MINUTES OF THE INFORMAL MEETING OF THE JOHNSON COUNTY BOARD OF SUPERVISORS:
FEBRUARY 7, 2002
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Discussion: Resolution of Commitment of FY 2003 Funds to the Senior Center
SEATS Director Lisa Dewey Board Representation to Iowa City SEATS Contract Extension
Discussion: Job Description and Recruitment Process for SEATS Director
Eve Casserly: Upcoming Johnson County Task Force on Aging Panel Discussion Regarding Transportation
Chairperson Thompson called the Johnson County Board of Supervisors to order in the Johnson County Administration Building at 9:15 a.m. Members present were: Pat Harney, Mike Lehman, Terrence Neuzil, Sally Stutsman, and Carol Thompson.
Thompson: First thing on the informal agenda is business from Norma Halling, who is the loss control director from Public Entity Risk Services and is a representative for the Iowa Communities Assurance Pool, which we have recently joined. She’s going to talk with us about services related to loss prevention. Good morning.
Iowa Communities Assurance Pool Representative/Public Entity Risk Services Director Norma Halling: Good morning. It’s nice to be here this morning with you. I just wanted to welcome you to ICAP. I am with Public Entity Risk Services of Iowa. Our company handles loss control and the claims department for ICAP. They are our only client, so all of our time is devoted to the members of ICAP. Basically what I wanted to do today is explain to you a little bit… I’m sure that your insurance agent has explained the pool to you quite extensively. He was with me 2 weeks ago when I visited the different departments of the County and talked with, actually with Steve and a few of the others about loss control procedures and so forth. Just to review it a little bit. The pool is made up of Counties and Cities in 28Es across the State of Iowa. What they do is instead of paying an insurance premium for coverage, they contribute that amount of money into a pool. That pool is then invested and used to pay out any of the claims the members have during that particular year. We are hired then by the Board of Directors through an administration company to handle the claims and the loss control. I do 2 things for the pool. I visit new members and introduce them to our services and welcome you and help you with any questions you might have at the beginning. Or any time through your membership in the pool. I also do seminars, training seminars that cover any kind of problems you might have that would cause any kind of loss. I handle extensively… Well most of the seminars I do are employment practices related. We do do some seminars with driving, defensive driving seminars, that type of thing. We also have a website that’s available and I have talked to Jen Feldmann. She had the user names… She can give you a user name and you can get your password and that if you would like to get into a secured site. Part of the site is up and you can view it at any time. It is on my card. So feel free to go to our website. If you want to get into the secured area, which is our resource library, you will need a username and a password. She can help you with that, because then it goes through our office and we set you up so that you can do your own training also. In loss control we focus on 4 things. One is having good policies and procedures and making sure those policies and procedures are enforceable and then being enforced. If you have one out there that’s not being enforced, it can cause you a lot of problems, especially if there’s an incident that occurs because of it. The second thing is training. Training your people on these policies and procedures, training them on how to use equipment, training them on what’s expected of them and so forth and documenting it. If you don’t document something you didn’t do it. So you definitely need to do the training and documentation. The third thing we focus on is self-inspections. We have 2 individuals, Ron Williams and Jerry Bliss, who come out annually and do an audit of your properties and so forth. ICAP is your property and casualty coverage, so they will focus on those types of things. But we also feel it’s very important for you to do self-inspections on your properties, on your equipment. Sometimes you have to do them every day, vehicles that are driven 24 hours, Sheriff’s department and so forth. Those need to be inspected. It’s a short inspection, but making sure all the lights are working properly and everything, daily. So we encourage you, we have resources, we have all kinds of information that can help you get onto a good inspection program with all of your equipment, property and so forth. The forth thing is if there is an incident that occurs, that you do a good investigation, which in visiting with your people a couple weeks ago, I think that is being handled fairly well. They’re looking to improve that whole system with the safety committee. I sat in on the first meeting that they had with the department heads and that they had with the department heads and that. It seemed to go very well and hopefully it will be followed through the way they intend. Those are the 4 areas we focus on. I do seminars in those areas to help. I can come out on special requests and help you with certain things, but that’s my end of it. We’re the education end. I had been a teacher previous to this position, so they thought maybe I could handle the adults now instead of children. On the website, to help you with your own training, things that you can do here in the County on your own and with your inspection check list and so forth, the resource library is there. The library has 3 areas. One is a video library, which has over 10,000 training videos in it that you can use for no cost. You order them right online, they send them out to you for 2 weeks, they send you an envelope with postage and return address and everything and you ship it back. Most of them run about 15-20 minutes, so it’s one of those things you can do at the beginning of a day. Review some things and update them and keep them continually cognizant of what and how they should be using the equipment and how they should be doing their jobs. The second area is a document library. You can print off anything from that documents library. It’s all there for your use. We used to have it in our files and now we don’t have to use the mail, we can just have you pull it up and print it off. You cannot change it online though. It’s read only and print off, then you can change it on your own. These are policies and procedures, job descriptions, checklists for inspections. Lots and lots of different information. If you can’t find something there, please call our office, we’ll try to locate whatever we can for you. The third area will be up and running in about a month hopefully. It will be online training. If you have an employee that was just hired and you need to get up to speed in some of the areas that you’ve trained others in recent months, you can put them online. This is, there is a small cost to this, it’s $10 per session, per person. They go through the whole class, they read, and answer questions and quizzes. There’s a test at the end and if they pass it they do get a certificate right then and there that you can put in their file to document that they have been trained in that area. We’re really excited about that area that’s coming on the web now. We also have a law enforcement advisory committee made up of a Sheriff and about 4 police chiefs that are from different sized Cities. What we’re doing is putting together sample policies and procedures, right now they call them Standard Operating Guidelines. This is so they can take what we have a samples, so they can compare it to what they have already existing, update it, take a look at what they like, what they don’t like. We are not saying that they have to use ours, we are just providing samples that we feel are good samples that they can use and improve. It’s a different way of networking with them. We also will take any questions from the law enforcement agencies, discuss them at our meetings and give them our opinions or our ideas on how they can handle certain problems that they might have. I do understand that your law enforcement agency is not covered by ICAP, but we will still send our samples out as a service because you’re members of ICAP. Other then that we’re there for any questions, anything that you might need. Sometimes we don’t have the answers, but we’ll certainly look to find them for you and point you in the right direction. But it was a pleasure last week to meet the different department heads. You have a great County here. They are doing a good job and continually trying to be proactive and improve. We’re really looking forward to working with Johnson County. If you have any questions, I can answer anything for you now.
Lehman: I believe we have appointed a safety committee. Most of our contact will be with our agent and any questions or do you see one on one.
Halling: You’re agent in a very active agent and that’s probably the way you would go. Bob would probably be the one you would contact. If there is at claim a one point or another though, you may have contact with our adjusters in our office. They’ll call and ask questions and so forth, but they stay in contact. Some agents aren’t as active in the whole workings of everything, but Bob is.
Lehman: But our agent will be our liaison?
Halling: Yes.
Stutsman: Do you keep stats and statistics and then feed them back so we kind of see trends and patterns and whatever we need?
Halling: We have lost runs. I think they come out every 3 months. Those are forwarded to Bob, then Bob can share those with you. One of the things with accident investigation within the County itself and your safety committee, is to keep record of that also. That’s one of the things that they will do. They’ll review that after 6 months, after a year and they’ll find trends. Because in departments a lot of times a department may have 2 auto accidents and another department 3. They don’t feel like they’ve had very many and they aren’t very severe, but when you look at the whole County, then you see that maybe we need to do a little work in this area or that area. That Safety Committee, that’s one of the things that Safety Committee will be doing. To help them, you’ll get the loss runs through Bob.
