• Discussion: Proposed Fiscal Year 2003 Budgets

• Disaster Services Coordinator Tom Hansen: Fiscal Year 2003 Budget

  • General Basic Block Grants (20)

• County Recorder Kim Painter: Fiscal Year 2003 Budget

  • Recorder (11)

  • Recorder’s Records Management (87)

• Human Resources Administrator Lora Shramek: Fiscal Year 2003 Budget

  • Human Resources (06)

• SEATS Director Lisa Dewey: Fiscal Year 2003 Budget

  • SEATS (12)

Chairperson Lehman called the Johnson County Board of Supervisors to order in the Johnson County Administration Building at 9:00 a.m. Members present were: Pat Harney, Mike Lehman, Terrence Neuzil, Sally Stutsman, and Carol Thompson.

The Board began the work session with a discussion about how the budget process is going this year. Stutsman said she thinks it is going well and is pleased that people are being responsible in putting their budgets together. She can tell that departments are working with Budget Coordinator Jeff Horne because they are responsive to what the Board has been confused on before. Horne asked how the Board likes the PowerPoint presentations. Harney said they are easy to follow. Neuzil said he likes seeing a background on departments. Thompson said she would like department heads to save that for their progress reports. Harney said he likes seeing where their budget is coming from and what they are planning for in the future. Thompson said they should probably schedule them for longer than a half-hour because some departments have had to wait. Thompson said it seems like PowerPoint is being used for competition and the department with the best one gets the most money.

Stutsman said the Board needs to be specific about who they want at budget meetings. The Board discussed Conservation bringing in several people to lobby and that other departments didn’t do that or didn’t get to do that. Stutsman said it is important to convey to the department heads just what the Board expects. The Board discussed having groups like ICAD, and the libraries do progress reports throughout the year instead of just seeing them during the budget process. Neuzil said he is thinking of a mid-year report and suggested they discuss it during strategic planning. Lehman asked Horne to give a recap of the General, Rural and Supplemental Funds when they get closer to finalizing their first round. Stutsman suggested that Horne send out memos to department heads after budget work sessions updating them on the Board’s most recent decisions. Neuzil asked if FinCore is being budgeted for. Horne said $500,000 is being asked for so far.

Lehman said the Board received a cover letter with a population change request. Disaster Services Coordinator Tom Hansen said that when money for the new Haz-Mat truck started being taken it added $.50 per capita to everything. When they pay off that money it is going to revert back to $.25 per capita and the project will be done. With the new population figures, Hansen is asking for the per capita that comes in with normal money levy situations. He bills Haz-Mat separately through his office to the incorporated areas and to the County. Lehman asked where the Haz-Mat funding is. Horne said they are in a different line item. Hansen said they are mixed together, making it seem like a lot of money even though it isn’t. Horne said the Board doesn’t set Emergency Management’s budget because he is given a block grant of his revenues. Hansen explained that Emergency Management is a municipality and most of their money they bring in themselves through federal pass downs. Over the last 12 years they brought $21 million in to the County. He said he has a budget carry-over of $98,000 in the County General Fund and the only time they would get into that is for a disaster. Lehman asked if this money is available or only a carry over. Horne said he would talk to Deputy Auditor Chris Edwards about this. Hansen said Haz-Mat has a large amount of money for a truck that they keep setting aside.

Hansen said his budget went down 4.6%. Lehman asked if the reserve fund would go up because the population is going up. Hansen said the money would go into the reserve and it would allow them to get some programs going. He said they have 5 programs they want to start up. He believes that every home that isn’t in an incorporated area in Johnson County should have a weather radio. Hansen said he could keep this at a minimal expense by putting out for bids and a lot of homes already have them. Disaster Services Assistant Coordinator Susan Faith has a listing of physically challenged people which should be on a database. He said that if a tornado rips through Hills, he could have a database of these people. Faith said they are writing a terrorism plan. She said they also need to have a recovery plan written for the State because if they have another tornado they have to have the mitigation plan and recovery plan written in order to receive the full amount of FEMA money possible. Faith said they are also working on making the entire County storm ready under a National Weather Service Program. She said this means listing each municipality as storm ready. She said the advantages to this is the potential for insurance benefits for home owners. Stutsman asked what storm ready means. Faith said it means there are sirens, alert systems, trained weather spotters and responders that they know the difference between a tornado and ugly clouds.

