MINUTES OF THE INFORMAL MEETING OF THE JOHNSON COUNTY BOARD OF SUPERVISORS:
FEBRUARY 27, 2003
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Chairperson Harney called the Johnson County Board of Supervisors to order in the Johnson County Administration Building at 9:50 a.m. Members present were: Pat Harney, Mike Lehman, Terrence Neuzil, Sally Stutsman, and Carol Thompson.
Harney: We will open the informal meeting of Thursday, February 27, 2003. First item of Business will be from the County Engineer Mike Gardner, request for a speed limit change on 180th Street NE, in the area of the new Solon high school.
County Engineer Mike Gardner: Good morning again. I brought Al with me. He has been dealing with this mostly. Just a little background, the last 2 summers actually, we have been reconstructing Mehaffey Bridge Road and 180th Street up into Solon. On the east end of that the roadway lies half in Solon and half in the County. Solon actually took the lead on that and did the construction of the segment right in front of the new high school over there and extended it on east. Prior to completion, they indicated to us they would like to have a speed limit placed in front of the high school. By City Ordinance, their City Ordinance, it was to be posted at 20 miles per hour. So, we followed suit to make sure that both lanes were compatible and came to the Board and asked and the Board passed a resolution to post a speed limit in the south lane at 20 miles an hour also. They received several complaints about that and wanted to raise it. So, they gave us a formal request to raise our lane to 25 miles an hour as well. I believe Al forwarded that request to the Board through email. So, that is what we are here to request is that the Board take action. I think actually the City Council at Solon has already done that last week. So, the speed limit now is 25 in the north lane.
Harney: It will be nice to have equal both sides.
Gardner: Yes. I spoke to Keith Slaughter this morning, too, and he recommended that that was probably the best thing to do.
Lehman: I guess the other factor of this is this is high school. It’s not like grade school where you probably don’t have near the amount of pedestrian traffic and bicyclists that you would around a grade school.
Harney: Consensus to put that on the agenda next week?
Thompson: Yes.
Harney: OK. That will be on the agenda next week.
Gardner: Thank you.
Harney: Next item is Business from Eve Casserly, referencing Senior Center funding.
Senior Center Commission Member Eve Casserly: Hello, I am Eve Casserly and I am here as a County representative to the Senior Commission and here specifically just to formally request consideration of increasing the funding from $75,000 to $100,000 for this next Fiscal Year. That is basically all I had to say. Do you have any questions?
Thompson: Thank you.
Casserly: Thanks.
Thompson: We got a copy of the Task Force’s recommendations. We all got a copy of that.
Harney: That is Bob’s.
Casserly: Bob will address that.
Neuzil: First, if I could just ask you Pat, is this… Do we want to open this up as far as a budget discussion now or is that something that we wait until the actual public hearing? The reason I bring this all up has to do with just precedence. We are very close to knowing what our budget is going to look like. There may be others out there who would like to see some changes as well. I have no qualms as far as I would like to discuss this, too. There is no question about that. But, I just think fundamentally, is this something that we want to do at this juncture, or is this something that occurs more in the public hearing.
Harney: I think if we are going to make any public changes, it should be in the public hearing. At least that is my thought. Is that right?
Lehman: But do we want to have some discussion?
Neuzil: Yes and that is fine.
Thompson: In our public hearing we can lower it but we can’t raise it, is that right?
Assistant County Attorney Janet Lyness: I think that is right, yes.
Thompson: So, any change we have made to increase one thing we would have to lower something else.
Stutsman: If there is feeling among the Board to increase the Senior Center funding, I think we need to know by the budget hearing time what we want to make changes to, is that correct Janet? At the public hearing we vote on the budget that night, don’t we?
Lyness: Right.
Stutsman: So, we are going to have to have it clear in our mind what changes we are going to make and have that be a part of the hearing if we are going to make some reallocations.
Neuzil: It would be helpful, yes.
Stutsman: A heads up to the Board to have that in mind if there is a majority that are willing to do that.
Neuzil: To give some background, at this point, the Board of Supervisors has in its budget that the Senior Center would receive $75,000. Last year it received $100,000 and the year before it was about $146,000.
Harney: The request is $146,000. It’s like $125,000 we are actually giving them.
Lehman: Pat and I talked about that and Pat pointed out to me that their request for ’02 was $144,000. The previous year it was $122,000. So, they have never received more than approximately $122,000. So, we didn’t give them what they wanted and we did make a cut, but I think some people are using that figure that at one time they did get $150,000. They never did receive that. The maximum we ever gave them was around $122,000. But, it is decreases and we’ve done it basically $25,000 last year we got another $25,000 on the table for this year. That kind of bothered me for awhile, too. I didn’t understand until Pat reminded me that their request was $144,000. They never did receive that amount. So, it is not quite as drastic as you might think. We’re not reducing it in half from a couple of years ago. It’s not from $150,000 to $75,000. It’s from a top level of $122,000.
Stutsman: That $122,000 was based also on a 28E Agreement, which is no longer in effect. So, although we did honor what we had proposed in that 28E Agreement, we based our current allocation on a Block Grant based on figures that we got from the Senior Center about rural usage.
Neuzil: As you folks know, in the Committee structure, I definitely am not interested in seeing significant cuts to the Senior Center. I think that even 2 weeks ago up to today, I think times have really changed simply by understanding now that the City of Iowa City is going to be cutting the Senior Center more than I think anyone has ever anticipated. Which maybe it’s important for us to take a step back and say, is our impact or our cut of $25,000 added on now to the City’s cuts as well. Is that too much of an impact on the Senior Center. I just don’t think that seeing the kind of fees that they are talking about right now is going to be advantageous to the Senior Center. I think it is going to hurt the Senior Center significantly, because only those who quite frankly are going to have the money to do it are going to be able to go to the Senior Center. Yes, there are going to be opportunities for discounts of that nature, but there are a lot of people with a lot of pride that don’t like to have that discount. I think that they are just not going to go to the Senior Center anymore. In a community that is trying to, economically trying to, recruit and go after and encourage seniors to come into our community, this is the wrong message at the wrong time.
