Chairperson Stutsman called the Johnson County Board of Supervisors to order in the Johnson County Administration Building at 11:15 a.m. Members present were: Charles Duffy, Jonathan Jordahl, Mike Lehman, Sally Stutsman, and Carol Thompson.

Stutsman explained they would discuss revisions to the Senior Dining and SEATS contracts. Stutsman introduced Senior Dining Director Mike Foster and Reverend Bob Welsh.

Thompson said Heritage proposed a uniform funding cut to all programs under the following assumptions: a 3% wage increase limitation, no new programs, and no transportation costs besides the costs of home-delivered meals. She said this would most impact Solon and Lone Tree, because program users would only get a ride to the Senior Center 3 days a week on a first-come first-served basis instead of every day. She said that they’d asked Nutrition Director Mike Foster and SEATS Director Lisa Dewey how they could cut their programs’ budgets. Thompson said that their options include asking the cities of Lone Tree and Solon to contribute, cut the program in the rural area, or cut Senior Dining at the Senior Center to allow them to have money to cover the rural areas. Stutsman asked if cutting Senior Dining at the Senior Center meant weekend service. Thompson said they could cut weekend service or cut Autumn Park, the least utilized service. Stutsman asked how much they would cut. Thompson said right around $51,000, depending on how salaries were figured.

Foster said that they had initially requested from Heritage $421,706, but received a letter saying that they would be given $369,918. He said the letter appeared to not allow the possibility of negotiation, but subsequent communication with Theresa Kelly indicates that negotiations were possible. He said that Thompson had recommended that he reduce the personnel line item and request a budget that falls below $220,000 on personnel, the amount that Heritage is willing to give them. He said that he was waiting for Heritage to explain where the number came from. Foster said he thought the number came from their original RFP for FY2000, which changed when they entered into the contract format. He said Heritage also had information about what their salary survey was. He said that at the time the County was implementing a 3% cost into the program. He said Heritage may have assumed the County would again supplement the program directly with the 3%. He said that the County would kick in the money at the end of the year.

Foster offered the proposal to reduce the budget, lowering personnel below $220,000, by ending weekend service and eliminating 4 positions. Foster said that they cut some employees’ hours. He added that if they asked for a 3.5% increase (to $221,062) it would go over the $220,527. Jordahl suggested they work with the 3.5% increase figure, because that is already in the budget. Foster said they are also proposing cutting meals from 103,000 meals to 88,388. He said that they were downsizing the cost per meal. Foster said raw food costs have increased to $1.40 in their proposal and they were reducing it back to $1.27 as requested by Heritage. Duffy questioned having a salad bar 5 days a week. Foster said they wanted to have a more diverse menu to attract younger seniors. Duffy said that they’d tried that before. He asked how often they had the salad bar. Foster said it was 5 days a week. He said costs were already over $1.27. He said Heritage didn’t think the salad bar would produce more numbers. Duffy said he didn’t want to cut meals on the weekends, citing Sunday as a big day. Stutsman asked how many clients they had on the weekends. Foster said that there 75 had home delivered meals on both Saturday and Sunday. He said 70 people received dining services on Saturday on average. He said there were fewer people on Saturday than during the week. He said that on Sunday there were 100 to 150. He said that it will affect the same people both days. Thompson said that they were cutting 145 meals per week from the amount they would be delivering. Welsh said that in the first 2 quarters, they served 8,938 meals on Saturday and Sunday. He said for the year they were eliminating just under 18,000 meals. Thompson asked Foster why they were proposing this in addition to the budget cut. She asked what problems are alleviated by not serving on weekends. Foster said it is difficult to find weekend staff and it adds additional stress on staff during the week to prepare for the weekend. He didn’t what the ramifications would be to require weekday staff work on weekends. He said, with the weekend supervisor being out indefinitely, he had no manager for weekends. He added that they were having to utilize high school students as assistants because they can’t offer enough hours to attract applicants. He said he has had to pull the weekend driver into the kitchen.