Hansen said all Haz-Mat training comes out of his office for the County. He said it comes out of his budget and he has a share with HMPG program out of Des Moines to help share the cost of all of the Haz-Mat training that goes on in Johnson County. Harney asked if they are able to collect any money back from Haz-Mat. Hansen said each city is billed per capita and when the bill comes, 2/3 goes into the truck fund and 1/3 goes into the operation fund. He said that when there is an error in judgment from a company they are billed back for equipment and hours spent, etc. He said he goes to Haz-Mat’s executive board to see how they want it split.

Hansen said they are finally getting law enforcement into the Haz-Mat. Faith said that potentially there is some legislation for this next year that would give Haz-Mat teams a fee that they could charge facilities storing extremely hazardous substances. She said that fee would be for inventorying and providing training for those facilities. She said they don’t know if this is going to go through, but it is proposed. Thompson asked if the Haz-Mat money is in Fund 09. Hansen said it all mixes together in dollars. Neuzil asked where Emergency Management, besides Johnson County’s portion shows up on the budget. Hansen said it shows up as revenues. Stutsman said that for taxing purposes the County just has to worry about the Block Grant. Hansen said he takes care of the Haz-Mat budget. Neuzil asked how much longer the contribution for the truck is going to be. Hansen said 2 years. Hansen said FEMA put $17,000 into the Crisis Center. Hansen said the Haz-Mat budget buys equipment. Hansen said that Bob Carpenter is the Administrative Head of Haz-Mat. He said the Fire Chief is in charge of any Haz-Mat incident for their district. He said he is at the bottom because he handles the money for them.

County Recorder Kim Painter said she tries to keep the office small and efficient. She said she tries to implement new technologies and doesn’t try to clamor for too much in the way of additional help and staff. Her revenues, as of November, are at $80,000 for collected fees. She said that in 2000 the revenues were just under $40,000. She said this is for paperwork coming through the office, which represents more mortgages and records. Painter said the imaging technology is very effective and efficient. She said she feels like the budget is in very good shape. Painter said she isn’t asking for much change. She said she can’t predict the interest rate situation for revenues along the way.

Painter said her executive summary shows highlights during the year and current issues. The Recorder's Office is looking at new technology for the front counter point of sale system. It would allow them to barcode documents and have a lot of the information stored on the barcodes. Painter didn’t include it in the budget because she is just now getting cost estimates on it, and working with Information Services on it. She said it is going to take awhile to get the software aspect of it sorted out. She said it is in the $70-85,000 range and she is ready to spend a fair amount of her document management fund on this, but probably won’t be able to pay for it all. She said she is going to look into payment options for it. She said the Recorder’s Office pays for it’s own computer replenishment out of their document management fund. She said Schultz is willing to look at the overall picture of this and they are going to try to find a way to make this happen. She said document management is a carryover account and a portion of money is put into it for record conversion, but for the past couple of years she has held off using it because of upcoming technology possibilities. She said the convenience with the new system would be really good for customers and banks. Painter said she really believes this is going to save them a lot over time. Thompson asked how much is saved up. Painter said about $65,000, and hopes to get $25,000. Painter said she doesn’t want to deplete all of this account money and hopes to work together with Central Technology. She said there is a chance she would come to the Board needing $25,000. Painter said the office might need to wait a year or 2. She said it is big change, but it represents the way the office needs to go in the future, in order to do all of the things expected with e-commerce and other issues and pressures. Thompson asked if a fee is going to be charged to users for the new system. Painter said the current fees in place cover most of what the office is going to be able to do, at least for now. Neuzil said that more web users means less people coming in for services and revenues are going to fall. Painter said the bulk of revenues are actually from recording documents. She said they are already down on copy fees. She said their business clients pay $200 a month for images and the clients provide the media. Painter said that new technology may eliminate some work, but then people want other services done related to the technology.

Lehman asked if they get a lot of mail. Painter said they get huge amounts of mail and someday it might all be sent electronically. Stutsman said she has heard of putting fees on emails. Painter said Polk County is going to try to do something to charge people. Neuzil asked what the charge is per page here. Painter said the Statewide fee is $5.00 per page and $1.00 per document for the recording fee.

