MINUTES OF THE INFORMAL MEETING OF THE JOHNSON COUNTY BOARD OF SUPERVISORS:
JANUARY 23, 2003
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Budget Coordinator Jeff Horne: Monthly Report for December, 2002
Iowa State Bank and Trust President Charlie Funk: "Yes for Kids" Campaign
Report (Thompson): Attended Iowa City Area Development Meeting
Chairperson Harney called the Johnson County Board of Supervisors to order in the Johnson County Administration Building at 9:16 a.m. Members present were: Pat Harney, Mike Lehman, Terrence Neuzil, Sally Stutsman, and Carol Thompson.
Harney: We’ll open the informal meeting of January 23rd 2003. First item is Business from the County Engineer Al Miller.
Assistant County Engineer Al Miller: Good morning.
Stutsman: Morning, Al. Keeping warm?
Miller: Trying to. You guys should have received a tabulation of bids and some title sheets for 2 projects that we received bids on. Does everybody have theirs? OK. The first project is a bridge replacement project over Clear Creek on Half Moon Avenue. You guys have the tabulation as well as a brief description of the project and a location map on that title sheet. We did receive 5 bids for the project. The low bid was from Iowa Bridge and Culvert from Washington, Iowa. Their bid came in about 10.5% underneath our estimate. If you folks have any questions about that… Our recommendation would be to award the contract to Iowa Bridge and Culvert.
Stutsman: OK, so that will be on next week’s?
Miller: It will be on next week for a formal.
Stutsman: When is the scheduled date to begin that project?
Miller: We have a late start date on the contract of April 1.
Stutsman: OK.
Miller: I have made contact with the contractor and they are tentatively looking at starting in February.
Stutsman: The total cost of that, did you say that?
Miller: The total bid is $334,112.81.
Stutsman: Is that all local or is that…
Miller: That is actually 80% Federal Bridge Replacement Funds and 20% Local. I will have that on the formal session next week for approval.
Stutsman: 80% is Federal and 20% Local.
Miller: That’s correct.
Stutsman: OK.
Miller: The second project is the resurfacing of the Mehaffey Bridge 180th Street Project that we did the grading and paving on last year. This would be the final lift of asphalt and the final step to complete that project. We only received one bid on the resurfacing and it was from L.L. Pelling of North Liberty, but the bid came in at 8.5% under our estimate. The total bid was $293,359.90 and our recommendation would be to award that contract to L.L. Pelling. They are the contractor that was the prime on last year’s project as well as the year before on the first phase.
Stutsman: Do you ever get anybody else to bid on these resurfacing besides Pelling?
Miller: Once in a while, once in a while we do, yes.
Stutsman: But they did all the work before.
Neuzil: On the last leg of it when you go up Cottage Reserve, did they make the shoulders any wider or were they able to?
Miller: On Cottage Reserve?
Neuzil: Well wherever that’s… Yes.
Miller: This project started just north of Cottage Reserve. The second phase of the whole project…
Neuzil: I’m trying to think, you know, as you go back… I haven’t back there enough to know, did they… Is that road going to look like all the other parts of the other road?
Miller: It does right now.
Neuzil: OK.
Stutsman: Is it the final…
Neuzil: Yes, this is the final thing. The entire project was 2 different phases, basically. The phase from Sugar Bottom Road to just north of Cottage Reserve and then last year we graded and paved just north of Cottage Reserve up into Solon. It’s all got the paved shoulders on it and the wider pavement. All this project is, is just placing the last 3 inches of asphalt on top of the pavement. The grading and the initial paving is all complete right now.
Neuzil: Excellent.
Lehman: The purpose is to let things settle a little bit and maybe this will even up things.
Neuzil: And put another layer on top.
Miller: Yes. Years ago what we used to is grade a road and rock and leave it sit over the winter, at least one freeze/thaw cycle. But the roads we’re working on now have too much traffic to allow it to stay rock for a freeze/thaw cycle. So what we’re trying to do with the asphalt is save the last two lifts of asphalt until the freeze/thaw cycle is done in case we have any settlement or anything.
Lehman: Roads don’t have to be closed for this? They’ll have flag persons?
Miller: They’ll have flag persons and pilot cars during the resurfacing. So there won’t be any closures or any more detours.
Neuzil: What’s the timeline?
Miller: The late start date is actually in October. We haven’t contacted L.L. Pelling to see when they are going to start. We’re hoping to get it done in early summer.
Harney: That’s the final for that (inaudible).
Miller: That’s the final thing, yes, the final pavement markings will be on and we don’t have to go up there anymore.
Harney: Had a lot of good compliments about the road after it is finished. There were some problems on the project.
Miller: It’s hard to get it finished, but once it’s done it’s… Yes.
Stutsman: The breakdown in funding on this?
Miller: It is all Farm to Market Funds. Which are State funds.
Lehman: That’s from the fuel tax?
Miller: Correct. This project will be on next week in the formal session as well.
Harney: OK, thank you.
Lehman: I asked about that bridge project, how long will it, estimated… You’re going to have to close that road.
Miller: Yes, that road will be closed. I would estimate about 3 months to complete it. It just depends on how things go and weather.
Lehman: OK.
Miller: We hope to finish it up before the 4th of July.
Lehman: You’ll hold a neighborhood type meeting?
Miller: Yes. We’ve been in close contact, purchased right-of-way with the owners out there. There are only 4 property owners that we had to deal with. As soon as the contracts are done and we have a pre-construction meeting I’ll send out letters to everybody letting them know when we’re planning on starting.
Lehman: Time table of… Maybe if there going to have to…
Miller: Get in to plant.
