Chairperson Stutsman called the Johnson County Board of Supervisors to order in the the Celebrity Room of the Raddison Hotel, Iowa City, at 8:35 a.m. Members present were: Charles Duffy, Jonathan Jordahl, Mike Lehman, Sally Stutsman, and Carol Thompson.

Strategic Planning Facilitator Tim Shields said he feels they are at the beginning of the institutionalization of this process into the way the Board works. He said it is translating into their work program. He said that in working with counties they are not only the legislators, policy leaders who set the big picture and determine the direction, but they also have a hand in guiding some of this implementation. He said this process is being institutionalized in how the Board communicates with the rest of the organization about where they are trying to go as a Board and it is also affecting some of the decisions they are making as a Board as to how to invest their time. He said it is a process that in other locations over the years remains institutionalized in responding to changes in the environment.

Shields said he wants to review and begin to institutionalize these ideas so they have a baseline to work from. He said that from the review they may go into what they need to modify and change. He said he wants to take time to discuss what he calls emerging issues or what is new in their environment that they need to address and potentially develop a goal for. He said they will end up with some goals and priorities and a discussion of how to go from here to there. He said that in some parts this is acknowledgement of their dual role and is useful for the Board as a group to understand how they are going to get to some of these within a session like this. He said the ground rules remain the same and this is an informal meeting. He said that silence implies affirmation.

Shields said that when he first began to develop this program 20 years ago the person he watched do this demanded 16 hours from the policy board to take them through this program. He said he knows this amount of time is unrealistic now and he has been able to winnow down the amount of time it takes once they get into it and there are no major issues. He asked the Board for feedback about the agenda and if there is anything else they would like to do or something that they think might be missing on the agenda. He asked the Board to tell him some major successes and achievements of the County and the Board over the last year that they really feel good about accomplishing.

Thompson said that she is proud of the progress they made on their goals from last year. She said they are thinking about how to present the budget to the public. She said they want to include some material about how they used the goals and the budget together. Thompson said they need to agree on the contents regarding a letter to the taxpayers, which is the front page on their budget package that goes out to the public, and then some statements on how they met the goals that they set last year. Shields said he will make sure they discuss this. Thompson said she feels good about their relationships with their department heads. She said they have an ongoing plan for the evaluation of department heads that is going well. She said they set up ways to have conversations with them when it wasn’t their evaluation and they are also conducting annual evaluations. Shields said, knowing the County structure and organization, that this is a key element and this overall organization success is the Board and department heads having this type of relationship. He said one of the challenges for the Board is dealing with this structure and its differences and unique elements and this clearly has to be a part of the way they are so successful.

Lehman said just keeping things moving and on track is successful. He said they have reports, which requires them to do their homework. He said that for reviews they need updated work and progress to give final reports, whether it be something like economic development or GIS. He said that this is his first year and he has the impression that things are more organized and moving forward more so than they have in the past.

Jordahl said that he feels the most likely to be overlooked and yet the easiest to do is a calendar. He said they just finished adopting one for the Computer Committee for the year. He said it isn’t really hard to set a year’s worth of meetings. Shields suggested adopting a time line idea. He said he thinks it makes sense for the Board to commit to developing time lines on their goals. Jordahl said this is key to follow through.

Stutsman said she thinks this is plenty to get through. She said she feels they are successful in continuing to improve communication with the public. She said that as of this year they are televising their informal and formal meetings by combining them on Thursdays. She said the 5-Year Road Plan is a much more open discussion this year than it has ever been. She said that there has not been much interest in the past, even though they always had the open meetings. She said that this year they are having 2 well-publicized meetings and one of them will be in the evening. She said this will allow people to come and give input and their thoughts about the 5-Year Road Plan.

Shields asked Jordahl for a success he has identified, too. Jordahl said there have been a number of them. He said they adopted a fringe area agreement with Swisher and that had previously been a war. He said that finally, through good planning on their part and work by Planning and Zoning Administrator Rick Dvorak it got done. He said they are now making good progress on the implementation aspect of the Land Use Plan by getting these fringe area agreements established. He said this is a big one for him. He said that as part of this they met with the City of Cedar Rapids in response to their long range planning, because their fringe area overlaps with those of Swisher and Shueyville.

