MINUTES OF THE INFORMAL MEETING OF THE JOHNSON COUNTY BOARD OF SUPERVISORS:
APRIL 17, 2000
WORK SESSION: STRATEGIC PLANNING WITH ELECTED OFFICIALS
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Chairperson Painter called the Johnson County Elected Officials Meeting to order in Morgan’s Restaurant in the Sheraton Hotel, Iowa City, at 8:30 a.m.
Elected officials present were: County Attorney J. Patrick White; County Auditor Tom Slockett; County Recorder Kim Painter; County Sheriff Bob Carpenter; County Supervisors Pat Harney, Mike Lehman, Terrence Neuzil, Sally Stutsman, and Carol Thompson; and County Treasurer Tom Kriz. Staff present were: Board of Supervisors Administrative Assistant Carol Peters, and Auditor’s Office Recording Secretary Casie Parkins.
Strategic Planning Facilitator Tim Shields said he wasn’t there to talk about the broader issues around the state, but he is concerned about where they are headed and what’s up in the next year or year and a half. He said there were significant issues rolling across the 3 Iowa’s that exist. He stated the issues are different in each of those areas. Shields said they have significant challenges facing county government, but he had a professional bias in that regard. He said it is time to really think strategically and about the inter-relationships of issues in county government, which may be more of a challenge because of the autonomy of the elected officials and the nature of county government. He continued by explaining he meant the Iowa City/Cedar Rapids and Des Moines/Ames corridors as the first Iowa. He works with most of the local governments in those realms and they have all experienced dramatic growth and positive change for the most part. Shields said most of the growing places are not getting the resources to catch up with the growth. He added that the tax policies and structures in place deny many places the opportunity to catch up with citizen expectations and demands. 75 to 80% of the growth in Iowa in the last decade occurred in those two corridors. The second Iowa, he said, are places that are fighting to stay even and some might be a surprise, such as Mason City. He mentioned the third Iowa that is much larger geographically and those are the places that are in decline. He referred to Adams County with fewer than 4,200 citizens. As they look at Des Moines, he didn’t think they were getting the guidance and leadership to address any one of the three Iowa’s basic issues. Shields ended his introduction by saying they would be focusing on Johnson County’s issues and checked the agenda with the members present. He said he saw this meeting as an opportunity for dialogue. He would start with the strategic issues from the elected officials’ perspective before focusing on the Board’s goals. He described strategic documents as being dynamic and having to respond to change. He said they would close the meeting by looking at where they need to go next and what steps they need to take to get there.
Shields asked the elected officials for something that has been a real success or accomplishment in their department in last year or so. County Recorder Kim Painter said the Recorders Office was now recording all document, real estate, births, deaths, and marriages, electronically and storing them on optical disc format. She said that was one phase, but it was a good thing to have done.
County Auditor Tom Slockett noted that in an election year in which there was not a record turnout statewide, there was a record turnout in Johnson County. There were unprecedented services to the voters and they responded in record numbers. He noted that 40% of the people voted before Election Day, and explained that the convenience of voting and allowing people to get the job done according to their needs is the reason for the record. Shields agreed and said it was quite remarkable.
County Treasurer Tom Kriz said the Treasurers Office had finally succeeded in turning an image around and they have cut down waiting time to no more than a 5-minute wait.
County Attorney J. Patrick White noted they have successfully added a new civil staff attorney and they had recruited a very bright and talented young man to that position. He said they were delivering a higher level of service as a result. He said they have also survived the strangest quasi-crisis he had ever encountered of an employee having an affair with a judge. Shields said that media treated that situation fairly well. Slockett thought that White had handled it so successfully and professionally that all the questions were answered and everything was done appropriately.
Shields asked if they were running into problems with the labor market and trying to find folks and keep them. County Sheriff Bob Carpenter said they were having problems with transfer deputies. Shields said the economic downturn may prove him right, that there is a business cycle that will change. Everywhere he goes governments are wrestling with the issue. As of this day, he said there are 8 or 9 city engineer positions empty. He said there are two places where the problem hits and that is the highest level of professionals and then the lowest level of employees in terms of the skills they bring. He said the other area is the law enforcement, pointing out a couple of cities in the Des Moines area are offering a bounty to sign. Slockett said when he advertises he doesn’t get the pool of skilled applicants he’s seen in the past and feels lucky with the ones he’s been able to get. In his office the people are exceptionally suited to the labor market because they are accountants and CPAs. Shields said that unless the economy does change, this would continue to be an issue in the future.