Lehman: (Inaudible) for machinery to farm different areas.
Miller: Yes, we made provisions in the contract so they can get in their fields to get their planting done.
Harney: Thank you.
Miller: Thanks.
Stutsman: Where’s Mike this morning?
Miller: We just figured that I could handle it. He’s working.
Stutsman: You did a nice job. We had a lot of questions for you this morning so you tell Mike you just handled very well.
Miller: All right, I’ll let him know.
Stutsman: All right.
Harney: Next item on the agenda was from Steve Spenler the Ambulance Director and that was a 28E Agreement with the City of Coralville to locate an ambulance at the fire station in Coralville. That agreement is not complete so that’ll be put on next week’s agenda.
BUDGET COORDINATOR JEFF HORNE: MONTHLY REPORT FOR DECEMBER, 2002
Harney: Next item is business from Jeff Horne the Budget Coordinator, the monthly report for December of 2002.
Budget Coordinator Jeff Horne: December marks the halfway point of our Fiscal Year 2003. Expenditures and revenues should be around 50% year-to-date, obviously. Due to the 4% cut in budgets this year, so expenditures are pretty close to the 50% level in most departments and are actually over in a few. Revenues do continue to come in strongly, particularly in the Ambulance Department and the County Recorder’s Office. I’ll give a brief summary of departments that have some items of note here. First is Ambulance as I talked about just now. The Ambulance, the call fees continue to come in over budget, 2 components to this. Obviously, the Director, we have increased rates and we do have an increase in call volume. Those 2 things combined has allowed the department to collect 68% of its budgeted revenue. So we’re 18% over budget in the revenue in that area year-to-date through December.
Lehman: Jeff, just to point out, these rates were increased after the budget was set.
Horne: That’s right. That’s why we’re showing that.
Lehman: Yes. After the fact it is expected that they were going to be higher than projected.
Horne: Yes, we did know.
Lehman: But it’s a pleasant surprise.
Horne: It is. The County Attorney, we talked about earlier, they’re running over budget expenditure in the Public Safety Service area of the budget. The County Attorney has indicated there’s currently an open position, keeping the position open may help the department make the budget. I talked to Joe Elder in the Auditor’s Office some about this and he says they will be able to do some reallocation near the end of the year, which may help alleviate the situation. I’m cautiously optimistic that maybe we will be able to make it through there.
Stutsman: This situation happened due to the 4% decrease that was across the board for all departments.
Horne: Yes, that’s right.
Stutsman: OK.
Horne: It looks like he may be able to do that.
Stutsman: To keep that position open until…
Horne: I think the open position, the combination of that, plus there will some reallocation, although I don’t know quite know to what level yet, may allow that to make it through the year in both service areas which would be good. The County Recorder has collected 94% of budgeted revenue for the first half of the year. Due to two factors, the continuing strong real estate market in Johnson County and the low-interest rate environment. Due to the interest rate environment, the County may be collecting fees than it would be collecting maybe in the future. I think this is kind of analogous to what’s going on in the auto industry. A lot of people are buying cars now, trying to save on the interest rates, that otherwise would have bought them 2 years from now. So in a way we’re discounting our future earnings, in a sense, by collecting them now.
Lehman: May be a lapse in the future.
Horne: That’s right. To what degree, I don’t know. But I think there’s some factor of that involved in this. Planning and Zoning, fees for building inspections continue to come in at a brisk pace. 79% of the budget collected year-to-date in that line. There’s been some leveling in December, only 70% of the budgeted amount was collected for that month, but still considering it’s a winter month, did pretty good. Plat Filing Fees are down significantly with only 30% of the budget amount collected year-to-date. But that’s a much lesser amount than the inspections are. Insurance, as I talked about in a previous item on the agenda, rising premiums and increased claims have led the County to expend it’s entire for Property and Casualty and Workman’s Compensation Insurance. This budget is particularly difficult to budget in our system; we have to budget 18 months out and we have a very rapidly changing insurance market. Johnson County, because of what happened after September 11th, many insurance companies changed their philosophy and dropped… It was impossible for local governments to get insurance in some areas in the private sector. Johnson County now belongs to a public entity insurance pools for both types of insurance. There’s currently no private market for local governments in these types of insurance, that is very competitive. We’re budgeting a 10% increase for next year, Fiscal Year 2004. If there’s another large catastrophe similar to 9/11 we can expect premiums and levels to go up even further. At some time in the near future the County would have to consider possible self-insurance. But I’ve talked to the Human Resources Director and our insurance person and we’re not at that level yet, but I think that’s worth watching in the current geo-political environment and insurance market environment that we’re in currently.
Lehman: By that you mean, we’ll have to keep an eye on what we paid in premiums basically versus what has been paid out in claims.
Horne: Right. I think we have to watch what we’re paying on claims and if it comes to the point where we… Some of the larger public entities in Iowa like the State are already… The State has no insurance, it’s self-insured. I think some of the larger counties, like Polk are also that way.
Thompson: Could we still continue to work with the new insurance cooperative if we were self-insured?
Horne: Self-insured would mean, no insurance. But let’s hope we don’t get to that point. I think that this new cooperative offers a lot of promise and is very proactive in risk mitigation and things like that.
Thompson: Yes, that’s what I was thinking, they’ve really been a help to us in our safety program and things like that.
