MINUTES OF THE INFORMAL MEETING OF THE JOHNSON COUNTY BOARD OF SUPERVISORS:
DECEMBER 12, 2000
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Veterans Affairs Director Leo Baier: Fiscal Year 2002 Budgets
Discussion: Fiscal Year 2002 Budgets
County Attorney J. Patrick White: Fiscal Year 2002 Budgets
Chairperson Stutsman called the Johnson County Board of Supervisors to order in the Johnson County Administration Building at 9:05 a.m. Members present were: Mike Lehman, Sally Stutsman, and Carol Thompson; absent: Charles Duffy and Jonathan Jordahl.
VETERANS AFFAIRS DIRECTOR LEO BAIER: FISCAL YEAR 2002 BUDGETS
Veterans Affairs Director Leo Baier said the Veterans Affairs Commission approved a cap on assistance for clients in any one fiscal year effective April 13th, 2000, which is working out fine. In lieu of fruit baskets for Iowa Veterans Home Residents delivered during the Christmas season, Baier said they’ve increased their dollar amounts in increments of $10 in each category effective July 21st. Baier said there is a continually increasing need for Iowa Veterans Home applications; 5 were submitted in the last 45 days and they will be able to accommodate these. Demand for rental assistance is the most requested of the Veterans Affairs Commission. Baier said 85% of the assistance to Veterans last year went for rental assistance. Regarding office space, Baier said he began negotiations last February because the rent was going to be raised. Their present rental rate is now locked through June 30, 2001 and then there will be a 5% increase. Baier said they projected a 33% increase for utilities even though the increases may go up to 50%. Baier said they also want to increase the salary for his assistant because there hasn’t been one for the last couple of years. Last, Baier said he would not be attending the national meetings this year, but he would attend the ones expected of him in this State.
Baier said they will have to increase the death claims for Veteran’s a little in the future. He said they had one death that they paid for last year and one this year. Baier explained that as the Veteran population ages, it is something they will see more and more of. Last year, Veterans Affairs used 93% of the total budget. 85% went for rent, 7% for food, 5% for utilities and 3% for prescriptions, health needs and burials. He said that of the $61,536 that they are allowed they used $57,441. Lehman noted that transportation for Veterans Administrator Director transportation, schools and lodging was reduced. Baier said they just did some switching of line items.
Lehman asked if there are legal settlements pertaining to Veterans coming into this County. Baier said White and himself have discussed this. Baier said that when a Veteran comes in or calls they are asked what their intent is in Johnson County. If they say they intend to live here and work here, and if they meet the guidelines of when they served, assistance is given, provided that they have an address, not just a post office box. Thompson said there is always concern with this budget because for every dollar that’s given out in the program it costs the County a dollar in administration, which is high. Baier said there is more that goes on in the office than financial assistance. He said there are applications for VA home loans, enrollment kits for medical benefits, applications for Food Stamps and other things not reflected under administration. He said he lets his commissioners know what goes on day to day in the office for accountability purposes. Stutsman asked if their rent increase would be enough to cover the rent. Baier said he isn’t sure and may have to come in for an amendment in May.
Recessed at 9:39 a.m.; reconvened at 10:01 a.m. with Duffy present.
Human Resources Administrator Lora Shramek said personnel issues continue to take up at least 50% of their time and their department doesn’t have the time to adequately provide the services that are currently within their realm and have to say no to requests. She said that human resources organizations continue to indicate that the ratio of a HR representatives to employees should be 1 to 100. She said there are 475 employees in Johnson County and this year there were 2 full-time employees and 1 intern for Human Resources. Johnson County operated its 475 employees with $109,145. Scott County is the closest to Johnson County in size and they have 4 full-time positions in Human Resources with 435 employees and a budget of more than twice what Johnson County has for it’s HR Department. The City of Iowa City has more personnel, higher salaries and a higher budget than Johnson County has. Shramek said that Black Hawk and Johnson County are the only counties performing risk management duties. She said the other counties referenced have their own risk management department. Johnson County’s Human Resources Department handles all of the worker’s compensation, maintains the OSHA logs, makes sure all of the department contacts are trained and conducts accident investigations. Thompson asked about payroll. Shramek said she believes it is separate in most of these and knows it is separate in Linn County and the City of Iowa City.
