• Information Services Director Jean Schultz: FY 2001 Budgets
  • Technology Department (40)
• County Auditor Tom Slockett, Deputy Auditor Chris Edwards, and Deputy Auditor Dan Stolze: FY2001 Budgets

Chairperson Stutsman called the Johnson County Board of Supervisors to order in the Johnson County Administration Building at 9:06 a.m. Members present were: Charles Duffy, Jonathan Jordahl, Mike Lehman, Sally Stutsman, and Carol Thompson.

Information Services Director Jean Schultz presented the Technology requests submitted by the departments. The first 2 requests were for Ambulance, software for billing ($1,125) and time accounting ($625). Plotter maintenance ($748 & $1,600) was submitted by the Auditor. She discussed with the Board the need to keep a maintenance agreement on some equipment because of the risk that the costs for time and materials may be higher on repair calls for that equipment if not on a maintenance contract. She noted that individual PCs and printers aren’t on maintenance contracts. She said there is some replacement money to cover the possibility of one of the older printers not on a maintenance contract breaking down.

Schultz distributed a sheet showing new requests. She said a number of the requests were tied to new positions, citing the first line, a $2,000 request, for a computer for a proposed Assistant Attorney. Schultz asked Deputy Auditor Mark Kistler to explain the plotter memory upgrade. He explained the newer, faster plotter doesn’t have enough memory to plot large, complex drawings and the older pen plotter is very slow. ArcView software requests were listed for the Auditor ($1,300), Public Health ($1,200), Planning and Zoning, and Secondary Roads. Thompson asked if the GIS Committee agreed these offices should have this software. Jordahl said a pilot project was approved in the Auditor’s Office. Schultz said the Committee said departments should make individual requests. The Board asked about the status of the report on GIS from Farragut Systems, Inc. Schultz explained there are some cost estimates for various approaches in the preliminary report and a full report will be delivered in February. She said the final report would include software recommendations. She said a draft of the preliminary report had some cost estimates for various options for conversion of the Auditor’s files. She said they could follow the model discussed earlier for document management, combining the amount of the requests by the departments together, and ask for a plan before spending the money. Thompson asked if adding the software in those offices would be manageable for Information Services staff. Schultz said the Farragut report would make recommendations on training for Information Services staff, as well as other departments. Schultz discussed with the Board the process in which the Planning and Zoning Administrator acquired ArcView in order to view data already available from the State, not to develop a GIS, and this was done with approval by the committees.

Schultz explained that the next request of $2,000 was for a new computer and Office software for a proposed accounting position in the Auditor’s Office. Next was $4,000 and $800 for 2 new computers and software for 2 proposed new positions in the Auditor’s Real Estate division. The first 2 requests ($2,000 and $2,000) for Public Health were for new proposed positions. The Public Health proposal for a laptop computer ($2,000), was an addition to the one in that department and 2 in Information Services that may be checked out. Because this was a lower priority the Board cut the lap top out.

Schultz said the Human Resources request ($395) was for a printer for the Human Resource Assistant whose desk is located in another office. Due to confidentiality concerns, she shouldn’t use a printer in that office at some distance from her desk.

Schultz said the Information Services request for software purchase ($6,000) was programming related software for use within Information Services and listed applications that include programming language updates to Visual Basic, productivity software, software for special forms to save printing costs. The computer/printer purchase request ($12,000) would replace either of the 2 older printers (one would be $10,000) that can no longer be kept under a maintenance agreement and also would be used for replacement of either of 2 older terminals with PCs. The payroll/financial software request is adding $55,000 to $45,000 budgeted the prior year. Thompson asked if this would be enough money. Schultz said it depends on the scope. Jordahl suggested, due to the magnitude of the investment, a needs assessment for financial software may be needed. Stutsman said they may also look at cooperation with the City of Iowa City and Iowa City School District regarding this type of software purchase. Schultz said the City is waiting for awhile to make a decision.

Schultz said the Sheriff’s Department request ($6,000) is for the AS400 upgrade in 2002 (an $18,000 total). The SEATS requests ($5,700, $410, and $6,000) are for computers and software for 3 proposed positions.

