Shields said that fiscal management and planning has been a big goal that they have been discussing. He said there is a lot that has been done and a lot that they have said they will do. Jordahl suggested developing a County-wide integrated strategic planning/financial/budgeting process. He suggested integrating the budget process with County-wide strategic planning. Shields asked if this is an objective. Stutsman said yes. Jordahl said that the idea here is for every department to have input into what the County-wide goal is and to respond to that goal in terms of their own department’s operations. He said they can then express this in terms of their own strategic goals and present their budget in that framework. Shields said the broad goal statement implies this by saying it’s a financial management system. He said it also implies effective monitoring of financial goals and objectives. Jordahl suggested allowing the budget process to grow out of the strategic planning process rather than have the budget sort of exist as a solid fixed thing and then strategic planning be sort of this thing that tries to fit in somewhere. Shield asked the Board if they have a full-year financial management system in place. Thompson said they have a schedule that they worked on all year and they did considerable amounts of work in other parts of the year. Stutsman said the whole Board needs to be a part of that and not just the Finance Committee. Jordahl said he sees this system as being an action step or implementation underneath the global goal, which is that the budget be articulated in terms of what they see their overall goal as a county being. He said it is this vision that informs how they spend the money. If they can’t explain how they spend the money in terms of what their vision for serving the public is, then they are doing something wrong.
Shields said that this is enough of a shift that the Board needs to decide about developing strategic planning County-wide and that would be the broad policy goal. He said Jordahl suggested fiscal management and planning is a subset of that. Jordahl said he doesn’t see any reason they shouldn’t believe, as they have shown themselves through the computer planning process, for example, to believe that this will work County-wide. He said they wanted to let all the departments in and have a view of where they were going to spend more money in one department than another. He said that as a result of sitting down and talking about all of this the departments get along better. He said this same process can be institutionalized as an ongoing process and needs to be done at the department level so that within the departments they encourage and require, as part of the budget process, that they sit down and have this kind of process occur within the department. He said this will enable them to express what they are doing in terms of strategic goals.
Shields said a rational financial management system that has benefit to all the departments is the goal of the Board. He said a subset of that has been the strategic planning, but it was to be in a package that was clear to everybody that there was a benefit of it. Shields said that is where the Board has been in the past. Jordahl said the reason they have a ways to go is, in significant part, because they have been focused on trying to get this to articulate with strategic planning without having strategic planning occur. Shields said the full year still isn’t in place, things are still being done in a sort of 2-month frame and he doesn’t know how far they are on some other things that are directly related to finance. Shields said the fiscal management plan remains a goal and there are things to do inside of that. He said to give it the due is to develop County-wide and departmental strategic planning processes and an objective within that is to integrate it to the budget. Jordahl said this is an interesting way to look at it because then it puts it on the table and makes the Board ask themselves if they believe in strategic planning or not. Jordahl said he does and Stutsman agreed. Shields suggested to keep what they have here and take out the subtext items that have to do with departments doing strategic planning.
Shields said the fiscal management goal remains the same and they need a good one whether people give them goals or not. The Board discussed the progress they have seen and how it is building incrementally. Shields said to look at this as a fiscal management and planning goal and think of the action steps they need to look at over the next year. Stutsman said she thinks more of a role needs to be developed for Administrative Assistant Deana Pillard in these fiscal roles, doing more analysis and monitoring of the budget throughout the year, and involving the whole Board in this process and not just the Fiscal Committee. Shields said they are continuing to work on the overall budget process to try to improve it overall. Stutsman said they focus on it so much in December and January that they have had enough of it and don’t look at again for awhile and so they tend to forget what is going on. She said they need to be constantly involved with it and working with it. Jordahl said a nuclear thing to this that the Board missed in this year’s budget process is multi-year trends in departmental budgets. He said they used to have 2 or 3 prior years and they need to see that type of thing graphed. He said he suggests not next year’s budget but maybe 5 years be projected out. Shields said there are some other specific objectives. He said the Board will continue to work with the Fiscal Committee, continue to improve the overall budget process, the full-year implementation calendar still needs to be developed, and improve the multi-year trend analysis both historical and future projections. Jordahl said he would like to see some sort of implications study. Shields said the Board is saying they also should enhance the utilization of Board staff capacity. Jordahl said he would like that to be more specific to reflect something like providing training for Deputy Administrative Assistant in the area of financial planning and appropriate commensurate salary enhancement. Shields said the reevaluation and redefinition of roles can perhaps also be a part of that.