Horne: They do make an effort, more than your typical company, to involve the members in the decision making. Certainly we are the largest member in the Property and Casualty Group that’s involved. It’s mostly smaller counties and some cities. Veteran’s Affairs, they continue to run over budget due to the increased use of rental assistance. The Department Head has continued to indicate that he understands the situation and will not ask for an amendment during this fiscal year. So at some point the rental assistance will hopefully slow down and we won’t have to look at that again. A couple of notes, I will not be attending the Government Finance Officers Association in New York this year. We’re having a baby in April and the meeting is in May and I don’t think that I can take the time off to go to that this year unfortunately. I’ll be looking for some local continuing education opportunities at the end of the budget season. I happened to do some research, when I was laying in bed, on a couple things and the U.S. Department of Commerce, this is kind of interesting, is reporting the Consumer Price Index was up 2.4% in calendar year 2002. However prices for goods have actually gone down in November and December. This is the first time this has happened in back-to-back months since 1958. This is due to, in some sectors we have global competition which is driving prices down, down, down in such sectors as computers and automobiles. What’s offsetting it and causing the Index to go up is prices for services such as health care going up. I think we know well how health care insurance has gone up and the cost for that. Any kind of inflation is being largely driven from the service sector, but our actual goods prices are falling. That’s my report.
Lehman: There’s competition in one area of goods, but less in services.
Horne: That’s right. You’re not going to get global competition for health care. You’re not going to go to some doctor in England, you’re going to go to your one right here. It’s kind of a different type of market place. That’s my report.
Harney: Thank you Jeff.
Horne: Thank you.
IOWA STATE BANK AND TRUST PRESIDENT CHARLIE FUNK: "YES FOR KIDS" CAMPAIGN
Harney: Next item is "Yes for Kids" campaign, Charlie Funk, President of Iowa State Bank & Trust.
Iowa State Bank and Trust President Charlie Funk: I’m Charlie Funk and I live in Iowa City. I’ll read from prepared remarks and answer any questions you might have, probably take 5 or 6 minutes if that’s OK.
Harney: Thank you.
Funk: I’m here this morning representing the "Yes for Kids" Committee that has been formed to assure the passage of a $38.7 million school bond referendum that will be voted on, as you know, on February 11th. "Yes for Kids" which I represent this morning urges the Board to take a supportive position on the bond referendum. I think we would all agree that our school district, the Iowa City Community School District, is one of the crown jewels of our community. How special is it? In the year 2000, Offspring magazine named the Iowa City Community School District as one of the top 100 school districts in the United States. Iowa was grouped into a 9-state region that included Minnesota and states west of us. In this 9 state region our district trailed only Edina, Minnesota and West Des Moines in the rating of educational excellence. So if we’re third in a 9-state region, I tell people legitimately we can say we have a top 50 school district in this community and I think that’s something that we’re all proud of. As I’m sure all of you know, the quality of our K-12 schools has a large bearing on our local economy. Our children receive an education that serves them extremely once they’ve finished school and enter the workforce or gone on to the next phase of their formal education. Our large local employers are able to attract and retain talented employees, in part because of the outstanding education their children receive. How many people do you know who’ve come here, whether it’s with the University or one of the major employers in town and who’ve stayed until their children have finished school here because of the excellence of our school district. So it does attract and retain quality employees I think. Don’t underestimate the impact a high-quality school district has on economic development. Joe Raso will tell you, who as you know is the president of ICAD, will tell you that when he goes out to recruit businesses one of the first things he talks about is the quality public school system that we have here. Even though we do have some opposition as you I’m sure you’ve seen I can report there appears to be wide support for this initiative throughout the district. We’ve commissioned 2 polls that have shown support for the bond referendum among registered voters as in the 65 to 75% range which is above the 60% we need. As you know we need a 60% super majority to pass a bond referendum in Iowa. Our Committee has been working very hard to assure a large voter turnout and a resounding victory in this election. Actually we think the larger the voter turnout the better it is for the bond referendum because of the support. Another thing that’s been very gratifying to me has been that labor and business are arm-in-arm in this effort. This bond referendum thus far has been endorsed by the Iowa City Area Chamber of Commerce, the Iowa City Federation of Labor and the Iowa City Area Development Group (ICAD). In addition the 5 city councils that fall within the Iowa City Community School District have all endorsed the bond referendum and those city councils would be Hills, Iowa City, University Heights, Coralville and North Liberty. We have 3 major themes and some of you have probably been around and heard some of the presentations but we talk about 3 things when we talk about the bond referendum. The first one is overcrowding in the schools and we do have tremendous overcrowding in some of the schools in the district. I want to talk about that a minute because I think it’s a little bit misunderstood. We’re out of classroom space and we are experiencing population growth. In fact we’re one of the few school districts in Iowa that is continuing to experience population growth. Since 1991 on average it’s been about 1% per year and that’s expected to continue over the next few years. But the major reason is not population growth, the major reason of overcrowding and for lack of classroom space has to do with reduced class sizes that have been implemented in the kindergarten through second grade. All day kindergarten, when we went to all-day kindergarten that meant we had to find space for 400 kids. 400 kids is roughly 18 classrooms, 18 to 20 classrooms. We had to find room when we went to all-day kindergarten. Then we got State funds for the kindergarten through second grade class reduction and that meant we had to find, when you combine with the all-day kindergarten, 50 classrooms we had to find room for. We don’t have many open classrooms left in the school district, in fact this year we added 11 temporary classrooms. I know you’ve all seen temporary classrooms around the district. We added 11 this year and we now have 36 temporaries scattered around the district. That competition between West High and City High, West High has finally caught City High and West High now has 7 temporaries which matches the 7 temporaries we have over at City High. The second thing we talk about is accessibility which is very important. More than 10 years after the passage of the ADA, Americans with Disabilities Act, City High is still not accessible to persons of all abilities. Passage of the bond issue will correct this. There are still occasional instances… I think this is really instructive, but there are occasional instances where students go to school on the east side of town, they begin kindergarten and they go through eighth grade and then they transferred to West High thereby leaving their former classmates because City High is not accessible. I think this must be corrected and will be corrected if we pass the bond referendum. Third, because our 3 high schools City, West and the Alternative School will be targeted for more than 17 million of the 38.7 million in bond proceeds we can legitimately say that every student in the Iowa City Community School District will be positively impacted from this project. Let me take a minute and talk about the financial position of the school district. I think that’s very important, you’d expect a banker to talk about the finances. For more than 20 years as part of my job, one of the things I’ve done is buy municipal bonds. So I’ve gotten used to looking at the financial statements of counties, cities and school districts from around the country. Our school district as of June of this year will have no bonded debt outstanding. That’s extraordinary. I would venture a guess that there would be very few school districts of our size, not only in Iowa but in the nation, that would have no bonded debt outstanding. The last of our bonded debt will be paid off in June of this year. Second thing has to do with taxes. Nobody likes to more taxes, me included. I will tell you one thing we need to probably talk a little bit more about is among urban school districts in Iowa our school district has the lowest levy for schools of any urban school district in the state of Iowa. So I don’t that we can say we’re over taxed when it comes to what we pay for education in this community. We really think that when you look at overcrowding when you look at accessibility and the fact that every child would receive a benefit, we think that passage of the bond issue is a good thing for our community. I join the entire "Yes for Kids" Committee in asking for your support of what we think is a very important initiative in our community and would be happy to answer any questions you might have.
