• Mid-Eastern Council On Chemical Abuse Executive Director Art Schut: Presentation Of Mid-Eastern Council For Chemical Abuse Services

• Senior Center Commission Member Jim Schintler: Senior Center Update

• Iowa City Community School District Youth And Family Development Coordinator Joan Vandenberg: Hills 21st Century Learning Grant

• County Engineer Mike Gardner: Bids Received For Calcium Chloride Application To Secondary Roads In The 2003 Safety Program; And Bids Received For Seed And Fertilizer To Be Used In Calendar Year 2003

• GIS Coordinator Rick Havel: Contract With Aerial Services Inc To Provide Ground Control Targeting, Flying And Photography

• Budget Coordinator Jeff Horne: Monthly Report For February 2003

• Discussion: Setting Date For The Joint Informal Meeting With The Johnson County Township Trustees And Clerks For September 2, 2003 At 6:00 P.M.

• Report (Neuzil): Citizen Concerns In Cheese Factory Area And North Corridor; Attended Johnson County Cattlemen’s Association; And Upcoming Solon Community School District Government Forum

• Report (Lehman): Attended Agricultural Meeting; Attended Biomass Lecture; And Upcoming Fireworks Certification Training

• Report (Thompson): Upcoming League Of Women Voters Meeting; Attended Mecca Board Meeting; Attended Meeting With Human Resources Director Lora Shramek; Attended Senior High Alternative Advisory Committee Meeting; And Attended Gis Advisory Committee Meeting

• Report (Harney): Attended Ecicog Board Of Directors Meeting; Attended Biomass Lecture; Attended Solon Seats Fundraiser; Attended E911 Executive Board Meeting; Attended North Corridor Feasibility Study Work Session; Attended 6th Judicial District Department Of Corrections Meeting

• Reverend Bob Welsh: Senior Center Funding And Hills Afterschool Program Funding

Chairperson Harney called the Johnson County Board of Supervisors to order in the Johnson County Administration Building at 9:08 a.m. Members present were: Pat Harney, Mike Lehman, Terrence Neuzil, Sally Stutsman, and Carol Thompson.

Harney: The first item of the informal is a presentation from Art Schut, the Executive Director for MECCA.

Lehman: Morning.

Mid-Eastern Council on Chemical Abuse Executive Director Art Schut: Hi.

Harney: Hi Art.

Schut: How are you?

Stutsman: Fine. How are you?

Schut: I am doing much better.

Stutsman: Good.

Schut: Thank you. I am sorry I had to reschedule. My understanding of what I am going to do is briefly describe what MECCA does and then provide an opportunity for us to have a discussion about that. MECCA’s mission is to provide comprehensive services related to chemical abuse and dependency, the prevention of substance abuse, the promotion of early detection and interruption of substance abuse careers. To reintegrate problem substance abusers into the productive life of the community, to provide services to chronically ill folks who have substance abuse problems who are unable to overcome them and basically to provide services to difficult clients. We are to do that in the most cost-effective manner that we can. We have a broad range of collaborative relationships in the community. Wherever possible we attempt to work with other organizations and to do things in ways that don’t duplicate services, but in fact enhance relationships. I think we have a general reputation for doing that. The sheet that I gave you outlines the range of services that we provide. Those range from primary prevention services to detoxification to evaluation to freestanding inpatient to outpatient services. Transitional care services, you may be aware that we just, with the assistance of the City of Iowa City and CDBG money just built a 12-unit apartment building for transitional services for women and children. That is funded with CDBG money as a down payment, but then is funded on a private basis when the rent is collected from people to help transition single parents with children back into the community. We do a broad range of services. Substance abuse impacts a whole range of services, a whole range of things that happen in the community, from the emergency rooms, to schools, to businesses, to the jail, to social services, to the community. I would like to go back a little bit and talk about history if I might. Back in the middle 80’s, the Board of Supervisors and MECCA got together to talk about what we could do to help change County expenditures. Particularly, there was some difficulty with how many people were going to the Mental Health Institute in Mt. Pleasant, both for substance abuse and for medication control for mental health services. There were difficulties on the weekends in that the Sheriff’s Department would have to transport people. Often times it would require 2 people. The Sheriff had 4 folks in the County on the weekends, for example, and that would take 2 of those people off the road. For awhile what we did is MECCA would send a staff person with a Sheriff to MHI. But, what we decided was ultimately, collectively, was that it was more efficient to try to provide those services in Johnson County rather than transport people to MHI. The Board of Supervisors named MECCA their agent with regards to prescreening, admissions to MHI, prescreening admissions to hospitals. They were more expensive in an attempt to try to divert people out of those systems and provide services early on. Since that time, we have acted in essence as the County’s agent with regard to trying to reduce those kinds of expenses. We use volunteers. We relate to community coalitions. We make space available in our building for meetings by AA, NA and we have volunteers who are recovering come in to our programs. Services are available to everyone. It is on a sliding fee basis. That sliding fee runs from 300% of poverty down. So, at 300% of poverty, people pay 100% of the cost and then as they move downward to 100% of poverty, at 100% of poverty they pay 5%. We are very aggressive about fee collection, to the dismay of some people. We are aggressive about collecting insurance and other 3rd party pay. That’s a general overview. Do you have questions of me?