Stutsman asked what the County would have to put in to continue weekend service. Thompson said it would be $59,000 of County money to continue the service, with $8,000 into the SEATS budget. Jordahl said, rather than a question of whether to cut weekend service or not, the real question is whether they put County money into this. Duffy said questioned the hiring of a position that he referred to as a greeter and said he would not favor cutting weekend service. He asked that they meet with Heritage. The Board discussed the increasing amount of money they were putting into the Senior Dining. Stutsman said that there were fundraising efforts that never materialized. Thompson said that they had less attendance on weekends than weekdays, so cutting weekends would affect the least amount of people. Duffy said cutting the weekend meals would mean some people would go without meals for 2 days. Jordahl said they might be able to sustain the home delivered meals on the weekend without having meals served on site. He suggested working with the Visiting Nurses Association to deliver meals or do something comparable. Stutsman suggested having larger meals on Friday so people could bring home leftovers. Foster said that that might bring on lawsuits because of food spoilage. Lehman said that the number of people requesting home delivered meals would increase if they stopped serving weekend meals on-site. Thompson said that they could take frozen meals to people on Friday to last the weekend. Foster said storage could be a problem and that volume of meals might be difficult for the Friday drivers. Duffy said home delivered meals also included important interactions with clients. He said that there was danger involved with having clients heating up a frozen dinner. Foster said that the program’s users weren’t completely incapable of preparing a meal. Duffy said that some of the clients don’t prepare meals other than what Senior Dining provides.

Stutsman asked if other counties have weekend meals. Foster said some do and some don’t. Welsh said that they were the first to run the program 7 days a week. Duffy asked what the cost per meal was. Welsh said that the County’s program wasn’t the cheapest or the most expensive. Dewey said Linn County uses a coupon system for rides to the senior site on weekends rather than having home delivered meals. She said Linn County has reduced funding for the meal service. Dewey said she was going to check how Cedar Rapids will do their meal service with the cuts from Heritage. She said there are good volunteer programs in Linn County and Cedar County. Welsh said that in Linn County, the Family Service Agency provides home delivered meals. He said that they are non-profit with a large payroll. Welsh said the meals are prepared at a hospital and delivered by a combination of paid and volunteer drivers. He said to a lesser degree service is also provided by the Witworth Center. Welsh said that Heritage was cutting the Nutrition Program by $12,407 below last year. He said that they can live with the reductions in all the areas except personnel. Welsh said Heritage is assuming the Johnson County will cover the increasing amount for standard operating expenses. He recommended that the Board meet with Heritage to discuss what items Heritage normally funds and discuss contract alternatives. Welsh said Heritage gave $22,220 as the amount of local contribution the County would have to come up with. He said it includes the 3 and 1/2 percent increase, increased insurance but not merit increases. Welsh said it includes Elderly Waiver dollars being used for the budget, using the trust fund for the volunteer dinner and staff parking. He said in the last 2 years alone, Johnson County has increased its contribution to the Senior Center by close to $15,000. He asked if $20,222 is too much for the County to put into the program. Jordahl said he had a response to the RFP that lists $22,523 as a decrease in local public funds. He said he doesn’t have an amended revenue sheet. Jordahl asked what they had for the County contribution. Foster said he hasn’t looked at the revenues, that he had concentrated on getting the budget down to where Heritage was. Thompson said they had $3,660 in local public funds and $13,511 in other funds, the indirect costs the County puts in, and in Elderly Waiver $14,400. Jordahl asked Foster if he revised the revenue side of the budget. Foster said he did not.

Stutsman said there was a management issue that was tough to handle. She said that she was open for ways that they solve the problem. Welsh said they need to pay the cooks more, that it has hard to find reliable help for under $10 per hour. Duffy disagreed, but Foster agreed strongly. Foster said it also included the times employees were being asked to work. He said that they couldn’t ask students to work because they were taking classes and took too many vacations. He said they can’t offer benefits for part-time workers. Duffy asked how many hours they were talking about. Foster said they cut 4 positions and 2 of the positions only work 14 hours biweekly. Stutsman asked how what kind of salary increase would make staffing the positions easier. Foster said he didn’t know. Thompson said bringing the employees up to the proposed living wage of $9.25 an hour would cost $13,000, and they would still be short of $10.

Jordahl reviewed the local public funds for the current fiscal year. He said they were proposed at $14,000. He said the $26,000 figure included $10,00 from Elderly Waiver and $2,000 from donations and memorials. He said the FY2001 local contribution figure was $3,660, so they were over $10,000 lower in local public funds, so there was $10,000 that they need right there. Foster said the numbers he was looking at were the Sterba Trust funds, not tax money. Jordahl asked where the tax money showed up. Welsh said that, when they put together the budget, they put in things that they had not put in previous budgets, like the volunteer dinner. He said that this budget does not include tax dollars. Thompson asked if the Board had put tax dollars into their budget, and Welsh replied that he didn’t know. Foster said that they were planning on tax dollars being used and Thompson asked how much. Foster replied that they had $14,000 Elderly Waiver up to a total of $26,000, which means that they are looking at $12,000 for this year. Thompson asked what they put in the budget for next year. Foster said they left it the same. Jordahl said that it doesn’t show in the line-item revenue budget. Welsh said $3,660 ($2,700 for the volunteer dinner and $960 for staff parking) taken out was for expenses not funded by Heritage elsewhere.