Shramek said she would like to upgrade the Human Resources Assistant to a Human Resources Coordinator, and the full-time temporary intern to a part-time 20 hour per week position. Shramek said HR needs they are experiencing are at an exempt level and would be considered out-of-job classification for the HR Assistant position as it currently exists. She said they need assistance in the goal areas, which are policy development, interpretation and advisement regarding disciplinary issues, job evaluation, classification studies, exit interviews, more training programming and affirmative action efforts. Shramek said there is a lot of legwork with the internal newsletter and County Fair. She said she thinks the Board would be amazed at the number of compensation surveys that other counties and areas send the County, that take time to complete. She said there is also employee relations and HR projects. She said that ideally the Human Resources Coordinator would perform the following duties: recruitment efforts, managing the process, conducting regular employee orientation sessions for new employees, safety training, building tours, introductions to department heads, managing the worker’s compensation program, unemployment claims, communication efforts, assisting more with employee and labor relations, collective bargaining, grievances and negotiations. She said that this year there is going to be the Human Resources Information System, which is a project that alone will consume an inordinate amount of time.
Shramek said that in Fiscal Year 01, when the Board allowed a 1% increase, Human Resources asked for a 1% decrease. She said she believes in asking for what is really needed. She said that for Fiscal Year 02 she is proposing a budget of $129,861, of which $119,551 is salary and benefits, leaving $10,310 in operating. She said this operating budget is frozen from Fiscal Year 01. She said the Fiscal Year 02 budget increase would be 19%, or $20,716. She said it is broken down into an increase in the full-time permanent wages, which would be the difference between the current HR Assistant position being non-exempt and with the reorganization having a HR Coordinator being exempt. She said the $12,000 is for replacing the intern with a part-time 20 hours per week permanent person. She said the difference in FICA, IPERS, Health Insurance would be dependent upon the incumbent in the position if those were a for sure cost. She said she is asking for a 0% increase in operating and technology. She said that she spoke with Information Services Director Jean Schultz about utilizing old computer equipment for the new person.
Shramek said the Human Resources department can’t continue to provide the level of services that they are because the quality is going down. She said she has helped the Conservation Board with performance evaluations, recruiting, and the answering of questions. She said Public Health is the same in that assistance was given with evaluations and answering policy interpretation questions. She said HR has given help to the County Assessor and Emergency Management. She said that she feels she needs to cut services in order to provide better quality services for those underneath the Board and to also allow time to complete goals the Board has for HR. She recommends that HR not be a part of the Communications Committee. She said they could cease involvement in the internal newsletter and County Fair so as to focus on other services.
Shramek reminded the Board that they have the technology budget additional consideration, which is the Payroll and Human Resources Information System. She said this is something that the Board has been setting aside additional monies for and planning. She said there is going to be a commitment for this next Fiscal Year. She said there is also the non-bargaining pay plan additional budget consideration. She said this plan was implemented July 1, 1998 and is the 8-step pay plan for non-bargaining employees. She said she introduced 10 different plans and because of budget consideration at the time, spent a little less than the $200,000 that was allocated and went with the Yugo, which was the 1% steps, 2% merit consideration. She said this was done with the hopes of putting a little bit more money into that to make it more meaningful for employees to perform beyond expected standards and reward merit performance with 2% steps and 3% merit consideration. She said she would get a number on what this will cost. Shramek said that the performance of department heads and their conducting of performance evaluations have been very impressive. She said they are cautious and really look at only providing this for merit performance.
Thompson asked how much it would cost to delete the bottom steps of the pay scale that make less than the living wage, which covers 7 employees, most of them at Senior Dining. Shramek said that deleting the bottom steps of the pay plan causes a compression. She said it’s not just raising those people to a living wage but you also have to take into consideration those next to them. Thompson said that regarding the pay plan, she thinks Senior Dining will ask for something because it effects their ability to hire good staff and keep them. Shramek said that when the pay plan was implemented July 1, 1998, nearly every employee in Senior Dining received an increase and Heritage was not real pleased with those increases. Shramek said that this year they experienced some turnover in that department and the state of the economy is causing problems in this area, as far as Personnel is concerned. She said Senior Dining positions tend to be at the lower end of the pay scale. She said that if they artificially cut the last 2 or 3 steps from the pay plan then this artificially puts them into a higher level of points. She said they would have to look at giving other job classifications considerations for increases, too. She said this is compression, where raising the floor causes other positions to be bunched up. Thompson asked if this could be fixed over time. Shramek said it can be done over time, but you wouldn’t want to artificially put these positions up there because there could be complaints from any number of people in those current job classifications. Stutsman said they couldn’t just raise the 7 salaries but they’d have to consider raising everybody’s accordingly. Thompson said it personally embarrasses her that the County, which should be an exemplary employer, has people that don’t even make enough to pay their rent. Shramek said that the way Foster has it is there is a cook in charge of salads and a cook in charge of desserts, whereas if he would cross-train the cooks to make them more skilled it would make a difference. She said she has offered to help Foster and they are scheduled to meet. Thompson said it is sad that the part-time cook position qualifies for health insurance, but they have to pay their share and none of them take it because they can’t afford it. Stutsman said this should be discussed with Shramek later.
