locations.
Kempf said he put nothing on the revenue side. Neuzil said Kempf can make a fairly decent prediction to budget for that. Kempf said there will be a large increase there. Neuzil said the original idea was the parking fees would pay for the bars and other equipment. The hope was that beyond maintenance costs the parking fees could be reinvested back for employees. Stutsman asked what Neuzil meant by reinvesting the money. Neuzil said they had discussed things like fitness equipment or partial bus passes for example. He said for the first couple of years it will be paying off arm bars and computer equipment. Stutsman said she thought they decided that parking fees would barely cover maintenance costs. Kempf said they won't know how much their maintenance costs will be until a year goes by. He said the proposed parking fees are very low.
R. Sullivan said the Parking Committee knows they need to talk more about these issues but they don't want to discuss it until everything is in place. They are targeting charging people as of February 1, 2009. Stutsman said they need to dispel the myth that they are making money on the parking. Kempf said he tries to stress that the parking fee is a token payment because it is half of what anyone else in the area charges for parking. He said a portion of the proceeds from parking will likely go towards ongoing maintenance costs. R. Sullivan said they are not budgeting anything for the Carquest parking lot and assumes TriCon will be building a new parking lot. Kempf confirmed that and said it might not get done until Spring of 2009.
Stutsman asked if the rental for City Carton parking was in the budget. Kempf said it was in the budget but it will be eliminated. He said $14,400 will drop off the budget. Stutsman asked why there is a reduction in the building repairs maintenance. Kempf said there should be a reduction for the Courthouse, Jail, and Administration Building. Some of the projects were completed with funds set aside for projects done in 2008. Kempf said he put money in for a few small projects but mostly for unforeseen things. He said they are in good shape for preventative maintenance so he put other things on hold to try to keep the budget steady.
Kempf said his department has a $38,648 overall reduction. He tried to cover the increases for the expenses on the HHS Building. Kempf said he based the gas, electric, and water bills on the energy usage study that they have the White Group and MidAmerican Energy do for them to project energy savings with green initiatives they are doing in the new building. Kempf said MidAmerican Energy is frustrating to deal with to get an estimate of the increase. He took his estimates based on the study they did for the rebuilding. Kempf said for garbage collection, maintenance supplies, and snow removal he based the figure on past experience usage in other County buildings. Neuzil asked if there are any strategies for additional energy savings. Kempf said it is something they should be working towards. They are switching everything to compact fluorescent lights and small changes that are covered in the maintenance supply budget. The HVAC system will be addressed when they renovate and they will be looking for a more efficient boiler system. Harney asked if MidAmerican Energy offers commercial allowances for energy efficiency. Kempf said yes. He said the County will get a sizable rebate for the new HHS Building. There may also be some rebates available for the boiler.
R. Sullivan asked what the status of custodial services at SEATS and Secondary Roads has been and will be. Kempf said they have contract cleaning and plan to continue. R. Sullivan asked if that is in their budget. Kempf said it is in Secondary Roads budget because they pay for it themselves. They will see a slight overall increase. R. Sullivan asked if SEATS will pay Secondary Roads for the services. Kempf said the way they do this with the utility costs is to break it up 60/40 based on square footage and the public spaces will be split 50/50. He said he gave them some estimates based on energy assumptions. Each department will pay a portion of utilities. Meyers asked if they will each make a separate utility payment or will it be under one department. Kempf said he is not sure how bookkeeping will handle it. They will approach it one of two ways; either one will make the full payment and do a department transfer reimbursement or they will each pay half. Kempf said he offered to pay and then bill SEATS and Secondary Roads but each department head said they felt they had the support staff to handle payment.
Neuzil asked about investing in recycling containers that separate a little bit better. Kempf said part of the LEED accreditation is having recycling and green cleaning programs. Currently the County is recycling paper and cartons. Neuzil said it would be nice to have recycling bins in food areas.
Meyers asked what building rents they collect. Kempf said they collect rent on the Fisher Building. Meyers said they get $36,000 in rent out of the building. Kempf said they hope to. He just finished a conversation with River City Property Management and he learned it is becoming more expensive to maintain and a little harder to rent so he told them they do not want to renew any of the leases after July 30, 2009. Stutsman said the long term tenant is gone. Kempf said the tenant left a year ago because of severe health issues. R. Sullivan asked how Kempf proposes they use the space. Kempf said he proposes they take the building down because it requires too many repairs and is inefficient. He said once they move the Veteran's Affairs Office out and get the storage facility running at SEATS and Secondary Roads, it will be time to take the building down. Stutsman asked how much they pay in property taxes on the Fisher property. Kempf said he does not know how much but County Treasurer Tom Kriz knows more about property taxes. On the revenue side it is very minimal.
Harney said if they tear the building down it will go off the tax rolls the following year. Kempf agreed. R. Sullivan said they only pay on a portion of the building though. Kempf said it is very similar to Iowa City's situation with the three houses on Harrison and Capitol Street that have gotten to a point where they pay more to maintain them than what they get in revenues. Harney said the City has never responded to the County on those houses. R. Sullivan said they are working with Assistant County Attorney Andy Chappell.