Foster said another option might be to sacrifice weekday staff and utilize volunteers. He said there was only one position that could be sacrificed, but he didn’t think he could find volunteers to do the duties of the cook helper/janitor for 6 hours a day. Thompson asked if the employees get paid when they don’t work, and Foster replied that if they have leave available, yes. Stutsman asked if it would help enough to cut the Saturday meal and keep the more popular Sunday meal. Foster said it would be even harder to find staff for one day than it is for 2. He added it would add to the stress on weekday staff to cover those meals too. Thompson suggested asking the clients about the options. Stutsman asked if the clients would be willing to pay more for weekend service. Welsh said those funds go to Heritage.

Jordahl noted they have $9,142 already allocated in the General Basic fund tax askings and asked if that falls within the other funds, the $13,000 in indirect contributions. Welsh explained that on the revenue sheet given in the RFP there are not County tax dollars, except for the $960 out of the trust fund for staff parking. He said that the other part of the $3,660 is the $2,700 for volunteer dinner. Foster said that he thinks Jordahl was asking about the $9,000 because of the disparity between anticipated revenue from Elderly Waiver and anticipated expenditures, which would be where the County dollars would kick in. Jordahl asked if this amount should be part of the budget because they would be taxing for $9,000. Welsh said that Jordahl was correct. Jordahl said that it was good to understand this money as part of the budget because it shows that they need to come up with less money than anticipated. Foster said there would be a one-to-one relationship between expenses and revenue from Heritage with the Elderly Waivers and tax money making up the difference. Jordahl said that they can always modify the program to save money, but if they can add the $9,142 in, it will help in negotiating with Heritage. Foster agreed.

Welsh reviewed the FY2000 budget, RFP, the RFP amount with the 3% increase, and the Heritage proposal figure on a handout he distributed. He said he showed a 3 and 1/2% increase on the back of the handout. Jordahl said the actual figure would be 3.25%. Welsh said that the Board approved less money for employee salaries for next year than Heritage approved for the FY2000 contract, and that this would be an advantage at this point. He recommended cutting site managers ($23,618), but not cutting the 1/2 secretary position and not cutting the 1/2 of the position at Autumn Park for delivering meals. He said that he thinks Heritage should be able to fund this year’s program on the same basis as last year’s, which is $382,325. In that case they would only need the $10,000 in tax dollars, which they have on the table, otherwise they need an additional $12,000. Welsh said that this doesn’t address the continuing problem of manpower. Duffy suggested that they look to the senior citizens for input on what to do, and he agreed the site manager may not be needed. He also agreed with the cut of food costs to $1.27 as proposed by Heritage. Welsh said they are spending $1.30 right now.

Jordahl asked if the $9,142 was not part of the Heritage budget amount that could be subtracted from the shortfall. It was agreed that is true. Foster said a difficulty with Welsh’s proposal was, if they sacrificed site managers, they would have trouble finding volunteer staff to run these programs. Foster said the Senior Center site manager was combined computer operation position that also ran the dining room functions, not a greeter as Duffy thought. Foster said one task of each of management position was to make new people using the service comfortable. Jordahl asked for dollar figures for each proposal and how much they could save with each cut. Foster said Welsh’s proposal would save $23,000, but Welsh said he would not favor doing that. Welsh said he would put into the budget for personnel, $244,949 by putting $22,222 of County tax dollars. There was discussion of the uncertainty in predicting Elderly Waiver dollars. Jordahl asked how much they would save if they cut the weekend service. Foster said it would be $18,000 below the Heritage award. He said that the weekend service costs $57,190, with about $40,000 for staff. Thompson asked what would be saved by cutting Solon, citing the lower numbers if there wouldn’t be transportation through SEATS. Foster said about $15,000 would be saved ($6,500 in salary and $6,873 in food, and $1,771 in fuel costs). Duffy objected to cutting meals. Thompson asked Duffy if he hadn’t always opposed putting County dollars into the program and asked if was he changing his mind. Duffy said they need to talk to Heritage. Jordahl noted they don’t have much time. Foster said their reply is due April 14th, but he would ask for an extension.