Carpenter said for the past year they have basically just been surviving and didn’t have any big accomplishments. Shields said, if they can say that 6 months from now after the legislative session, they will have an accomplishment. He asked what was the latest they had heard about lobbying efforts for a property tax freeze. Stutsman wasn’t sure if they were going to wait until the end of the session and then try to ram a property tax freeze through. White didn’t think they knew because the structure up there was not working. He said the Republicans don’t talk to the Democrats or the Governor and the communication is horrible. Shields said he has several friends in the Legislature who say it’s not fun anymore. White thought that retaining leadership in the Legislature gets harder and harder because it’s such a terrible job in that it doesn’t pay well and disrupts your life. Shields said the partisan nature has changed also and the definition of partisanship at the Iowa Legislature has changed. He said there were some very tough relations between the Governor and the majority party.
Shields then asked the elected officials to look at the next two or three years and state what they see as strategic issues in their area that have County-wide ramifications. Painter said they have increasing demands for technology-driven service and that is in all offices. She said people are placing more importance on technology and that all happens against the backdrop of difficult economic times. Shields said Painter was talking about a higher level of service in that area and it was a County-wide issue. White listed pay, staff, and space as big issues. He said they were desperately looking for a way to create more space.
Slockett agreed with White’s issues, saying it seems that everywhere he looks they have major challenges. He said they had just begun looking at new financial software, because theirs is so old. Information Services no longer has any outside support. He said they have to move forward and the technology is mind-boggling. Determining what they can afford is a major challenge. In conjunction with the financial software acquisition, he said they have to implement GASB34, which is touted as the most significant change in governmental accounting, period. In regards to technology, he pointed out that the voting equipment is aging and isn’t able to meet recent administrative requirements of the Secretary of State. He said the whole idea of voting is changing, so there are different types of needs. He described satellite voting and technological improvements available for that, such as touch screen voting systems. In addition to the usual method of voting at the polling places on Election Day, he noted there is a new trend to have elections entirely by mail. Additional requests for recounting votes are possible in close races after what happened in Florida. These considerations require looking at a central count application that can quickly count large numbers of ballots. He said that in Oregon they have called off Election Day and have had elections by mail. He said there is legislation this year that would allow cities of 200 or less in population to hold elections by mail, so it would be very easy to take that population restriction out. He noted studies indicating that elections by mail tend to be more successful votes for bond issues. Slockett said one more concern was the electronic storage of documents and document management is a whole new challenge. He said that was going to really pay off, but it would be a big effort to make the change. Shields asked if everybody was aware of GASB34 and that it was the thorn in the local governments’ side. He said there were some benefits derived but didn’t know if they would equal the cost to comply. He said what is driving it is that if the counties don’t do it, they can’t borrow money. Slockett said, because of the real estate and election functions, the mapping and GIS is another huge impact in his office.
Kriz said document management is something that will have to be pushed harder along with how they do their business and making it easier for people to remit and pay. He said the biggest impact is that the State is ready to pull the plug and over the next few years make sure that all Treasurers do drivers licenses. He said that in a county the size of Johnson County, it could present a real problem if they are forced to take over the drivers license division from the DOT. He said he has yet to talk to a county that has not lost money on it, which means it becomes a burden on the local people to pay for that. Shields asked if he heard much talk about those sub-state functions and regionalizing those. Kriz thought there was some talk about that. He said the small counties like it because they keep in touch. He said regionalization becomes more inconvenient and more impersonal. Shields stated that one way the State can cut its budget is to transfer services it provides to the counties’ responsibility. White said that some people felt that the Recorder’s role should be sent to the Secretary of State. Shields said the genealogy people would not embrace that idea. Painter said genealogists had been trying to make more contemporary birth and death records inaccessible to the public. Shields said that when you centralize some of those functions and the decision-making occurs there, they don’t take into consideration local concerns when they try to get legislation passed. Painter thought the DNR was on a good track with their new electronic hunting licensing, because it allows hunters to go to places like Scheels or Kmart if they choose, and can also come to the Recorders Office. She said it’s centralized in that the repository of information is with the State, but there is also the convenience.