Thompson said that last year there was a lot of discussion as to whether the Board should have others make goals and then make Board goals as a result of these, or should the Board lay out the goals and tell them they have to make their goals in line with the Board’s. Jordahl said it is a feedback process. Thompson said they don’t want to make it a top-down effort. They want to listen to the department goals. Shields said that from what he has heard in terms of the Board’s periodic meetings outside of the evaluation process is to give feedback to department heads. Thompson asked if the Board should have Shields do another session with them in the summer or do they hire a consultant. Shields said they can do things with this in terms of overall feedback but can only get so far with that. He said his view is to work with someone like him inside the departments. Stutsman said they have Pillard and perhaps this is part of enhancing that job description, so that she works with every department in setting up goals. Shields said there are a variety of sources for working with this inside the departments, getting scheduled, and getting training. He said he is not adverse to this type of approach. Thompson said they have a long way to go with this because they would need someone to mentor and train Pillard on this. Jordahl said there are a lot of issues to think about with this, such as cost and time and personnel. Thompson asked if Shields thinks every employee needs to be involved in this. Shields suggested they find some way or another to encourage input and participation throughout the organization. Shields asked the Board if continued efforts to develop a strategic planning process is a goal that they would support and endorse. Lehman said he sees this as an educational process for the rest of the departments. Thompson said that last year they tried to integrate it into the budget process. She feels that it was successful because there were stunning results from some departments and they learned what they have to work with. Shields said he wants to know where the Board stands on making this a goal of the Board. He said he thinks the Board still presumes the integration of the budget process.
Shields said the fiscal management plan as a County-wide strategic planning goal is probably a separate goal. Lehman said it should be done. Shields said that in the past it was put inside the financial management in order to soften the blow. He said it seems as though there is enough interest in the Board to continue to pursue this idea of County-wide strategic planning processes. He said that it can be a subset of their financial goal as they had in the past. Stutsman said she thinks it should be a separate goal. Shields said this goal would be to try to move from where they are now to have more active and effective participation by all of the departments in strategic planning. Jordahl said the essence of strategic planning is that it incorporates all of the goals. He said he doesn’t know how strategic planning can be done if they walk off in ignorance of these goals. Thompson asked if they want strategic planning to be integral in all of these things. Shields suggested wording, to continue efforts to enhance County organization-wide participation with strategic planning processes. He said he is hearing the Board say they want to integrate Board and policy decision making into this kind of a process and they are already doing so. He said the Board is also suggesting that they want to see departmental strategic planning. Jordahl said he would add support and encourage departmental support into that. Shields recommended that the Board wait a year on this. Thompson said that as the Board does evaluations they are talking to the department heads about how well they are working on setting goals and asking them how they evaluate their employees to get the evaluation concept trickling down. She suggested that the Board decrease their meetings with department heads to 2 and have Pillard do one of them, then they could add on one meeting with each elected official. She said this would be a chance to discuss and encourage. Stutsman asked why this can’t be done during the elected officials meeting. Thomson said there are some in the elected officials meetings who participate and are doing very well and so it needs to be one-on-one. Jordahl said he likes the idea of the elected officials having time alone with the Board Members.
Thompson said she thinks they also need a list of answers to give when asked how to do certain things. She said they need their own list of approved training coordinators that they can recommend when they decide to come forth with questions. Jordahl said it is the Board’s statutory authority to require reports from the other elected officials and their budgets. Thompson said that she and Jordahl would continue to work on the fiscal management planning. Stutsman said she thinks it is time for a change on that committee because different Board members need to be involved. She said it is healthy to have different ones participate and have this exposure.
