MINUTES OF THE INFORMAL MEETING OF THE JOHNSON COUNTY BOARD OF SUPERVISORS:
NOVEMBER 18, 2008
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Page
Human Resources Department Administrator Lora Shramek: Voting Time................................. 1
Human Resources Department Administrator Lora Shramek: Non-bargaining Compensation and Classification Study....................................................................................................................................... 2
Information Services Director Jean Schultz: Network Cleanup................................................... 3
Board of Supervisors: State Legislative Issues.......................................................................... 4
Board of Supervisors:Federal Legislative Issues........................................................................ 4
Board of Supervisors: Parking Policies and Implementation....................................................... 5
Reports/updates from Department Heads................................................................................. 6
Scheduling 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, Terrence Neuzil, and Larry Meyers.
Department heads present were: Ambulance Director Steve Spenler, City Assessor Dennis Baldridge, County Attorney Janet Lyness, County Engineer Greg Parker, County Sheriff Lonny Pulkrabek, County Treasurer Tom Kriz, Human Resources Administrator Lora Shramek, Information Services Director Jean Schultz, Mental Health/Disabilities Services Director Kris Artley, Public Health Director Douglas Beardsley, SEATS Director Tom Brase, Social Services Director Amy Correia, and Veterans Affairs Commission Director Leo Baier. Staff present were: Board of Supervisors Executive Assistant Mike Sullivan, and Auditor’s Office Recording Secretary Nancy Tomkovicz.
Human Resources Administrator Lora Shramek said paid voting time usually comes up once during an election. Iowa Code Section 49.109 talks about employee’s entitlement to vote. Essentially employees must be allowed three consecutive hours between poll opening and closing to vote. If an employee’s work shift does not allow that, then the employee must be granted time off to vote. She said she can think of employee's in the Sheriff's office who work 7:00 a.m. to 7:00 p.m. who would need this time off. County Sheriff Lonny Pulkrabek said they did honor the request they received. Shramek said unpaid time can be combined with paid time but there can not be a reduction of salary or wages on account of such absence. With the polls being open from 7:00 a.m. to 9:00 p.m. she does not think this applies to many positions, maybe some in the Ambulance Department.
Shramek said the Board selected the Austin Peters Group as Johnson County's consultant on the non-bargaining compensation and classification study. There are 169 positions that fall under the non-bargaining classification. The last comprehensive study was completed in 1997. The current study is being done to ensure that the County’s non-bargaining pay plan structure remains competitive within the market. An RFP work group of volunteers consisting of Building Inspector III Neil Bombei, GIS Specialist Jay Geison, Supervisor Larry Meyers, Assistant MH/DS Director Jan Shaw, Ambulance Director Steve Spenler, Assistant Office Manager Rhonda Yoder, and Human Resources Coordinator Vanessa Wierman reviewed the top proposals, interviewed the companies, and checked references before making a unanimous recommendation to the Board. Austin Peters was selected because of their Human Resources and Public Administration background. She said they are approachable, flexible, and have experience with Midwest public entities. More specifically they conducted similar studies for the City of Iowa City and also North Liberty. She said the study cost will not exceed $38,734, and that will include employee education, customized meetings and interviews with elected officials, department heads, and managers, position evaluation questionnaires, interviews and meetings with every employee that wishes to speak with Austin Peters Group, and a customized market survey and analysis.
Shramek said the duration of the project is expected to be four months, with a target implementation date of July 1, 2009. They are probably going to get started in December, 2008. The check was mailed to Austin Peters today and once that is received a timeline can be set. Human Resources staff will be contacting individual departments. Their next step is to prepare job descriptions, which has been a priority for Human Resources. Every elected official and department head who has non-bargaining positions within their department should make that a priority also. There is not much lead time before the July 1, 2009 implementation date. She said they are going to need to tap into some of the expertise of the department heads and elected officials to form another work-group as the study progresses. County Attorney Janet Lyness asked if the study doesn’t get done until after the budget is finalized and yet there is a recommendation for increasing some salaries, is there going to be a way to do that within the budget. Shramek said they have $200,000 set aside total, which includes the consultant’s fee as well as recommendations for pay increases. She said she does not think there would be a lot of adjustments overall, that it will not be near the magnitude they had during the first study.