Lehman: There’s been some discussion about the average number of students to a class versus the teachers and stuff. That’s deceiving.
Funk: It’s very deceiving. I leave that to our educators. All I know is what I’ve read in the newspaper and I think the number of teachers that was cited was on the low side. But any of us know who have kids in the public schools, we have very few classes that don’t have 20, 22, 24 kids in them. There are some classes of course that might only have 6 or 8 kids, but the majority of our classes are full. When we talk about empty space, we have less than 220 empty desks in the classroom today and that’s 220 spaces in a district of 10,700 kids. We don’t have a lot of empty space. What we tell people is if we pass the bond referendum we’ll be moving a lot of kids from temporary buildings into permanent buildings and I don’t think that’s unreasonable.
Lehman: Everyone’s subject to their environment. I think it’s not a good learning environment, temporary type buildings. But back to the averages. If you’re going to divide the number of students by the number of teachers, all teachers don’t teach every hour.
Funk: That is correct.
Lehman: So if they’re doing another project and not in front of a classroom that means that those kids are… more kids are in front of one teacher. There’s some deception there. Classes are actually bigger than what figures may show.
Funk: Much bigger, much bigger. You get into band and special education and things like that and it gets to be very deceptive. But if you go to Northwest or Southeast or go to any of our elementary schools, the majority of the classes have between 20 and 25 kids in them.
Lehman: My comment too, I was a rep for Iowa City Area Development the last 2 years, now Carol’s in that position. I know Joe Raso the president has said that one of the first things that prospective business owners, looking to locate here, ask about is the education. They’re also looking for a good pool of well-educated employees and stuff. I don’t know if there is any follow-up been done with that but I think it would show that if they’d make the choice here, they’re very satisfied with that choice. We have a good system now but we need to continue that and keep continuing to improve that.
Funk: Absolutely Mike. I think one of the arguments that could be made, and it’s really water over the dam, but perhaps we should have made a few of these investments several years ago, but we didn’t and now we are where we are. I think from a financial position, I think we’re in a good position and I think we’ve clearly established the need.
Neuzil: It’s about investment. It really is.
Funk: It’s an investment in our future and keeping a great school district.
Neuzil: Students can really excel with time, intelligence and money. I keep hearing people say that and it’s important to say that because it’s about this investment, it’s about putting these kind of dollars in. As we try to make this choice and this decision as far as what you would like, I think you would like maybe a resolution from the Board, we do have to keep in mind this does set a bit of precedent for this Board. I don’t remember doing this very often as far as… Because we do have a lot of issues that come in front of us, a lot of bond issues, not just from the Iowa City Community School District, Clear Creek Amana just had one, Solon. A lot of different places have had these, it does open this up for this Board to say… If we do it for Iowa City and the Community School District, be prepared, there are going to be other organizations to add to that. But to me it’s about that investment, also it’s an investment for the county. There’s no question about it, when we have better schools, we have less kids getting in trouble. When kids get in trouble and parents have troubles then part of the expense comes right back here. So I look at the investment and I think it’s good. By the way when you go to the school district, if we choose to get this passed, remind them that if some day we do need some help from them like another bond issue maybe for a jail or something, tell them to remember us in their thoughts.
Funk: I’ll pass your comments on.
Thompson: I’m especially excited about the possibilities for the Alternative School. I’ve followed that school for a number of years and a few years ago the School Board had the courage to reorganize the program and it’s really been reinvigorated. But they’ve continued to struggle with that difficult building. There’s just not space for the things that the kids in the other schools have. I think it’ll be a real shot in the arm for that program if this bond issue can pass.
Funk: You’re exactly right. That’s one of the things I’ve found the most out about that I didn’t know before during this campaign, but we have 70 kids at our alternative school, which if you stop and think about it is 2 classes of 35, but the demand is probably twice that. By building the alternative school we will be able to accommodate much more demand because City High and West High both have kids that they would ordinarily put into this program, but can’t because of space limitations. We are excited about that and don’t forget we’ve got a $1 million grant that goes away on June 30th. So if we pass the bond referendum we get $1 million grant to help us build the alternative school, which is another good reason that now is a good time to pass the bond referendum because it’s really free money 'til June 30th.