Thompson: Well thank you. This is a level of support that makes us feel confident that we’ll be able to improve our loss rate.
Halling: I appreciate very much being able to talk to you today and letting you know what’s going on. I do work forward to working with all of you. Thanks.
Harney: Thank you.
Recessed at 9:26 a.m.; reconvened at 9:35 a.m.
Thompson: Transportation agreement for Federal aid, Highway bridge replacement and rehabilition program project, BROS-C052(53)--8J-52. Which translate to be the bridge replacement on Half Moon Ave in section 32-80-7. We have a map here and here’s Al Miller for the roads department.
Assistant County Engineer Al Miller: The bridge itself is located on Half Moon Ave. just North of Interstate 80 and it’s a bridge that goes over Clear Creek. This agreement is for Federal bridge replacement funds. It’s administered by the Iowa Department of Transportation. The agreement itself is put together by the Department of Transportation. It’s a standard agreement that we’ve done a number of times in the past. One of the stipulations in it is that they reimburse 80% of the eligible costs for the project. Currently our estimate is $300,000. If it comes in below that or over that they still reimburse whatever 80% of the eligible costs are. Basically all I need is to have this put on next week in the formal session to approve the Chairperson to sign the agreement.
Thompson: Where are you in the process. Have you met with the neighbors and done all those things yet.
Miller: Right now we’re in the process of getting our hydraulics submitted to the State for approval and getting the right-of-way limit set so we can talk with people and answer their questions. It is in the State Transportation Improvement Program for the Federal Fiscal 2003, which begins October 1. So we’re looking at a late October letting date.
Thompson: So, you probably won’t be building it until next Spring?
Miller: What we’re going to try to do is… I don’t know if your familiar with the site, but the road’s got a jog in it where the bridge is located at. We’re going to build the bridge on a straight alignment and it could be built next to the existing bridge. We’re hoping to get better bids that way. It sounds kind of similar to another case we have, but I don’t think this one will be as much controversy.
Lehman: Does your estimate include any possible right-of-way purchases?
Miller: This agreement doesn’t cover right-of-way purchases, that’s out of our local fund.
Thompson: It’s just for the bridge itself.
Miller: That’s correct. And the approach grading.
Thompson: Any further questions or discussion from the Board.
Neuzil: How long, once that bridge is being built, how long is that going to be closed.
Miller: We’re going to leave the contract open so they can start. The contractor can be working on the new structure over the winter. Depending on who gets it, it could be a closer number of months. The bridge right now is load rated at 3 tons. It’s posted for one land, so basically nobody can use it unless you’re in a pickup truck. It’s not a bridge that’s fairly useable right now. One thing that I forgot to mention to you is the existing pony trust that’s on it is going to be salvaged and taken out to Kent park for use on the pedestrian trail out there.
Stutsman: That’s been a real successful program. People are aware that the walking path at Kent park, a number of the bridges are Secondary roads bridges that we’ve recycled and used at the park instead of salvaging them.
Miller: Yes, I believe Harry Graves and Larry Lovetinsky are putting together a historical packet on all the bridges and trusses that we’ve taken out there, or coordinated with them to take out there and put on their system. It’s generated some interest out there.
Thompson: OK. We’ll put it on for next week. Thanks Al.
Miller: OK. Thank you.
Thompson: Next is business from Planning and Zoning Department regarding scheduling a work session for Planning and Zoning and Board of Supervisors regarding the North Corridor plan review. We have R.J. Moore from the Planning and Zoning Department.
Assistant Planning and Zoning Administrator R.J. Moore: What we’d like to do here is… We adopted the North Corridor plan in mid-1996 and it calls for a 5-year review. Per an agreement with the Board and our staff, we have been doing an internal review of that document and how we’re achieving those goals. Basically we’re trying to assess for you the success of the North Corridor plan and we would like to present that to you. Hopefully, I’d like to do it in mid-March. Come here and see how your schedules are working out. I know you’re in budgets and 5-Year Construction plan.
Neuzil: Do you have any dates in mind. Do you want to start throwing out some dates?
Moore: I think a couple Board members that have mentioned to me that there’s a Wednesday that you usually have open, a 2nd or 3rd Wednesday.
Thompson: March 13th we already have discussed for the Jail Work Group.
Sullivan: Yes, you have that committed.
Thompson: How long will it take for the North Corridor.
Moore: Well, I think our presentation is probably going to take an hour or so. Then I think you have a number of citizens that are interested in coming and listening.
Neuzil: We have a Thursday evening meeting. Do we want to meet before that?
Harney: That would be a good day for me.
Thompson: The 14th?
Stutsman: I’m going to be out of town on the 14th, during the day. I’ll be here for the Board meeting.
Moore: I don’t think we want to do it during any of your regular Board meetings.
Stutsman: No, we were thinking that’s the Thursday evening meeting, we would do it in the morning. I don’t know how people feel about having it in the evening meeting. There certainly is a lot of interest in this and I’m sure the public would be very much appreciative if we have an evening meeting.
Moore: We could do it that way if we could find a date that you wanted to… besides a normal…
Thompson: I was just going to say do both the jail and this on the Wednesday morning. I think we could fit 2 hour long things into a morning couldn’t we.
Stutsman: I’m hesitant to do that. Just because I think both issues… I don’t want to have to be under a time frame with either issue. Because I think that’s why we decided to do this in a work session instead of a regular Board meeting, just so we wouldn’t have to have a number of other things on the agenda competing for time.
Thompson: How about Tuesday evening, the 12th?
Neuzil: I’m open.
Thompson: We have department heads at 1:30, but that’s all I see on that day.
Harney: I have that open and the 13th in the afternoon.
Stutsman: I have either time too. Can we do it at 5:30?
Lehman: Same here.
Moore: So, March 12th at 5:30.
Stutsman: That’s not spring break week, is it? That’s the following week.
Thompson: I’m writing this in ink you guys.
Stutsman: So we’re not going to change it, is that what that means.
Thompson: I just happened to have a pen in my hand.
Moore: If it’s all right with the Board we’d like to ask your permission to send out a notification to the papers that we're going to hold this. Try to help get the public informed.
Thompson: Is this one of the meetings that we should be taping? We have some money in our budget to tape a few extra meetings besides these.
Moore: You might want to. There’s a lot of interest in the North Corridor and the connection or inter-linkages with your Land Use Plan and how that’s working and what we’re going to do.
Thompson: We could send it to public access that way too.
Moore: I know our staff would not have any objections to it. We’re going to do a PowerPoint presentation for you. I don’t know how that always comes across on the TV, but we’re in the process of preparing it as a PowerPoint presentation.
Stutsman: What you’re going to prepare is an analysis of the current plan and where we’re at with it or…
Moore: I had most of it done and I tore it up and threw it out to be quite truthful. We’re going to take a look at each of the policies that you adopted in the North Corridor Plan. Then we’re going to try to find a quantitative criteria that we can use to assess whether or not we’re achieving those. It’s a little difficult because they’re policies and not all of them are things that you can apply numbers to. But that’s basically what we’re doing. We’re looking at each of the adopted policies and then staff has an opinion on whether or not you’re achieving those. Then we try to give some idea why we think that, such as the idea of doing clustered subdivisions. We can identify clustered subdivisions we’ve been doing in the North Corridor. That’s what we’re going to do. We’re just going to look at each of the adopted policies, we’re going to say whether or not staff feels we’ve been achieving those or not. Then basically at the end we’re going to kind of make recommendations on what we think you ought to do to achieve goals that maybe we’re not doing or revise the plan.
