Lehman: Next item is Business from the County Auditor. First was Discussion/Action Needed, A letter of agreement with the City of Iowa City to combine 2 rural township precincts with their respective contiguous Iowa City precinct. Julie, Tom, and we have John Deeth.

Slockett: Julie is going to make the presentation and we’re just here to be supportive.

Deputy Auditor Julie Bartholomew: Part of the documentation that we brought up yesterday talked about some requirements and I can go over the bulk of this later. But to discuss the first one, the letter of agreement with the City of Iowa City, in the past we have combined East Lucas North Township with an Iowa City precinct. I’ve kind of commented on that. We’re actually looking to combine a voting precinct with Precinct 22, which currently votes at Shimek School. We’d also like to combine East Lucas South Township with an Iowa City precinct, because the state Legislature put a House district boundary line there, so we can no longer combine it with Pleasant Valley. In order to combine a rural precinct with a city precinct, we now need a letter of agreement with the city. Iowa City has already signed it and I’ve got in my possession downstairs. Basically, combining it is a cost-savings, because we don’t have to open up a precinct for just 320 people, for East Lucas South, and East Lucas North has 245. We can combine the cost of poll workers that way.

Slockett: West Branch (inaudible).

Bartholomew: West Branch, yes.

Thompson: So, you’ve got the letters and you’d put them on for our approval next week.

Bartholomew: A copy of the letter is in your packet. I believe Iowa City is page 5, West Branch is page 6. Basically, just stating that we’re all aware and agree to combining it. That way, next week we can get formal authorization, hopefully from Mike or you, to authorize him to sign the letter next week. The reason it’s kind of rushed is because the cities are required to have their ordinances signed and in the mail by September 1st. So, the County, our portion of redistricting, re-precincting is October 15th, but they have to have their signed documentation by the 1st.

Lehman: What is the term you used about the House?

Bartholomew: House legislative district boundary line.

Lehman: Oh, I thought you were talking about East Lucas South, which…

Bartholomew: East Lucas South used to vote with Pleasant Valley and they now put East Lucas South in, I believe they put it in…

Slockett: They are now in 2 different legislative districts and they can’t vote in the other legislative district.

Lehman: I get you.

Bartholomew: One of the requirements is, up here on the front page of your memo that we had sent yesterday, was a maximum population of 3,500 be contained within a single legislative district, be composed of contiguous territory within the County, and we have to use census block boundaries. Some cities we don’t need agreements with because they have populations of less than 2,000. But, since both Iowa City and West Branch have that and West Branch has over 2,000 and actually has 2 precincts because they’re in 2 counties.

Harney: Is Fairview Golf Course the closest place for people from West Branch.

Bartholomew: Actually, we would have to combine them with Scott Township because West Branch is encompassed.

Harney: It’s contiguous.

Bartholomew: Right, it’s encompassed by Scott Township. It’s not contiguous with any other.

Harney: But that’s the closest polling place for them.

Bartholomew: Right.

Slockett: Also, by law, it has to be with a contiguous precinct and that’s where that precinct votes.

Bartholomew: Right. On the very last page of the packet of information was a map that just kind of illustrates all of the areas that we are looking at, but West Branch is a tiny little spot that is totally surrounded by Scott Township. So, that’s kind of what we are looking at for the letters.

Stutsman: The cities have already approved those letters, so it’s just a formality for us to put them on.

Lehman: Put them on formal action.

Stutsman: Right.

Slockett: But, they have to have Mike’s signature on the letter and in the mail by September 1st.

Bartholomew: Right. So, basically we will be hand-delivering those letters.

Harney: Johnson County was fortunate they didn’t have to do a lot of re-districting as far as places for people to be re-elected.

Stutsman: We’re so lucky we don’t do it by districts. That’s just a lot more work. It can be done but it’s a lot more work.

Bartholomew: Exactly, without a doubt. But, that’s basically the 2 letters of agreements. They are basically the same thing, one stating Iowa City and the other with West Branch and the precincts that it is dealing with.

Lehman: OK, so we have questions for Julie, Tom or John?

Bartholomew: On the first 2.

Lehman: Letter of agreement with the City of West Branch to combine one contiguous West Branch precinct and ordinance regarding voting precinct in Johnson County.