Stutsman asked about eliminating the Autumn Park site. Welsh said there are 2 operations there, home delivered meals and meals on site. Foster said a route delivery is added to the site meals to justify the number of meals at that site. Welsh pointed out there would be savings of $4,718 by eliminating the Autumn Park site manager to serve on-site meals, but they could still deliver meals to that site so people could eat communally. Foster pointed out that they would have to figure in the cost of disposable plates without a site manager. The Board discussed the possibility of more attempts to shift funding from the federal level to the County. They also discussed the future of congregate dining and home delivered meals.

Jordahl asked about what other cuts were possible and the amount they could save. Jordahl asked about cutting other site managers. Foster said it would be difficult to find quality volunteer staff to run those programs. Jordahl said that they need to look at asking the cities for help. He said they specifically need to think of what they want to ask for from Iowa City. Duffy said he wouldn’t support asking the cities for money until after they talk to Heritage. Stutsman asked if they take back to Heritage the cut of the one site and the $9,000 in tax dollars they had put in. Thompson suggested trying to get it down as close to the $369,918 as they can legitimately do. Jordahl said they could get below the Heritage figure with the weekend cut. They discussed talking to Heritage about increasing the wage amount based on the County’s budgeted amount before cutting the weekend service.

Welsh pointed out that eliminating weekend meals would cut $52,393 in revenue to Heritage. Foster said Heritage would not want to lose that revenue, which is a good bargaining position. Dewey wondered how cutting the site managers would affect the coordination of home delivered meals. Dewey said the focus was now becoming keeping people in their homes, not assisted living or going to institutions. She said that Heritage is not willing to fund transportation to congregate sites, but will fund delivery of meals. Welsh said there are no Older Americans Act dollars allocated for transportation because it is not mandated. Dewey said that the funding for the Older Americans Act has not increased in 5 years, and that there are no immediate plans to increase it. She said that the result is the costs for the service are going up. but the funding is not. Welsh said the suggested contribution has increased. Foster said 64%-67% of the costs for congregate meals is absorbed by contributions.

Thompson said the writing is on the wall that funding is dwindling for this program, and that they need to talk to the participants about it. Jordahl said they want to strengthen community centers and these meal sites are part of that. He added there would be an upcoming meeting with the cities. Thompson said some some of the stronger congregate meals programs have weekly pot lucks, and that they might have to look at alternative ways to serve meals. Welsh said their decision on SEATS will impact the Senior Dining program. Jordahl said the County may need to pick up the funding for SEATS service. Thompson mentioned a proposal Dewey made to ask the riders to contribute more. Dewey noted seasonal differences, and said that in the winter passenger numbers go down but meal home deliveries go up. She said cuts in meals at meal sites may be offset by meal deliveries. She reviewed the figures for meal delivery to Solon (projected 1,863 meal deliveries) and Lone Tree (projected 767 meal deliveries). She discussed not accepting $0.50 per meal from Heritage but ask they come up with the $1.00 per meal asked for by Johnson County. Dewey said that Linn County is doing this with Heritage.

Jordahl said, if they talk to cities like Solon about chipping in, they need to talk to Iowa City. They decided now is not the time to discuss funding with the cities. The Board decided to look at the cut at Autumn Park, to talk to Heritage about where they got the personnel figure and how that compares to programs in other counties. Jordahl said they might inform Heritage that cutting weekend service would be an option in trying to meet their award, pointing out the lost revenue to Heritage. In discussing having the Board discuss this with Heritage, Duffy said they would need to have the entire Board meet with Heritage, along with representatives from Harkin, Leach and Grassley’s offices. Stutsman asked Duffy to contact those offices about meeting. Stutsman added the entire Board doesn’t need to meet with them. It was agreed that Thompson and Jordahl should meet with Heritage.

In discussing approaching Solon and Lone Tree about contributing to the program, Dewey said the cities’ contracts already cover a portion of the transportation costs. It was decided that they would wait to approach Solon and Lone Tree. Thompson asked if Board members, if cuts are necessary, would they rather make cuts at the Senior Center than the rural sites. Lehman said he would like to see numbers for Lone Tree and Hills, and Welsh said they do not have any. Stutsman asked how Hills is handled. Foster said they use a volunteer transport.

Adjourned at 1:10 p.m.

Attest: Tom Slockett, Auditor

By Mark Kistler, Recording Secretary