Thompson: Can you get a map showing where the roads are in relation to the housing.
Moore: Yes.
Stutsman: Is Secondary Roads going to be at this meeting. Do they need to be at this meeting? Maybe.
Lehman: I would think they’d need to be a player. At least sit in and hear things first hand.
Harney: I think it’s a good idea to have them here.
Moore: We’ll let them know.
Thompson: Will you also have a proposal about seeking public input about this? There seem to be a lot of questions about that.
Moore: Well, we could. We would generally like to get a feel from the Board on how you want to proceed, but there are alternatives if you want to, if there’s major changes or just small revisions you feel that it needs on how you want to do that. We were planning on asking you how you would like to proceed with it. Once you heard what we had to say, then we were going to ask you how you felt you would be most comfortable with proceeding with any revisions or updates to the plan.
Thompson: Does everybody have, on the Board, a copy of the North Corridor plan.
Moore: I believe so, but if not we can definitely get it. It’s on our website too.
Stutsman: Great, thank you.
Lehman: As to the limit of taping meetings. Many of the people out there in the North Corridor, don’t have access to cable, but it’s still the main people that we can’t reach that will have an interest in it.
Moore: That’s why we wanted to do a press release on it. That would help us a little bit, being able to reach some of the people that don’t have access to Iowa City cable and your broadcasts.
Stutsman: So Mike you’ll check with cable. Are we in agreement to tape this?
Sullivan: I’ll call Andy.
Stutsman: I don’t know how tight that budget is. We might be OK.
Sullivan: I’ll look at it.
Thompson: Thank you.
Moore: You bet. Thank you.
Thompson: Next is business from Jeff Horne, the Budget Coordinator, regarding Resolution 02-07-02-B1, changing departmental appropriations for the Medical Examiner, Juvenile Justice and Court Services.
Budget Coordinator Jeff Horne: Good morning. This resolution, basically releasing the fourth quarter funding from these 3 departments, some of which I’ve talked about in my monthly reports. The Medical Examiner has been a, we’re still transitioning to the University program, getting a handle on those expenses in terms of what the budget is going to be. It’s been difficult. We’ve had a large number of autopsies this year, so we need to release their fourth quarter funding a little bit earlier then we otherwise would, then the other departments. The same is with Juvenile Justice and Court Services, was pretty good until the expenses for the Memmer trial, basically came in in January quite a bit. It’s running up to 70% of it’s budget already. I spoke to the County Attorney about this. He seemed to think he could make it without an amendment still.
Thompson: But Juvenile Justice is the, Department 27 is the amount…
Horne: Brandon’s is running… He’s not over. It’s Brandon’s budget.
Stutsman: You might explain the Board’s policy about giving departments 3/4 of the appropriations.
Horne: When we budget for a fiscal year, at the beginning of the fiscal year, the Board appropriates 3/4 of the actual appropriations that they set in the budget. Then we reserve the last quarter for various reasons, in case we need to adjust for cash flows or if the Board wants to make adjustments, different kinds of adjustments in budgets. You leave yourself that flexibility.
Stutsman: So this is the money that we have budgeted for these departments, we’re just releasing it a little early because of unforeseen expenses earlier.
Horne: The Memmer trial was quite expensive. Autopsies I don’t have an answer for. We just seem to have a lot more autopsies, that’s would be the trend.
Stutsman: When do we usually release the 4th quarter appropriations?
Horne: It’s about a month early.
Stutsman: OK.
Harney: They will stay, you anticipate them staying within budget even though these are released early, right?
Horne: I talked to the County Attorney like I said on Court Services. I think Brandon can make it through too. The Medical Examiner will be the one that I would have a question about.
Lehman: Are you still withholding the 1% that we talked about that we were going to do with all departments this year to help cushion the budget.
Horne: With these 3 I don’t know how that will play in with them running that high. For the public’s context these are not our larger budgets. We’re talking relatively small budges in the overall context of our 45 million dollar budget. We’re talking about under a million dollars.
Stutsman: What this does allow too is for vendors to be paid in a timely fashion rather than them having to hold their bills which isn’t really fair. The County has always had a policy of trying to be very current on its claims.
Lehman: The 1% we haven’t made it. I don’t know if we need to make a resolution eventually.
Horne: We’ll have a big appropriations resolution and we’ll just alter the amounts.
Lehman: Are you in agreement that that’s going to be included in these 3 here? Even though it may not be a large amount I think we need to treat all departments fairly and that’s what we try to do in our budget presentation.
Horne: I can certainly make that.
Lehman: We were going to hold back 1% of our 4th quarter appropriations to try to give us a little bit more of a carryover. Possibly if there are some emergency amendments that we have to carry over a little money and these are 3 that we need to allow for that 1% hold back.
Horne: Like I said I can certainly alter the amounts so we’re releasing just 24 of the final 25%. I can easily calculate that out.
Thompson: So you’ll have a revised resolution?
Horne: I’ll have a revised resolution back for your formal agenda next week.
Thompson: Next is business from the County Attorney.
Assistant County Attorney Janet Lyness: No business.
DISCUSSION: RESOLUTION OF COMMITMENT OF FY 2003 FUNDS TO THE SENIOR CENTER
Thompson: Business from the Board of Supervisors. Discussion regarding resolution of commitment of Fiscal Year 2003 funds to the Senior Center. I see Jay Honohan here.
Stutsman: Maybe we should explain why we’re discussing this Resolution, what the process is.
Lehman: What our contract calls for.
Thompson: In our 28E Agreement with the Senior Center its says that the City is required to notify us by a certain date of what the budget for the Senior Center will be. And we will pay 20% of that budget or notify the City by a certain date of what amount we intended to pay. This year the 20% amount would be 145,664 and in our budget discussions we determined that we couldn’t commit to that amount but we were willing to contribute 100,000 under the terms of the agreements. The resolution would be to notify the City we were committing 100,000 to the Senior Center for Fiscal Year 2003.
Stutsman: A little bit more background information. The reason why we’re to this point of talking about having to reduce the amount that we normally budget to the Senior Center under the contract is because of the situation of our budget for next year. We’ve had to make a number of drastic cuts in our budget including going to the department heads and asking them to reduce their askings by 4% in order to stay under our levy limit. We’ve had a number of things that have all come together at one time to affect the County budget including the rollback, the healthcare costs that have really escalated, jail expenses, lack of revenue from the TIF district. It’s just been…
Horne: We lost a lot of revenues due to interest. We have a big increase in askings.
Stutsman: The Board felt, we’ve asked our departments as well as agencies that we’re not going to be able to fund them at the level that we have in the past. The Board felt that the Senior Center would have to be included in those funding cuts too.
Harney: There were major cuts made in the block grant area and as you’ve said the interest we get off our dollars has really been short. There were lot of the agencies within the Block Grants under the United Way and programs such as that, that we’ve had to cut. The last place that we want to cut is under the Human Services area. But, over 50% of our budget is actually human service related and transportation, things like that. We are to the point that we’ve made all of the departments cut to the point where it’s affecting their services that we are providing for our County residents. The next step beyond these cuts that we are making now would have to be layoffs in personnel and there are some of the part-time personnel being laid off. So, we are, like Sally said, in a real budget crunch and we really need to address these situations right now. It’s an opportunity right now, as far as I am concerned, for the communities to get together, Johnson County, Coralville, Iowa City. I think we need to make some drastic changes in the way we do business. The County has changed. We’re not the County we were 10 or 20 or 15 years ago. Things have changed real drastically. I think there are areas we need to look at. We need to look at the possibility of metropolitan transportation areas, including SEATS in with that, where they become their own entity. Where they are operating under a program other than under the County or city governments. It’s under a controlled committee type of thing. We could do the same thing with Ambulance, where they are self-sustaining through their own taxation rather than through the County or through the cities. I think this would allow us to address our public needs and services that we have to provide. The basic needs for our communities.