Bartholomew: Right. That’s probably the big one we want to go through. What we’re looking at is, basically we’re keeping everything the same except for the 2 townships that we are combining and adding West Branch. West Branch has voted with Scott Township, so that’s not really new. But what we have to do is there are 3 townships that we need to take a look at. That is, Big Grove Township, their population, with the rural population and the city of Solon, that is over the 3,500 maximum population allowed. So, our recommendation was to have the rural voters vote in one precinct and the City of Solon vote in another.

Neuzil: Kind of like what Penn and North Liberty does.

Bartholomew: Right. So, those would have to be split out. We’re also looking at Clear Creek Township. Again, we get into the house district boundary lines, the legislative boundary lines. They put Tiffin in one house district and Clear Creek Township in another, so they can no longer vote in the same polling place as a precinct. Then, we go up to Jefferson Township, which is also between the township, Shueyville, and Swisher, that is also over the 3500. So, our solution was to basically go down Interstate 380 as the dividing line, so that the west portion and the city of Swisher votes in one precinct, Shueyville and the east rural voters would vote in Shueyville. The only little, I wouldn’t call it problem, but the confusing part might be is there is one little section of Shueyville that is on the west side of the Interstate and they would still need to go with the rest of the Shueyville voters. So, that would be defined as the east side of Jefferson, including the city of Shueyville.

Lehman: OK, it says ordinance.

Bartholomew: Yes, we have to do it by ordinance. So, that is why we’re having the public hearing, and then we’ll have to have 3 considerations after that. On page 3 of the packet that I dropped off, we’ve written up a proposed schedule. September 6th being the public hearing. Then, on the 13th, 20th, and 27th, doing a consideration each time.

Stutsman: I have to commend you for this packet of information, Julie. This is just…

Thompson: Very thorough.

Bartholomew: Thank you. We worked really hard to get it done for you.

Stutsman: Yes, you sure must have. Keep it for 10 years from now.

Bartholomew: We’ve already had that discussion, yes. We cannot lose the paperwork and computer files, exactly.

Lehman: Your office will take care of those publications.

Bartholomew: That is correct. There is a tentative copy of the ordinance and following is a tentative copy of the notice of public hearing, which was just typed in with a different time. We had just put in a time to show what it would look like. But it will be changed to the time that you indicated. Let’s see, at the back, on page 11, is a population certification that after the final consideration and based upon whatever we end up as an ordinance, we will have to certify, have the Chair be authorized to sign the certification. I don’t know what is going to happen at the public hearing. You had asked earlier how long it would be. I don’t know how much interest there is and how long the meeting will be at the public hearing or if you’ll want to make any changes, but that is kind of the basic overview. I don’t know if you have any questions or if Tom wants to add anything. Have I missed anything?

Slockett: No, I don’t believe you’ve missed anything. What is it that you want them to do at the next meeting?

Bartholomew: Next week we’ll put on signing, being authorized to sign the letters. Then, we skip over to the 6th, which you’ve already set for the public hearing. So you’ll all right for any public that might like to make comments or anything else.

Slockett: I’d just like to thank Julie for the great job she’s done and also John Deeth. Much of the effort for re-precincting as a result of the new census has actually been initiated in the Auditor’s Office. We’ve worked closely with Marian Karr at the City of Iowa City and with Coralville and they essentially adopted the suggestions that we made for re-precincting. We provided the maps that they evaluated and made some changes and then we provided them additional and so forth. So, our real estate mapping section was very helpful, too. In spite of having turn over right in the middle of it, Tika started out doing it, then KD took over afterwards, and they both did a terrific job. The notion of re-precincting is much more complicated than it would appear to be because of all of the restrictions in terms of keeping the population size correct in the council districts and not going over legislative lines and meeting the maximum precinct sizes and so forth. It really was a complex task putting those together and John was invaluable in working those numbers. He worked closely with Julie on it and it really was a difficult job, time-consuming, and it worked out because the basic job they did was accepted with very few changes by the entities. So, they’ll also be very helpful in answering any questions that the public has. One of the points that we made in our letter commenting on Iowa City’s re-precincting is that we understand there are many limitations in the precinct lines that were drawn. In an ideal world, many people might have voted in different precincts, but because you have to meet population lines, district lines, and have balance in the council districts and so forth, you have to make decisions on balance often times. So, we laid that out pretty well in a letter to the City Council. I think that is always better than to say we’ve come up with the perfect solution. It’s better to say we’ve come up with a solution that leaves something to be desired, but it’s the best set of choices we have given the limitations that were placed on us. That’s essentially what we did. There will probably be, once these are approved and people figure out the new places they are voting and so forth, there will be some concern about the plan and we’ll be happy to answer questions. There are always going to be cases where someone lives closer to one polling place and has to vote in another one and that’s inevitable because of the process of drawing lines and only having one polling place in each precinct. It’s not necessarily located right in the middle of it. You have to deal with the available facilities.