Duffy said that one of things that he is pleased with is coming back to looking at adoption of a building code. He said there was a special meeting at the Fairgrounds. He said he feels they can improve on this a little bit.

Shields said he wants to look at how many other accomplishments they can identify here. Thompson suggested looking at the goals on the 2nd page of the budget letter. She said this is the outcome and the Board needs to look at it and see if they need more. Stutsman said there has been progress in setting up some economic development policies that they haven’t done before. Lehman said they are planning better for some things they are not completely prepared for. Jordahl said that because of what an earlier Board did they were ready for the industrial revenue bond. He said the previous Board set out a policy and so when the time came they appeared to be ready. He said this is a model to follow to get some procedures in place so that they can take the next steps. Lehman said that as far as the Tax Increment Finance districts or tax abatement they need to keep progressively on it, so they are ready for a final answer with some research as to why they made their decisions. He said they need to get some criteria in place. Shields said that taking a more proactive approach is a success and accomplishment in regards to developing opportunities. Thompson said she thinks it is good that they have held off with this and are approaching it more reasonably. She said she always thinks it is a mistake to do public policy based on one incident. Shields said that economic development has driven this kind of activity throughout the state in local governments.

Jordahl said that in proactive terms the Traffic Management Study is something that the Land Use Plan asked for and is tremendously valuable to the Board. He said it attempts to look out at the county as a whole and say this is their responsibility for roads, asking how does this make sense in terms of the existing development pressure and how can they provide infrastructure safely and economically. Jordahl said it correlates those 2 and is a wonderful step. He said if they can get some guidelines adopted there it will make it easier to explain to people what is going on.

Stutsman said the Board is also being more proactive with annexations. She said that before they just kind of gave them a nod when they came through and now they are drafting template letters to respond to the City Development Board when an annexation comes in. She said they respond to how it fits with their County Land Use Plan.

Lehman said that even with the budget process and space needs they are trying to set money aside now, whereas before they didn’t. Shields said that on the budget process then the Board is beginning to do a better job of anticipating needs.

Jordahl said they finally adopted a Countywide Trails Plan and are beginning to make progress on construction. He said this is also part of the 5-Year Road Plan that they have really made a more public event. He said the Board used to go out to Secondary Roads after a morning meeting in January, when the roads weren’t so good, and now they are taking steps to make it more accessible to the public. Duffy clarified that the trails plan was not an adopted plan but a concept.

Stutsman said the Board continues to work with the Human Resources Department in enhancing that department. She said they are adopting more workplace policies that deal with violence and sexual harassment in the workplace. Shields said that department, that initiative, and that sense of that need started in these sessions. He said after only a couple of years they are beginning to reap the benefits of that.

Thompson said they also have made a stab at getting their strategic plan, their budget and the goals they set for the department heads all going in the same direction. Shields said that in terms of that budget process they are determined to develop goals. Thompson said they are trying to integrate the budget and the department head goals into the strategic plan and vice versa. Jordahl said this is both a success and a failure because this is a very stumbling start. He said there is outright resistance, passive resistance, non-comprehension and a couple of good examples of people getting with the program. Lehman said they have a jail situation coming up that isn’t an accomplishment but he thinks the things they have been through here make them realize how they have to focus themselves to approach that. He said he can see it coming together, people from their past experiences this past year working with the committee and how they want to sell this thing.

Stutsman said something she feels is an accomplishment is how the Board works pretty well together. Shields said that over a period of time the Board has shifted. The Board’s thinking more strategically is what he thinks the Board is saying. Jordahl said this process is about not just sitting back and disagreeing, because then you’ll never overcome the disagreement. He said that focusing on what they agree with and keeping busy with that keeps them are too busy to do anything else.