Painter said the Recorder’s Office is getting more money for Vital Statistics this year because they are now getting $4.00, up from $0, for each marriage application. She said there is a little extra work in creating a copy for people after the wedding. She said Maggie Tinsman passed a law last year and they have to provide an actual copy of the certified document after the event.

Painter said Recorder’s have the authority to not sell DNR licensing anymore. She said they only get about $.50 for each transaction, and if people have a lot of questions it can be labor intensive. She said that in a way she doesn’t want to do this. She said there are a lot of people who have traditionally come to the Recorder’s Office to get their license. She said she thinks it costs the office more. Thompson suggested putting a sign up for a whole year stating the office isn’t going to do this anymore beforehand. Lehman asked what other options there are. Painter said Fin and Feather, Scheels and smaller gas stations all over the County sell them. Neuzil said to monitor it and if the office is busy with other transactions then it might be something to think about. Stutsman said it seems like a logical thing to buy it where you buy your fishing pole, etc.

Recessed at 10:35 a.m.; reconvened at 10:50 a.m.

Human Resources Administrator Lora Shramek said the new office space is working out very well. She said there is going to be increased productivity and effectiveness in the time saved from walking back and forth to each other and from not having two sets of files. Shramek shared a slide presentation including a pie chart showing the different areas that HR (Human Resources) spends its time working on. She said personnel is 35%, communication 15%, HR management 25%, recruiting 15%, and employee labor relations 10%. She said HR receives many information requests from other counties and Johnson County employees. She said HR spends time updating each other and in a number of committees both inside and outside of the County offices. Time is also spent in workers compensation, unemployment claims, grievances, interviews, updating the employee handbook, keeping up with training requirements, the HR web page and many other County activities.

Shramek said there are new OSHA regulations effective January 1, 2002. She said an OSHA 300 law is replacing the OSHA 200 law. She said there are new regulations involving parking lots and how illnesses are treated. Human Resources Coordinator Jen Feldmann and herself attended training at Kirkwood over the past week. She said OSHA was passed in 1970 and this is the 1st change since then. Shramek informed the Board that there are changes in the Mercy Occupational Health program. She said they have a new physician, Dr. Buck. She said there is also a new insurance carrier effective December 1, 2001. She said it is IMWCA and they are very proactive at reducing workers compensation costs and require a safety committee, which Feldmann is going to Chair and Shramek is going to serve on the committee. She said this carrier brings a lot in the way of ergonomics and accident investigation.

Shramek said she is requesting a budget increase of 1.7% or $2,254 for FY03. She said the HR operating budget for Fiscal Year 02 was $133,811. After personnel costs are taken out it leaves an operating budget of $10, 310. She is asking the Board for $12,564 this year, an increase of $2,254, of which $1,481 are one-time expenses and $773 are reoccurring expenses. A priority project is the employee handbook. Shramek estimates it will cost $1,481, of which $606 are increased photocopying costs and binders costing $875. Under reoccurring expenses, Shramek is asking for $200 for the employee newsletter expense primarily due to printing paper costs. She is also asking for $200 for phone costs because the current budget is very tight. She said she is also requesting $273 in a copier service contract because it would save money to have a contract. Lehman asked if they would be better off purchasing a new one where they wouldn’t need to buy an extra service contract. Shramek said she hasn’t looked into it because copiers are very expensive and it is just needed for HR. Thompson said they aren’t very expensive anymore at places like Staples for single copy uses. Shramek said she would look into it. Shramek said she is also asking for $100 increase in staff registration fees for Human Resources Office Assistant Carolyn Flaherty.

In the technology budget, HR is asking for a replacement computer for Flaherty. She said right now Flaherty is using a loaner PC that is OK, except for when she needs to work on the newsletter or anything involving publisher because her PC isn’t large enough to handle it. Shramek said it would be nice to have a different one, even though it isn’t required. Shramek added that if anything should happen to Flaherty’s existing PC, there is no support for it and it would have to come out of the HR budget. Schultz has informed her that it isn’t part of the PC replacement program. Shramek said that general additional considerations that are already brought to the Board’s attention in technology are requests of $250,000 that Schultz has made for the new financial HR payroll package. Shramek said there is still a non-bargaining pay plan implemented July 1, 1998 with 1% steps and 2% merit. She said as of July 1, 2001 there are 1% steps and 2.5% merit.