Lehman: I think the public has to appreciate this money, the $75,000 that is now in the proposed budget, comes out of the General Fund, which is a capped levy of $3.50 per $1,000 evaluation. If we are to increase this, like I said, we have to decrease something else. That is our dilemma. That’s why we sit here. We’ve talked for months on priorities of what are we going to make do for people. We get into almost micromanaging departments, whether it is Iowa City’s or ours even, in this situation. That is our dilemma, is we have limited dollars. It has to come from somewhere else.
Stutsman: I look at this as the bigger picture of services for seniors and what the County contributes. We do have dollars that we put into other services for seniors. We put in substantial amounts to VNA, which serves a number of seniors in the community, and also Elder Services that has their focus. So, to me it’s the allocation of dollars. I think we all appreciate a senior center and a strong senior center, but we are facing times of limited dollars. We just can’t keep the funding at the current level.
Harney: I agree with Terrence. I don’t want to cut the services to the seniors in any way, if we can. However, I think the Board has sat down, they’ve gone through their budget and decided what they wanted to do, where they wanted to prioritize. To be quite honest, we added many dollars in particular areas, that also serve seniors as well as families and others, like you said, the nurses in some of the other programs that are out there. If we want to reallocate, cut those back, and put it back in the Senior Center, we could do that. But, I think we get a better coverage if we spend those dollars on the families and on the seniors, like you described.
Neuzil: But, as I argued in committee work, most Block Grant Human Service funding saw a 3% increase. This is a 25% decrease. There is no other that has seen these kinds of cuts, no other.
Thompson: I had a phone call from a rural resident this morning who suggested that we take the money that we had earmarked for the Englert and put it towards the Senior Center. Is there any interest for that?
Stutsman: That’s $4,000, so we need to come up with another $21,000.
Thompson: Yes, it is a little short.
Stutsman: The other problem with that is that I see the money for the Englert now as a pledge. We pledged that money and they made their application to the Vision Iowa Board based on that pledge. So, I am not comfortable in reneging on that pledge. It’s a different scenario if they don’t in fact make their other commitments to the Vision Iowa perimeters. The money they raise, then that can be reconsidered. So, that is my problem with the $4,000.
Lehman: That’s our dilemma we talked about in priorities. We’re going to have to take it from some place to provide more to the seniors. I don’t know if Iowa City has any place. Bob may touch that on his presentation here, maybe some suggestions. But, we get into micromanaging our own departments, appointed and elected department heads and here we are kind of looking over another entity’s, the City of Iowa City’s department. They have their own employees and policies and we’re in reality telling them to make some changes.
Harney: The only other comment I will make on this and then let Bob do his presentation, it’s really been a City program, the Senior Center. If they are cutting their dollars back as well as what we’ve cut back, I don’t think we are responsible for their cut back. We’re trying to do the best we can with our dollars. I think we need to do the best we can. I think, quite honestly, I suggested we give them $100,000 to begin with and the Board, we decided after looking at the entire budget, that we didn’t have the dollars to do that with. So, if we want to take from somewhere else, I am not necessarily against that, but we’ll have to look at it at the budget hearing.
Thompson: It is true that when we met with Jay Honohan, this was the amount that we agreed on. It was considered our fair share of their budget.
Harney: That was their request?
Thompson: Yes. So, that is where we came up with that number.
Harney: Are we ready for Bob’s?
Stutsman: One thing I was going to just add, I think this has opened up a real good discussion about services for seniors in the community and what our role is and what our commitment is. I am looking forward to continued discussion, which is a good segue into what Bob is going to present. So, with that, Bob.
Johnson County Taskforce on Aging Chair Bob Welsh: I am here as the Chair of the Johnson County Task Force on Aging. Our purpose is two-fold. Number one to inform you of the position that the Task Force has taken, and the other is to enter into some dialogue with you, so that we can learn from you and see if there are changes that we should make in our position at this point. I think you all may know that on March 10th, at 2:00, there will be a public meeting that the Senior Center Commission will hold for input into their plan. The statement that we have, which I gave you all copies of is, one to affirm our belief that the Senior Center is a vital focal point for services to and activities for seniors of Iowa City and Johnson County, and our commitment to work with persons. We express in our statement our concern that the present discussion has focused almost entirely on finances and fiscal shortcomings. We feel that a broader discussion is really needed. We set forth 3 visions that we have for the Senior Center and we’d hope you might concur. One is a focal point for services and life enriching experiences for the seniors of Iowa City and Johnson County. Second, a hub of activities recognizing that other community facilities can and should be utilized. Last but not least, a warm and friendly facility in which seniors have a sense of belonging and the staff is dedicated to their service. Then, the proposals we are making we feel go to those 3 visions at that point. The first one is an addition in terms of how does programming get generated at that point. What we are suggesting is that we think that there are a wide range of agencies, organizations and individuals that can and would provide services and activities for seniors at the Senior Center if space was made available to them. At the present time, most of the programs are generated by staff, or by individuals who are very knowledgeable, like Betty McCray, who goes and says, hey I would like to do this kind of a class there. What this is suggesting is, that that kind of an approach be opened much wider than it has been. Just say to all of the groups, like the City High Music Department, hey boy if you’ve got some experiences that would be helpful to seniors, come and we’ll schedule a place for you. We think there could be a whole variety of activities that would come about. I’ve been impressed with one of your recent County employees, digressing from this. But, Harry, at your Conservation, I could see Harry taking advantage of an open opportunity like this to come down to the Senior Center and have some very good activities for seniors. Or to have special activities out at their conference center. But, this