Shramek said that in October, Bob Saunders presented the Board a dividend check of $15,686 for the significant decrease in worker’s compensation claims. Shramek said this is something Human Resources is doing a good job of managing and would like to continue to do this.
Stutsman said the Board needs to decide what they want Human Resources to continue to do. Stutsman asked Shramek if the time spent helping other departments is documented. Shramek said she has not but could ballpark it. Stutsman asked if it is appropriate to charge departments a fee. Shramek said that in her past employment, HR services were handled this way and there was a fee assessed to all departments internally and externally, based on total employee size in the departments. Horne said that it is possible for these departments to create their own HR function. Stutsman said she is concerned that so much time is spent with these departments and then other departments are being turned away, or some of the things that have been a real benefit to the County have to be set aside. Shramek said it is hard for HR to say no to people when they ask for help because they are a service-oriented department. She said that when someone comes to HR in tears it’s hard to say they’re busy doing something else. Thompson said that sometimes responding to crises encourages people to have them but having good policy in place minimizes the number of crises. She said that any time spent getting the ducks in a row is well spent.
DISCUSSION: FISCAL YEAR 2002 BUDGETS
Horne explained budget worksheets to the Board of Supervisors. Horne said departments are getting used to the new forms since last year. Horne said he thinks having 3 decision packages confuses people and in the future, thinks having one list with requests and justifications would be good. Stutsman said that is the way they used to do it and it seemed easier to understand. Horne said in lieu of the goals he would like to see every department head submit an executive summary, one page accompanying their budget. Thompson said that Jordahl was hoping next year it would show how benchmarks were met. Horne said that a lot of departments benchmarks are completely subjective and everyone can do it somehow. Stutsman said the Board has to decide if it is worth the effort to do it. She said it would help to have someone in place that understands what benchmarks and goals are.
Recessed at 11:00 a.m.; reconvened at 11:10 a.m.
CHIEF JUVENILE DETENTION OFFICER BRANDON BEAUDRY: FISCAL YEAR 2002 BUDGETS
Juvenile Justice Administration (27)
Chief Juvenile Detention Officer Brandon Beaudry said the average length of stay at the Linn County Juvenile Detention facility has nearly doubled for the department and did double for juvenile court officers. He said a main factor is the lack of residential treatment facilities which affects both the costs of the detention line item and the shelter overage line item. Beaudry said the County has an expense to the detention center. He said about $55,000 was budgeted for a shelter overage and he projects spending about $50,000 of that. Beaudry said that costs are going to be considerably lower than allocated this year for the budget for the Johnson County Juvenile Court Office. He said he projects spending between $550-600,000 if costs continue as they are even though they budgeted $742,000. He said last fiscal year they had to budget more money for that line item because the State Public Defender’s Office was complying with State regulations and sending bills to the County until the County met its base cost of approximately $50,000. In the past, he said, the County didn’t have those charges. He said this year they have not received bills, but instead, a credit of nearly $1,000 and the Auditor’s Office is looking into it. Thompson said similar situations have occurred before and thinks that at some point the State runs out of money and then has the right to bill it back to the County without having to ask. She said if the State has money they pay and if they don’t then the County pays.