R. Sullivan said he likes that this consultant promotes sustainability so the County will not have to hire another one in five years. Shramek said they will train and set the County up for ongoing success. She said this should be a one-time fix. R. Sullivan said Human Resources and elected officials and department heads will have the ability in the future to evaluate positions without outside help. Stutsman asked what the work-group will be doing. Shramek said they are going to need more assistance as they get into values with the positions. Harney said the Board is committed to doing this study, but they are not sure about the implementation process. If there are a lot of big changes they may not be able to afford to do those right away. Shramek said just as a reminder, when they had the first study they did a two-part phase in process and if they have to do that again that is a possibility.
County Sheriff Lonny Pulkrabek asked for clarification about the survey. Shramek said it is a job-evaluation questionnaire. Pulkrabek asked if that is mandatory or voluntary. Shramek said she hopes that employees would want to complete the surveys. Spenler said if employees didn’t complete the survey it would not benefit them because they wouldn’t be able to display what their job details are so the chance of them getting an increase would be less. He said it is to their advantage to complete the surveys. Shramek said if it is a job classification with multiple incumbents the survey isn't as important, for example if it was deputy sheriff which is a bargaining position. She said if it was a single incumbent position and someone refused to fill out the survey the supervisor would need to complete the survey and job description. She said they haven’t run into that problem yet.
Information Services Director Jean Schultz requested department heads to encourage employees to clean up their network files and their emails. People have several copies of files and a lot of emails. There are 11 trillion terabytes of storage and all but 1.3 are in use. The main storage on the network is on a local storage area network, SAND, and data is backed up twice so that if a drive goes down files can still be automatically accessed. Every night data is copied to a remote storage area network and backed up on tapes. Right now they have three back up jobs on tapes and it takes about twelve hours per night. Some people say storage is not cheap, but it really isn't especially when making multiple copies for disaster recovery. This year alone over $30,000 was spent on storage. She said as a reminder, use space wisely, keep what is needed and clean up what can be cleaned. City Assessor Denny Baldridge asked if there is a priority on which files need to be cleaned up, targeting emails with attachments. Schultz said it would be very helpful to clean up emails. If a lot of email is stored, response time is going to slow down. She said they are looking into archival systems, which is cheaper storage with a slower access time. She said files that are rarely accessed can be stored on the archival system.
Pulkrabek asked Schultz to send an email with all these suggestions to all employees. Schultz said she will do that. Public Health Director Douglas Beardsley asked if there were any legal guidelines on what to do with emails that contain official documents. He asked if there is guidance on what they have to keep and what is acceptable to get rid of. Lyness said to keep important documents but that the County does not have an email policy. Schultz said daily backups are kept for two weeks, weekly backups are kept for two months, and monthly backups are kept for a year. Files within the last two weeks can be retrieved immediately, files from five weeks ago could be retrieved as of how they were on Friday night, and files from four months ago can be retrieved as of how they were at end of the month. She said that is pretty standard practice. Spenler asked if he deletes something today and wants to retrieve it tomorrow can that be done. Schultz said they do some snapshots where they could get it back if it is in the same day, but for sure they could get it if it was there for one nights backup, and the nightly backups start at 6:00 p.m. and finish the next morning around 7:00 a.m. or 8:00 a.m. She said if a file is created in the morning and deleted in the afternoon, then they may or may not be able to retrieve it.
R. Sullivan said they are trying to be proactive with this now so that in a year, the same requests are not necessary and employees are keeping their systems under control. He said they are hopeful everyone will be cooperative and proactive with this now to prevent it from becoming a big problem. Schultz said if files are cleaned up on a regular basis, it is a lot easier than having thousands of emails to clean up later. She said she will send out an email with this information.