is merely saying we would open wide that whole area of programming and would hope that that is something that could be done and you may wish to comment on that. We really emphasized a collaborative partnership. I realize the long history of that word partnership. I am still a very strong believer in partnerships, as to how you get things done. That doesn’t mean just with governmental agencies, it means across the board and recognizing the diversity of seniors. Our second point is that we see a lot of that could be…does not need to be duplications of facilities and that there can be shared facilities and specifically mentioned the Recreation Center as one. We personally are saying that we support retaining the name of Senior Center, although that does not exclude the youths for intergenerational activities and other groups that serve the population. The 4th one is probably the most controversial of our statements. That is, the recognition that the City Manager is the one that basically sets the staff for the Senior Center as part of the City budget. This is merely saying to the City Manager, we think that he should restructure the staff positions to fit a leaner organization and that that would include an evaluation of staff responsibilities, qualifications, salaries, etc. Part of that is to emphasize the fact that we believe the staff has a real responsibility to have direct contact with seniors and the community. Number 5 we addressed the membership fee. I started this conversation. I was extremely opposed to a membership fee period. I have become convinced that a modest membership fee, with some responsibilities. Betty McCray has said, hey, if I join a group, what benefits do I have for that. What we are saying is 2 benefits. You get the Post mailed to you, but you also get the right to vote at an annual meeting for that or any special meetings. But, at the same time, recognizing more persons could give more than the $10. Then, I think where there is agreement is on the class fee. It should be kept to a minimum. We attached to you a brief chart of the differences. As you can see, rather than just mainly focused on staff generated programs, we encourage focusing on increased partnership and planning programs and increased (inaudible) in the commission proposal using off site locations. Not planning to change the name. We’re saying retain the name. Maintaining staff, we are saying restructure staff. Financial shortfall, they are saying, hey let’s make that up with a membership fee. The 2nd page, the next page in your packet is what currently comes and I think what Terrence has said. There has been a lot of change since when you originally talked about $75,000. That was based on 11% of the budget. The assumption was that OK, the City was going to get the 80% and then the other 19% would come from other jurisdictions. There hasn’t been a close relationship with those other communities that produced a favorable response to that kind of a request. Even at the first of this month, the suggested membership fee was $25 for those in rural Johnson County, as well as in Iowa City. Now that has been changed to the fact that all of the people not in Iowa City would be $50, but that the fee for the Iowa City residents would be $25. Pat alluded to the fact of the change in City financing. The City’s budget for Fiscal Year ’04 is still based on that 80/20 assumption. Last year they actually contributed 83.75% of the budget. If they did that, that would increase their giving $35,000. Their projected budget for ’04 is $545,000. $545,029, whereas in ’03 it was estimated to be $628,786. So, there is that, as Mike I think alluded to, shift in that. What we have suggested in relation to the finances is that we think that those large fees become a barrier. I think this is what Terrence was referring to. We think that there is a combination of ways, rather than just one way. One is the moderate membership fee of $10. Another is budget reductions. Another is, in terms of donation and pledges. Another is more governmental partnerships. That quite frankly is going to have to be something that is long range, because at the present time there is not a close relationship between Coralville, for example, North Liberty and the Senior Center. That whole strategy, at least from my standpoint, has to be rethought because each of those communities do have their own Community Center and are programming things for seniors in those areas. We mentioned 2 others, gift funds and grants. I was amazed to find that the Senior Center has a gift fund that is under the control of the Senior Center and can be used for basic expenses for the Senior Center and that that amount, at the end of June, had $137,000 undesignated dollars. So, I can see some flexibility there in terms of overall financing. As you know, the present proposal is for supporting memberships. For Iowa City residents, $25, for non-Iowa City residents, $50, for non-Johnson County residents, $100. I have shared with you briefly what we as a Task Force are advocating for and we’d really liken… We have 4 members of that Committee here. Betty McCray is now one of the Co-Chairman’s of that Adhoc Committee. Betty, as you know, has been about everything at the Senior Center, including a lot of distinguished senior citizens, has taught classes. Lee McGovern, who is sitting next to her actually moved to Iowa City because of the services for seniors. He was a car salesman, of all places, in Chicago. Behind him, Eve Casserly. Eve was the Chairman of our Task Force Committee on the Senior Center until you all had the wisdom to appoint her to serve on the Senior Center Commission. So, she resigned as Chair. Betty and Pat Halfgrave have taken over that responsibility. But, we’d appreciate some dialogue from you as to whether or not you feel we are off base and where and just to check with you about your thoughts at this point. We are presenting this and hope to present this to the City, not in the point of an ironclad kind of a thing. But, this is where we are at this point and we’d appreciate your input.
Lehman: I might just touch upon you had mentioned the difference of a proposed fee of Iowa City residents versus non-Iowa City. I think that comes, Bob, because we are funding out of the General Fund, which everyone in the County pays, but Iowa City also taxes their residents for the support. So, the Iowa City residents are paying more than anyone else in the County right now. We talked about possibly bringing it out of our rural fund. We felt that might set a precedent we might back off from if Coralville or North Liberty might say, well we have rural residents using our facility. We weren’t quite ready to go there. Not to say that we might not revisit that, but that is the reason that kind of came off of the table.
Welsh: I understand reasons at that point and historically understand.
Lehman: We are aware that the public might be listening.
Welsh: Historically I understand how you got to the $75,000 was because that was 11% of the participants were from rural Johnson County and so you took 11% of their proposed budget and that is how you got to that.