Shramek said she would really like to attend the Community Leadership Program put on by the Chamber of Commerce. Shramek was recommended last year but didn’t have the $800 to attend. Stutsman said she thinks the Community Leadership Program should be a regular budget item and offer it through scholarships and have employees apply.

Harney asked where the dollars come from for the union contract negotiator. Shramek said she believes it comes from Central Services. Neuzil asked why they do this. Stutsman said it is something the whole County would use. Horne said they could probably allocate it by department technically. Harney said they need to set money aside if they hire a negotiator for other union contracts. Horne said he set aside $15,000 more. Stutsman said she is not interested allocating this money by department.

Lehman asked how exit interviews are going. Shramek said they are working on something for all employees to fill out when they leave. The Board thanked Shramek for her budget presentation.

Recessed at 11:20 p.m.; reconvened at 11:33 p.m.

SEATS Director Lisa Dewey said she would like to cover the following areas for the Fiscal Year 2003 budget presentation: goals and benchmarks, personnel, non-personnel, technical expenditures, capital expenditures, capital projects, revenues and miscellaneous. Dewey said the goals set out for Fiscal Year 03 are to increase rural service, maximize the current urban service, continue to improve communications with the public, with the riders, with the County, with other departments and within her department. She said further goals are to decrease vehicle maintenance costs, continue to enhance the staff work environment and to have teamwork. Dewey said she hopes benchmarks would help determine if they are meeting these goals. She said benchmarks include decreasing missed rides by 5 per month, with an annual reduction of at least 1/2%, reduce cancellations by 25 per month, with an annual reduction of 10% and to maintain a zero trip denial rate. For the last 7 months SEATS has been doing this and would like to continue. They want to increase employee participation in other County activities by at least 2 employees. Dewey said another benchmark is to maintain or decrease phone hold time to less than 30 seconds, increase annual trips performed by 1% without increasing cost, develop partnerships with private businesses, reduce vehicle accidents by 3 annually and decrease maintenance cost by 10%.

Dewey said the personnel budget for FY02 is at 41% spent for management, which is on target for budget expectations. She said 40% of the labor budget is spent and is just under target. Training costs are within the cost of the budget that has been spent at this time, of which they have been able to train drivers with CPR so they don’t have to pay someone on the outside. Dewey said the System Administrator resigned in November and is being replaced in January 2002.

Dewey said dispatch hours are changed from 4/10 to 5/8. She said they have the same dispatcher now Monday through Friday, to help with consistency. She said they also have a part-time driver trained in dispatch who provides 3 hours of the service in the late afternoon. She said this is an addition but doesn’t change any costs. She developed new job descriptions through HR that were sent to the union in October. HR also did the evaluation of dispatching scheduling as required by the SEATS contract. They expect to complete the scheduling software in January and to have a more comprehensive training program for the office staff. She said they also expect to have a review of the drivers training programs, to have more productive routes, to be able to provide more service with no extra cost and to enhance the customer service that they currently have.

Dewey said FY03 budget reductions overall are just over 1/2% in personnel cost. She said this is due to more efficient routing, use of service and scheduling of personnel. She said they didn’t reduce the number of staff, just the number of service hours that some of the staff would have been out. The Systems Administrator position is currently vacant, as of the end of November, and is to be filled in January, producing a cost-savings for one month. They did ask for $10,920 to be increased in their casual driver wages to provide a connector service from the rural areas to the Iowa City and Coralville. She said this increase is part of the total amount showing a reduction in personnel cost. She said the overall personnel budget is only increased by 3.4%, even though there is a 3.75% increase for union positions.

Dewey said she wants to go over non-personnel areas and expenditures as an overview and a whole piece. She said that under administration there is facility office management and office equipment. She said that under facility is custodial, rent and utilities. She said custodial remains the same, rent is slightly increased and utilities are included in the rent for the facility and the warehouse area for the vehicles. She said they can only house 11 vehicles and they have 19. She said the ones outside are plugged in to maintain the vehicles, making the utilities $900 for the year. She said that for office management there are phones, postage, copying, stationary, employee mileage reimbursement, clerical service dues and associations. She said the 2 areas they looked at increases for are phones because of the Internet and networking system, and postage. Dewey said that for recruitment there is advertising, drug and alcohol testing and background checks. She said the latter are required by DOT for all of their drivers and are more extensive than before. She said she thinks they are going to be able to maintain that budget as it is.