Lehman: That’s a good point. When this contract with the City was done approximately 20 years ago, the Senior Center also housed Adult Day Care, SEATS and also Senior Dining. Well, the Senior Dining has also been taken over by Elderly Services. So, we’re not a, I don’t know what the proper term is, a day to day to player as a provider there. I think, just doing some numbers here, if we were going to reduce our contribution by $41,600 from what we did last year, that’s a 5.9% decrease. Where, some of our other targets were anywhere from 4-10, some of our Block Grants. We’re not completely out of line. I don’t think we’re picking on this one area of the budget either. We’re trying to be as fair as we can. We spent a lot of time researching this, trying to decide where it’s going to have the least impact. Not that we’re going to micromanage anyone’s budget, but we’ve asked almost everyone, including our department heads, to be as efficient as possible to try to cut back. In a lot of areas in these smaller budgets there isn’t a whole lot of room.
Neuzil: As you look at these discretionary funds as well, I think as Pat had said, the opportunities to be able to go to the other communities to approach them, particularly Coralville and North Liberty and all of the other incorporated cities in our County and try to measure their use for the Senior Center and approach those communities and try to make up some of this money. I think that will help the Senior Center as well. This is not an easy decision. None of us want to do this. But, I think as you look at our tight budget year, I think that we are trying to be as responsible as we can. We’re still making a major contribution to the Senior Center in $100,000. I can say this isn’t the most popular decision that we want to make here. But, I think it’s a decision that we’re trying to be responsible and trying to manage this extremely tight budget here. So, it’s a tough one.
Lehman: I think Sally had touched upon how we got in this situation. The State funding is decreased by about $1.25 million. Our interest rates, our income from interest and our accounts where we hold the property tax money until we need to spend it, that interest rate is predicted to go down by almost $400,000. We have health programs that are going to cost us another $400,000. We have a jail issue of housing prisoners and that escalating cost. We have a swing of about $2 million. In our General Basic we are just almost to the levy limit of what we can actually charge. In the General Basic are a lot of these human service type categories. We’ve got a $2 million swing on what we had last year. That’s why we had to do these cuts. We try to be as fair as we could, as equitable as we could. But, that’s what happened here. We’re not just trying to save dollars. We are mandated to save dollars. We do not have the money to use in these programs. The bottom line is, we don’t have the dollars to fund at the same level as we had last year.
Harney: Another area that has been cut severely by the State and the Federal government is we lost over $1 million with County roads out there. They have had to take a substantial cut, so those services are being cut back as well. I think we’ve done the best we can at this point. Can we do better? Probably. I think there are some areas we could probably look at that we maybe haven’t dug as deeply into. But, I think over time we are going to have to do that within the next year.
Stutsman: We’re going to have a strategic planning session next Tuesday. I think that is going to be one of the things that we are really going to evaluate is, with limited resources, where are our priorities and services and needs and budget accordingly. These are not pleasant times, as somebody said that was in the legislature. It’s a lot more fun when there is plenty of money. It becomes pretty tough when things are tight. But, I think it’s a responsibility of the Board, too, to be proactive and try to be as equitable as we can across the Board. That is what the Board has really tried to do. I don’t think we’ve tried to balance this on any one departments’ back. I think we’ve tried to address the needs as best as we can and spread it around.
Lehman: We could see some funding cut in mid-year by the State. They may say their funds have not materialized. They may say, we are going to reduce your funds even more during mid-year. That’s where we may be forced to say, this program, we can’t fund it. We’re going to have even mid-year type cuts. Terrence said, there is no room for budget amendments. Our carryover is at a bare minimum and that is what we need to carry over and to pay bills in July and September until the property tax money starts coming in. There is just no margin of error here at all.
Harney: Another area that has been really severely cut has been the training and travel as well. Everybody is really cutting into the nitty-gritty of what the operations of their departments are. So, it’s not that the dollars are there and available to adjust accordingly to put money in particular areas. We may be able to move a little bit around. There is not much to play with.
Thompson: The important thing is that the combination of large increases in our expenses, for instance, for the jail and for our health insurance costs and a decrease in our revenues having to do with the State budget cuts and the economy and a smaller than expected increase in our valuation, which is what our taxation is based on, brings us to a point where we’ve reached the maximum taxing authority that we have. There isn’t any more money there.
Stutsman: Even if we wanted to raise taxes we can’t do it.
Lehman: That’s the good news bad news. There will be very little tax increase because we’ve already reached that max. The bad news is, we’ve reached that maximum and we can’t generate any more funds.
Thompson: So, we are really having to look at what the essential purposes of County government are and pull back to just doing those basic services. Like everyone else has said, it has been a really hard year and a lot of tough decisions. Are we ready to put this on for next week’s agenda?
Stutsman: Is there any discussion from the public? I know we have…
Thompson: We usually have discussion at the end of the meeting, but we could take comments from you now if you want to step forward. Say your name for the County Auditor please.
Senior Center Commission Member Jay Honahan: I’m Jay Honahan. I’m a member of the Senior Center Commission. I understand and sympathize with your problems. I am however, quite disappointed that we are not getting the 20% funding obviously. I think that this is lowering the commitment of the County, to the seniors of Johnson County. Also, my math, I’m a lawyer and I don’t do a lot of math, but it looks to me like this is almost a third cut, 30%, of what you funded last year. Actually, if you consider your prior commitment, which was according to the Press Citizen, $50,000 to Senior Dining, this is almost a $100,000 cut from what you paid last year because you are no longer funding Senior Dining and you’re cutting us $45,000. This is just what I said, very disappointing. I recognize that there wasn’t anything set in stone, but the impression I had from the last meeting was that we were going to continue the regular funding and that we were going to try to work with some of the things that Terry has described with the other cities over the next Fiscal Year, so we wouldn’t be facing a drastic cut this year. I don’t know what steps we are going to have to take at the Senior Center if you don’t give us this $45,000. There are a lot of what-ifs that we have thrown around, cutting employees, that’s one of the options. Rent is another thing that we have discussed. These are things that hurt the Senior Center. One of the reasons that it’s been such a great institution in my opinion is that it has been open and available without any kind of fee charges. I know there has been some talk about doing it like the Rec. center, but that is comparing apples to oranges. The Rec. center situation with leagues and swimming pools and things like that simply is not even close to the situation, the openness, the invite everybody situation that we have at the Senior Center. I know I think I am swimming upstream, but I feel that maybe I should be happy you are giving us the $100,000, but it’s really a great Senior Center. It has been great because of the commitment of both the City Council and the Board of Supervisors over the last 20 some years. I think as you reduce the commitment, that is going to hurt the Senior Center and hurt the seniors of Johnson County, which is a growing population as we all know. I understand that part of it is that you feel that Senior Dining is no longer your baby and that you don’t have a program per se in the Center. I hate to be punished because Heritage pulled Senior Dining away from you guys. That is kind of what it seems to me is happening here. Like I said, I think I’m swimming upstream, but I certainly would like you to reconsider. As Sally said, it is a matter of priorities. I know you’ve got a lot things on your mind, but we would certainly appreciate the full funding that you gave us last year.