Lehman: Also, I don’t want to micromanage somebody else’s department. It’s not in our direct jurisdiction. But, I hear Iowa City and their representatives trying to…we need to replace that revenue that they have lost. In a lot of situations you have to look at your expenses and we’ve had to do that on our level of asking departments to reduce their expenses and they offer good… They reduced their expenses last year when we cut our contribution and I’ve heard some comments that they don’t think maybe the price is quite as good and others say they haven’t seen a reduction in the quality of what is offered up there. I really compliment them on that. I don’t know if there is more room to do some of your suggestions or not, but I like the idea that you have put them on the table and presented. That might be an option if we are not able to fund them more now or in the future.
Thompson: Bob, the chart on the back, that is the proposed membership fees. That is not what you are recommending, right?
Welsh: No, that last one that has the $25, $50 and $100 is what was put on the table at the Senior Center Commission on the 18th of this month and approved to take the place of their $50 and $75 there previous.
Thompson: I know when it was $50 and $75 they were thinking that as many as 40% of the participants might drop out because they wouldn’t pay the fee. Do you think that if the fee were $10, more people would pay and therefore it might generate almost as much money as the higher fee?
Welsh: Yes and no. I think more people would join at $10 than would at $25 or $50. I don’t think it would generate as much income. Simply because of the fact, I think in terms of the Senior Center Commission, there has been a misunderstanding. They are not saying that there will be a 40% cut in participation. They are only saying that there would be 40% of the people who are participants now, that they consider participants, who would not pay the membership fee and thus join. But, that would not mean that persons could not be participants because they could do certain things. My own feeling, I should probably move over to this chair because this is not a Task Force feeling, this is my personal feeling. The idea of saying, hey, if you are a member, you can come and read the paper, but you can’t come and play cards, doesn’t make any daggone sense to me. That’s a personal opinion. The whole ramifications of that become enormous. For example, at all nutrition programs, you are required to have activities you are required to have activities for socialization. At the Johnson County Senior Center that has never been an issue because there has been a lot of activities. When you say hey, you can no longer stay and play cards, then that becomes incumbent upon the subcontractor to have those other socialized activities. So, I think, back on being a representative of the Task Force, our feeling is that a very small membership fee has some validity in terms of giving persons a sense of hey, this is ours kind of a thing. We have some responsibility to make it low enough that it doesn’t exclude anyone. I think that there are some of us that can make up that difference for persons. The applications of "low-income" people for exceptions, Carol is shaking her head, is a middle-class and high income class concept. It’s not a low-income concept because it hurts persons in a different ball of wax, a whole different compartment. So, what we were aiming at is trying to shift that so that it does not become a barrier. This gets back to, we don’t know where all of this is going to go. I am one, as you know, that feels that you all, as the 2nd largest contributor, not Mike to "micromanage", but your input is important and you do represent a large segment of people. I think your views would be important as to what you think. Yes, Carol?
Thompson: Is the current plan to keep the fee schedule, the class fees like it was before.
Welsh: Yes. My understanding, it is.
Thompson: So that part of your recommendation has already been accepted?
Welsh: Well when you look at what we said, there’s inconsistency in the proposed class fee schedule on the original. Persons who are on the Commission who have been a part of our taskforce, have pointed out that in the staff report there was inconsistencies as to how those were handled. What the Commission said on the 18th, was that they plan to do it just like they had in the past.
Thompson: But there would be a fee for the Center for learning and retirement classes that’s separate from other classes.
Welsh: That whole area of that, the Taskforce has not discussed that, but it seems to be at that point whether or not that’s a Senior Center program or it’s a separate organization. Eve, comment on that?
Casserly: Well just that there’s a statement it’s an incentive for learning and retirement is going to be merged into the Senior Center programming. There’s a proposal to the effect. Even so, at the moment, that’s as far as I know however. So I can’t really answer the question. I just don’t know.
Thompson: I think you’ve successfully pointed out that there are…that membership fees are not the only way to raise the $60,000 in the budget this year. I’d pay heed to that.
Stutsman: Bob are you asking us to basically add our name to this document or the Board of Supervisors is saying that we support what’s been put together here.
Welsh: If you felt comfortable doing that, but I guess my intent was to engage you in dialog at this point and get feedback. Are there insights that you have to share? Are there things that you think we’re way out of line on or are we in line?
Harney: I think you’ve had a lot of good suggestions there.
Welsh: You know, asking for advice at this point.
Harney: I think you’ve pointed out a lot of good areas that need to be looked at. Again, that’s administratively on the City side because that is their facility as far as the building and the programs and so forth in there. The fees, I’m still somewhat confused on what they get for their fees because most of the people that do any of the other participatory events that’s there, also pay a fee to be in those particular programs. Isn’t that correct?
Welsh: Yes, but the proposal would be that you would not be able to take a class unless you had paid your $25, $50 or $100 membership fee. You would not be able to take a class. Period.
Thompson: Also you wouldn’t be able to have the parking privilege. To buy the $2 parking permit.
Welsh: You would not be able to have the parking privilege. You would not be able to play cards. You would be able to attend meetings that are public meetings. You would be able to sit and read the paper.
Thompson: Come to the meals.
Welsh: You’d be able to come to the meals.
Thompson: Shop in the craft store.
Welsh: But unless you were a member you would not be able to participate in any of the classes or any of the other types of activities.
Harney: It’s very difficult, particularly in a budget year like it is the way the economy has been. I think what’s happened is the Board has gone through the budget, tried to set their priorities on where the money needs to go. We have other departments that are really suffering as well. We cut 4% of all the budgets last year and we did not replace that. The County Attorney’s Office for one has a lot of needs. A lot of the other departments… We’re not providing staff and probably adequate dollars to allow them to run their offices correctly too. It’s very difficult to make these cuts, particularly when it affects seniors or the needy in particular areas like that. We try to maintain a good level. I don’t know what the answer is other than more dollars.