R. Sullivan said they have scheduled a meeting with legislators that represent Johnson County for Tuesday, December 2, 2008 at 6:00 p.m. He asked Executive Assistant Mike Sullivan who will be attending. M. Sullivan said State Senator Joel Bolkcom and State Representative Vicki Lensing said they will be here and State Representative Ro Foege said he is not coming. M. Sullivan said he has not heard from the others yet.
County Engineer Greg Parker asked to request the State stop passing unfunded mandates to the County because it is getting crazy. The County receives minimal reimbursements funding to repair roads the State transferred to the County. He said these are big ticket items and it all adds up and he knows other departments are feeling the same pain. He said the State is feeling the crunch too and that is why they are passing the burden to the County. R. Sullivan said this is the kind of information to bring to the State Legislative meeting, and he suggested including as much data as possible.
R. Sullivan said they had a meeting with representatives from Senator Harkin, Senator Grassley, and Congressman Loebsack’s offices last week. The representatives helped the Board to better understand the best communication practices. He added that if anyone wants to discuss any Federal issues they should let the Board know and they will present those to the legislatures who are willing to help whenever needed. He said at that meeting they also talked about some of the issues the Board would bring up in Washington D.C. He asked the department heads to contact him if there were any issues they wanted the Board members to present in Washington D.C. Spenler asked what is currently on the agenda. R. Sullivan said the main focus will be on some different road issues with Federal funds available, trails, the light rail possibility with Amtrak into Iowa City from the Quad Cities, and between Cedar Rapids and the Iowa City, and the GSA property and whether those folks would be willing to help out with that.
R. Sullivan said Facilities Manager David Kempf wanted to be present when they discussed this issue but he couldn’t be here. County Treasurer Tom Kriz said they are looking at implementing a system like the key card where it will be tied to employee access cards like the locks are. They have worked with the Auditor’s Office to set up the payroll deduction for that. Kempf has not been able to tell when anything will arrive so they do not have a date. Tentatively February 1, 2009, is the target date for implementation. He said as of now they don’t know if that date will be possible.
Kriz said the Carquest lot has to be fenced and gated, and the Armory lot also needs work. He said the main lot at the Administration Building will remain open primarily for customer traffic and will not be gated. They are also looking at systems for the State people involved and how they will pay for this since they don't receive a check from the County. That will be a project between the Auditor's and Treasurer's Offices. Kriz mentioned the possibility of a limited-access key card for certain number of parking admissions. This would be useful to the person who randomly drives. They could purchase a key card that will log them in so they can park for example, 10 days for X amount of dollars and after 10 days, that card is no longer valid.
Kriz said he worked with Account Clerk II Carla Scherbring from the Auditor's office and they are ready to go with payroll deductions. Stutsman asked what date they put on the flex benefit spending accounts. Kriz said Scherbring has discouraged people from using that at this point, but he believes that can be picked up at a different time. The transportation account can start at anytime and any unused money does carry over, unlike the dependent care.
Neuzil said in the last Board discussion they talked about parking costs of $1.50 a day up to $25 a month. The idea is if people car pool a couple of days a week they will save quite a bit of money. The idea is to encourage carpooling and the reason the cost is $1.50 is because bus rides are $.75 per ride and if it is less than a $1.50 it's actually cheaper to drive than to take the bus. That is not a message the Board wants to send to the public. Social Services Director Amy Correia asked when the policy will be finalized. Neuzil said each day employee's park in the ramp, there will be a $1.50 deduction on their key card with a maximum charge of $25 per month. R. Sullivan said Kempf doesn’t have the actual technology yet so no one knows exactly how it will work and that Kempf hasn’t had the chance to price that out yet. Kriz said that has to work in conjunction with Information Services and they are still waiting on that. Kriz said he has talked to the City and they informed him they will be metering completely down Clinton and Dubuque Streets. He said that will be metered this spring.