Thompson: Here’s the best part. I’ve mentioned this last week, so everyone’s probably tired of hearing it, but the last report showed that 25 of those 70 kids are on target to graduate this year. That’s been a second chance for those kids. I think it really shows that that program is worth the investment.
Funk: I think what our Superintendent… I’ve heard our Superintendent say over and over is those are kids that would not otherwise graduate, many of them would not otherwise graduate. So it is a good program.
Harney: I would agree. This is a real investment for our future. That’s the basis with the education of our youth and then going up in the community as well as the County and the country, is based on the education level of our youth and the accessibility of these classrooms to these individuals that need the extra assistance needs to be there for our future. I would agree. One thing I would like to have you explain to the public, I’m not sure it’s a comment you had made. Your comment on 60% super approval by the voters. Would you explain how that works?
Funk: Well in Iowa as I understand it, any time you ask the voters to approve a bond. In other words, taking on debt, you have to have 60% of the person who actually vote, must vote yes. So they must approve. What I’ve said is in any congressional election, if someone gets 59% of the vote then that’s a landslide. If you stop and think about it 59% is a landslide. Yet if we get 59% we lose, so we need 60% approval rating and you know that’s a tough nut to crack. So while we’re cautiously optimistic we can’t take anything for granted.
Harney: That’s a very important item.
Funk: Yes and one that you deal with as well in your deliberations.
Neuzil: We usually only get about 20%.
Lehman: On a good day. I would support looking at passing a resolution next week and Mike Sullivan can draw something up for us.
Harney: Is there a consensus for the Board for drawing up a resolution.
Stutsman: Yes.
Funk: Thank you very much. Thank you for having me this morning. And please vote.
Harney: The next item is appointment to the Senior Center Commission for an unexpired term ending December 31st 2005. I believe we only got one application for that position.
Thompson: Pat, because we’ve terminated the contract that term ends June 30th of this year.
Harney: Oh it does. OK.
Stutsman: Does Eve know that? Eve Casserly has submitted an application. The only application that we got.
Thompson: I don’t know, but we should make that clear when notify her.
Neuzil: Yes. So next week, we’ll go with Eve?
Harney: We’ll put it on for next week. Mike do you want to make contact with her before and be sure she’s aware and see if she still wants to fill that vacancy.
Stutsman: I’m very interested in having her do that. I just don’t want her to be disappointed if she thinks she going to serve to ’05.
Harney: The next item is reports and inquiries. Terrence you would like to start?
Neuzil: Sure. Of course we’re in the midst of our budget season. Had a pretty interesting week, particularly when Sally Stutsman and I attended an Iowa Association of Counties meeting in Des Moines. Had an opportunity to learn a wide array of different issues. One of the things though I think was probably best about this one over others had to do with meeting new Supervisors from across the State. At the table I was sitting at there were 2 new Supervisors and there were 3 of us who had been part of this for awhile. Most of the Supervisors seem like they’ve been in the elected office longer then I’ve been on this earth. Anyway, there were still some new ideas and I think that’s the part of this I really like the most. Having the opportunity to speak with a new Supervisor from Des Moines County and having him discuss some of the issues with the current Des Moines Supervisor and having that go around the table. Those are the kinds of things you learn from going to these meetings. It was a good opportunity. Attended a new committee that I’m on which is the Safety Committee. The Safety Committee is really a neat committee that Johnson County has put together. It’s a committee that looks are ways to make things safer for our employees. Here is just a list of some of the things that are coming up as far as safety training for Johnson County employees. Right now there’s a driver’s safety for heavy equipment. That’s going on right now. We provide these opportunities for the County employees. Emergency evacuation, we’re going to have our facilities manager, David Kempf’s going to be providing that information. It would be nice to know what happens if there’s a, from a tornado to a fire. I mean, obviously fire, get out, but as far as a tornado, I don’t quite know where to go. It’s probably not in this building. Get out of here. But no, he’s going to go through that. That’s coming up in February and there will be a opportunities for all the County employees to learn about that. But not only emergency as far as fire or tornado, but also situations if there is a crisis, if there is potentially a bomb threat, if there’s a situation with a person that’s threatening. There’s a lot of different things that all of our employees are going to learn more about by having this kind of program. Chainsaw safety, personal protective equipment, fire extinguisher training. We’re going to have that out in the parking lot. So that’s coming up in April, because today would freeze. Does that stuff freeze? Alcohol and substance use awareness; that’s in May. And back safety, I could probably use a little bit of that, that’s coming up in June. So lots of different opportunities that the safety committee is coming up and I look forward to serving on that committee. Yesterday the Board of Supervisors met with the City of Iowa City, the City of Coralville, the City of North Liberty along with the Iowa City Community School District in a joint meeting. It was, probably in my opinion, the best meeting we’re had so far since I’ve been a member of the Board of Supervisors. It was a meeting that finally, I think, was one that isn’t necessarily ceremonial as it is issues. It’s finally starting to get to that point where we’ve got issues in this community that no question about it, where we all have to work together on. Some of the issues discussed yesterday included a Senior Center funding. We also got an update about the Muslim Youth Camps of America. We discussed some joint legislative and congressional issues. It sounds like the City of Coralville, City of Iowa City are going to be sending individuals and I’ll be in D.C. as well. I’ll be doing that on my own. I’ll be on vacation. I’ll be paying that without any County tax dollars. We talked a little bit; an interesting issue was 17-year-olds voting. I thought that was neat to see. A presentation given by Jeanine Redlinger, along with a couple of her students from City High. That’s was kind of a neat thing. We talked about the bond issue, educational conference that the Iowa City Community School District is putting on, on Saturday March 8th. Regional Fire protection. The status of a proposed Iowa City dog park. A lot of people have been reading the newspaper and it seemed like the newspaper knew more than the City counsel on that issue. So it was a good meeting. I hope that those continue to become meetings that are less ceremonial and more issue oriented. Thanks.