Lehman: I think the public appreciates your display of maps in the lobby area. I see a lot of people studying those. OK, anything else? We’ll have those letters of agreement on for next week. OK, any questions for Julie, Tom or John? If not, thank you very much.

Lehman: Next is Business from Jeff Horne, Budget Coordinator, with the monthly report for July, our first month of the Fiscal Year.

Horne: That’s right. As you said, July 2001 was the first month of the Fiscal Year 2002. It’s difficult to see any trends or items of concern at this point. Revenues and expenditures should be 80% of budget. (Inaudible) departments have pretty much stayed within that. There are no trends or items known at this time. Any kind of variances you see are basically seasonal. We’re showing high revenues, for instance, in Conservation, but that is because they are collecting all of their beach and park fees right now. The County Attorney’s Office got a large Child Support Recovery reimbursement from the State, things of that nature. I talked about this earlier when the Sheriff was here. The General Fund will not have any room to increase budgets during the year from its reserve. We have enough to ensure adequate cash flows only and we don’t want to endanger our cash flow position at any time during the year. Any additional expenditures from departments would have to come from somewhere within budget this year or from another fund as we talked about with the Sheriff. I sent a notice to department heads telling them about this situation, giving them a heads up earlier in the year, so they know the situation and they can work hard to work within it. This does not mean that the County is out of money by any stretch of the imagination. It means that we are taxing for what we need as a public entity and it reflects the disciplined approach that the Board of Supervisors has wanted to take towards budgeting. So, I think we’re staying, we’re not maintaining excess reserves, which has been the criticism of a lot of counties. We’re maintaining adequate reserves for our cash flow purposes only and doing a good job staying along those lines. I’ll be sending out the goals and decision packages to the department heads after the Labor Day holiday. The Auditor’s Office will then be sending out the worksheets sometime in October for the departments to fill out. I sent out a note earlier this month, reminding department heads and elected officials that budget time is approaching and to start considering and thinking about any changes and requests they’ll have for Fiscal Year 2003. I’ll start meeting with department heads after the Labor Day holiday. I am going to be meeting with the Department of Public Health shortly after, and their new Director and their manager shortly after the Labor Day holiday and I look forward to that. Then, I look forward to a smooth and productive budget cycle for the next fiscal year.

Lehman: OK. Thank you. The next item for Jeff was the contract for the cost allocation plan services with DMG Maximus.

Horne: DMG Maximus comes in and gives us this report every year, which helps us do cost allocations. Based on this report we can see where things go within departments, various things, as well as the Department of Human Services, I know uses it to get reimbursements from the State and of those nature. So, we need to have those numbers. This has been done pretty much every year for the last few years.

Lehman: So this is for a contract to extend that, and I think the only minor change was the billing.

Horne: That’s right.

Lehman: They’re going to start billing…

Stutsman: And there wasn’t a change in the cost or the fee for the contract.

Horne: (Inaudible).

Lehman: We were billed quarterly; now we’ll change to semi-annual.

Horne: Yes. That’s not a big deal for us.

Lehman: Yes.

Thompson: And this, now it covers some cost allocations for the child support recovery, in addition to this?

Horne: Yes.

Lehman: OK.

Stutsman: Why would we never sign… Don’t we have to have this contract, basically?

Thompson: (Inaudible).

Horne: Well, otherwise we’d have to internally do the function somehow.

Stutsman: OK.

Horne: And it’s…

Stutsman: It’s a big deal.

Horne: Yes. It would take, if it was just me doing it, it would take a long time, and they have a whole staff of people that are (inaudible).

Stutsman: And they’ve done it for…

White: Or you could forego the revenues.

Horne: That’s right.

White: The technical answer is, no, you wouldn’t need to do this. You’d forego revenues.

Horne: But this is a good investment.

Stutsman: Oh, yes.

Horne: A small investment, you get back these revenues.

White: Yes, they were very responsive to my request that our indirect costs in the Child Support contract were too low, and they’re being raised to the point where I’ve created a budget problem for the State DHS, who’s not sure they can afford what the new DMG Maximus analysis said they should pay us. Interesting position to be in.