Lyness asked what the parking policy will be for County employees who work offsite and have business at the Administration Building, including Secondary Roads, SEATS, Sheriff's Office, County Attorney, and Conservation. R. Sullivan responded that as he understands it, they would probably park in the public parking. If it was someone that had to be here so frequently like Assistant County Attorney Andy Chappell or Parker they may get a space assigned for the department. Kriz said the Administration lot will not be gated so it would be very similar to how it is now when Chappell or Parker come to the Administration Building for County business. Neuzil said it is just for the employees of the campus. R. Sullivan said he thinks Kempf has plans this summer to add parking equipment at the Courthouse and at the Jail. He said there are just enough concerns about cars that shouldn’t be parking there so Kempf feels these areas need to be secured. Kriz said once this is all done the County will be vacating the parking at City Carton which currently costs $1,200 a month.
Mental Health/Disability Services Director Kris Artley said they are being inundated with new ways to track time and it's starting to push everyone’s buttons. They are seeing phenomenal growth in people coming through the doors. This will force them into making severe decisions about how they are going to stay afloat. She said the numbers in October were off the charts. That is a quarterly billing cycle and she is waiting to see what happens in November, 2008.
SEATS Director Tom Brase said they are scheduled to move on December 24, 2008. They are going to have a short disconnect with the phones during the moving time. They have posted it in the vehicles and notified anyone who usually calls in and schedules. He said Information Services has helped a lot with the roll-over for the front office phones. Brase said they hope to keep their scheduling software up. They have their Paratransit Advisory Committee Meeting on December 2, 2008 which will be at the new facility. He said he just returned from an Iowa Public Transit Association meeting where he attended an excellent course on vehicle and facility maintenance.
Parker said departmental staff are doing tree and brush trimming activities on Rapid Creek Road so he advised the Board they may be getting phone calls. They haven’t done this in five to seven years. They will be heavily involved in that operational activity with the maintenance staff until snow or ice hits. Parker said 500th Street has been completed, that is from Frytown west of the County line. They have also completed Calkins Avenue bridge replacement. Two current projects are Curtis Bridge Road which is currently getting asphalt today. He said they are going to put the base coat on now and hold off until spring to put on the surface coat. He said the operational activity should be done by the end of the week if not the first part of next week. The Cottage Reserve Road project is ongoing and they are anticipating that should be done in a couple of weeks.
Baldridge said they are preparing for a Conference Board Meeting with annual reports, budgets, new construction and those sorts of things. He said they are not looking for a lot of increases for reappraisal for this year.
Correia said for the last year or two she served on a voluntary certification program to promote universal design. They launched that program last week and there is a booklet and information on the Homebuilder's Association website right now. The Homebuilder’s Association is their partner on this project. She said builders who want to build a home using universal design features will apply for certification through the building department. Once the building passes inspection and an occupancy permit is issued, they will receive a certificate and a plaque. They are planning the free tax preparation clinics which will get started in February, 2009. This is in collaboration with the University of Iowa Tippie College of Business. She will send out the flyer about that once it is finalized and information will be posted on the County website. Correia said the Eagles Club contacted the Social Services Department about collaborating in a toy exchange for kids and families that were impacted by the flood. She said Social Services staff will participate in the toy exchange as a volunteer service project on December 20, 2008. She asked that anyone else interested in participating in this to contact Correia. She said this afternoon they are getting ready to issue the RFPs for Juvenile Justice Youth Development. Funding for juvenile crime prevention was passed this morning so the RFP for that will also be on the website.
Information Services Director Jean Schultz said they have done quite a bit of work on the moves for SEATS and Secondary Roads for the new building and also the Health and Human Services building with phones and networking. They will be working with the Sheriff's Office for the MDT expansion and car video system. They wrote an absentee ballot tracking system for the Auditor's office. This ballot tracking program allows people to see if ballots have been received or mailed. They also wrote a routine that helped speed up the processing on election night. She said GIS roadmaps are at the printers right now and they should be here by the end of November, 2008. Each department will receive one copy and others will be available for purchase. They received the first shipment of the 2008 orthophotographies and they are starting the quality control process on that. Schultz said those should be completed by the end of December, 2008. She said they have also added lot dimensions to GIS online.