Harney: Sally?
Stutsman: OK. I’ve got a pretty lengthy report today. It’s been a busy week. On Thursday afternoon Kay Hall, who is the General Assistance Director, and I went down to Sigourney to attend the Service Area Advisory Board. Marc Baty, who is the SAM they call him, I can’t remember what the acronym…
Thompson: Service Area Manager.
Stutsman: OK. He does a good job of communicating with the Counties that are part of this service area about what’s going on with the Department of Human Services. I brought back a couple of extra packets of material that he brought out. One Bob is for you and one I will pass along to the Board. There’s a number of things in there I think are real interesting that I would direct the Board to spend a little bit of time looking at. One thing that he went over was the Accountable Government Act. He said that this has been something that the legislature is starting to pay for attention to. That it was adopted and made a part of the Code in 2001. Anyway, it talks about the process to go through if there’s any State dollars involved. In lieu of our recent MH/DD audit I think that it is valuable for the Board to look through that and get a better, clearer picture of just what is expected of us if we do use State dollars. There also are some information about the executive report on the issue concerning the young man who committed suicide in the area when he was transitioning out of foster care into adult daycare services. There also is an appropriations report talking about the additional monies that the Department of Human Services will be asking for in the legislature this year, part of the Governor’s budget. I think everybody and this comes from discussion at ISAC too among legislatures, that the Department of Human Services really took a tremendous budget cut last year and that we cannot continue to do that. That there is some real problems with the child welfare system that needs to be taken into consideration right off the bat. On the new Director for the Department of Human Services, I think everybody well is aware that Jesse Rassmussen is no longer the Director of the Department of Human Services. Resumes were due January 13th and no I do not have an inside track on who will be appointed to that position. Everybody was very anxious to know if Marc had any information on that. There doesn’t seem to be any. It seems like everybody that’s been at the top of the list has either withdrawn or said that they are not interested in that position. So it’s going to be interesting to see who has applied. Let’s see. Ralph Rosenbuge, I understand, withdrew. Sally Titus-Cunningham, who is the Interim Director, said that she is not interested. I understand that Don Herman who worked for the Department in the area of Medicaid said that he is not interested and Roe Foege, whose name was mentioned also, said that he was not interested. So it’s going to be interesting to see whose left. So anyway, the things that they’re looking for is someone that can talk to the legislators or legislature, that can improve morale and can manage the Medicaid budget. So it’s a pretty big job for anybody. Jesse Rassmussen and Kathy Anderson’s last day was January 2nd. So I would encourage anybody to look over the information. There’s just lots of stuff in there about cost for Johnson County for care for kids in shelter care and things. That was another thing that Marc brought up. There will be a concentrated effort with the legislature this year to increase the State reimbursements on shelter care. Because the State has had a moratorium on their input in shelter care, the shelter care costs have continued to increase, counties pay the part that States don’t cover. As it’s turning out, counties are paying half the cost of shelter care. Before it used to be like 80% State paid and now it just keeps going up and up so counties are really getting into a bind with that. So they are definitely going to be working with the legislature to increase that reimbursement rate. This is also an ISAC priority, so hopefully we’ll get some information back on that. Terrence and I attended a Communications Committee meeting on Friday. The Communications Committee will be bringing to the Board the kiosk project and asking for funding or definite direction on how to go with that. To update Board members, we are talking about putting a computer… It’s not really a Kiosk. We can’t really afford a kiosk. It would just be more of less a computer with a monitor downstairs in the public area so that people can access the kiosk to find out locations of different County services, to have a directory on there and have a section on frequently asked questions. Just to kind of be an information portal for people coming into the Administration Building. So we’re to the point now that we’ve got the details worked out. Now we need to talk about cost. So we will put that on the Board’s agenda to talk about that. Video update, we decided that Human Resources and Information Services will be included in this video. The video has 2 purposes: one for orientation for new employees and also to use in going out on speaking engagements to kind of give an overview of County government services. So there was discussion about whether we include Human Resources and Information Services, those that are just internal to the operations of the County. It was decided that those will be included at the end of the video so that if people go out and use the video at a speaking engagement, they can just cut it off then and use it in that respect. The County brochure, we had a mockup of a revised County brochure. We found that our previous brochure was quite outdated. So we reviewed that. What we’re going to do to add to that, is we’ll have the brochure, which will list all the County departments plus their hours and locations with a map on the other side of the brochure. This time we’re going to include an insert that will list all of the web sites for all these County offices, because I think people just don’t have a clear understanding of what a presence we have on the web. So this will be something that will encourage that information. We are making plans for County Government Week. County Government Week is April 6th to the 12th. What we decided to do is to have an open house for the public on Thursday April 10th from 4:00 to 5:30. That will just be before our Board meeting. Kim Painter and Jen Feldmann and Terrence Neuzil are serving on a subcommittee to work out the details of that. But the idea is to have people come in, we’ll have some displays about what County government is doing and hopefully we’ll have the kiosk up and running and the brochures in place so we can have those available for people to use. We talked about the directory in the lobby that is outdated. So depending on how we go with the kiosk we may just do away with that directory. It’s some what of a safety hazard too. Kim had the experience of her nephew came in and knocked the whole thing over one day.
Neuzil: Bulldozed it down.