Schultz said the Treasurer’s Office request for bar coding equipment is not a new request; it is a carryover from the previous year ($4,500). She said it will save time on keying in parcel numbers. The Tax Department PC request ($1,900) adds 1 PC to the 2 PCs in that area. Schultz added that they also are adding 1 PC ($1,900) to the 3 PCs in the Motor Vehicle end, which includes the ones used by the Treasurer and Deputies. She reported they are slowly upgrading terminals to PCs, so more of the staff may learn how to use PCs. Schultz said the Motor Vehicle/Tax Department with the MasterCard/Visa equipment is also carryover money, not a new spending request. Lehman said he thinks this is not yet being done for taxes. Schultz said the next one is the imaging system for the Treasurer. She said it is placed under Central Technology because they are pooling the money for Document Management for the 3 departments funds for the equipment. She said the $30,000 is included in that money and to be sure not to budget it twice. She said the $3,000 from Department 14, to replace the old printers is covered by the Technology account 5 year replacement program and does not need earmarking for the Treasurer.

She said Department 19, which is Planning and Zoning, the Document Management again is under the amount requested by the committee to combine the $30,000 for imaging. Duffy asked what is in the combination. Schultz said there is money from the Treasurer, Planning and Zoning and the Auditor’s Office to do Document Management. She said the idea is they want to do more study and investigation of if it will cost less for it to be a combined project and how many scanners will be needed or if each department needs one. She said the recommendation by the Document Management Subcommittee and County Computer Committee is to, instead of having the 3 projects putting the money together as one, to come up with a plan and present it before the money is actually spent. She said she wants to make sure that if the $75,000 is put in the budget, that the Board not budget individually for these departments so it is only budgeted once. Jordahl asked where the $75,000 will appear as a lump. Schultz said it will need to be another account in that same department someplace. Pillard said it can be called Document Management, line item hardware/software purchases. Schultz said the money can be spent for those 3 projects and then if it doesn’t cost as much then there is a choice and it will be the Board’s decision to either spend less money or add something else to be done. She said the Department 18 and 19 requests, along with the Auditor and Elections, would be in one line item in Department 18, earmarked for imaging. The computer equipment and software for Department 19 includes a new person.

Schultz said the Department 33, Elections, request for the paper clip license and scanner are part of the combined document management. Thompson asked if the rest of the $75,000 is staff. Schultz said she thinks that there is a half-time person for 6 months requested by the Auditor’s Office. Pillard said the $75,000 is with the document management. Thompson said this only comes up to $66,000. Pillard said that is only the technology part of it and doesn’t include the part-time staff person. Pillard said Slockett is proposing doing it different than what the Treasurer and Planning and Zoning are proposing. She said Slockett is proposing getting equipment and having a person in his office start from today and go forward, whereas the other 2 departments are proposing to continue on but they have a backlog of information that they want to have scanned in. Schultz said the voting equipment is for replacement of existing equipment. She said Slockett is saving up and has $50,000 this year saved and requests $100,000 savings for next year.

Schultz said the Department 49, Secondary Roads, request is for an assistant to the engineer position for Eagle Point and AutoCAD software. She said the ArcView software is also GIS related.

Schultz said that last year there were more items that people listed that the Central Technology account covers. She said she thinks departments understand how that process goes better and so, unfortunately she couldn’t subtract out as much and tell the Board that there are as many things this year as covered in another area. Pillard said she would update the amount listed for interest and unallocated funds. She said the total on this page included the maintenance contracts.

Lehman said there is $8,700 for GIS equipment. He said there is equipment for new employees in GIS about $38,000.

Deputy Auditor Chris Edwards explained the 3 packets distributed to the Board, an explanation of the budget worksheet, the budget worksheet, and a sheet showing the impact of the highest requests. He reviewed the explanation. He said the worksheet includes the basic expenditures for all of the departments. He said that the personnel items include all step and merit increases, cost of living increases for the 2 bargaining units that are settled and an estimated 2% cost of living increase for all the non-settled bargaining units, as well as elected officials deputies, management and other employees set by the Board.

Edwards explained that the General Basic tax levy fund is limited to $3.50 per thousand evaluation. He said the General Supplemental fund is not limited, but can only be used for specific purposes that are listed in the Code. He said this means that the transfer from General Supplemental to General Basic can only be made for specific purposes and is limited to a certain dollar amount. He said they are estimating that the maximum transfer for next year is approximately $3.1 million. He said the current spreadsheet shows the transfer is at $2.3 million, which means it could be increased another $738,605 over what is currently in the worksheet. Thompson asked what services this pays for. County Auditor Tom Slockett said it includes all of the General fund expenditures, plus the Supplemental, which are generally items that shouldn’t be limited. He said this includes Mental Health and Elections. Edwards said it also includes Substance Abuse Treatment, any type of insurance, FICA and IPERS, and Emergency Management. Slockett said the low can be raised $738,605, and the spreadsheet including the highest proposals would need to be reduced $1.2 million to stay within the legal limits. He said the limit can be exceeded by listing the reasons and the amount of the overage. He said this can be done by holding an election or publishing it. Slockett said they have never been at that limitation before.