Lehman: We did discuss mandated services, but that goes back to what Terrence has said. The fairness issue of it too. What percentages, what you’re cutting. That type of stuff. You get down to trying to prioritize somebody else’s interests. That’s tough.
Stutsman: In response to your question Bob. I guess I, as I stated before, I think this is a good beginning to start the dialog about what is the Senior Center in Johnson County, what we want it to be, who’s going to participate in it and what is our funding responsibilities to that. So I guess I support what’s laid out here. I think it’s at least a starting…has some good talking point in it. I guess I would hope that we can begin that discussion between the City and the County and what people want for the Senior Center in Johnson County and how that’s going to be accomplished.
Welsh: Do the others of you sort of agree with Sally at that point.
Neuzil: Well I do. Yes, absolutely. There are some very good things in here. It’s too bad that we haven’t been really a part of this whole thing for 2 or 3 years ago. I think that’s where the relationship started to break down. Obviously the 28E agreement changed there.
Welsh: The thing which people and I’ve told you this all privately and publicly, you get all get a lot of bad mouth in the Senior Center. Why are we doing this membership fee? It’s because of the Board of Supervisors. What I tell people, since we’re on camera, I’ll say it publicly at this point. Where that really broke down was in a 28E committee meeting where Carol, then Chairman of your Board and Pat Harney met with persons and were talking about partnership. Jay Honohan as Chair of the Senior Center Commission and Linda Kopping as the Director and Connie Champion as a member of the City Council said we’re not interested in partnership. It was when Carol brought that back to you… My memory is Sally that’s when you said, then why are we funding them. I think $140,000 at that point. That’s where that whole discussion started as Terrence said, that’s where it started breaking down. You’ll note at the bottom of our chart on the comparison we put that statement that we think a real key is partnership. I know all of you well enough to know that you think that in a governmental partnership is an essential part of how government needs to run in this century. I have even said to a couple of you, if you want to find some… Individual my comments now, not taskforce. If you want to find some dollars in your budget, one part of your budget that is very dear to me that has always been under spent is Budget 45. You always under spend that budget and that always has griped the heck out of me. I guess right now, I’m individual, saying how can we avoid bringing up these membership fees, then have some dialog in relation to the whole future of the Senior Center because a lot of things have happened that were not in existence 20 years ago. We’ve got a lot of assisted living facilities and a lot of activities are taking place in those facilities, a lot of programming. You’ve got, as I say, you’ve now got that you didn’t have 20 years ago, a recreation center in North Liberty, a recreation center in Coralville. So there’s been a lot of shifts at this point.
Stutsman: Bob I think you bring up a very good point, is to me part of this is a reflection of change in the community. Nobody is very comfortable with change, but I think it’s been a good process for the Board to sit down and not just look at the Senior Center, but all the things that we’re funding. I think early on when the Board started going down this path of strategic planning and realizing that our revenues weren’t going to be what they used to be, that we said there are no sacred cows. We have got to look at everything we fund and take a hard look at it and see is this our role, is it appropriate, is the funding level appropriate? So I see that as positive. I see it positive to continue that dialog. I think we have a responsibility to the taxpayers to do that. The days are gone when we were all flushed with funds and had lots of discretionary monies. We have to take a very careful look at this and reflect where the community is today and reflect that change.
Welsh: Sally maybe you’re getting individual. I want to try to separate where I’m talking as the Chair of the taskforce and as an individual. In light of your conversation, one step that might be taken is for a couple of you to talk to the City manager at this point and have some dialogs there so that you do become a participant at this point in terms of dialogs; what can be worked out? It might be that that $60,000 can be made up, $25,000 from modest membership fees and donations, $25,000 from the City and $10,000 from you all. But having some dialog might be appropriate Sally.
Neuzil: As far as where the actual funding stream will go, I think it’s important for the Board to reserve that for an actual public hearing. Otherwise we open this up for every single…because not everyone is getting a raise. There are a number of organizations or functions of County government that are seeing decreases in this coming fiscal year. You mentioned on particular possibility as far as an amendment. I’ll have 2 others that I’ll present to the Board as well during the public hearing process. That’s all. We need to hear from the community. That’s what we need to hear right now. What do you think?
Welsh: Is there any other advice you have to the Taskforce at this point except to pursue these ideas.
Lehman: I think your suggestion that a couple of us need to decide maybe we need to sit down with the City Manager and get some communication there. We’ve had a little bit, but I think it needs to be more ongoing to see what their thinking direction…
Welsh: I think that would be a good thing. I hadn’t thought about that until the conversation here today.
Neuzil: You also need to talk to your Iowa City City Councilors who are also cutting the service. I think that the Taskforce needs to go to those other communities, needs to go to Coralville, needs to go to North Liberty, needs to go to those other communities and say this is something that’s a function of the entire County. This isn’t just Iowa City.
Welsh: Right. My observation is that the whole relationship with those other communities has not been good and has not been nurtured and that is not something that’s going to happen this budget year.
Stutsman: Yes, but it’s a start Bob. It’s a start to begin the dialog with those other communities and say what is your role going to be with the Senior Center.
Welsh: And how can the Senior Center… See another part of that question is, how can the Senior Center be of help to North Liberty residents. What things can be done at the North Liberty Community Center? There’s that whole dialog that, at least from my perspective, is missing. Those whole types of relationships are something that has to be built and it takes time.
Stutsman: I agree.