Carpenter said that as they grow out of the urban areas, it would continue to compound the problems they have. He was told in a meeting the prior week the 911 money was not going to completely fund some areas and the local governments would have to supplement that. He said that in the next year every county in the state will go to E911, which no one thought could ever be done. He said the new wireless technology and the current E911 are 2 different entities and it will be expensive to take on both. He said everybody would have a cell phone shortly and they would have to deal with that. He said that the Jail would continue to remain a big issue and would put the County into trouble first.
Shields asked the Board for their opinions on future strategic issues. Stutsman expressed her concern over the public demanding more services but yet wanting tax breaks and tax cuts. She wondered how to balance those issues. Lehman said it was the same with the budget, it’s difficult enough trying to figure out how to maintain what they have now, let alone trying to increase efficiency and level of service. Harney said Johnson County has provided a great number of good services, but now with all the mandates coming down, it will be hard to balance the dollars to get the most for the money. He said citizens are starting to complain about the level of taxation and they need to find some way to balance it. He said they will have to give good services, but they would have to cut some services somewhere. Shields said he hears that same problem everywhere. He said there are clearly resource limitations that exist and there are apprehensions about further limitations in the future. Lehman said they don’t get a big turnout at public hearings, but there is an undercurrent of those feelings. He said when you have basic needs, the County has to figure out how to prioritize because somebody will always get shorted. Stutsman said that it depends on who you talk to because some people feel that Johnson County provides a good level of services and are willing pay for them without complaining, but then there are other people who say they can’t pay the taxes anymore. She thought that group is responding to what’s happening on a state and national level. Lehman said they get feedback from people who don’t use some of the services; they say they live out in the county and want the road fixed, and have never used the ambulance or human services. He said you have to explain to them that it’s an insurance policy that they’re there if they need them. He said it’s hard to get through to those people because they only see what they use. White said the University influence tends to bring different attitudes than the rest of the state. He said this is a county that is more intuned to government spending than a lot of Iowa. He said the library bond issue reflects what happened with the jail bond issue. Carpenter said there was a difference between the city and the county. He said the increase of sprawl is because people are tired of paying their taxes in Iowa City and move to the county, expecting the same type of service for a cheaper rate and in the county you just don’t have those services. Shields thought this trend wouldn’t change; they would continue to see a real strong movement toward the ex-urban residents, whether it’s small towns or rural subdivisions. He said they bring a level of expectation that is unrealistic based on the old paradigm.
Shields said that Iowa City is a bit different culture, compared to the rest of the state. He said the elected officials in this county could expect a higher level of support for positive programs, even if they have tax consequences. White said there was another aspect of that also when you get to Des Moines and look at the budget created by legislators and the governor. He said 125 of those legislators could give a damn about the University of Iowa and this community. He said the community doesn’t understand the difficult role that the area has because they are not a favorite. Slockett said they would get an education if the current budget situation continues. He said the cuts for the University were very surprising. White said the single most important thing that’s happened vis-à-vis the University budget and the Legislature this session was the naked camera toss, which created 100 anti-University votes. He said there is nobody who wants the University to get more money when they read about the naked camera toss, which is silly, but it’s true. Shields said that if the University actually experiences downturns, officials here may see a different attitude and that may show up in our tax culture as well. He said that there is still a policy leader tax added to it and trying to remain competitive is the drive there and the perceived tax burden as an element of economic development competitiveness. He said in this area there were a large number of folks supporting the library, with an equally vocal group of people opposed to that tax burden.