Dewey said the non-personnel expenditures increase is 20.8% overall. She said 18.1% is due to maintenance of vehicles. She said the total of all other non-personnel items is only 1.1%. Dewey said there are 19 vehicles that need maintaining. She said Iowa City owns 10, Coralville owns 2 and ECICOG owns 7. She said 7 are about 10 years old, 2 are 9 years old, 4 are 7 years old, 2 are 5 years old, 3 are 4 years old and 1 is 2 years old. She said the ‘93’s, ‘95’s and ‘96’s cost a lot to maintain. 2 of the ’93 vehicles cost over $10,000 a year to maintain. The average mileage per vehicle is 108,000. About 2,000 miles per month is put on each of the vehicles. There are about 15 vehicles in use per month and the rest are either in maintenance or are spares. Dewey spoke about the different wheelchair accesses the vehicles have and the fuel costs for the vehicles. Dewey said they have a maintenance contract on the radio GPS equipment and don’t expect an increase. Dewey said they are at 81% of their maintenance budget and expect a 38% increase for next fiscal year in the maintenance line item.

In Decision Package 1, Dewey is asking for an odometer sensor, for $5,500, with an 80/20 grant. She said this requires a cost of $1,100 to Johnson County. She said this automatically stamps into the computer the odometer. She said they are upgrading the hardware maintenance agreement equipment, with no cost to Johnson County. She said software escrow, the software coding system, is a requirement of contract and is stored in a secured location preventing access by outside entities. She said the total cost for Decision Package 1 is $20,570, and the requested funding for Fiscal Year 03 is $15,470.

Dewey said that in Decision Package 2 they are requesting SQL Server Software, database software for the computer operating system, at a cost of $800. This allows them to utilize computers to do testing analysis to see what the impact of a service change is before implementing it. She said under capital expenditures is the office administration and customer service enhancements. Dewey said that in Fiscal Year 01 they began the planning process for a new phone system to allow them to have a sequencer and ADP system, automatic data process programming. She said this allows them to do analysis, determine how many calls there are, how long they are on hold and customer services, like answering the calls in sequence and voicemail. She said they are planning for additional phones for new positions and the conference room.

Dewey said that when the vehicle replacement contracts were made between Iowa City and Coralville, those contracts were done with the cost that the cities were paying believed that the County was responsible for replacing the vehicles since the County owned the vehicles at the time. She said this hasn’t changed because there hasn’t been a decrease in the contract amount. Once the new contracts are done, the cities are going to be responsible for replacing the vehicles and that will be part of the negotiating. Dewey said that most of the office equipment has been donated by the staff, with the exception of the copier and file cabinets. She said the chairs are over 6 years old and need to be replaced.

Dewey in Fiscal Year 01 they started planning for the phone system and replacing the phone. She said vehicles are pre-planned every year to be done. She said the phone system is to provide better customer service. There is currently money to carry over for the 2 vehicles they know are going to be replaced. A future enhancement down the road for the phone system would allow automated calls to riders to give them notice that their driver is going to be there. She said the cost for the current phone system for Fiscal Year 03 is $16,000. She said $10,066 is to be brought forth for Fiscal Year 01 and 02. hey have $23,000 for vehicles and are requesting and additional $20,000 per vehicle.

Dewey said they are hoping to have a facility built to house SEATS. They also hope to have a maintenance area to allow Ambulance and other departments to have access. She said the planned completion is Fiscal Year 06. This is a 3-year plan and hopes that a matching federal grant utilizes this. She said that based on current funding of this type of grant the County’s total cost would be approximated by $100,000, with the total cost of the project $500,000. She said it is an 80/20 grant and the County is responsible for 20% of the total cost. She said the facility should last at least 15 years. They are asking for $25,000 to be put into the planning stage.