Veteran Affairs Director Leo Baier attended the Fall School of Instruction. He said the pension center has been moved from Des Moines, Iowa to St. Paul, Minnesota due to the amount of paperwork. They are searching for a new office director. He said the current director, Mr. Bailey has been in Des Moines since 2006, and he has been called back home to be the director of Boston’s office. He said the Veteran's Cemetery is a great facility. He attended the Veteran's Service Officer quarterly meeting. He said he was impressed that the budget for 2009 was completed. There will be a new community out-patient clinic in Linn County, Iowa which should be completed in April of 2009. Also at the Veteran's Service Officer's meeting he learned that $16.5 million has been earmarked for renovations for the 7th and 9th floor of the VA. He said there is a new honor flight network where WWII veterans are offered a free trip to observe the WWII monument in Washington D.C. He said if anyone is interested to let Baier know because he has the applications. He said it is a one day trip, the WWII veterans go free but any guardians who accompany them will pay about $550.
Lora Shramek said the first round of collective bargaining is finished. She had a pre-renewable meeting with Wellmark BlueCross and BlueShield of Iowa and it does not look good. They already have had six claims in excess of $50,000. She said last year they had a total of seven claims and so they are looking at an increase and hopes to minimize it as much as possible. She said November 2008 is the open enrollment month for health care coverage which will end November 30, 2008 for an effective date of January 1, 2009. Flexible spending open enrollment for the medical dependent care ends November 21, 2008. Employees can enroll in the transportation account later, as soon as the County knows the costs and start date.
Spenler said call volume is up about 8% over the last fiscal year. He said they had a busy football season responding to 80 calls in the seven-game home game schedule. This averaged about 11 and a half calls per game. He said on the streets during those days, their average call volume was a little over 30 calls a day which is about 10 calls more than the average. He said they attain some revenue for the games. Ambulance billed out over $21,000 for the Iowa State game and close to $27,000 for the Wisconsin weekend.
Lyness said they are finally full staffed. They just hired a new full-time Assistant County Attorney who will handle primarily domestic and sexual abuse. She said the new attorney served in the Cook County State's Attorney's Office for seven years so she is experienced.
Pulkrabek said on November 21, 2008 they are having a retirement recognition celebration for Clerk I Margie Stanton. He said their numbers are also up and it seems to be getting worse. They area doing a media release, but too many road signs, especially the ones that are anchored down, are getting pulled out by trucks. He said this has been going on for about a year and a half and they have tried different things and they are not successful in catching these perpetrators. He said the County is losing thousands of dollars over the last year and a half so they are trying to appeal to the public to get some information. He said they asked Crime Stoppers for some money to put towards this issue and they have agreed to help.
Kriz said that in Johnson County tax collections are actually ahead of where they were at this time last year. They are seeing a change in motor vehicles, the real high-end vehicles are still selling at a rapid rate, there is a big drop in the middle, and then the lower end cars have been very good. He said there are big changes with vehicle licensing and they mailed notices to that affect this month. It will be cheaper to renew it in December, 2008 than it will be after the first of the year. Rates will change and vehicles purchased after January, 2009, rates and fees will continue to increase. The fees the County receives will not increase, but this will generate a lot more State revenue. He said they received word today that the new stickers for next year will be white. In closing, Kriz said that $2.00 per gallon gas is a $100 billion stimulus to the economy.
Neuzil said that Employee Recognition is scheduled for December 18, 2008 at 11:30 a.m. and he added it would be great if award recipients are actually present at the ceremony. R. Sullivan said the Board will serve sandwiches, other food, and cake.
R. Sullivan said the next meeting will be January 20, 2009 at 1:30 p.m.
Adjourned at 2:21 p.m.
By Nancy Tomkovicz, Recording Secretary