Slockett said it was important that they remain aware of that, really have their act together, and are creative and resourceful in dealing with it. He recalled when budget hearings and Compensation Board meetings were packed and overflowing. He said one of their challenges is making sure that they sharpen their pencils and run a really efficient government. He said they’ve really had a terrific financial system and have kept the balances low and people knew that they had low-cost programs. He said it’s important to have a list of the ways they have saved money, citing energy conservation as an analogy to low-cost efficient county services. Shields said the only rational argument that he heard for the tax limitation bill is county reserves and then they were talking 15 or 20 counties. He said it would be simple to pass legislation putting up capital reserves as opposed to draconian measures that have impacts long in to the future. Slockett said in one version there was the draconian limitation, but the exception to that was if your reserves were lower than 25%, you could increase the reserves up to 25%. He said Johnson County hasn’t had a 25% reserve for 15 years, that it remained at 10%. Shields said ISAC was trying to make the legislation move in that direction. He stated that most of the places with the exceptional reserves were driven by Iowa conservatism, not borrowing money. Carpenter said that’s what got Johnson County in trouble several years ago. He said they were paid up on their debts and nobody wanted to stick their neck out and put a bond out there, so they went for years using the money they had to build the Administration Building for example, but now they have multiple needs. Carpenter said Iowa City spends and spends and the County is being conservative, but it is the County that gets media attention.
Shields stated that one of his concerns in this realm is more organized efforts by citizens, louder voices, more potential controversy around issues that in the past might have been seen as fairly neutral to most folks. His fear that we get government by tantrum or a government of the loudest voices. He thought that would be a real negative. Slockett said one of the advantages they have is in Johnson County they have an awful lot of loud voices and are used to dealing with them.
Recessed at 9:35 a.m.; reconvened at 9:40 a.m.
REVIEW OF the PREVIOUS BOARD SESSION
Vision For The Next Seven To Eight Years
Shields said a good portion of what they find there has been evolving and that the Board has continued to grow with some of these goals. He stated that with the two new members coming in and the changes going on in the County, there has been a lot of re-thinking. He said they really want to achieve dialogue in the meeting and to give feedback to the Board on what they’re identifying. Shields said the elected officials could take a look at the first page of the strategic planning document. He said the items listed under the vision for the next 7 or 8 years were part of a look at the big picture; they’ve looked a little further out. Lehman said the document was sort of a checklist and wondered if they should get into defining them more. Thompson stated that it was a list of what’s on the table and seven or eight years out what do they want to have accomplished. Stutsman said they have to look forward in order to look at the immediate.
Thompson said she noticed the elected officials’ issues relied much more heavily on technology than the Board’s did. She stated all of theirs could have been stated in a different way to acknowledge that the technology is changing. Shields asked the Board if it would make sense that part of their vision be some language to the effect of appropriate and effective use of technology. Thompson said in the past the goal was to use technology as a tool and when they said access, they meant the employees would have access to the computers. She said that now the demand is for the public to have access to the information that the employees manage which is a whole different ballgame and also very expensive. She said they have to think about that. Stutsman said their number one strategic goal is technology. Thompson stated that the technology plan still is staff access more or less. Stutsman said they had talked about improving citizen services processes so they had recognized that.
White challenged the word innovative in number 13 and asked if what they don’t really mean is effective. He stated they could be innovative by hiring somebody with a sound truck to drive around the county and communicate but it wouldn’t be effective. He stated that innovation isn’t necessarily an end goal. Stutsman stated they were talking about new ways to communicate with the Internet media, so she wondered if she wanted to say innovative and effective. Shields suggested effective innovation, or effective use of innovative ideas in communicating with citizens. Neuzil stated innovative meant how can we come up with new kinds of things. Stutsman agreed with White in that new ways aren’t always the most effective ways, but wanted to make sure the Board was OK with giving up the innovative part of it. Shields stated his phrasing still captured what they were talking about and also White’s amendment.
White said he didn’t understand number seven: Meaningful review of county organization and relationship to local governments (e.g., emergency services in place). Thompson said that one of the things they talked about is the fact that they have numerous agreements in place where they work with various other parts of government in the county. She thought their discussion focused on the League of Women Voters’ demand for a more coordinated government. She said they talked about the ways they already do that and the ways they work and don’t work. She said it was more of a discussion than a plan, but they were thinking that if they started reviewing ways they cooperate, they might discover a way they could increase cooperation and make it more consistent. Slockett wondered if there was any way of measuring success in any of those. Shields stated this would not lend itself to that and when you get into talking about specific goals and try to work towards that, it’s a very important question. He characterized the vision portion of strategic planning as the warm fuzzy. Stutsman asked White if he was comfortable with number seven and its wording. White said he was.