Thompson: I agree with you about the relationships, but the lobbying is very important too. What I hear from Council members is that they are not hearing from people who live in their communities that they use and need and want the Senior Center. Without that there won’t be any funding.
Welsh: What I have heard in Coralville for example, are seniors are saying rather than giving X number of dollars to the Iowa City/Johnson County Senior Center, we would rather have you air condition the facility that we have in our community. It is sort of ironic that in this year of 2003, that you have a community facility in Iowa now that’s not air-conditioned. When I moved to Iowa back in the early ‘60s, not every place was air-conditioned. That sure is not the case now. Even the County Administration Building is air-conditioned.
Harney: A lot of things have changed there Bob…We’re going to have to move on, but we don’t have the services, the 3 or 4 services we actually ran out of the Senior Center at one time. Those are no longer there and the meals we no longer control there either.
Welsh: I understand all that.
Harney: If there’s any way we can add dollars to that, I’m certainly willing to do that, but we’re going to have to take a long look at it. We may not be able to do it this year, but maybe we can next year.
Welsh: Let me see if I’m correct. What I gather from you all, you’re saying you think this kind of a statement and position has merit and push on that. The second thing is saying that a couple of you might sit down, sooner rather than later, with the City Manager and just check out various possibilities.
Stutsman: I would agree with that. I guess I’d even to the point so that it doesn’t… It seems like we have starts and stops with this program. Are we ready today to commit to a couple Board members going and visiting with the City Manger. If so…
Harney: I don’t mind doing it myself.
Lehman: I’d do it.
Stutsman: Who wants to do it?
Thompson: Pat and Mike?
Stutsman: OK. That’s fine with me.
Lehman: I need to apologize for a figure I gave earlier. Terrence passed on a document that our actual figure was $141,000 in ’02. I respect his opinions and he’s the one member up here that’s not eligible. I think he could become an honorary.
Stutsman: He’s being visionary.
Neuzil: I’m getting gray though. I’m getting a little gray.
Harney: Do we have any business from the County Attorney.
Welsh: The figure which I had was in Fiscal Year ’02, that the County contributed $141,410.
Lehman: That’s the figure Terrence gave me. I apologize. Dealing with a $45 million budget figures get a little blurred sometimes.
Harney: Thanks Bob.
Saunders: Thank you very much.
Harney: Does the Board want to take a short break?
Stutsman: Please.
Harney: Why don’t we take about 5 minutes. Be ready to go at quarter 'til. We’ll recess.
Recessed at 10:40 a.m.; reconvened at 10:50 a.m.
Harney: Reference to Johnson County Jail Inspection Report. With us is Sheriff Bob Carpenter and Dave Wagner and Major Keith Slaughter.
County Sheriff Bob Carpenter: I assume everybody’s read the report from the Jail Inspector. I guess we feel pretty good about it. I know there are some things that he’s pointed out that he felt should be changed and maybe corrected, but we feel they’re pretty minor things. They’re things that we’re going to be working on. However, there’s probably some things that’s impossible. I think he knew that when he inspected the jail. I’ll let Dave speak to those items. As a matter of fact, what I’ll probably have Dave do is just go down the list of the items that he pointed out and give you an idea. Some of these are very insignificant. I think he needed something to write down on paper. That’s probably the reason why he noted it. I think overall we had a really good inspection considering all the problems we have there. Is there any questions to start with before Dave does that, from the Board. Would they like us to do it a different way?
Harney: Go ahead a let Dave go over it and then maybe we can make some comments and questions after that’s complete.
Sheriff’s Captain Dave Wagner: OK. On the lighting aspect, this was the case of the candle power, for the standards, are supposed to be 20 candle power in the dayroom, a table top. When he went around and measured it, they weren’t quite up to standard. So I’ve talked to Dave Kempf here, our Facilities Manager. In fact tomorrow we’re going to go in and put some different light bulbs in there and put a clearer cover on those lights to see if that boosts the candle power up to 20. We tried this by removing a cover before. It really helped the candle power, so I’m pretty confident that will take care of the problem. We’re going to do that tomorrow. I’ve notified Mike Richardson of that, that we’re going to do that. That satisfies his concerns. As long as we’re doing something to correct it, there won’t be any problems with them on that aspect.
Stutsman: That seems like that will be minimal cost too, right?
Wagner: Right. Supervision of prisoners. He went in our control center and just looked at our cameras. He thought that some of them, the monitors were a little bit fuzzy. So I’ve talked to Communications Engineering and they’re going to be getting back to me on what they can or can’t do to fix that problem. I suspect part of that is, we don’t rely totally on cameras to supervise our prisoners. We go around, roughly every 30 minutes and do personal checks, so we’re not relying totally on the cameras as other facilities may do that don’t have onsite Sheriffs, deputies or jail staff working at the time. So I’m confident that will be taken care of too. Again that was a comment, that wasn’t any type real problem for us either. Exercise area, he’s never liked the exercise area because of just the size of it. I don’t think there’s a lot he can do about it because the standard just says right now that out of cell block exercise, we have to provide them with out of cell exercise twice a week for an hour and we do that. Although the room is small, we’ve got 3 exercise bikes that they’re able to use if they choose to. So I feel confident that meet the standard. He’s just making a comment I think that as we’re looking toward a newer facility someday, hopefully, that there’s going to be other standards governing the size of the exercise area for people that are in jail.
Stutsman: There’s no other place… I mean we’ve made all the concessions that we can at the current physical location as far as the exercise.
Carpenter: Yes.
Stutsman: Do they have to be secure in an exercise area? Do you understand what I’m saying? I mean it’s not like we can take them outdoors in the parking lot and provide exercise. It has to still be a secure facility.