Thompson: Yes. We’re often in the position of not being able to afford things

White: Right.

Horne: Yes, that’s right. Looking at it from the other way.

Lehman: So, we’ll put this contract on for formal.

Horne: For formal consideration next week.

Lehman: OK. Anything else, Jeff?

Horne: That’s it. Thank you.

Lehman: OK. Thank you.

Lehman: Next is Business from the County Attorney. Pat?

White: Item 9a is Report and Discussion regarding possible acquisition of real estate owned by Jim and Marilyn Fisher in the 800 block of South Dubuque. As you know, and we’ve indicated publicly for a good number of weeks, we’ve been talking to several property owners. I’ve now concluded negotiations with the Fishers, with an offer to pay them $275,000 cash, which is about $5,000 below the current assessed value for all of Lot 8 in Block 28, is the legal description. It’s an 80 by 150 foot parcel. It lies immediately north of the Ambulance Building. The agreement that I’ve signed with the Fishers is contingent upon your approval on or before a week from today, and so specific action, if you choose to take any, would be at your formal meeting next week. The action, if you choose to take it, would be a motion or, I’ll probably prepare a resolution, to approve the purchase agreement to acquire this property. Tentative closing date is September 12th, and it’s probably less critical what the closing date is, that we do have to make a decision by next Thursday. This is part of our ongoing discussions about trying to create an administrative campus that would serve the needs of County Government in this area for the foreseeable future. Discussion and planning has been that, ultimately, the long-term plan would be, the building would be removed, and the Ambulance Department would construct a facility that would allow it to expand and continue to operate at its current site. Short-term plan is, the Ambulance Department would relocate its administrative offices into the building, freeing up more space in their current building. This building has some storage, and access to that would be under the supervision of your Facilities Director. There is some additional available space in the front of the building, and a potential use for that is the proposal you’re going to see next week from the Department of Correctional Services. We gain some parking, and the 2nd floor continues to be occupied for residential apartments. The short-term plan would be that it would remain in private residential apartments, and we’d locate a property manager to handle that for us, and with the expense of that to come out of the rental revenue. I certainly recommend that you go ahead and approve the offer, and that we close the purchase of this property as negotiated. Mike Sullivan, you may or may not know, he was scheduled to be on vacation this week, and actually today he’s involved in an orientation at school for his daughter. So, he was not able to be here this morning. Isn’t any, obviously any action to be taken today because this is just an informal report, but I’m certainly open to questions and whatever discussion you want. We’ll have it back on your agenda next week for a formal vote and decision by you.

Stutsman: Did you say when we’d take possession of it, then?

White: Well, the purchase agreement says September 12th. That’s optimistic from a couple of standpoints, in that, although I have the abstracts in my possession and I’ve started to review them, I don’t want to incur the expense of abstract continuation and a formal title opinion until I know it’s been approved by the Board. In all candor, and I’ve briefed you a little bit on Marilyn’s health, she’s still experiencing some health problems and may or may not delay our ability to close by September 12th. But, as quickly as we could, we’ll take possession.

Lehman: We have consensus to put this on next week for possible action?

White: Yes, I suppose that would be another option, is you could say, no, don’t put it on, we already know we don’t want to do it.

Lehman: OK. Well, thank you, Pat, for…

White: You’re welcome. Thank you. And I don’t have any other Reports and Inquiries, and I apologize for having to leave before you get quite to the end of your meeting.

Lehman: All right. Next would be Business from the Board of Supervisors, Discussion/Action needed for the Fall County Cleanup Week, Saturday, October 6 through Saturday, October 13th. We have this spring and fall. We need to put it on and make it official, I believe. We’ll put this on next week. I believe we need to take action.

Stutsman: I don’t think we need to take any action on it.

Lehman: Just give direction to…

Horne: We need to put it on formal?

Stutsman: Authorize a press release, I think, saying when it’s going to be.

Horne: Yes. OK.

Lehman: So I think we do possibly sign something with ECICOG, JCCOG?

Horne: I just don’t know how long…

Lehman: I’ll double-check on that.

Horne: Why don’t you do that. I bet it’s JCCOG

Lehman: Because it was mentioned to me…

Stutsman: I thought Jo said she checked with the Iowa City landfill, and they don’t have any problems with these dates, so I think that’s all that we were going to need to do.

Horne: Setting the dates with them. Yes.

Stutsman: I think JCCOG was with the tire disposal thing, and we wouldn’t be doing anything with that at this point.