Harney: A comment I would make Jay, is, I’m the first one that would support Senior Dining and the senior programs as the Senior Center, as well as the other human services through MH/DD, the SEATS program and things like that. We’re to the point now where we are… It’s affecting the staff, the layoffs and things like that on part-time help and we’re really in a bind. Another area that it affects, and everywhere we cut, it seems like it affects the seniors and the disabled in some way, because there are so many services. The budget is over 50% Human Services, if you really look at it. I think one of the things that Lisa Dewey, with SEATS Program, that’s another issue. We have a contract with the City, but we are paying over $40,000 for Sunday services for individuals for 16 individuals. It gets pretty expensive if you look at it over a year’s period of time. Yet, at the same time there needs to be transportation for them to church services or to work on weekends and Sundays. But, where do we draw the line. It’s really tough to make those decisions.
Honahan: I understand you have hard decisions, Pat. I’m not discounting that. The Senior Center is an institution, if you want to call it that, where you have a tremendous number of people, a tremendous number of volunteers, a tremendous number of activities. Activities that don’t just stay in the Senior Center, that go out to the various places in the County and go to the retirement homes, the nursing homes and places like that. It’s also a source of information for seniors and even non-seniors of the County. I don’t know you if read that excellent editorial by Laurie Benz, another thing that the Senior Center does is it helps what some people call the sandwich generation. The people that have the elders that they have to worry about and the children that they have to worry about. It’s a very important part of this County. I’m sure you all appreciate that. I just wish you’d appreciate it to the extent of $145,000.
Thompson: Thanks Jay. I think we all appreciate the Senior Center and we respect your advocacy for it.
Honahan: Well, I’ll be back.
Harold Stager: May I speak?
Lehman: Sure.
Stager: First I want to thank Mike and Sally for coming down to our AARP Meeting. We do hold a service along the Senior Center. After you left the other day, we had quite a discussion among ourselves what can be done and what should be done and where can the funds come from. You mentioned taxing the County and the little townships and so forth. The AARP is to serve and not be served so to speak. I’m looking at what Honahan said about the people coming in there. We’re having more and more people come in the office looking for answers. If you cut out these programs that they have, they cut out the program, it’s going to be a sorry mess because there isn’t anything left for the seniors in Iowa City. Thank you.
Thompson: Thanks Harold. Anyone else wish to comment on this subject? Then we’ll move this onto our agenda for next week to finalize the resolution.
SEATS DIRECTOR LISA DEWEY BOARD REPRESENTATION TO IOWA CITY SEATS CONTRACT EXTENSION
Thompson: Next is Discussion Action Needed Regarding the Board Representation to Iowa City SEATS Contract Extension.
SEATS Director Lisa Dewey: As all of you know, the Iowa City contract ends at the end of June 30th, 2003. Iowa City contacted us in November, at the end of November, requesting that we start. They would like to extend the contract rather than put out an RFP and do another contract, which they have by the right of the contract. They can extend for up to 2 years before they have to put out another RFP. They have requested that we do that. They would like to start those negotiations now. So, what I am asking is to have 2 Board Members assigned to do these negotiations. We are attempting to try to do this before the 1st of March. So, I am asking to have a couple of Board Members who would be available about 3 days the last week of February and then to have a couple of days where they could meet prior to that.
Thompson: Is this different from the meetings Terrence and I are doing with the…
Dewey: No, these are actually the same ones, but the limited availability and trying to get this done…
Thompson: We’ve set aside March 28th in the afternoon.
Dewey: This is for the same one. We’ve talked about the contract negotiations.
Neuzil: We’ve set aside the 14th at 1:30, right?
Dewey: But, the last week of February, which is where we would be meeting with the City, I need 3 days.
Neuzil: I’m going to have some difficult time with that because I’ll be in D.C. for 2 of those days and then 1 day we are going to be all in Des Moines.
Dewey: That’s the reason this is.
Stutsman: That’s what Lisa’s issue is.
Dewey: I need more times.
Stutsman: Those are the only 3 days that are available before Lisa leaves and she needs to be a part of these negotiations. So, we need to have people that are available one of those 3 days.
Thompson: I was thinking it was this afternoon at 3, and then the 14th and the 28th.
Dewey: That’s for the need to meet with the 2. Then, when we meet with the City, it’s the last week of February we need 3 days the last week of February.
Thompson: 3 whole days?
Dewey: Well, no. They’ll be probably half days, but it would be 3 different times throughout that week to have availability because we are not going to finish this in one session with the City. There will be questions and people will want to come back with other information and such. So, we are looking at about 3 days in that week. So, that is why we are trying to determine who would be the best Board Members to do that based on that availability.
Neuzil: Are any Board Members interested in doing that?
Stutsman: Carol…
Neuzil: Carol, you are?
Thompson: Yes, I am still interested in doing that.
Stutsman: You have those times available?
Thompson: Well, we haven’t said which times, but I can come up with 3 half days that last week.
Stutsman: I think it’s good for the Chair.
Lehman: I’d be willing to. I was on the Financial Committee. I’d be willing to be a part of that.
Thompson: What happens to the 14th then?
Dewey: Then it will be you 2 instead.
Neuzil: Mike, do you have the 14th at 1:30 available?
Lehman: Yes.
Neuzil: OK.
Dewey: That’s when we would meet, the 3 of us.
Thompson: And 3, half days the week of the 25th.
Neuzil: Not anything today. I don’t have that on there anymore. We took that off.
Dewey: It would be the 14th of February for us to meet. The 3 of us.
Thompson: But not this afternoon.
Dewey: Not this afternoon.
Stutsman: What complicates it too, is representatives from the City are going to be out of town the week before. So, it really limits the time that is available to work on this.
Dewey: That is what has been so difficult, is trying to do this prior to my departure, with the availability of Iowa City Council and their negotiating team as well.
Stutsman: I understand that’s Dee Vanderhoef and Mike O’Donnell.
Dewey: I have not been informed of actually who is going to be on the City.
Neuzil: Some of their members are also going to be in Washington, D.C., too. So, you might want to contact them to make sure that they are…
Stutsman: I talked to Ernie this morning and that’s who he told me were going to be the representatives.
Dewey: I’d kind of been given that indication, but I have not the actual decision yet. Joe Fowler will be there and Ron Logsden and Steve Atkins.
Thompson: So, Mike and I will see you on the 14th.
Dewey: Yes, thank you.
DISCUSSION: JOB DESCRIPTION AND RECRUITMENT PROCESS FOR SEATS DIRECTOR
Thompson: Which brings us to the next item on our agenda. We have had a resignation from Lisa Dewey. So, we need to review the job description and discuss the recruitment process for a new SEATS Director. Lisa, you will be missed.
Stutsman: Lisa is leaving the 1st of March. We will get moving on this.
Human Resources Administrator Lora Shramek: After 3 and a half years with the County. We placed advertisements in Passenger Transport, which is a national publication, the Press Citizen, the Gazette, Quad-City Times and the Des Moines Register this past Sunday. We also have an ad running in the Iowa Department of Transportation Newsletter, Smart Career Moves, web site, and the Workforce Development Center as well as our own Johnson County web page. We need to advertise this position, as it is a department head, for at least 30 days. So, we have resumes to be received by March 1, 2002. As of yesterday, we received 6 resumes so far. We need to update the SEATS Director job description. Jen and I have presented a draft to the Board of Supervisors for review. We have strengthened a lot of the ADA requirements in the job description. I have highlighted all of the language that pertains to the CDL requirement, such as also providing backup for the drivers as needed, and operations of SEATS vehicles and equipment as needed. For discussion for the Board, based on prior discussions, it sounds like possibly there is some interest in removing this requirement and I wanted to have some discussion regarding that.