Beaudry said another item creating less of an expense than thought is detention costs. He projected through the 1st 4 months of the fiscal year that detention costs would be about $400,000, which he upgraded to $422,000 because there have been quite a few kids in detention the last couple of months. He said the budget is $491,000 so there is a considerable saving if these numbers continue. Beaudry said he thinks one of the main reasons they have seen less detention expenses in the last fiscal year and projected for this fiscal year is because of the Detention Alternative Program, or DAP. He said that by his calculations, since the program was initiated in February 1999, the County saved about $67,000 due to the operation of this program. He said DAP is designed to reduce the length of stay that children have in detention. He said it is not meant to provide a total alternative to detention, but is simply a way of reducing the length of stay at a cost on average of $190 per day for detention. He said DAP costs about $72 per day. He said this a program where children are in day treatment, have electronic monitoring and they have enhanced tracking involving at least 2 personal contacts per day. He said he recommends keeping the line item at about the same level. He said reducing it could possibly ensure a budget amendment.
Beaudry said another main area where there have been reductions in the projection of expenses is in the jail costs. He said costs for juvenile are entailed when they are waived to adult court or if they are 16 or older and charged with forcible felonies. He said he put $25,000 in the line item because expenses in the past have been around $20,000. He said he has taken from this line item for the 2002 Fiscal Year about $4,300 to make up for some of the small increases he predicts for 4 other line items. Beaudry said the 1st one is money paid to the Sheriff’s Office for serving notice on families for juvenile hearings. He said a recent decision by the Attorney General’s Office indicates that the State Court Ordered Services Fund must pay the Sheriff’s Office the mileage as set by that particularly County, plus $10 per hour, plus $10 per service of any court documents. He said Johnson County hasn’t been paying this much in past years so there may be some increase in this line item. Beaudry said the 2nd item is the adding of $1,000 to the line item for gas because they weren’t billed for this at their old office. He said the rent increased by $2,200 based on the new lease for an office having 300 additional square feet, which is their 3rd increase. He said the 4th item is the addition of $660 to the janitorial line item for their private contractor. He said the current person has not received a raise in the 3 years that he has been the Supervisor of the Juvenile Court Office. He said he wants to increase the compensation from $65 a week to $80 a week to reflect a raise and the fact that she is cleaning 300 additional square feet.
Beaudry said they are now using the Linn County Detention Facility in excess of the days contracted. He said more days are always used than are purchased. He said they are still transporting kids to a number of different detention facilities, which involves expense and time. He said this creates difficulty in getting the kids to their hearings on time. He said he thinks it’s important for parents to be able to visit their kids and when they are placed far away contact time becomes difficult. Horne asked if there is a number where it is more feasible to do it in the County. Beaudry said he guesses between 10 and 12 average per day.
Recessed at 11:35 a.m.; reconvened at 3:35 p.m.
COUNTY ATTORNEY J. PATRICK WHITE: FISCAL YEAR 2002 BUDGETS
County Attorney J. Patrick White said the County’s mileage reimbursement rate needs to increase. White said the non-bargaining pay plan is another issue. He said at implementation they knew 1% for steps was pretty meager. He said they could afford at that time 3% and it made sense to put the majority of that 3% into implementing a pay system, which is working. He said the dollars available are still small though and the consensus is working towards a 5% combination. He said another 1% step increase is not having much impact. Stutsman said Shramek affirmed that department heads and elected officials were using the 1% merit appropriately. White said the 3rd issue involves Courthouse security. He said the best investment of a budget dollar is a patrol officer in uniform and even better when accompanied by a patrol car because it brings the highest level of deterrence in public safety. He said there is an advantage to having security in the building because periodically they can bring out the metal detectors without having to staff it every day the office is open. Then, when the need to use it arises, there is less attention to it if a pattern has been set. Thompson asked how security works now. He said when an incident occurs they call or use a panic button. He said that if enough notice is given, they can round up people. Thompson said that in Linn County usually incidences occur during domestic cases and now they are all scheduled on one day so the Sheriff sends someone on one day. White said ideally having someone every day is what he is thinking but a starting point is having random security personnel as opposed to none. He said Muscatine County went to a system a few years ago where they have a uniformed deputy in the courthouse when court is in session. He said he worries that there is always talk of doing something and then something will happen and there will be regrets about not having done something. Stutsman said she wants to look at options and one might be having a deputy at the Courthouse a couple of random days per week..
Prosecutor Forfeiture Proceeds (69)
White said nothing is spent out of here unless revenues come in. He said this is their 5% share of any cash forfeiture, usually drug cases. He said $1,200 annual expenditure reflects an optimistic year and only about $300-400 from it in the last couple of years have been spent.