Horne: We’re not doing anything. You can always contact Brad Newman.

Lehman: OK.

Lehman: Next is Discussion/Action needed on an appointment to the Compensation Board for a term ending June 30th, 2005. The Board of Supervisors has 2 appointees, and we were able to appoint Pat Vunderink, and we recommended and approved her. We asked the Board to try to recruit another individual, and we do have an applicant, somewhat familiar to us, Carol Peters.

Stutsman: The name does ring a bell. Where have I heard that name before?

Lehman: This Compensation Board does do research and recommendations of salaries for the elected officials. We’ll put that on for consideration next week.

Lehman: And also, we’ve received minutes from the Hawkeye Area Community Action Program, the Board of Directors, for March 22nd, 2001, the Johnson County Council of Governments Urbanized Area Planning Policy Board. Those minutes are circulating for May 23rd, 2001, and the 6th Judicial District Department of Correctional Services Board of Directors for July 20th, 2001. Those are circulating; if you haven’t seen them, they should be coming your way. Next we ask for Reports and Inquiries. Anyone like to start, here?

Thompson: We were thinking maybe we could skip these, today, since our meeting has gone so long?

Lehman: OK. Anybody have anything they needed to alert the public to?

Thompson: Maybe Terrence does.

Lehman: The only thing, maybe, Terrence, he likes to announce his Hawkeye Listening Posts. It’ll be tomorrow, August 24th, from 11:30 to 12:30 at Sutliff Store in Sutliff. And, he hopes that everyone will attend the air show this weekend at the Iowa City Airport and Cosgrove Fun Days on Sunday.

Thompson said they have established a Committee to discuss the rising costs of health care benefits with Shramek, Horne, and herself. They met and Thompson said they wanted to try to raise the profile of the County’s health care position by having the presentations that Shramek made at the elected officials and department heads meetings, and then work to do something in conjunction with the union negotiations for the following year. This year, Thompson said the group would probably be recommending to the Board that they hire a consultant to help them, and then work through the year to be in a position to include this question in the union negotiations for the following year. She noted it was not something they could do overnight. Stutsman and Lehman agreed.

Lehman: Next is Inquiries and Reports from the Public.

Welsh: I’d just say, I, that you probably all mentioned this, but evidently, you haven’t formally set the public hearing for amendments to the MH/DD Program on September the 11th, 5:00-6:30. I think that’s a very important process, an, a real balancing act between fiscal responsibility and service, and that juggling act that you all have to do. I guess my request would be that you have a summary document made available to the public as to what the changes are, who recommended them, and what the fiscal and service implications are, so that it’s very clear to people what options, what choices you’re making. Because, there are some very significant changes. I think that people need to be informed.

Horne: This is going to be a public hearing?

Stutsman: Yes.

Horne: We need to publish, so we need to get that on the agenda.

Stutsman: No, it doesn’t need to be a public hearing. It’s called a public hearing. We don’t have to fulfill the requirements, because we’re not required by law to do it. So, I think it’s probably just maybe a public informational meeting, a public input meeting.

Horne: A Board meeting.

Stutsman: We need to come up with a better term.

Recording Secretary Casie Parkins: I’ve been corresponding back and forth with Elaine Sweet today. I don’t know if you need a public hearing or not, but I think she is under the impression that you are doing a public hearing under the legal requirements. We’ve been emailing back and forth about when I need the notice, to publish it. It would need to be on your formal agenda next week. Things like that.

Harney: I think in the meeting, what was said, we did not have to do that, but we were going to do it anyway.

Parkins: And that’s the way you did it last year, too. You had 2 back in March.

Stutsman: OK. I was just trying to save the County some cost of publication, and stuff.

Parkins: It’s a really short publication. I’m guessing here, but no more than $20-$40, if that. But yes, you went through the legal process last year. Don’t know if you need to or not, but that’s the impression I’m getting.

Horne: What’s published?

Stutsman: In the paper, those little legal notifications…

Horne: I know, but what? Just that there is a hearing, of proposed changes to the service management plan, that’s all it is? Do you need to detail the changes?

Stutsman: No.

Parkins: No. Just that the document would be available here for viewing.

Horne: All right. OK.

Lehman: OK. Anything else from the public?

Stutsman: And that is going to be on for next week, for action to set that.

Horne: Yes, formal.

Welsh: Mike, regarding the Executive Assistant position, you had 58 persons who had submitted applications. I hope that signifies not anything other than recognition that this is a very important job, a very valuable job.