Shields said he wants to discuss the issue of fiscal pressure. He said he knows that much of this comes from State policy. He said that in many of the places he works with the rollback has a very adverse impact, being particularly difficult where most of the growth and development is residential. Shields said, beginning now this year, the graduated reduction by the State will soften the blow of property taxes on machinery and equipment. He said the way this policy works in some places is they lose it all next year and other places they are going to get an 80, 40, etc.. He said those 2 things, rollback and M & E have an impact. Thompson said the equalization puts the tax rate on rurals so high that even if the Board didn’t do anything they would have had a huge tax increase. Jordahl said if they do nothing it is still an 11.5% increase on ag land. Jordahl said that in order to take it easy on the farmers they have to also take it easy on the people in the North Corridor. Shields said rollback has a cumulative impact from year to year. He said that if you’re a growing community, with even moderately good growth but it’s primarily residential, you get a sense of the cumulative impact. He said in places where $400,000 to $500,000 homes are being built it is less of an issue than in a place where $150,000 to $250,000 homes are being built. He said that what happens is the cumulative impact in demand for services outstrips what really comes on in terms of growth. He said that in essence, so much of this growth is taken away in State policy. He said another thing they probably know of is potential for a property tax freeze coming out of this legislature. He said that a lot of local governments this year are going to have to make some budgetary decisions based on the anticipation of a freeze. He said this is not a year to cut taxes for many places because it means cutting your throat for the next 2 or 3 years perhaps. Shields said that one of the plans that came out of there is a freeze on the expenditure side. He said this is not going to go away and in places like here, where there is a high level of expectations for services, that possible freeze is creating some real difficulties. He said he does see a fairly steady increase in citizen expectations of local government. He said a trend he sees is citizens wanting things. Shields said that 80% of the issues that come before the Board, that are not driven by State policy, are going to be in one way or another dealing with the quality of life issues. He said people are very concerned about the places they live, about having things in place that contribute to the quality of life. He said the good side is that people believe local government is responsive, they believe they can have input into it and they recognize the major contribution that local government makes towards the quality of life for them. He said they also want to feel connected to their local government and with the way people live today. Shields thinks this is a tough challenge. He said he is seeing folks saying they will just find a way to pay for it. He said there have been many referendums passed in support of quality of life projects or issues. He said that by working with people effectively he finds that they are willing to do it and they are willing to pay for it.

Thompson said, in regards to fiscal pressure, that the State regulates MHDD spending and manages daycare in a way that keeps the Board from paying people enough to do the work. She said it creates a huge person power crunch. She said there were discussions this year about having a living wage for the people who contract with the County. In order to do that and not put anyone out of business, they would have to not include the Human Services providers and the daycare providers, who are the very people they should be trying to reach with that kind of an ordinance. Shields said that county governments are affected more than cities by mandates because of some of the program areas that counties are in. Jordahl said that it’s not that they have to provide the service but that they want to and they can't pay for it because they aren’t allowed to. Shields said there is a belief that the current growth is real and not false based on government investment. He said it is real because productivity is driving it. He said it’s not going to go away. Thompson said the labor shortage will lead to wage inflation, which is already present in union contracts, and that will lead to inflation causing Greenspan to go into a tailspin. Shields said they are seeing impacts in terms of the ability to keep people.

Jordahl asked Shields if he has any statistics that speak to economic development regarding growth creating demand for services that outstrips the new income. Shields said that when he talks about folks doing a better job in economic development at the local government level, he sees the Board doing a better job doing cost-benefit analysis. He said their primary interface is when they are asked to give something. He said there are 940 cities and 99 counties. He said he knows that out of 940 cities, there are fewer than 125 that are actually experiencing genuine growth in Iowa. He said the Iowa City-Cedar Rapids corridor is growing. He said there is an additional cost to development. He said his view is that the County is not going to stop development in this area, even with very rigid policies. He said this business is really a matter of a market analysis. He said where a county is in the marketplace determines where they are at because they are competing. Stutsman said it goes back to the quality of life and what price do you pay for another big factory. They have seen the result in other large communities and asked is that what they want for here.