Stutsman: So we acknowledge that maybe there is time for some change in that. Another thing that we talked about, it was brought to my attention when we attended the OMNI meeting about if the County ever allows billboard’s on County property as just advertising or whatever. So we talked a little bit about that at the Communications Committee meeting, decided that was a Board decision. Basically the Communication Committee didn’t think it was a good idea because where do you draw the line, for what group to use it and things. But one thing we did talk about is that maybe there might be some interest in some welcome to Johnson County signs along different entrances to the County. So I’m going to check with Secondary Roads, they do, do signs out there. See if there might be a possibility to see if that might be a possibility to do that. Is there interest from the Board to look into that?
Lehman: I’d like to investigate it.
Stutsman: All we have is just those little green signs that the State puts up. But if you notice, Iowa City has signs, Tiffin has signs. So it might be nice just to put up some signs.
Neuzil: Jones County does that really nice one. Muscatine County has one up on Highway 6.
Thompson: Sometimes the master gardeners take those on as a project.
Neuzil: Yes, maybe we can work together.
Stutsman: Terrific, that’s a great idea. So that’s what we did at Communications Committee. Treats will be provided by who next time Terrence?
Neuzil: Is it me? You brought the cake last night. Yes I actually had about 4 or 5 pieces of that.
Stutsman: I went to ISAC on, well drove over Monday night because I had a County Case Management Services meeting early Tuesday morning and then attended ISAC on Tuesday. One thing I wanted to tell the Board about with the County Case Management Services Board, we do contract with ISAC for technical assistance for County case management. So their staff comes out about 3 times a year and works with the county case management group at MH/DD and provides them technical assistance in providing case management services. They have worked very hard in making sure that case management programs are compliant Medicaid requirements as far as case files and things like that. They are going to change their focus somewhat because there seems to be a discussion that there’s going to be a Federal audit on child welfare cases that will probably spill over into case management cases. When you do an audit, you just begin at one place and pretty soon start getting involved in other things. One of the areas they will be working with counties on, is working with ARO providers to make sure that they are filling out their cost reports correctly, that there is some problems. I don’t think anything is intentional, this is a new program. I think there’s been some real confusion about how to fill out these cost reports, so they will be working with the local case management groups to make sure that these reports are filled out accurately so that there will be no problems, if and when this Federal audit comes out. So I think that’s good use of our dollars because when an audit from the Feds come in and things aren’t in compliance, it’s a matter of paying back dollars, so we don’t ever want to get into that position. I wanted to briefly talk about the ISAC meeting. Attended a session that was presented by the Wallace House Foundation. They do very similar work like the State Public Policy Board does, in working with public groups in determining public policy. It was just a good overview into their program and the resources that the County may be interested in using from that program. We had report from the ISAC liaisons about some of the issues that will be coming up in their upcoming legislature. I just can’t say enough about what a great team ISAC has put together as far as lobbyists and working with counties and the legislature and sharing our concerns. One of the things that they talked about is there will probably be things about tax reform. There will be a committee put together that will have representatives from ISAC on that committee as they begin to look for that. They said this is going to be a long process. The Governor called for a sunset on the property tax system. There’s many, many things that will have to be put in place before that becomes a reality, but there really seemed to be a feeling that there was bi-partisan support for this, that hopefully maybe this time we can get some changes done in the Iowa Tax Code. There were lots of things that they talked about. One thing that I was just going to mention is that they are talking about bringing forth legislation on open dumping. This has been brought up from time to time in Johnson County about problems of open dumping. I think this is a Statewide concern, not only with counties, but with cities. So they are talking about having some legislation that will empower counties and cities to deal with this issue. So stay tuned for that. See what will be happening with that. We all attended the Planning Council meeting. Some of us were at the Conference Board meeting. We’ve had budget discussions. Then this morning I attended the Chamber meeting. One other thing I want to say about ISAC. I picked up the new Supervisor’s manual. This says 1987. I just recycle the same folder, but anyway this is the new manual for January 2003. So I will have this on my desk. Terrence I think you got one too, didn’t you? It was included in our registration. But it’s for the new County Supervisors, but it’s always a good review to flip through it and see.
Lehman: Operators manual.
Stutsman: Yes, exactly right. If you don’t know it…
Neuzil: It shows you what you should be doing.
Stutsman: Yes, right. Just briefly with the Chamber this morning, just wanted to tell you about some dates that are coming up. There is a Business p.m. It’s going to be held at Charlie’s. Parking is a problem, so they wanted people to know that there parking behind the mini-mall there for people that are interested in going to that. The Legislative Breakfast is this Saturday at 8:00. The Chamber sponsors their breakfast at 8:00 and then the League of Woman Voters has one at 9:30. Julie Foreman, who is the new legislative liaison with the Chamber, gave an overview of the program for the people that will be going to Washington D.C. and boy was it well laid out. She’s done an outstanding job of putting this program together. They will be focusing on the following areas: they’ll be talking about transportation, Medicare, education, work force, homeland security and small business administration. The idea is for Johnson County and the Cedar Rapids Chambers to go together and have a very focused dialog with the national legislatures to talk about issues that affect this area. There are about 30 people from the area that are going. I don’t think about from this… Terrence you’re going.
Neuzil: Yes. I’m going to go on my own.
Stutsman: Well maybe I’ll pass this on to you. Just to kind of give some idea about directions. But it sounds like that’s going to be a trip that’s going to be well worth the time. They talked about the Spring Expo. They talked all about it, but they didn’t talk about the date, so I don’t know what the date is of that. There will be a survey coming out in the reflections and on the web site for Chamber members to fill out and they will use the information on that survey to have a strategic planning session for Chamber Executive Board on March 28th, so I would encourage all of you to look for that survey and if you have the time to fill that out.