Lehman: We were encouraged that 58 people thought they could get along with us.

Stutsman: And I might just add that there were some outstanding applicants that applied for this job. So, I’m real, by the fact that I’m not able to limit, tells you that there are some good people that applied.

Welsh: That’s very encouraging.

Stutsman: It is, I agree, Bob. That’s a good point, Mike, that they think they could get along with us.

Recessed at 12:12 a.m.; reconvened at 12:20 p.m.

Information Services Director Jean Schultz said in her progress report she would detail the goals for her department as discussed at a January meeting with the Board, talk about what Information Services has done in the last 6 months, what they will be doing in the next 6 months, and changes and trends. The goals for Information Services, as defined in the aforementioned meeting, included monitoring departments’ progress on webification and placing Boards and Commissions full information on the web. She said Information Services continually puts more information on the web. She said County Recorder Kim Painter was in the process of redesigning the Recorder’s web page, which would be up in early September. Thompson asked if a person from another state who needs a birth certificate can come to the web page and get it? Schultz said no, but they could certainly find out from the web page that this was a function of the Recorder’s Office, and then email Painter about it. She said at the bottom of every department’s page, the department’s email address appears. Schultz said she has had interest expressed by Conservation, Human Resources, Ambulance, and Treasurer to also redesign their web pages. She said they were working on a tax lookup for the Treasurer’s Office that would be linked to their tax collection database, so homeowners could look up taxes by their parcel address or by parcel number. There would be a link to each of the Assessor’s pages to then be able to look up the parcel card and the assessed value. She said this part of the Treasurer’s page should be done by the first part of September.

Another goal was to put Boards and Commission full information on the web, and Schultz said additional information was placed on the web, and it was recently reviewed and updated, with new members of various Boards and Commissions. Another goal was to develop a catch-up training for managers who have not yet developed computer skills, including basic email, abbreviated word processing, and spreadsheets. Schultz stated that Information Services was continuing to have 2-hour classes on Outlook, Excel, Access, and PowerPoint; they were adding Word classes this month. As far as department heads, Conservation Director Harry Graves took the most recent Excel classes, and had also been in contact with Veterans Affairs Director Leo Baier. Thompson asked if Senior Dining Director Mike Foster had been able to attend one of the classes, and Schultz replied no, by the time he got back from vacation, the classes were full. She said that Information Services was continuing to remind him of the classes. Stutsman asked if the classes have been running full; she replied that the Excel and Outlook classes have been pretty popular, but PowerPoint was not full.

Another goal, Schultz said, was to implement the GIS planned conversion and function training for the County. She said that the GIS Coordinator Rick Havel was hired in March. Farragut was in the process of converting AutoCad files to the GIS format; Farragut personnel gave a presentation in early August regarding the status of the GIS system. She said that this week, a person from NovaLIS did some training for Rick and 4 people from the Auditor’s Office; there was also a person from Linn County and the City of Cedar Rapids. She said the NovaLIS software was going to be used by the Auditor’s Office when there are splits, or combines, or new subdivisions. She said there was a weekly phone call with Farragut to answer questions or clarifications on the current parcels.

Schultz reported another goal was to report quarterly to the Board of Supervisors, with 2 of these reports being focused on GIS. She said there had been one GIS report a couple of weeks ago, and there will be another GIS update in October or November. Information Services was also working on developing software for MH/DD Case Management; Schultz said she had met with MH/DD Director Elaine Sweet and the MH/DD personnel a few times. Schultz said she had told Schultz it was important that, once the feature matrices done for the new financial software were finished, it was important for her to look at them carefully, to be sure the software met MH/DD’s needs as much as possible.

Schultz said they also were working on getting the new HR Payroll program in place. She said Information Services has been working a lot on the Financial Software Core Work Group, and will continue to do that. She said they were working on the new matrices, and would get them out to departments in September; they will come back in, they’ll be updated, and the final version will be brought to the Board for approval. She said the goal was to send out the RFPs in December.

Another goal was to make more information available for lookup on the Internet. Schultz referred again to the Treasurer’s tax lookup that was in progress, and said that all of the minutes, agendas, and policies from departments were also automatically put online. Schultz said that upcoming plans include adding a search option for the County web page. They are also going to compile distribution lists, where people can automatically receive emails when new agendas, minutes, ordinances, etc., become available on specific topics of their choice.