Shields said there is a lot of progress with space needs. He said the goal remains the same, to plan for immediate and future space needs so the County departments and operations have appropriate space resources now and in the future. Thompson said she thinks they need to add a statement about keeping up with their deferred maintenance on their current buildings. She said the thing they need to uplift this year is getting their plan in place. She said they have proved that they have a plan. She said they can revise the plan to meet the amount of money that they are willing to put into it. Shields asked if the Space Needs Study is still going and the Board members said it is. Board members indicated they still need to adopt a long-range facility plan and they need to develop and adopt a financing plan. Shields asked if in the next year or so their plan is to adopt a jail plan. Stutsman said they haven’t voted on this yet, but when they adopt this long-range plan, it will include the jail. Shields received confirmation that the Board is continuing to involve, educate, and inform the community. Thompson asked if they are just going to involve the community when one issue comes to a head or will they involve community members in the Space Needs Committee itself and have them look at long-range space needs. Jordahl said it will be hard to bring them up to speed on the smaller needs like that of the Administration Building. Stutsman said the jail is one thing, because it is going to be a bonding issue, but the other space needs she doesn’t think will necessarily be a bonding issue. Shields said that somewhere in this goal they need to say something about priorities. Jordahl said the long-range plan will be a list of priorities. Shields suggested putting a time line plan on this, too. He said it will be a little bit different for each project. Shields said the next level they are going to is specific project plans. He said there aren’t priorities nor specific project plans yet. Thompson said they need something that works like the 5-Year Roads Plan. Shields said that at this point they can turn this around and call this facilities planning. Stutsman added this includes that ongoing maintenance, too.
Shields said much has been done in the way of Comp Plan and Land Use Policies. Jordahl said they aren’t done yet. He said they are making progress but asked, given that they’ve adopted the Land Use Plan, how global do they want to make comprehensive planning? He asked to what extent they want to see all of their planning as being a part of a comprehensive plan? Shields said the Comp Plan directs them on infrastructure needs, regardless of economic development. Thompson said that with the Comprehensive Plan they had a time frame and it would be wise to list the items on the time frame for this 2 year period in the goals. Shields said the broad goal is to continue to implement the Comp Plan and Land Use Policies and integrate related functions or issues. Jordahl said implement here means going through the creation of new ordinances that are based in the Land Use Plan and are scheduled. Thompson said she thinks the word leadership should be left in. She said they don’t do the work but they keep asking the department heads how they are doing. Shields suggested the broad goal, to continue to provide leadership in the implementation of Comp Plan and Land Use Policies. He asked the Board what the specific things they know they will be focusing on in the next year or so are. Jordahl said provide leadership and assistance for the development of ordinances required by the Land Use Plan. Thompson said it is called the implementation schedule. Shields suggested language, to develop and adopt ordinances and specific policies. Jordahl said that the statement made regarding the Land Use Plan is to begin to envision a comprehensive County plan so that all County functions are included in the planning process. He said this is sort of strategic planning. He said this is also beginning to develop a policy document that will persist over time, not just as what this year’s strategic planning process resulted in as part of the budget process, but it will be a plan for how the County will continue to fund social services in response to State actions.
Shields said comp planning is based on land and everything that comes from it. He said the other part of this is strategic planning for the County. He said if the Board is going to try to talk to other people in local government, they aren’t going to understand what is being said if the Board talks about their comprehensive plan being about how they will fund Human Services in the year 2005. He said this is strategic thinking. Shields said comp plan land use policies really are talking about how to maintain the identity of who we are, how to plan for the development of what we’ve got, and what are the laws and regulations and policies that we need to get to where we want to go. Shield said County-wide comprehensive land use planning and the capital improvement plan are key elements of their strategic planning. Jordahl said there is no reason why they can’t grow a plan in an area, like is being done with economic development, as part of the Land Use Plan. He said that this is part of the implementation steps of the Land Use Plan that addresses the questions that will grow out of the strategic planning process and departments. Shields said these are all interrelated but they are also discreet areas of policy analysis.
Thompson asked, in terms of the water and wastewater, what if the City’s use of water out of the aquifer starts causing the developments in the North Corridor to not have enough water? She said the reverse of that is what if the developments in the North Corridor start producing so much waste in their septic systems that starts getting into the water that Iowa City wants to use. She asked if they need to look at water and wastewater more comprehensively than they have been. Stutsman said she would like this to be in a whole separate environmental issue.