Neuzil: The business expo or business fair is for business to business, it’s Friday March 14th and then open to the general public on March 15th at Carver Hawkeye Arena.
Stutsman: Thank you. Because we usually have a government officials booth there. It’s a great opportunity to meet with a lot of people, so put those dates on your calendar. I think that’s everything I have Pat.
Harney: OK. Mike?
Lehman: Touch on a couple items. I got a chance to meet with 2 representatives from the League of Woman Voters, Lolly Eggers and Ruth Bonfiglio. They’re doing some research, the League of Woman Voters, on consolidation of County and City municipal services. I had a real interesting discussion with them. I had a chance to explain a little bit how we have 28Es, fringe area agreements and that type of thing. I know a lot of people read in the papers about a situation in Louisville and now more recently in Polk County in Des Moines, doing some merging with their governments and stuff. Had an interesting 2-way conversation because those 2 ladies bring a wealth of knowledge and I was able to reverse the tables a little bit and ask them some questions then too. So it was kind of a learning experience for me. I applaud their effort’s of doing this research. Interesting to see what their summary’s going to be on that. I think the other Board members either have spoken to them or will. So I encourage you to ask them questions too because they’ll be asking you. Also Pat Harney as I attended the City of Iowa City Conference Board where the City Assessor Dennis Baldridge presented his budget. Just give you a little explanation. The Conference Board for Iowa City is made up of the City Council of Iowa City, the Board of Supervisors and the Iowa City School District. Each one of those bodies has a vote. There is a separate levy on your taxes in Iowa City that the City Assessor levies to do his duties. We passed the proposed budget and set a hearing for the public. That will be I believe…
Stutsman: February 21st.
Lehman: Yes, February 21st. Thank you. Then later in the evening, Sally Stutsman, Pat and I represented the Board of Supervisors at the County Conference Board. The County Conference Board is made up of the Board of Supervisors, representatives from each of the school districts in Johnson County and also the mayors of all towns with the exception Iowa City. That’s due to the fact that the County Assessor assesses all property in rural as well as the smaller towns other than Iowa City. The County Assessor, Bill Greazle, presented his budget. He also has a separate levy that provides the cost of doing his business and doing assessments and the rest of his required duties. That proposed budget was past and public hearing was set for the same date, February 21st. It’s all a learning situation. We questioned those individuals on their budgets just as we’re questioning our budget. It’s pretty good insight of how the dollars are spent. I think if a lot of people look at their tax sheets, they’ll see that there a lot of different breakdowns on taxes. There’s schools, the County Assessors, special as well as the County taxes. It’s a very education process. That’s all I have that hasn’t been covered.
Harney: The only thing I might note on there as well is Bill Greazel was appointed for a 6 year term. He had filled in a partial term because of the retirement, so he is appointed now for a full 6 years.
REPORT (THOMPSON): ATTENDED IOWA CITY AREA DEVELOPMENT MEETING
Thompson: I just want to report on the ICAD meeting. I attended my first ICAD meeting last Friday. They had a financial report, which I thought was very impressive. Not only is the organization in the black, but they seem to have increasing support from public and private entities. They presented a marketing plan that they’ve been working on, which will give a brand image to our area so that visitors who come here looking for business opportunities will leave with an imprint of our logo so to speak in their minds. Something to remember us by. They also talked about their relationship with the Tech Corridor organization in Cedar Rapids. There’s been some talk of whether the 2 organizations should merge. I think the thinking now is that for the time being there should be close cooperation, but not a merger. Then there was a report on companies that are being recruited to come here, which I think indicates that we have a healthy business climate here in spite of some of the hard times. Other than that, I did things with other Board members so I don’t have any further report.
Harney: Thank you. Terrence and I had our monthly liaison meeting with our Facilities Director, David Kempf, this week. Reviewed the facilities issues. He’s doing an excellent job. He’s coordinating maintenance and planning for the future and the needs the County’s going to need. He’s really doing an excellent job in that particular area. Attended a Labor Management Session with the Ambulance Service. It was a very productive meeting with Steve Spenler and the staff working well together. They mentioned the department heads meeting. It was a very good discussion about issues surrounding each department within the County. Tuesday we had the Mental Health/Developmental Disabilities Planning Council. It was a very informative session there as well and they covered many areas with contracts and so forth that the County needed to get put into place. Mike covered the City and County Assessors. The Board Wednesday had an informal meeting where they discussed the budget issues and space needs. It was a very good meeting as well. Jeff Horne’s doing an excellent job with putting the budget together for us and answering our questions. Wednesday I attended the League of Cities meeting. As Terrence had noted, it was a very good session. A lot of good conversation between the communities. I think there’s a lot in the future for this particular area. I think a lot of things are going to be covered. Last I attended an Emergency Management Commission meeting at the Sheriff’s Department. A lot of discussion about the weather radios. They got $1,000 to put weather radios in the rural areas for homes that need it. They’re trying to get more dollars through grants and so forth to help the people in the County to be aware of, particularly electric outages and things like that. They also got a new phone system in Emergency Management in the Sheriff’s Department. It’s Intertel now, it was the old McLeod I guess. Very good system we got put together. It’s going to be much, much better, particularly in the emergency situations. There won’t be overlapping phone calls and so forth. April 3rd they’re going to have their severe weather training at Montgomery Hall from 6:00 p.m. until 9:30. So that was my week. Is there any inquiries or reports from the public? Hearing none, the meeting is adjourned.
Adjourned at 10:17 a.m.
Attest: Tom Slockett, Auditor
By Casie Parkins, Recording Secretary