Shields said that mostly the intent of State policies that affect local governments was to help farmers because of the inflationary pressure on farming in the 70s. He said they continue to deal with the ongoing consequences of those policies that were unintended and unanticipated. He said part of the impact of rollback is to shift the burden to commercial, industrial. Duffy said commercial property in the last 2 or 3 years has more of an increase than the farms. Shields said that within Johnson County’s delegation there are folks who are willing to listen and who understand these issues, but beyond the delegation out of Iowa City, at some point these folks need to be asked why they are opposed to representative democracy. He said these people weren’t elected to say whether the Board can participate in a road project that might benefit certain parts of their citizens. He said the Board’s neighbors in Johnson County elected the Board to make decisions, not these other people. Jordahl said he asked leaders at the ISAC meeting whether the federal government is placing limits on their ability to tax and the answer was sort of dodged by saying that yes there are certain areas but not generally. Jordahl said he suggested the leaders of the legislature worry about taxes in their jurisdiction and they will worry about taxes in their area.

Shields said he wants to look at the goals and is looking for whether they will remain committed to these or do changes need to be made. He said the technology plan has been around for 3 or 4 years and the goal statements still make sense to him regarding planning to provide appropriate equipment infrastructure for all departments. He said the Board has implemented the institutionalization of this goal and there is an ongoing committee and they have the decision infrastructure in place to continue this goal. Stutsman said they have accomplished a lot of these things.

Shields said he wants to focus on the goal before they critique. He says it is his understanding that the technology plan goal remains. He said there is a decision infrastructure in place inside the organization to continue to work with it and they have some known practices now. He asked what some of the action steps or objectives are that they are going to see looking at the next year and a half. Stutsman said they would continue the GIS process. Jordahl added hiring of a GIS Coordinator. Thompson said they also need to get Human Resources software that correlates with other accounting programs that the County might need in the future. Jordahl added payroll also. Lehman listed Document Management. Jordahl said they have a pilot program and a budget item funded for bringing 3 more departments online with Document Management: Zoning, Treasurer, and Auditor. Stutsman asked if there is anything more that needs to be done with phone systems. She said they agreed to do the Ambulance and County Attorney and those are already in the works. Shields asked if there is anything else they know of that they have been working on or that might be coming. Deputy Administrative Assistant Deana Pillard said the Financial Software for the Auditor’s Office. Jordahl said that under GIS could also go coordinating this with other departments. He said there is the SEATS system grant for mobile data terminals that will link their bus system with GIS so that they can do dispatching. He said this could also have applications for the Ambulance and for Secondary Roads and others. Shields said he doesn’t know of anywhere in Iowa, except for one place, that is really jumping fully into GIS. He said most places are doing it on a cooperative basis or taking pieces that they can afford. Jordahl said they have to do the base map and get the polygons closed. Stutsman said they have only put $100,000 into probably a $500,000 project.

Shields asked the Board how they feel about putting out a report of this nature to the citizens. Jordahl said that in the past the Auditor has done the budget presentation largely for them, has done a PowerPoint presentation and presented graphs and charts. Jordahl said that Thompson and he, as members of the Finance Subcommittee of the Board, have been interested in bringing this strategic planning process to the budget presentation. He said that the Board can then discuss how the expenditures they are making fit with the goals that they have to accomplish things and what things they agree on. He said they want to do a positive budget presentation in terms of long-range vision. Jordahl said that for this document he would like to see it be a little more graphics-oriented and the Board agreed. He suggested putting the budget into terms of strategic planning so that the taxpayers can understand it. Stutsman said it tells the taxpayers that the Board has a plan and they are putting money where their goals are. Jordahl said they are far away from having a departmental strategic planning process that will lead to this kind of integration with the budget. Thompson said she sees it differently and thinks the departments have made a good start. She said some had excellent goals that fit in with the Board’s and others did goals that didn’t fit in with the Board’s and then there were a few who didn’t do it all. She said that on a bell curve she believes they had a good range. Jordahl said he believes that most of them either did nothing or had goals that did not correlate with any kind of meaningful performance measures. Thompson said that wasn’t true. Shields said he believes the Board is in agreement that a strategic plan/budget public information piece is a good idea, whether it is this one or not. Shields said they have a goal that continues to be a major strategic goal in the organization. He said they have some other subsets that are objectives. He asked if the Technology Plan remains a goal and there was general agreement it should.