Schultz said that Information Services has completed some projects since January 1. They moved the County web site to their own web server; they now have the address of www.johnson-county.com, much easier to remember than the old address. She reported that they also implemented a new County calendar on the web page, which is much more user-friendly, contains an internal calendar search option, and takes much less time to maintain. Information Services added counters and statistics to the County’s site on July 16th, and Schultz also said that they have gone through all of the web pages and made many cosmetic and formatting changes to help with consistency. She said that since Tim Knipper was hired in March, he has taught many 2-hour training classes, educating 69 students on Outlook, Access, Excel, and PowerPoint; next month Word will be added. Schultz said Information Services has done quite a few one-on-one training sessions and consulting sessions. Schultz reported that they have set up Calendars and Outlook for the Board office and County Assessor personnel, and taught them how to use them for departmental calendars.

As part of the 5-year replacement program, Schultz reported that Information Services has updated 16 PCs and 4 printers since January; some had been done in the prior 6 months as well. They also added additional PCs in Planning and Zoning (for the Building Inspectors), Health, Conservation, County Assessor, and in Information Services (for the GIS Coordinator). She reported they also upgraded one network server and the Netware operating system on 3 of the County network servers: the Administration Building, Secondary Roads, and the Health Department. Schultz said they had wired the Conservation Department so that all their PCs could be connected on a peer-to-peer network, and replaced the terminals in the Motor Vehicle Department with PCs, but they were not on the network, in addition to being connected to the motor vehicle system. She said they had installed a wireless bridge between the Health building and the ICARE building, and to save money, they were looking at technology to replace the T1 lines they currently have between the other buildings. She said that Information Services has increased the speed of the hubs in the Administration Building and the Sheriff's Department from 10 megabyte speeds to 100; this will be especially helpful with GIS and the growth of scanning and document imaging. She said that document management server software has also been updated and the jukebox, the box where they put in all the different optical platters, where the images are stored. She said they also installed the document management software and a scanner in the Auditor’s Office, upgraded their network database software to the newest version, Sequel 2000, and have been installing some of the GIS software in some different offices. She reiterated that Information Services was working with both Farragut and staff from the Auditor’s Office converting files from AutoCad to GIS. She said Havel had had a meeting with the Cities of Iowa City, Coralville, and North Liberty on possible sharing of GIS information. She said they had acquired some software to help them deploy GIS via the Internet, initially internally but eventually externally as well. She reported they had also worked with Farragut personnel when they were here working on the County pilot project, the first week of August. She said they had also had some training on ArcSDE, the main storage for GIS, worked on maps with Planning and Zoning, set up an application for the Treasurer to look up older tax amounts, worked with the Jail Committee to provide statistics on jail populations, enhanced the current real estate system, and finished the State’s restaurant inspection software, which didn’t work at first. Stutsman asked if this had been a State system that hadn’t worked? Schultz answered they had contracted with a company to write the software, but the State had run out of money before the system was done. She said the system would not run on a server, but only on a stand-alone PC. Schultz reported the program needed alterations and enhancements, and Information Services had done these things.

Thompson complimented Schultz on the work she had done with the Jail data; she said that Programmer Analyst II Carl Unternahrer had showed an amazing ability to grasp what had been needed and how the data could work, despite the fact he had no law enforcement or jail background. Schultz agreed that he had done a good job, and had worked a lot with Jim Thayer on understanding the data.

Thompson asked how far the County had to go before it was state of the art in document management. Schultz said they had a long way to go; document management is used mostly in the Recorder’s Office and Planning and Zoning; these are the only offices that are very far along. She said the Auditor’s Office was allocated some money for a scanner and software, and they are doing some work with these items in real estate and incoming mail. She said the plan has been to scan their voter registration and some of their parcel books. Schultz said that, in the Treasurer’s Office, Image Check has been scanning the files from the revolving Lextriever, and the data should be back soon. She reported that all of Motor Vehicle will be able to access those files. She said the Document Management Committee would be meeting soon to allocate the FY02 money among Ambulance, the Health Department, and the voter registration part in the Auditor’s Office.

Thompson asked if the Board’s allocation for document management would need to be continually increased in the upcoming few years, and Schultz replied that, at the current rate, it would take a long time for offices to be paperless. She explained that the money allocated for the current fiscal year would be inadequate for all of the Ambulance, Health Department, and voter registration; maybe these 3 projects would get half done, or so. She said that the current year’s allocation was $60,000 plus $18,000 in the Treasurer’s Office, and it was estimated that it would take $120,000 to get these 3 projects completed. She said there is a lot more to be done in this area, and noted that the document management process would save space in all 3 departments.