Dewey spoke about current and expected contracts. She said that under Fiscal Year 02 contracts they have Iowa City, Coralville, and University Heights. This is to provide the federal mandated comparable service for the fixed route. She said Iowa City utilizes approximately 68% of the service, while Coralville utilizes approximately 13% and University Heights 2%. Dewey said ECICOG provides funding for the rural service in Johnson County. She said Johnson County utilized about 17% of the revenues serviced in Fiscal Year 01 and 02 is still at the same rate. She said this is an increase of 3% for the rural area. She said Fiscal Year 02 continuing contracts are Solon and Lone Tree. She said this service operates about 4 hours per day, with about 3,500 meals delivered and 1,676 trips made to and from the meal site. Dewey said in Fiscal Year 02 they delivered through the 1st quarter, 1,269 meals and made 900 trips to the sites. She said Solon provided about $3,940 in Fiscal Year 01 and Lone Tree $3,390. In 02 Solon was projected $4,038 and Lone Tree at $3,694. There is a letter of agreement to increase Solon’s contract by about $300 that has been accepted for the next year. She said Heritage provides funding for meal delivery only. She said they provide $.50 per meal delivery and don’t provide any funding for nutrition sites. She said their amount was about $2,831 in Fiscal Year 01 and is projected at $2,683 for Fiscal Year 02.

Dewey said there are expecting Fiscal Year 03 contracts with Iowa City, Coralville, University Heights, Solon, Lone Tree, Heritage, ECICOG and Medicaid. Iowa City, Coralville and University Heights increased automatically 3%. Fiscal Year 03 begins negotiations with new contracts. Some of the contracts that are in the proposed planning stages are with North Liberty, Tiffin, Swisher, Shueyville, Hills and Solon. Dewey said contracts with these cities would help with the cost of the connector routes. She hopes these cities will help with the costs since it is for their residents. The proposed contracts aren’t projected in revenue because they haven’t been negotiated and set up. Dewey said Systems Unlimited didn’t renew their contract for Fiscal Year 02. This resulted in only a minimal loss of $2,000.

Dewey said State and federal funding is going to be reduced but they don’t know how much. She said they heard it is going to be $1.2 million total for the State. Dewey said that because there is a new formula for ECICOG in the distribution of those funds they would have received a fairly decent increase in funding. She said that since that was the case she did not increase or decrease what is expected in revenue. She said HACAP is no longer contracting that service. She said it is a $400 revenue service.

Dewey said in Fiscal Year they took requests for about 91,000 trips, of which 20-25% cancelled, 1% missed rides and there was a less than 1% denial rate for the year. She said they performed about 75,748 trips, for a daily average of 289 trips. She said they had 11 full-time rounds, one a.m. and one p.m. route. They reduced those to 9 full-time routes and increased the a.m. routes by 2 and the p.m. routes by 2. In Fiscal Year 02, as of September 30, SEATS had about 25,400 ride requests and provided 20,322 of those rides. They had a cancellation rate of about 23%, and a 1.5-2% missed ride rate. They are projecting 8 full-time routes and one a.m. and one p.m. connector route.

Harney asked if cost wise they are coming out even on Sunday service. Dewey said there is a very small number of people using it, but they do use it continually. She said the same is true with Solon and Lone Tree. The County pays 75-78% of the nutritional transportation costs. She said Sunday services costs more than they receive in fares. Dewey said the meal deliveries cost over $13 to the County and Heritage pays $.50. Stutsman said that is way too much. Dewey said the County can propose to Heritage to pay more than $.50. Thompson asked if any of these people are in wheelchairs. Dewey said no. Thompson said Elder Services could hire someone with a minivan to go there. Dewey said meal sites cost less and Lone Tree does more meal sites, less home deliveries, whereas Solon does more home meal deliveries and less meal sites. Dewey said there is a driver who lives in Solon and one in Lone Tree who operate this service 4 hours a day. Stutsman said her rationale is that if this is a valuable service worth keeping, then they need to divert the money going into the Senior Center into these rural activities. Thompson said they could pay the agencies extra money to hire someone to go out in a van and do this and pay 1/3 of the cost.

Adjourned at 12:33 p.m.

Attest: Tom Slockett, Auditor

By Casie Parkins and Amie Kelley, Recording Secretaries