Slockett asked about cost-effectiveness and if it doesn’t need to be stated. He said the problem with warm fuzzy is that no reality is involved with it in terms of doing all things and looking for ways to do some of them more efficiently and thereby allowing some of the other things to happen that might not otherwise happen. Shields asked what the Board should consider. Slockett said that was a feeling he’s had for some time, that there’s a trend in county government to not consider costs, cutting costs, and doing things in the lowest cost way as part of the planning process. He said part of it has to do with the committee system that the Board has devised. He said it focuses what he’s talking about, and that is form over substance. He said if they have a difficult decision, they just form committees and have them report to each other and have them report to an over-arching committee and have that committee make a report to the Board. He said that all the players on the committee are mostly people who view their success in terms of getting a larger budget, a bigger department, more resources within their department. He said these people are all voting, making recommendations, and the notion of doing things in a cost-effective way is seen as traitorous to bring it up. He said any advocate risks having someone else bring that up when they make a proposal. He said the aspect of doing things in a cost-effective way is not effectively put forward through this type of system. He said that’s where it’s coming from. There is more of a tendency to say there’s nothing they can do about it; they need all the resources and people want the services but they don’t want to provide the money. Shields said they should pull back to the strategic issue Slockett raised. He said the effective fiscal management system that has an established and well-accepted budget process and would move towards multi-year planning is part of what Slockett was implying in that they were also establishing cost-effective practices. Painter said that was the difficult thing when talking about the vision page when behind it is so much of the substance, which is embedded in the strategic goals. Lehman said the budgetary process is where they rationalize the cost-effectiveness, but policy changes during the year cause them to wonder what the financial ramifications are for implementation between budget years. He wondered what that would cost to administer. Slockett asked how they measure cost-effectiveness and said they could have some competition within County government. He suggested, if two people want to do the same thing, they could have them try to show how to do it. Lehman said some people may not know how to measure services, the costs, and benefits derived.
Slockett said he’s focusing on any government incentive or appreciation or award to do something in the less expensive way. Painter said she likes strategic planning in the first place, and in moving forward with document management in the Recorder’s Office, this is the first year they are seeing a dramatic decrease in the operating budget that is non-personnel. She said the percentage saved is tremendous and this year she was able to not increase their budget at all. When she presented her budget, she talked about how she had saved a substantial amount of money. She would like to retain some of that money within the budget to increase her ability to offer staff development to employees in the Recorders Office through some type of seminar. She said they were able to retain some of that money because of her presentation and was able to find the money in her budget through the use of technology. This year she would be giving some of the money back. She said the Board has been responsive to that type of argument. Slockett said he didn’t want to imply that the Board doesn’t care about saving money, and he didn’t mean to imply that no one in the room saves money. Painter said she didn’t feel that. Slockett said that in strategic planning in government or the corporate type of value, he hasn’t been seen it much as a priority. Painter said that her concept could be applied to other budgets and could grow within the organization. Lehman wondered how they measure. Thompson stated that cost-effectiveness is one of those balancing things. She said it’s not the cheapest thing and it’s not the most effective thing. She said it was how do you get the best bang for the buck, and they don’t always agree on what that is. She said they use a process that involves committee input and the Board likes that because it gives them a broad range of opinions. The Board then makes a decision based on what they think they can afford. Stutsman said Thompson made a good point in that cost is one of the things the Board looks at. She said they have to take in a number of considerations when making those decisions. She said she was an advocate of committee process because they are interested in hearing different points of view. Shields said that those things exist, and there is a government process of how to come to a decision, which is a separate issue. He said that on the strategic discussion, he said there are potential issues/questions to discuss further. The first was the business of cost-effectiveness. He said they all responded that it was implied and the addendum to the vision could simply say to identify cost-effective practices. He said the other issue raised is measurement and that is a major question. He said the other thing is if they should talk about creating incentives for cost efficiencies.
Shields moved the topic to emerging issues and again stated this was not an attempt to define the entire Universe. He asked if there were some things in the short version that were hot now that they hadn’t talked about in the last two or three years to develop goals. He said they identified health care costs, labor negotiations coming up, library funding had become an issue, energy costs, a long-range plan for the County Farm, and Mall Drive property. He stated the reason they are on the list here is because they hadn’t been thinking about it the prior year, or it hadn’t risen to the issue of strategic planning in the prior year.