Schultz detailed a number of things coming up in the next 6 months. For the web, there were upcoming features such as the site search, the distribution list, tax lookup from the Treasurer’s Office, implementing the updated Recorder’s Office web site, and hopefully update other departments: Human Resources, the Treasurer’s Office, Ambulance Department, and Conservation. Also, Schultz said they would continue to teach classes and expand the topics covered. Information Services was also in the 3rd year of a 3-year conversion at the Sheriff’s Office, converting from the old IBM terminals to PCs; there are 13 more of these to do. She said they have been using their AS400 for internal email, as not everyone has PCs. She noted that would change with the 13 new PCs, and then they would add 80 new mail users, which would go through the network. Harney asked if the Sheriff’s Department had computers in their cars? Schultz replied that she didn’t think so. She said the Sheriff’s Department, in 3 years, would need to replace their dispatching records system, and noted the Board has started saving money for that. She thought that computers in the cars would be part of this new system. Schultz said that as part of the 5-year replacement plan, the server at the County Attorney’s office would be upgraded. Information Services was going to continue to work with the Auditor’s Office in establishing the new procedures for updating the parcel maps. Schultz said there is a lot of training to be done for departments, especially in the next 6 months.

In the programming area, Schultz said they are moving more toward web development, which means new languages. She said this would make it easier for her department to deploy new applications and make information available to the public via the web. Her department is going to continue working with Farragut on the conversion of the Auditor’s Office maps from AutoCad to GIS; the first 11,000-12,000 parcels are due at the end of September; additional shipments are due in October and November, and the last data delivery is scheduled for January 2002. She said her department was going to work on setting up some GIS applications, easier ways for people throughout the County to be able to access that data. She reiterated the plan to expand document management into the Treasurer’s Office, Ambulance Department, and Health Department. She noted they were continuing the implementation of the 5-year replacement plan, including ongoing shipments of PCs. She said her department needs to rewrite the W2 reporting system, to meet new requirements that the current payroll system was unable to fulfill.

Schultz said that as far as changes, problems, or trends that affect her department, there were new things coming up regarding the implementation and usage of GIS. They were also working on web development and the training involved with this, partnering with the Financial Software Core Group, and expanding document management.

Schultz said she has an excellent staff, and they are working to develop a plan in individual areas such as GIS, network, web, programming, etc. She said that before budget time, she would be presenting an updated overall departmental plan to the Board. She said a new employee, Shirley Barker, is starting soon. Schultz said she has one open position that they will be unable to fill until probably December, for budgetary reasons; they will be looking for more skills in programming of web development. Thompson asked if Schultz could continue the web, implement the GIS, get the document management going, and implement the new financial software with her current staff? Schultz said they will do the best they can.

Lehman noted the Board has also asked Schultz to take on another project, the phone system. He asked how that’s been working, and said he has referred some people to Information Services who have inquired about putting in new phone lines. Schultz reported that she recently had met with Shannon Chambers from her department, Linda Bennett from the Auditor’s Office, and Carol Peters; Carol Peters had answered many of the group’s questions. Schultz said there were a number of steps to go through in order to add a phone line. Thompson asked if there was any part of this project that Schultz thought her department should not take on; Schultz replied that her department was willing to go for it, but if they can’t, they might come back to the Board. She said that Carol Peters had things pretty well-organized, and was going to help Information Services with some remaining organizational details.

Stutsman noted that the Board has made some salary adjustments in Schultz’s department, and asked if these had helped her recruit and retain staff? Schultz said they haven’t had any resignations; she said the person that would soon be starting had taken a big pay cut. Schultz said that time would tell, but she wasn’t sure how successful they would be hiring a web development person, because there is a lot more demand for those skills. Stutsman asked if this was something that can be contracted; there seem to be a lot of people advertising private businesses featuring web development. Schultz said she was not talking about just displaying information on the web, but actually writing all the functions of an application. She said contracting for these services would cost $75 or $100 an hour.

Thompson complimented Schultz on a good report. Harney compliment Schultz for her great staff, who was very responsive when someone needs something. He said they were always upbeat. Schultz said the current staff is the best she’s had in her time in the County.

Adjourned at 12:50 p.m.

Attest: Tom Slockett, Auditor

By Casie Parkins, Recording Secretary