Shields said he will give the Board back a summary of what is being done here but the Board will still make some changes to it for their own purposes. He said this has been successfully done in the past.
Shields said, on Board effectiveness and public information, the goal remains the same to communicate effective to the public, media, and staff in order to provide open and informed government. Thompson said they have done a lot in terms of what their resources are, because they don’t have a coordinator and a lot of extra staff to work on this. Stutsman said one thing she would add to this is to develop some kind of avenue for public notification. She said they are continually asked about this and have not done it. She said they need to come up with some type of plan, because there is a lot of unhappy people out there about this public notification. Shields asked for other actionaries the board wants to specifically put in. Jordahl said the Web is a clear part of this and it kind of stands alone in its broadness. Stutsman said identifying implemention methods to be proactive with the media is not something they have done but should still be a goal. Jordahl said they need to work on the way that information is available when people walk into the Administration Building. He said they have some glass display cases that were a real big step forward this year, but they are not where people come in and he would like to move them to where people come in. Stutsman said there is nowhere to move them. Thompson said people don’t supervise their children very well in the downstairs area. Jordahl suggested Plexiglas.
Thompson said they were going to involve the community and asked if they have yet. She asked if they are going to have a community committee do this. Jordahl said it seems so. Shields said he remembers they thought maybe there were some people out there, like critics or experts, that they were going to try to talk to. He said he doesn’t think it was a formal commitment to a committee, but it was an informal process. Jordahl said they just need to do it and actually involve the community. Shields asked if the Board is at a place where they want a committee to talk to them about their communication efforts. Stutsman said a committee isn’t necessary to get feedback. Jordahl suggested establishing a suggestion box in the County Administration Building for anybody. Thompson said the State had something called a VIP Plan, where if someone submitted a suggestion that was actually implemented they got a prize like $50 and a gift certificate or something. Stutsman said she thought they had talked about doing this for employees. Jordahl said the idea was for the suggestion to be anonymous, but they could certainly recognize an employee. Shields said this can be done but it cannot be perceived as a bonus because this has been ruled as illegal. Lehman suggested giving the person a parking spot near the building.
Shields, looking at Board assignments, asked if the facilities planning goal would be covered by Jordahl and Thompson. He asked for confirmation that strategic planning remains assigned to all Board Members at this point. Thompson said that the same goes for the Land Use. Lehman was placed on fiscal management and Stutsman on technology.
Stutsman asked if they need to have the Human Resource area as a goal. Shields asked where it stands now. Jordahl said it is accomplished and they can let Human Resource Administrator Lora Shramek decide what she wants to do. Thompson said she wants to discuss expanding their discussion and evaluation process to the elected officials and other department heads who have boards. She wants to get meetings scheduled with each of them this year. Stutsman said that maybe the Board should have a goal to develop the Board’s effectiveness and maybe do HR and talk about the Board’s meeting structure. Thompson said that so far they are meeting 3 times per year with all of the department heads who don’t have a board. She said that this year she would like to see the Board drop the 3 back to 2 and add on the elected officials and department heads with boards. Shields said they want individual department head meetings and processes. Thompson said they also have ongoing discussions about having a County manager. She said if they were going to do this they would have to write a job description for that person and agree on that. She asked if it is time to do this or is it too early. Duffy said they have Carol Peters.
Thompson said they need to talk about how they are going to meet with the department heads that have boards. Stutsman said they might run into problems with this because she doesn’t think they have authority over those boards. Thompson said they could ask them to allow the Board to come to one of their board meetings. Jordahl said they could ask to have a joint meeting with the boards. Thompson suggested just once each year to see how they are doing, like they do with other departments. She said they need to figure out how to get accountability from those departments. Jordahl suggested having a joint meeting to communicate with them what they are up to with strategic planning County-wide and how this fits in with the budget process. Thompson said these boards do have to make some decisions on what the Board is likely to do and the Board has to make decisions based on what these boards say they need. Jordahl said the ultimate goal of meeting with them is communication. Shields said the Board is talking about annual joint meetings then with key boards or even every 2 years. He said that sitting down annually with key boards is such a pay-off, as he has seen often, even if just for a dialogue basis.
Recessed at 11:52 a.m.; reconvened at 11:57 a.m.