Carpenter: If you remember, we took the exercise room that we originally had and turned that into basically a drunk tank if you want to call it that and took the library area and put that into the exercise room. So it’s a lot smaller. It’s probably 1/3 of the size of the other room originally, so it did cut it down. But they still have their exercise ability. They would have the same equipment in this smaller room that they would have had in the larger room and the same type of equipment. So it’s just the fact that they don’t have as large an area to exercise in as what apparently Mike would like to have.
Harney: I guess that’s the one question I have for you Dave, is that you’re saying they only have to have twice a week for an hour, but yet here he’s saying I strongly recommend that Johnson County find a permanent solution to provide adequate exercise for prisoners. He goes on and says adequate exercise is a constitutional right of prisoners housed in County jails. I guess I’m kind of wondering… To me he’s putting that pretty strong. Is that something that we really need to look at?
Carpenter: I think there’s no doubt about it, he’d probably like to have a larger area, but I quite honestly don’t know where we’d put it. I mean there’s no place there.
Harney: I don’t either.
Carpenter: You can only do with what you got. Short of probably fencing off… I suppose we can put a hurricane fence around part of the parking lot out there and run them outside, but quite honestly right now we don’t have any good… I think we said in the last week or so, all we can do is ask them if they want to go to exercise. If they don’t want to go, they don’t go. There’s very few that want to go. We have to offer that to them, but we can’t force them to do it. Right now there’s not hardly anybody going to what we’ve got. I don’t know if any of them would want to go outside in 3 below 0 weather to exercise or not. I doubt it. They don’t even want to get out of bed now to go in a room temperature area.
Wagner: On admission and classification, he talked about the fact we had… Our design is 9 different cell blocks, 3 of them are maximum, then we have a medium security cell block, minimum security. We’ve got areas for overnight people to be housed. I guess the nature of his comment was, it’s still despite us housing people in Linn County. It’s a challenge on a daily basis to make sure that the jail’s classified properly. That we don’t mix in people together that shouldn’t be together. That we take care of the fact if we’ve got a person who is violent, then we’re able to go ahead and lock that person down by themselves so that we can effectively control their behavior and so that others aren’t in danger. So that’s I think just a comment of an everyday nature. It’s a challenge to go ahead and keep those people separated where they need to be. On the last item, records. His comment was about, in our jail standards it comments about what records we have to keep and for how long. We do that right now. It’s just that nowhere in our policy book is it actually written out. In the jail standards under that section 50.22, it outlines injury reports have to be kept for up to 5 years, a minimum of 5 years. Other reports 2 years. It’d just a matter of getting that language put in our policy manual. That’s the only reason for that comment.
Stutsman: Overall it is pretty positive.
Carpenter: I think also he made the comment in there, I’m trying to find it here, that since we started transporting our prisoners to Linn County our jail incident assault problems have gone down significantly. I guess that kind of proves what we have been trying to say, that it would help.
Stutsman: That’s good.
Thompson: Well I think you and your staff should be commended for this report. Really the substantive criticisms are of our building, not of anything you’re doing running the jail.
Carpenter: The fact that we’re transporting and are able to keep that number of inmates down is what’s relieved the staff. Of course that was because the State mandated cap, but when they did that, they probably did us a favor even though we didn’t think so. The State really did us a favor as far as running the facility anyway because now we’re able to do it at a lot more ease than what we had before. But we’re continuing. I think 23 are in Linn County today. Last month was a real kicker. I think you probably get the reports. We try to send them down. So we had a lot of inmates that were transported last month. It was a high dollar month. Nobody knows what this month will bring or next month. I would say the month of February’s probably going to pretty much fall into line with what January did. Who knows what March is going to bring. I think today we’re down to 23. Is that right?
Lehman: I think there was 28 on the day of January 22nd, when the inspection was done. So that’s a high point.
Carpenter: I think you know it fluctuates every day because if we can get them out of there, we do.
Harney: I think it was very complimentary to you folks on your operation of the jail. You’re the Sheriff and the staff, the way it’s run and the way it’s kept up. Although he does recognize that there’s a real issue there as far as space goes. I think he did note in there that the day he was there that there was 28 in Linn County and 2 on home monitoring.
Carpenter: I think Dave and the staff up there do an excellent job. They should be complimented. On of the things that I think that any time you get an inspection, I think the inspector wants to write something down whether it’s big or little just to show that he was there to do the inspection, but we feel pretty good about the overall inspection. We didn’t expect it to come any other way. We don’t look for that to change. Dave does an excellent job. Is there any other questions?
Lehman: One comment I make, Mike Sullivan the Public Policy Board that’s running the Taskforce just might forward this information on to them just so they keep abreast. The individuals keep abreast of what our physical situation is there.
Harney: Thank you for taking the time to come in.
Carpenter: Thank you.
Harney: We had the financial software, was the next item on the selection Committee regarding the purchase of financial software. The Committee review is not complete and they’re not prepared to make a recommendation at this time, so that will be postponed until a later date.
Stutsman: When is that recommendation going to come?
Thompson: It will probably be 2 more weeks.
Stutsman: I just applaud this Committee’s patience and perseverance in this project. This is just incredible.
Lehman: It will probably be scheduled shortly after that but you can finally get a decision.
Stutsman: From an outside observer who has not been involved with it I appreciate the time that has been put into it. I’m just wondering if we’re to the point of overkill on this project. I mean there is a point where you need to make a decision and move on it.
Thompson: It’s been a long haul but we’re almost there.
Stutsman: Good. I’ve heard that before ironically so I hope that this is…
Lehman: I would like to compliment all of the departments that have representatives.