Stutsman: I was on the Board when the original job description was drafted. I think it is safe to say that the role of the Director of SEATS has changed since that time. At that time it was not unusual for the Director of SEATS to drive the vans, if there were some shortages and people called in sick or running behind schedule. But, that’s not the case anymore. I think the SEATS Director has become more strictly an administrative position and not a part-time driver. So, for that reason, I don’t know if we really need to have the SEATS Director be required to have a CDL. Quite frankly, I am almost of the feeling anymore that I don’t want the SEATS Director to be driving vans. I think there is enough administrative work that that person should be in the office managing the department and not driving the vehicles.
Lehman: My impression was that maybe it was put in to close the gap, the relationship between employees and the Director. Similar to if you had an Ambulance Director you would expect them to know CPR or something. I don’t know if they would actually do it, perform it, but I think it helps that relationship with the employees and administration. I’m not saying it’s necessary or not, but I think that’s kind of the slant that’s put on this.
Thompson: I agree. I think that the morale in the department and the relationship between the director and the employees is enhanced if they know that that person has the same credentials they do.
Neuzil: I agree, although I kind of agree with both of you. Obviously I think that the position should have those capabilities because you want to have that individual understand what the job is, and that means you are going to have to at least know how to drive. But, at the same time, I think it is pretty realistic to say that we don’t expect that individual to do a whole lot of driving. So, I guess you can kind of see both points here.
Lehman: I might ask Lisa, you didn’t have a CDL when you first came here and got one.
Dewey: Right.
Lehman: What is your feel?
Dewey: There are several things. First off, when I first got here, we did reorganization. We now have an Operations Supervisor who does require a CDL, and they are really the one that has that interaction with the drivers. They are the direct supervisors for the drivers and have more of an interaction with the drivers on a day to day basis. Therefore, I would say yes, that Operations Supervisor does need a CDL. From a Director’s standpoint, I have driven less than .003% of the time that I have been here and part of that is there is just no time. There is so much administrative responsibility with the Director’s position. We don’t have time for that. With the exception you have the ability to go out for an hour or 2 to ride with the driver and that builds your relationships with the driver better than having a CDL. The other thing is, you are paying the hourly wage of a driver to a Director’s wage for them to be out doing what you pay a driver. So, your cost in that driving portion goes way up. My recommendation would be you don’t require it, it’s nice to have. You could have it as a preference, but as a requirement I would say no.
Lehman: You’ve been involved, coming from California, do you have any perspective on what percentages of other are required in other situations?
Dewey: None of the transit providers and transit agencies that do a lot of trips have CDL’s. Again, it’s a time issue.
Lehman: I’d hate to put a…
Dewey: But, I’ve also been in the metropolitan mainly. So, that’s a big difference. Sally is correct. When I first got here the previous Director had been driving, but that was before there were changes.
Lehman: I’d hate to put this in as a hurdle to keep us from getting a qualified administrator. Not to say that Lisa didn’t have one, but that was her requirement, she got one. I’d hate to deter someone from applying knowing that, well, I just don’t see this as being a role of I don’t agree with your job description basically. I’d be interested in the job but I think I’d be wasting my time studying and getting it and keeping one up and that kind of stuff. I’d hate to fall in that category where we lose a qualified applicant.
Harney: Would it be acceptable to put in something to the affect that a qualification is preferred rather than required?
Shramek: Exactly, it sounds like driving is definitely a secondary function and middle ground would be to move it from a requirement to a desirable category, which we can do.
Stutsman: Lisa, I haven’t had a chance to look at the job description real carefully. Did you have a chance to review it and are there things, anything that should be included? Because things change and when this was written, when Lisa first came, it was a different program than it is today. So, I want to make sure that it still reflects accurately.
Dewey: Actually I reviewed it and I think that HR has done a wonderful job in the enhancement in the ADA and the administrative and the management portions, which is what they do. I agree with the CDL as a preference rather than a requirement. But, yes I did review it and I think that was a pretty good job description and should draw some good applicants.
Thompson: So, we will put this on for next week?
Stutsman: One thing, there again I haven’t looked this over so maybe it’s addressed. But, we have kind of talked more about this person being involved in developing a more regional transportation concept. Is that addressed, somebody that might have some kind of experience in…
Thompson: Under specific duties sort of in the middle there are a couple there.
Shramek: Facilitates strategic planning for SEATS in Johnson County and the region, evaluating the SEATS service for plan for growth, expansion and (inaudible).
Stutsman: All right. Thank you.
Shramek: Pat Harney had recommended that so we included it.
Stutsman: OK.
Thompson: Do we have it for next week?
Stutsman: Yes.
Shramek: Thank you.
DISCUSSION: SCHEDULING MEETINGS THE WEEK OF MARCH 17TH
Thompson: Next is Discussion Action Regarding our meetings for the week of March 17th, which is the Iowa State Association of Counties Spring School and also spring break.
Stutsman: So do we just want to not meet that week?
Thompson: That would be good with me, I’ll be out of town.
Stutsman: I don’t have any problems with that.
Neuzil: March 21st, we’d not have a meeting, is that right.
Stutsman: A lot of times we move it to the 19th, but beings that it’s Spring break, let’s just not meet at all during the week of spring break.
Thompson: So do we put that on next week for a motion. OK.
Thompson: Then we’ve had minutes received from the Johnson County Empowerment Areas Board for January 3rd, 2002 and the Johnson County Board of Social Welfare Cluster Board for January 14th 2002. Next is reports an inquiries from the Board. Sally do you want to start?
Stutsman: OK. Well we’ve been working on budget, it seems like that has just really taken up most of our time. Mike and I met and did the pre-evaluation for Elaine, which we worked on yesterday morning. Mike and I met with the ARC group at the Senior Center on Monday afternoon. Mike had some excellent visuals on the budget process and where we’re at with the budget and tried to explain to them the difficulties we’re under as far funding for different programs and services this year. They had good questions. I think there was good interest, so I don’t know if everybody always agrees with what we come up with, but at least we hopefully gave them some understanding of where we’re at and why we’re making the decisions that we are. Pat and I met with Lisa on Tuesday afternoon to talk about our usual supervisory visit. We talked a little bit about the transition, moving towards a hiring for a new SEATS director. We also are going to have a reception for Lisa here in the Boardroom on Friday, February 1st from 2-4.
Thompson: March 1st.
Stutsman: I’m sorry. Did I say February 1st? I hope people can put that on their calendars and plan to attend that.
Neuzil: 2-4 again?
Sullivan: 2-4. Yes.
Neuzil: 2-4 on Friday March 1st.
Stutsman: Right. We did evaluations yesterday morning on the Physical Plant manager, Elaine Sweet who is the MH/DD director and did a site visit at the Recorders office. That was really interesting. It’s always good to get out to these different departments to see what they do and get a better understanding of the services that they provide and their budgetary needs and staffing needs. Kim did a good job. I think that’s all I have for today.
Thompson: Terrence?