Slockett said that in order to levy General Supplemental, the General Basic has to be at the maximum. He said that Supplemental can only be used for such purposes, but General can be used for both General or Supplemental purposes. He said you have to put the things that you could be levying in Supplemental into the General to bring it up to $3.50, before you can levy the Supplemental. He said the General Basic fund is always at $3.50. Jordahl said the General Supplemental tax levy is not limited for specific purposes. He said if it is taxed at 3.5 per thousand in the General Basic, then put all of the legitimate expenses that can be put into General Supplemental. He asked if the legitimate expenses come to $738,605. Slockett said the increase does. He said that if money is going to be spent for non-supplemental purposes it is limited to that. He said that there is no limit in spending on insurance, elections and things allowed under the Supplemental Levy. He said it is at the maximum because before you can levy any Supplemental you have to put it at the maximum by adding Supplemental costs to bring it up to that maximum. He said that in essence you are limited to the non-supplemental purpose things in General Basic that are being levied for Supplemental purposes. He said that if you take out all of the things in the General Basic levy that are being levied for General Supplemental purposes then that tells you what the maximum non-supplemental levy increase can be and that is what the $738,000 is.

Jordahl said that in order to enable ourselves, Supervisors in the past agreed with recommendations of the Auditor’s Office to go ahead and transfer money from General Supplemental into General Basic. He said this is so the levy will be high enough to tax in General Supplemental and get more money. Jordahl said more money was wanted to run Johnson County than 3.50 per thousand will pay for. He said the only way to get more is to tax for it in General Supplemental and so some of the costs were put into General Basic. He said they are looking at what the absolute upper end of what they could gather is and to take all of the General Supplemental costs out of the General Basic part of the budget, and tax by the 3.50, just for the items in the General Basic budget. He said you could do anything with the General Supplemental, since it is unlimited, so long as just the legitimate expenses that are permitted are being done. He said the maximum to spend is to add $738,605 in whatever expenses wanted, and pay for all of the legitimate General Supplemental expenses through that General Supplemental levy.

Edwards explained the minimum and maximum transfers to Secondary Roads from General Basic and Rural Basic. He said there are reestimated amounts for this year and then what the minimum and maximum transfers are for next year. Duffy asked about the $150,000 appropriation change made by a resolution prior in the year. Edwards explained it will be reversed in the next budget amendment. Stolze said the money went into capital projects. Thompson asked if the minimum amount still gives the full amount of the Road Use fund. Slockett said the minimum amount is the amount needed in order to get 100% of the Road Use tax funds. Thompson said the maximum then is how much they can go over and still be within the law. Edwards said the minimum amount is currently set in the worksheet. Edwards said that County Engineer Mike Gardner would tell the Board and Auditor if he would want to request a higher transfer. Stutsman asked if the Board needs to do anything about this during the budget process. Edwards said that if it is decided to budget a higher transfer, then that has to be put in. Slockett said that the program submitted at this level will result in approximately a $200,000 decrease in the ending balance.

Edwards explained the General Basic transfers to capital projects, capital expenditures and technology. He said that in the base worksheet those 3 transfers are at the same level as the transfer for this year. Jordahl said the Rural Basic minimum transfer for FY 2001 is $1.9 million, the maximum is $2.5 million and the reestimated is $2.2 million. He said he didn’t know that less than the entire amount of the Rural Basic can be transferred. He asked if the $200,000 that is not being transferred to Secondary Roads is for libraries. Slockett said the General Basic is zero and the tax effort isn’t related to which fund you tax it from but rather what the total tax effort is compared to your potential ability to raise taxes. He said the reason it looks this way is because in 2001 the levy is in both General Basic and Rural Basic. He said it would be higher numbers if limited to just Rural Basic. He said that last year, in order to hold taxes down, look at all of the adjustments the State and assessors made and to try to give the Rural and the City tax payers a more even load, a large balance was transferred from Rural Basic into Secondary Roads. He said the levy was then lowered to meet the needs of Secondary Roads and adjust those figures. He said one of the consequences is that nothing was levied in the Countywide levy for Secondary Roads last year. He said that at the time the understanding was that the ability to transfer the large balance could only be for that year. He said that this year Edwards is saying it is best to levy in the Rural levy only and in the General Basic transfers. He said it seems like the Rural Basic minimum for this year is higher than the minimum for next year. He said the reason for that is because this year there is nothing in General Basic and it’s all in the Rural Basic, whereas next year it shifts. He said the total levy is what you expect and that the minimum goes up as valuations increase. Jordahl asked if there is the revaluation order on ag land this year. Slockett said that shows 15%, and said it is a significant increase in the tax bill on the Rural side and it hits the farmers at the worst time this year.