Shields said under Economic Development they have a defining of the County’s role, making sure it ties in with the Land Use Plan, and in relationship to the infrastructure development collaborating with cities and towns. Jordahl said the infrastructure development has been done in terms of enforcing the developer participation in providing public infrastructure in the form of accel/decel lanes. He said they have been actively litigating or arm twisting in that area and it’s been working. Duffy suggested more Board members participate in meetings at the state level on economic development. Other Board members noted Duffy acts as their representative for these meetings. Jordahl said they want to take steps toward defining the County’s role. He said they have had some experiences that moved that direction but they don’t have a draft yet of an economic development plan. Stutsman said that this is a goal they have had since they began this process and yet they don’t seem to make a whole lot of progress on this. She said she thinks it’s time to delegate this saying that Planning and Zoning will take the lead in developing some kind of economic development plan and developing those policies as far as reviewing TIF requests and things. Lehman said the Board has been given a rough draft but thinks that maybe it is in the Board’s zone now to decide what to do with it. Thompson asked if maybe they should work with some sort of a committee on this like they do with other things. Duffy suggested hiring a grant writer.

Shields said it seems that the broad definition of their goal is to develop and implement a proactive strategy in supporting policies in regards to economic development. Jordahl added, proactive in terms of understanding and being clear. Thompson asked Shields if they need to change their goal statement. Shields said developing proactive strategies and policies to support and guide economic development comes first. He said that then comes things like defining the County’s role, being in conformance with the Land Use Plan, appropriate infrastructure development, collaborations with cities and towns, and then the enhanced housing and workforce resources. Jordahl said in the Land Use Plan they want to ensure that development pays the costs of the infrastructure that it necessitates. He said the economic development process in this should have some sort of a similar statement in it that the Board does not want to seek economic development for its own sake. They don’t want to aid the start-up of businesses that then leave. Stutsman said she thinks that if you ensure appropriate infrastructure development, then you have to make sure it is appropriate, and then what does that mean. Shields said he wants to get the Board’s broad goal because he thinks the subset is key here, when talking about cost-benefit analysis and making sure the costs are born appropriately. Jordahl said he wants to talk about the balance between the cost to the County of economic development and the benefit to the county. Duffy noted the cities get a large share of the gas tax money. Thompson said that in the Land Use Plan the Board assumed that all of the development in the County part of unannexed land was going to be housing developments and they said they want to have linkage fees in order to make them pay the cost. She said they didn’t say who would pay the cost for infrastructure for commercial development because they sort of didn’t assume that this would happen. Stutsman said that these subsets get developed under the infrastructure development. She said they can decide on one thing, but a new Board can decide on something totally different.

Shields said their broad goal statement is to develop a proactive set of strategies and policies to support and guide economic development. Jordahl said he disagrees, because if Shields says this is the basis for it, then he will say no to the word support. He said they want to assess the cost and benefits and guide economic development. Shields asked the Board if they think it is their role to support economic development if they believe that it comes back as a positive. The Board agreed. Jordahl said that he thinks the if is first and the support is second. Jordahl said he would change it to develop policies and strategies to assess the cost and benefits and support appropriate economic development. Stutsman said she thinks that is a subset and that Jordahl is trying to make the general goal too specific. Thompson suggested it say, develop proactive strategies and policies to guide economic development. Lehman said it should be that the County’s appropriate role in economic development is to establish ground rules for developers who want to apply for economic development assistance. Shields suggested, develop economic proactive strategies and policies and guide economic development decision making. Shields said this is one of the elements that they are saying is inherent in this goal statement that they will do a cost-benefit analysis. He said the second one is to support the Land Use Plan and policies. He said they are suggesting that these policies have to support that Land Use Plan or policies. He said the third one is that if they do cost-benefit analysis, then they want to make sure that they have adequate infrastructure development with appropriate funding relationships. He said they are saying that as part of this broad goal they want adequate infrastructure, which is a way of saying they aren’t going to just allow growth without making sure that they can provide that infrastructure with it.