Claiborne said they have nothing for Department 85 yet. Kempf said he and County Sheriff Lonny Pulkrabek have met with Neumann Monson to get preliminary plans of what to do with the dispatch space in the Jail and moving the intake and booking down to the first floor from. The rough estimate is $250,000 to rework the space. He said another issue is demolition expenses for the National Guard Amory property. If the County is saddled with that responsibility, the cost estimate is $250,000. Kempf added that this estimate assumes the building has been cleared of asbestos and other contaminates. R. Sullivan said the National Guard is trying to get FEMA to fund this. Kempf said FEMA is evaluating the Armory like any other house which requires the building to have sustained damage of over 50% of the value. He said there is a question whether they will reach that as the appraised value was about $1.5 million.
Stutsman asked if there will be site expenses to redo the property after demolition. Kempf said he would like to return it to green space for a short time. Part of the demolition package will be creating a level lot. R. Sullivan asked if they are referring to demolition for the Armory property, the Fisher Building, and the three houses. Kempf said they have considered the Armory, but not the Fisher Building or the three houses. Meyers said they don't want to demolish the houses until they are sure of their plans for the Jail. The City of Iowa City also has a buyback option. Kempf said his opinion is to not tear the houses down. Harney said he does not want to have the liability of the houses sitting there. Kempf said they can keep them closed up for a year with little risk. He estimated $30,000 for demolition costs for the Fisher Building.
Neuzil said he hates to wait on the Armory demolition. Kempf said he knows Harney has been talking to Iowa National Guard Colonel James Reefer about the issue. FEMA has been through and done their assessment as well as several department heads who conducted their own damage appraisal. Kempf said the damage appraisal needs to include what the National Guard spent in manpower and labor for flood clean up and the removal of asbestos, lead, and some underground tanks. Harney said he has been working with Colonel Reefer to get things cleaned up at the Armory and the County has a contract stating the County would tear the building down once they got it. He said the building itself as it was, was the County's other than removal of asbestos, hazardous material and gas tanks which were contracted when they made the trade. Harney said after the flood came, even though the National Guard moved out, they held up their end of the bargain and removed the hazardous materials and gas tanks. Harney said that now they have applied to FEMA to tear the building down but the problem is that inspectors from all sources can only come up with damage at 27% of the value of property. Therefore it doesn't look like FEMA will fund the demolition. Neuzil said 27% of $1 million is $270,000. Harney said the bid to tear it down was from $250,000 to $500,000 depending on what they have to do but the asbestos removal probably gets the figure closer to $500,000. Harney said FEMA will not pay anything for it because the damage estimate is not over 50% of the value. Neuzil said when they consider the possibility of razing the building there is some value in the structure. Harney said they have to wait until FEMA's numbers are in. If FEMA will agree to incorporate the cost for clean-up and asbestos removal the damage might reach the 50% mark. Neuzil clarified that the Board is committed to razing the building. R. Sullivan said to recap they do not have the demolition expenses in the budget. Kempf said it would be in Department 85 which Claiborne is working on. Neuzil said the guidance they gave departments was to freeze operational expenses or get them close to the FY09 budget. Neuzil asked how much they put into Department 85 last year. Claiborne said $5.4 million. Kempf said even if they do everything they will see a huge decrease. R. Sullivan said historically, if they had money left they would pay ahead.
Neuzil asked if Kempf allocated for a new vehicle in the budget. Kempf said he did not think they would be able to buy any new vehicles this year. Neuzil said one idea was to keep a line item to save for future vehicles. Kempf said he has allotted for some new equipment for snow removal which will appear in the upcoming budget amendment. Neuzil asked Kempf about a storage facility for his office and workstation. Kempf said he has office space programmed in the new building. His next computer upgrade will be to a laptop with docking stations. Neuzil asked where the storage space currently in the Administration Building will be relocated. Kempf said the former shop space has been cleaned out and turned over to the Auditor's Office. Neuzil asked if the storage building on Capitol Street is still occupied with shop items. Kempf said they have moved a lot of their items out and he is hoping to trade some of that space for parking.
Neuzil said if there is exercise equipment a lot of employees may drop their gym memberships and put that investment into parking. Kempf said that in the future, they will have to discuss if State employees would have access to the exercise equipment and if so, should they be charged for it because they are not County employees. Kempf said this is based on advice from County Insurance Agent of Record Bob Saunders. Harney asked if Saunders sees any insurance related problems with this. Kempf said no. Neuzil asked if there is space for an exercise room on the third floor. Kempf said yes.
Adjourned at 10:02 a.m.
______________________________________________________________________
Attest: Tom Slockett, Auditor
By:
On the _______ day of _____________________, 2009
By Nancy Tomkovicz, Recording Secretary
Sent to the Board of Supervisors on March 20, 2009 at 4:40 p.m.