Neuzil: Well another busy week. I even had a chance to get away for the weekend. I felt like during this time of year, that was pretty sweet. Let’s see. Of course, the budget meetings. This is that time of year we’re having, as you heard earlier in this meeting, a real tough time with this budget, But I think we’re real close. This coming Monday at 9:00 I think we’ll kind of sure up those numbers. Make sure they’re double checked and triple checked and all those kind of things. I think we’re real close to finalizing our budget for FY03, for this up coming year. Yesterday I had an opportunity to go to Des Moines. I did miss a couple of important meetings here with the evaluations and I wanted to make sure the Board understood that I was going to be… I had contacted Mike and already contacted Kim and will be meeting with the other individuals who we evaluated to make sure they understand why I was gone. This year I am chairing the Chamber Of Commerce’s Economic Development Subcommittee for our legislative committee and therefore was in charge of giving some presentations to our legislators and also to some of the governor’s staff. I gave a presentation to, the entire group gave a presentation to C.J. Niles who is the Director of Economic Development for the Governor. Also gave presentations to Senate President Mary Kramer from West Des Moines. Gave presentations to House Speaker Brent Siegrist along with the Majority Leader in the House. The area that I was in charge of was the Vision Iowa funding. The reason I wanted to be a part of that was that I wanted to learn more about one of the proposals that’s kind of hanging out there, that is that would give the Counties the ability to distribute some of the money of Vision Iowa. There is some significant amount of money left. One proposal out there is to build that fund up to get about 99 million dollars and then give the Counties and opportunity to distribute that as long as the Counties were willing to match it with a 4 million dollars referendum. I don’t think that’s going anywhere this year in regards to Vision Iowa. If it does ever go, it will be something separate. It will be a part of Vision Iowa, but it will be separate from the funding that goes in there. Chamber of Commerce is working with Vision Iowa, primarily to, one was to get an update from the legislatures, 2 was to kind of preserve the current fund and make sure the current fund was going to be continued to use for large projects. Then hopefully at some point over the next few years, we hope the State to rebound there would be a continuation of this Vision Iowa to a round 2 funding. That’s where I was yesterday. Again, it was a real nice event and a very good learning experience. Besides that, like I said just a very busy week of getting things accomplished. Again, I hope everyone will have a chance, if you’re interested in learning more about the budget on Monday February 11th at 9:00 a.m. is when we’re going to have our next budget meeting. Then right now the preliminary time for out actual public hearing on the discussion will be March 4th at 5:30 p.m. That is when we’re anticipating the public hearing for our budget, at 5:30 in the evening. Thanks.
REPORT (STUTSMAN): UPCOMING HILLS CITY COUNCIL MEETING
Stutsman: Carol, can I add one thing to my report. I just wanted to tell the Board that Monday night, the Hills City Council will be discussing the Izaak Walton Road situation. Remember we’ve had some calls on who’s responsibility is that piece of road from the railroad track to Oak Crest Hill Road is. It is on the Hills City Council agenda for Monday night. I have contacted the County Attorney’s office. I think Andy is going to try to cover that meeting. Somebody from Secondary Roads will be there. I hope one of us could be there. The conflict is the Democratic caucuses are that night, and the Republican caucuses meets that night too, but most of us are involved with the Democratic one. It meets at the same time.
Neuzil: There’s Republican caucuses in this County. We still have them.
Stutsman: Well, I’m assuming. Every once in awhile I run into one or 2 of them when I’m at the caucus, who are lost and looking for their room.
Neuzil: I know I’m going to get razzed on that now.
Stutsman: Yes. I bet we all are. So anyway, I am going to try to run down to the City Council meeting, because I am the closest, my caucuses will be at the Hills school. I don’t know if another Supervisor is interested in going down to that night. I think we’re all probably involved with our caucuses.
Harney: I plan on trying to get there.
Stutsman: Are you to Pat?
Harney: I’ll try and jump between the 2.
Stutsman: Well, you’re clear up in Solon.
Neuzil: Are we also sending the Secondary Roads?
Stutsman: Yes. Either Al or I think Mike is going to be there. He’s just getting back from vacation so we thought it would be a good place for him to be Monday night. As he shows off his tan from Jamaica. Anyway I just wanted to tell the Board so hopefully we can come up with some kind of conclusion to this problem. I think will help Hills City Attorney will also be there. So we can just get everybody in the same room at the same time and discuss what’s the best way to handle this situation.
Thompson: OK. Mike?
Lehman: OK. Sally touched on going to the AARP. We had a chance to speak to some of the seniors and also at the end of the Democratic Central Committee I gave a brief overview of the budget. I did make some charts and some graphs. Those are available if you want to take them around, because I know we’ve been asked to address different groups and stuff. I think if people can see it visually where we’re at I think… We’ll touch on that in our budget presentation with PowerPoint and stuff, but I think when people get to see it and they ask some pertinent questions on how they’re affected, but I think once they understand where we’re at and how we got here. Our hands are kind of tied on many of these situations, they understand a little more. So we had the opportunity to do that. Tuesday afternoon I met with the County Attorney’s office with Pat White and Andy Chappell and also with the Planning and Zoning staff, with Rick Dvorak, R.J. Moore and Dan Swartzendruber to talk about a zoning code revision for the Iowa City airport. Also met with Dick Bloom who is with HR Green, this is something that Planning and Zoning and the County Attorney will be reviewing this proposal. It will be basically a horizontal overlay zone that will come into play if we’re looking for new constructions to be built, cell towers or even houses, structures as far as the height. It may have a large impact, something we make a decision on here. We’re going to have to do a lot of reviewing and checking. It’s something that when GIS comes into play, it will make, if we decide to include this revision that’s something that will have to be a big player in that part so they can check it. This will be cover over Eastern part of Iowa City and basically extend into Cedar County over the West Branch area. It’s 3 miles wide by the time it leaves Johnson County. It will have a large impact so, they’re going to be reviewing that. Just a reminder of Monday the 11th at Rookies they’ll be honoring Tim Shanahan the City Manager of North Liberty, who will be leaving so if any of us will be able to attend that, I think he’ll appreciate it. We have a pretty good working relation with North Liberty. If they name a replacement for Tim, hopefully that continues.
Stutsman: What time is that Mike?
Lehman: It’s from 5-8 at Rookies.
Neuzil: What night.
Lehman: On Monday the 11th.
Neuzil: Oh, another thing on the 11th. All right.
Lehman: That’s all I have.
Stutsman: We’ll have to be traveling Supervisors.
Thompson: Pat?