Stutsman: I guess maybe that’s what I’m getting at is that I think there is a point where this has been a lot of time and I don’t know if this is a good use of taxpayers dollars to beat this into the ground. This is something that we should’ve had a decision on long ago and there are many people that… I think of the number of people that are involved in that and what we are spending hourly for these people to sit in these meetings to rego over these numbers and this project I think there is a point where we need to more on.
Lehman: That’s a valid point. Our software system that we have now is 20 years and looking to invest in another 20 year old system for a large number of dollars and we want to make sure we get it as close as perfect.
Thompson: So many people have to use it is worth the time to get the buy in from everybody.
Stutsman: Well I agree Carol but I think there is a point where a decision needs to be made and I think we are past that point. I guess maybe we need to convey that to the Committee that the Board wants a decision.
Lehman: Point well taken.
Stutsman: That’s my personal opinion. I don’t know if the rest of the Board agrees with that.
Lehman: It’s been frustrating for people. Something always seems to come up.
Neuzil: Fish or cut bait.
Lehman: We want to make sure the bases are covered.
MINUTES RECEIVED: EAST CENTRAL IOWA COUNCIL OF GOVERNMENTS FOR JANUARY 30, 2003
Harney: Minutes have been received from the East Central Iowa Council of Governments for January 30, 2003.
REPORT (STUTSMAN): ATTENDED COUNTY-A-DAY
Harney: Do we want to continue with reports and inquiries? We’ve got another meeting.
Lehman: We’ve got members of the public here waiting for our work session. Do we want to forgo some announcements we need to do?
Thompson: I don’t have anything.
Stutsman: I guess I have a lot of stuff that I want… But I can put it off. I wanted to talk to the Board about our County-A-Day visit to the statehouse.
Harney: Why don’t you go ahead and cover that then we’ll move on.
Stutsman: We had a very positive trip up to the State house yesterday. We had a great showing from County Officials and lots of positive feedback from our legislative delegation who was pleased to have so many of us up there. Help me remember Mike Lehman went, Pat Harney, myself from the Board of Supervisors. Tom Kriz from the Treasurer’s Office, Kim Painter from the Recorder’s Office, Tom Slockett from the Auditor’s Office, Tom Brase went from SEATS Department, Harry Graves from Conservation, Dave Kempf from Physical Plant, Ralph Wilmoth from the Health department. Is that everybody? We met with all of our legislative delegation so it was good. One of the things we talked about was this issue that’s really has been come up is the Uniform Control Position that the Farm Bureau is pushing. ISAC opposes this particular legislation. It doesn’t really affect Johnson County because we don’t fund our Uniform Patrol out of the Rural Fund but what the Farm Bureau is suggesting or proposing is that that not ever be an option to fund the Uniform Patrol out of the Rural Fund. I would agree with ISAC’s position that we oppose this legislation just because I think County’s need the discretion as to how they want to fund that uniform patrol. There have been 2 court decisions saying that it is OK to fund it out of the Rural Fund so I think that should be something that should be allowed at the discretion of the Supervisors. The other issue of importance has to do with township trustees and getting away from rural fire departments or volunteer fire departments, having their own levy and that be given to the Supervisors to set that levy. So we kind of get away from this competition and turf situations that we get with some of the rural fire departments. So that is something that we want to continue to watch. The help America Vote, the State needs to come up with matching funds in order to get the 30 million dollars from Federal funds. The Iowa Fund match is 1.5 million and what is needed next year is like $400,000. So they’re interested in making sure that that legislation continues to go through. We had discussion, Pat Mike and I with the ISAC lobbyist Mike Witson about this changing of Road Designation of the State to the Counties. It was an interesting discussion, him presenting ISAC’s point of view on this and we filled out a questionnaire from Johnson County. Johnson County said we didn’t agree with taking over jurisdiction but I think he made some good points that we can share with the rest of the Board members on maybe we want to reconsider that. His point of view was that 62 of the counties agreed to the taking over of the jurisdiction of these roads. 30 said no. 62 counties said yes, 30 said no. Mike basically was saying that this is more of a visionary issue that nobody has the funds and it is something that maybe we want to reconsider with our own jurisdiction and things that we want to take a closer look at that. The only other thing I wanted to talk about or mention was that the Chamber of Commerce we had a meeting this morning for the Board and that there is going to be a chamber sponsored reception for David Skorton, the new University of Iowa president on March 24, at 4:30 at the University of Iowa Art Museum. Also I wanted to mention again that tomorrow morning is the Ag Breakfast series and that is at 7:00 at the Montgomery hall. So far they’ve had 65 people RSVP. They’re hoping for a good turnout. Mr. Walker from Minneapolis who started a business using corn products in producing bedding and things is going to be the speaker. He’s pretty dynamic and entrepreneurial so I think it will be a real good meeting to attend. That’s basically all I wanted to go over.
Harney: Very good. The only reason I kind of wanted her to cover that legislative trek to Des Moines. That was a very good session, probably one of the best I’ve been at where the legislators made themselves available to us and the ISAC representatives were very good at explaining the particular bills and the situations we were in. The only other one I would mention that is of real interest I think to Johnson County is Senate File 142. We need a lot of help on that one and that is for Courthouse Security. It’s adding $15 fine to all traffic tickets in the State which would go to a pool which would be divvied back out to Courthouses and Counties for Courthouse Security. It’s there, it hasn’t moved very far yet but they’ll be bringing that out. Joe Bolkcom has been sponsoring and Senator Miller is the other one that is pushing that. It should be coming out pretty soon. We need some phone calls and some help in getting that through. Anyone else want to comment before we move on? OK. Are there any inquiries or reports from the public? We will adjourn the informal session.
Adjourned at 11:12 a.m.
Attest: Tom Slockett, Auditor
By Casie Parkins, Recording Secretary