Shields said another one is collaboration with cities. Shields said collaboration with cities is an ongoing nature of their proactive goal that they will always be working in a collaborative relationship with cities. Jordahl said there is a competitive problem with this issue that is a curious thing. Thompson said maintenance of housing stock and workforce issues might fit better under this goal than the Land Use Plan.

Shields said the Board has a really intelligible definition of a broad goal and the key elements of it. He asked the Board to think about what the key things to work on will be over the next year or so. Jordahl said they need to get a draft or document to talk about different areas. Stutsman said they need to delegate who will do this and whether a committee needs to do it. Shields said they could call this developing an action group because they need some specific group that is given this charge to work with in this area. Jordahl said they need to get a plan on the table or a draft to know what the outline or plan is. He said to draft an economic development plan so that they have the whole thing there but they may not necessarily finish it.

Thompson said there is a request from some citizens to have a living wage ordinance, which would affect workforce issues, and asked can they afford to. Jordahl said the answer coming back from Human Services is they can’t because of the archaic mechanisms by which their employees are funded. Thompson said they could still do it for their own employees and for those who contract for them if they make exceptions for them. Stutsman said they need to ask themselves if this is the role of county government or is this something that is better left to the state or federal government. Thompson said the citizens group has brought a draft to the Board and they are going to want the Board to vote on the draft or else propose one of their own. Jordahl said they could say they will continue to investigate it. Stutsman said she doesn’t feel that there is consensus with this group to adopt it but to maybe to continue to investigate it. Jordahl said that he would support it if they could figure out a way to make it work, but from what he has heard there is no way this group can do it since they get money from multiple counties and they can’t get the Human Services staff dealt with. Thompson said she thinks they can address this in the ordinance, though. Shield said he will note that a living wage ordinance is an issue they might want to discuss but has he hasn’t heard it is a part of the ongoing development strategy. Shields said it would be an ongoing objective to work with ICAD and ECICOG. Stutsman added the Chamber, too. Shields asked if it made sense to include continuing to communicate with cities and counties. Jordahl suggested saying to cooperate with cities and counties. Shields said they also had monitoring legislation.

Shields asked if one goal was to continue to work on housing analysis. Thompson mentioned a grant received for owner-occupied rehab. If successful they might apply for more grants. Jordahl said that Duffy’s notion that a lot of things that fall under economic development might be a good way to explain this. He said that daycare could go under here, too. Shields said there is a whole set of items in terms of social good that could be part of this goal. He said this is part of the cost-benefit analysis. Shields said the Board needs to be cautioned against getting things that cut across multiple areas because if they do this then they are strategic in nature. He said that the Board also needs to recognize that everything they do won’t fit into the strategic plan. He said some things just aren’t strategic. He said if they try to put everything in there it begins to dilute the value of having these strategic things that they are focusing on.

Shields said monitoring legislation and State programs in order to seek out more in additional outside funding is another point. Thompson said last year they had one that said integrate workforce development issues. She said that Stutsman spent a lot of time during the year on the workforce plan and it is now adopted. Shields said that having an action group, whatever the makeup of that is, will help move this agenda. He asked the Board if they want to have some responsibility and accountability in terms of Board members, as has been done in the past. Stutsman suggested Duffy and Lehman. Jordahl said their work will be augmented significantly by the establishment of this working group. Duffy said it is more controversial than one thinks it is.

Recessed at 10:17 a.m.; reconvened at 10:24 a.m.

(Continued in Part 2)