Edwards explained the revenue/expense adjustment. He said it is the adjustment they calculate each year by looking at the figures for 3 year’s budget history and analyzing for each department how much to compensate for overestimation of expenses and underestimating of revenues and added to each fund. He said they calculate this adjustment and put it in as a revenue in each of the taxing funds. He said that next year the recommended adjustments go up from $700,000 to $1,075,000 in the General Basic fund. He said it is primarily increasing because of the history that occurred at the end of Fiscal Year 99 with more departments having money left over. Jordahl wanted clarification that capital expenditures do not show up under the General fund. Slockett said these funds are reported separately and not in the General fund. He said this is a little controversial in that other counties don’t have these separate funds.

Slockett said the State forms are different this year so as to designate the part of the balances that have been earmarked for particular uses by Board resolution. He said the State is sort of beginning to do what Johnson County already does and the State does it within the General fund. He said that the advice of the auditors is to not record it as part of the General fund but as separate, unless they get other instructions. He said these would be shown as the earmark part of the General fund. He said there might be an advantage, if seeking a good bond rating, to show the capital expenditures in the General fund to show that more funds are available if needed. Stutsman indicated a reluctance to make capital expenditure funds seem available for other uses. Slockett said that when trying to get a good bond rating, the notion of what is good government and what is to the advantage of the tax payers is completely turned around. He said the better bond rating there is the less interest there is to pay and the better the taxpayers are. He said the optimal bond rating is to convince the people who set the rating that the taxpayers can be fleeced at will and plenty of their dollars can be taken for any purpose so the bonds can be paid. Jordahl asked how this goes back to the revenue expense adjustment if the resolutions are in the General fund. Slockett said the money can be transferred out of the special funds and put it in the General but list it in the part of the General that is earmarked and not available for cash flow purposes. He said either way is legitimate. Stutsman said this is definitely a discussion for down the road.

Jordahl said people tell them that they have traditionally under budgeted their revenues and say that this should continue because they don’t want to over budget their revenues and then get blamed. He said the people would rather look like they are making more money. He said this revenue expense adjustment is designed to take care of that so that it is not incumbent upon departments to do that even though they feel like they should. Slockett said it is important to stress accurate budgeting because that is what is important. He said they are getting nowhere by budgeting this way because the revenue adjustment shows history and how far off a department normally is on their budgeting and then adjusts it right back.

Edwards explained the Chapter 444 Property Tax Worksheet that they were required to fill out during the property tax freeze. He said it computes the allowable growth and unusual needs dollars available to the General fund and the Rural fund. He said this is for informational purposes only since currently there is no freeze. He said the allowable growth dollars or dollars from new construction is $677,779 and the unusual needs dollars, which are based on the 2.86% is $384,354, for a total of $1,062,000. Slockett said this means that taxes can be raised $678,000 without raising an individual’s taxes. Slockett said unusual needs would raise taxes 2.68%.

Edwards reviewed the fund balances of the major funds. He said the 2 left columns of the spreadsheet are for the beginning of Fiscal Year 2000, last July 1st, what was reestimated and what the actual balances are. He said the 2 middle columns show projections for the end of this year or the beginning of the next Fiscal Year. He said the column on the far right shows projections for the end of next year. He said the Board may set any of these balances where they wish, with the exception of the MH/DD fund balance. Slockett said they have the balances set to requirements for cash flow purposes to meet expenses in the budget. He said the Board may raise them if they wish, but recommended putting additional balances in capital expenditure or capital project funds. Edwards said they are recommending the ending balance increase from $1.9 to $2.2 million for the General Basic fund for cash flow purposes during July and August before the property taxes come in. Slockett said that what they are doing as far as appropriations is governing and watching expenditures. He said if the Board can identify a department where they don’t need the 4th quarter allocation then that would increase the balance.

Edwards said the next page shows new positions and reclassifications the Board wants for next year. He said the next several pages cover capitol projects, capitol expenditures and technology requests. He said the final page is a summary showing items in the spreadsheet and additional items in the Information Services budget spreadsheet. Stutsman asked about the final page. Pillard said it covered basic decisions that need to be made.