Harney: Last Thursday I attended the ECICOG, the East Central Iowa Council of Governments in Cedar Rapids on the Board of Directors meeting, which was there at Cedar Rapids. They elected their offices, the Chairperson is Ed Brown, the Mayor of Washington, the Vice-Chair is Lou Barron, Linn County Supervisor and the Secretary/Treasurer is Dave Vermedahl from Benton County Supervisors. The issues that they were discussing up there were lengthy. They’re attempting to save and expand the Iowa Bottle Bill as everyone knows that’s at risk. It’s in the legislature right now. It looks like it will probably stay, but they’re trying to see if they can get that expanded. They’re also conducting a study of the recycle systems that came out in the paper, I believe today. They’re checking on the efficiency and the effectiveness of the recycling and they’re actually checking Iowa City, Cedar Rapids, Marion and 3 other communities in the area, just to see how effective the services actually is. They opened up 3 new hazardous waste buildings similar to the one in Iowa City, the Iowa City land fill. They opened it in Benton County, Iowa County and Tama. In doing those open houses at these facilities they handed out plastic bottles that actually had recipes on the side for garden sprays that you can make at home, which are non-toxic and environmentally safe. It was real interesting the bottles that they had. Another plan they have is to resist the Chamber Alliance proposal for redesignated road use tax dollars in the State. There’s a movement by the Chamber Alliance to set those dollars by population rather then by County. The thought up there is that the proposal in actuality will take 50% of the road funds away from 42 Counties in Iowa. So it would really, the rural Counties that lack population, would really be effected by road tax dollars. They wouldn’t really be able to upkeep their roads as they deem necessary. Another thing they would like to do is educate the public and the legislature about the proposed sales tax on purchases made through the computer systems in Iowa. There’s an enormous amount of sales tax lost through the purchases by large companies with sales in Iowa through their computer systems, which they are never actually in Iowa selling, but they do it across a computer. So that’s an issue that they’re really looking at. Another note, side note, the University of Iowa said that they have 5 houses that’s available for moving, to move off their property. I’m not sure if they’re trying to sell or if they’re just free for the taking, but they’re interested in getting rid of those houses. Also Thursday I attended the ECICOG Advisory Committee in Cedar Rapids as well. They elected their officers, Ed Brown, Mayor of Washington again, Vice-Chair is Ron Straum from Iowa County Supervisors, and the Secretary is Leroy Muller of Cedar County Supervisors. The issues is the much deliberation on the approved 2000-2021 long range transportation plan in Iowa. It was really lengthy on what should be included and what should not be included. They’re going to do some review on that and update it. It was passed. They also reviewed the FY 2003-2005 Transportation Improvement program. Their plan for a public hearing on that plan on March 28th. They reviewed and approved the road projects for 2003-2005, Johnson County has about $708,000 there to work with and we’re getting more in that program. Attended the annual Chamber of Commerce banquet at the Radisson. Mark Phillips, the 2001 Chamber Chair, was the past president. Rose Remincamp is the 2002 Chair, she’s from ACT. Friday the Board met on the work session. Monday the City Assessor Conference Board meeting at the Iowa City Civic Center, they set the budget for the City Assessor. Tuesday the Board met again on the budget work session. Tuesday Sally and I met with the SEATS director as she mentioned. Lisa Dewey reviewed the progress and budget issues with SEATS. The Board met again on Wednesday, conducted evaluations with 2 department heads, did a Recorder visit. Kim Painter was really interesting. There’s a lot of information there that you don’t really realize that she puts in. A couple of notes, she processed 12,000 certified document copies last year. That’s a lot of certified copies, birth, death and marriage certificates alone. In real estate transactions as well as other issues that go through there. Any recordings, loans, things like that, so they keep very busy. She said there’s push for working towards paperless services for real estate transactions where your going to be able to pull that up on the computer and work on that rather then actually having to come in here. Some of that is already in place, they have 3 computers that you can come in to the department and look those things up. Then there’s 2 also for vital records for people who come in and research. They have a very good program set up in there for the Community. Wednesday I met with Doug Elliot with ECICOG, reviewed policies and procedures and give you some updates on what’s going on with ECICOG. Last night the democratic convention meeting we had at the Iowa City School District Boardroom. That’s my week.
Thompson: Thanks Pat. In addition to the things that I did with other Board members, I had a chance to go last Saturday night to the North Liberty Boy Scout troop 216 chili supper at the North Liberty Rec Center. While I was there one of the leaders mentioned that all of their members who attend Northwest Junior High got on the honor roll. It’s so nice to hear something about young people doing well in our community, I just thought I should mention it. On Monday I had my road trip with the Planning and Zoning people to look at zonings that are coming up in our meeting next week. I did want to also mention that the caucuses are Monday night. The voter registration cards were mailed out last week and people should have those. But I think it would be good to check to see if you are in a new precinct this year or if you have a new location for your caucus site if you are interested in attending. Next Wednesday the 13th, the Board will be meeting with Tony Roetlin regarding bonding requirements so that we can educate ourselves about that option if the County finds that we have to do bonding. That’s all I had. Any other business from the Board of Supervisors? That brings us to inquiries and reports from the public.
REVEREND BOB WELSH: FISCAL YEAR 2003 BUDGET
Welsh: I have one question and 2 comments. The question is, am I right that the budget you are proposing (inaudible) preference, are total appropriations as contrasted to these line items.
Thompson: Would you repeat the question?
Welsh: Let me phrase this another way. Department X you appropriate X number of dollars to. You are setting that as their budget, but the line items in that expenditure may vary.
Stutsman: Yes.
Thompson: That’s true. The department heads have the option to change amounts between line items.
Lehman: A lot of the reason for that Bob, is that they’re elected officials. They’re elected to do their job and run their particular departments. So we furnish the amount of dollars and we’re asking for those particular cuts for them to make the decision where those cuts from within their own departments.
Welsh: The reason I ask that question is whether or not I need to argue with you all about some of the specific line items or at another level. You answered my question. So let me go onto my 2 comments. One is, I say congratulatory. I’m pleased that in your discretion you identified some areas such as communication, transit, ambulance and space where you reach to explore with other governmental units by things you can do together. I really hope that you’ll pursue that and have that on your agenda for your April 10th meeting that you have with that various units. Because I think that often times in crisis promotes doing some positive things and I think that that is a very positive things, like as you say in the area of communication there surely is some savings of money that could be done with joint transfer communications. Second one, is that I am concerned about some what about your decision of 4% across the board cuts. I respect your decision to not micromanage, but at the same time it doesn’t encourage you to set priorities for programs and services. I think, and Sally you mentioned this in the discussion, that this is an important part of your task, setting priorities and services. So, the other thing is that that across the board cut penalizes departments that have a very tight ship, a very tight budget, in contrast with those that are not as lean. So I guess what I’m encouraging you to do, is to really look at the details in the various department budgets. 2 reasons, that you’ll check to see are there items in your basic capped budget which could be put in other parts of your budget. I’m just asking that you check to see. OK. Because I think there might be. I’m just asking that you ask that question. The other is that I trust you’ll check to see if there are any sacred cows whose time of expiration has really come. I congratulate you for raising the question of what are the essential County services. However I’m not sure you’ve taken it to the next step. I encourage you not just to ask that question, but to help answer that question. Maybe that’s something from what I’ve heard said today you plan to do at your strategic planning meeting on Tuesday. My problem with that is if you are going to set your budget on Monday, but then on Tuesday you’re going to do that strategic planning that might impact the budget, I guess I would hope that you would have another budget meeting either the 12th or… so those could be coordinated. Because I guess I’m encouraging you to, because I think setting priorities in programming and services is an essential part of your task. I think citizens who come, like in relation to the Senior Center and all, I think it’s the role of citizens to comment and offer suggestions to you. I hope that all of them that I do, recognize that you’re the ones in the decision making position. I’m just encouraging you in those conversations to think how that can be tied together. That whole discussion, like your planning on having on Tuesday in relation to your budget.
Thompson: Thanks Bob. I guess I should have mentioned that the Board will be meeting on Tuesday between 8:30 and after lunch to do our strategic planning session. That meeting will be here in this building in the big conference room downstairs. Anything else? Eve?
EVE CASSERLY: UPCOMING JOHNSON COUNTY TASK FORCE ON AGING PANEL DISCUSSION REGARDING TRANSPORTATION
Eve Casserly: I’ll just take a quickie if I could make a plug for the Johnson County Task Force on Aging is sponsoring a panel discussion on transportation issues. Specifically regarding seniors and the disabled. But transportation issues involving the SEATS director and Mike O’Donnell, SEATS programming, the Iowa City Transit Director, the Coralville Transit Director, and Mr. Harney and Mr. Neuzil from the Board of Supervisors. That will be 2:00 Monday at the Senior Center.
Thompson: Thank you. That’s Eve Casserly from the Heritage Task Force on Aging. We need to get your name in there for the Auditor. Anything else. OK. Thank you. We’re adjourned.
Adjourned at 10:49 a.m.
Attest: Tom Slockett, Auditor
By Casie Parkins, Recording Secretary