Courthouse Centenary Fund (61)
White said he projects a total Fiscal Year budget of $10,500. He said this is odd because the rededication will be over by the time they get to this Fiscal Year. He said the real unknown is how much they will raise and so far it’s been $2,651, of which $2,500 came from the County Bar Association and then a couple of small contributions. He said to get to an event cost of $10,500 he has broken out framing and historic panels at $3,000, the event at $4,000, landscaping at $2,000 and printing and publicity at $1,500. He said they are still a long ways from knowing precisely what they want to do with any of these. He said that some of the framing is underway thanks to Sue Feeney. He said he is going to make an effort to collect photos of all of the County Attorneys and on the 3rd floor there is a gallery of the judges photos. He said one of his visions is for the Courthouse to someday be enough of a historical site that it will actually start to get tourist traffic through it. White has guessed donations for the Courthouse Centenary at $6,500, leaving $4,000 to be covered by other funds. He said that for now it is uncertain and it’s probably best to leave it alone and it is too early to know whether to ask the County for money.
White said this is the budget that funds witness fees, deposition costs, exhibits, and expert witnesses if there is a trial. He said this is one that often runs out of money midstream and they’ve had to do a year end amendment. He said he proposes adding dollars to different line items to raise the total to $122,550, from the current $107,550. He said there has also been discussions with what to do with the 3rd floor law library since it is running out of space. White said they have gone through the books and made tentative judgements as to what hard copies they could do without. He said they are now going to be negotiating with the law book company to see if a couple of computer terminals can be installed to shift some hard copies to electronic research. He said this is a difficult budget to manage. He said that sometimes witnesses have to be brought from other states or countries and the County covers the cost and they don’t always get the best prices due to short notice.
Stutsman left at 4:05 p.m.
White said this is the County Attorney’s main budget. He said he has made some fairly modest changes or recommendations in line items like stationary, postage and copying. He said the postage item is far off and the actual expense is now twice as much as the line item. He said the current budget is $4,894, but their spending rate is over $11,000 for postage. Thompson said he could change this in the re-estimated column to keep it up to date. White also updated the revenue because they are quite a bit under what the actual contract revenues are. He said they were showing only $180,000 and this year they are going to be closer to $260,000 so he has increased that to $263,000, which is a reflection of the contract negotiated with the current level contract with Child Support Recovery.
White said there are only 3 spending requests of significance. He said one is a new copy machine in the current year budget and a smaller backup copier. White said they are also ready to try a new phone system because the system is 13 years old, there is no voicemail system and they can’t get replacement phones. He said the 3rd request is for a half-time prosecutor. He said the caseloads are high with some having about 200 cases at a time. He said he settled on a half-time attorney because they are out of space and thinks a part-time person could fit in better than a full-time one. Thompson asked if the backup is connected with the jail situation. White said no, but he does want to discuss options for the jail in the short and long run. White said he is proposing a salary of $16,500, plus the part-time benefits package and a computer for the half-time attorney salary. Thompson said White is asking for $31,456, plus about $20,000, totaling about $52,000 worth of increases and $93,000 worth of revenue additions, not counting regular salary increases. White said the revenues aren’t so much an increase as it is a more accurate prediction of current revenue stream plus the contract.
Juvenile Crime Prevention Grant (54)
White said that essentially he proposed to increase County spending on the Juvenile Crime Prevention Grant Program by $25,000. He said this is difficult to predict because they have no clue what the legislature will do and whether they can still get the same level of support from them. White said the Johnson County Board of Supervisors hasn’t received the credit it deserves for putting support into this last year, causing possibly the best budget decision because the Board of Supervisors preserved the program that was actually making a difference in kids’ lives when the State couldn’t. He said the absolute best thing to spend money on is a child.
White said that every time he has made a staffing request the Board has honored it. He said he can always use more than he asks for but he knows the County budget and believes what he asks for is realistic. Lehman said that a lot of grants are going for officers. White said that if there are going to be more police on the streets then where are the prosecutors, judges, probation officers, the jail space and the treatment programs. He said none of that was funded. He said that even so the public is safe.
Adjourned at 4:40 p.m.
Attest: Tom Slockett, Auditor
By Casie Parkins, Recording Secretary