Edwards said the budget worksheet shows what was discussed in the explanatory worksheet. He noted pages 11 and 12 as being of particular interest to the Board. He said page 11 shows the taxable evaluations in comparison to last year. He said the bottom shows the rollback factors are down. He said the right shows the ag land and ag buildings having an equalization order of 13%-15%. Thompson asked what this means for keeping ag taxes stable. Slockett said it would be very difficult, but what the Board could do is consider cutting the Rural levy for Secondary Roads and increasing the Countywide levy, then do it the opposite direction from last year. Jordahl said the negative impact on ag land is due to State equalization orders and lower revenue rollbacks. Duffy said this is due largely to an increase in land prices, which are now going down. Lehman said it’s on a 5-year average. Edwards said the column on page 12 shows the impact on an individual taxpayer’s tax bill. Slockett said this one is with what is necessary, like giving cost of living increases to existing employees, putting in the bargaining contracts and the same capitol projects as last year. Stutsman said this is just the County share of the tax load.

Edwards said the last packet is the highest request budget, which includes all of the departments decision packages requests, all of capitol expenditures and technology, an increase to capitol projects transfer to $1.5 million, the health insurance at 8.5% and $25,000 for the Senior Center skywalk. Slockett said to do this it requires either publishing how much they are over the levy maximums or holding an election. Thompson asked at what point they would not have to do that. Slockett said if they lower the increase to $738,000. Jordahl said the additional cuts are shown but additional increases aren’t shown. Edwards said the last 2 pages do show how the cuts affect the taxes. Thompson asked if last year’s method to lessen the impact on ag property is going to work this year or not. Slockett said they could maximize the amount raised from the Countywide levy and minimize the Rural levy. Slockett said it is generally better to have things steady.

Stutsman suggested the Board members take some time to review this information. Thompson suggested they set some guidelines about how serious they are about doing the minimum one for the Rural levy because it will affect how calculations are done. Stutsman said the Board needs to consider what some of the priorities are and what direction and perimeters they want to consider these items in.

Jordahl asked what their maximum ability is to protect ag from going up this year. He asked what else there is besides the maximum transfer from the General fund to Secondary Roads. Slockett said lowering the transfer from the Rural levy to the minimum, which would still allow 100% road use tax funding. Slockett pointed out they had a substantial fund balance to tap. Slockett indicated the Engineer is spending the funds and not leaving a large amount in the carryover. Duffy said they aren’t doing as well as they should with funding through ECICOG and Region 10. Jordahl said Duffy is the Chair of that committee. Stutsman said this comes out of his committee. She said his committee makes the recommendations.

Edwards clarified for Jordahl the actual figures to maximum and minimum transfers to Rural Basic. Jordahl said the maximum transfer to General Basic $566,204, and the minimum on the Rural side for the road use tax fund is $1.9 million. Edwards said to remember the minimum can be transferred into different combinations and that is how they could transfer zero from General Basic this year. He said the maximum applies to each fund separately.

Jordahl said the total personnel issue is exactly what they need to discuss. He said there is the Compensation Board recommendation at 5% and the Auditor put in 2%. Pillard said she told the Auditor to do that because she didn’t think the Board would want the full number in there. Thompson said every 1% is about $110,000. Jordahl said this is exactly what they need to know about is perimeters like salary percents.

Duffy asked about how the extra day due to Leap Year affects the pay periods. Kistler said that regardless there are still 26 pay periods. Jordahl said it is the number of pay periods in the year that matters because you get 14 days per pay period, and that is for this current year FY2000. Kistler said the adjustment is for less time because it happens that this next year there will be one less pay day in the year.

Thompson said that one way to look at this is to take the things on the table for the first discussion, the things built into the Basic, and make sure that those are the numbers that they want to use, like the 5% or the 8% for health insurance. She said to then look at the proposed staff positions and then go to the other requests and take them in order. Stutsman said she thinks a decision regarding GIS needs to be made. Thompson said they are either going to put in the whole amount or not for the staff positions, but all of the other things like GIS and Juvenile Crime, that are large dollar items, are things they might decide to put in part of. Jordahl said not all of the GIS money has to be spent in one year. Thompson said that maybe they should wait until their TIF for Coral Ridge Mall comes up and then do that. Stutsman said it’s too bad a definite time frame isn’t put on TIFs so that planning can be done.

Adjourned at 11:35 a.m.

Attest: Tom Slockett, Auditor

By Mark Kistler, Recording Secretary