Lehman: Are most of your clients referrals or do you get a lot of people that come and see you on their own?

Schut: About 40% of people come see us on their own. Often times, with substance abuse though because it affects how people think, coming to see us on your own is often times your employer says you need to go there or I am going to get rid of you or a spouse says, if you don’t go, I am going to leave. So, there tends to be some encouragement. About 60% of people come to us because they have been arrested or they have been some way involved with the criminal justice system. So, they have been picked up for drunk driving or public intox or some incident has occurred that has gotten their attention in a very clear way.

Lehman: I think it kind of calls to the fact that we talk about our Jail Task Force and people maybe are just doing time in jail and aren’t being helped in rehabilitation. So, we come into that play quite a bit.

Schut: We actually have had, over the years, a significant relationship with the Jail. We go into the Jail and do assessments and evaluations and we have done this over the years. Everyone who is picked up for drunk driving, for example, has as a condition of their release in the morning that they contact MECCA or another substance abuse provider for an evaluation and they do what is recommended as part of their release condition. There are a number of things like that that happen. Many of the people who are chronically in difficulty in our community are people that the Jail serves and we serve as well. We attempt to decrease the number of times that they get into difficulty and decrease the number of times they end up in the hospital.

Thompson: How many detox beds do you have in Johnson County?

Schut: We have 6, which is a problem.

Thompson: How many would you have in an ideal situation?

Schut: Well, our problem is we have 2 rooms, one room with 4 beds and another room with 2 beds. We don’t mix genders and we don’t mix juveniles with adults. So, you basically have 4 categories of folks. You have adult female, adult male, adolescent male and adolescent female. So, you have to fit those 4 categories of people into 2 rooms that have 4 beds and another 2 beds. So, if you have and adolescent female for example, that fills a room, you could take another adolescent female, but you can’t take an adult female or an adult male or an adolescent male. So, we juggle those around and flex those. So, really, what would help is if we had 4 rooms where we could do that. We had a plan, but we’ve got some difficulties in terms of the zoning of our property in order to be able to do that. We are working on that.

Lehman: Could you talk a little bit about your staff, the numbers you have and some of their duties?

Schut: Sure. Well, we have physicians, nurses, 24 hours in detox. We have certified substance abuse counselors. We have technicians that are detox and residential technicians and then we have support staff. We also have case managers who do outreach and provide wrap around services. So, we have a broad range of folks. Our physician services are through the University of Iowa. About 4 years ago our staff turnover rate was about 1/3 a year, which was pretty horrendous and largely related to our salary structure. We knew that. We would offer people jobs and we would tell them what it paid and they would say, now is that part-time and we would say, no, that is full-time. So, we had a little problem with that. What we did is an extensive salary study based on those salaries that are published by the Chamber and by Job Workforce Development. There is a salary survey on behavioral health organizations. It is published regionalized including the upper Midwest. On that basis, we decided that we would try to move people to a reasonable, competitive salary and upgrade our salaries. We started with the people who are paid the least and then worked our way. Actually, it was a 2-year plan, but it took us 3 years to do it. Now we are at the point where we have upgraded all of our salaries so that they are more competitive and our staff turnover rate has diminished, which is helpful.

Stutsman: Art, can you elaborate a little bit more about how County dollars save the County in the long-run? What are some of the other ways that we could be handling problems with persons with substance abuse?

Schut: I know that we looked into alternatives, because we don’t always have enough beds to take civil committals, for example. So, we looked into options in terms of getting bids. Actually Jeff and I did that together. So, we have some price comparisons. The difficulty is, if people go to MHI Mt. Pleasant currently for substance abuse, the County would pay 25%. If they have a dual diagnosis they would end up in the mental health unit and the County pays 80%. So, there is a cost there. What happens now in terms of detox is there are a number of people who come into detox who, if we didn’t have detox, would end up civilly committed. If they are civilly committed, then you have the cost of that whole process as well as the cost of the hospitalization. So, really, what happens is we operate, in essence, in lieu of a hospital, or a hospital based detox unit. So, it is much cheaper to do that as a freestanding entity than it is as part of a hospital. I did some rough figures, but basically, if you take the number of detox… We detoxed 302 people from Johnson County last Fiscal Year and if you take that 302 people and you price that on a per diem basis, that would cost the County about $568,000, just that alone, which is a chunk of money. One of the problems that is occurring right now, which I think you are probably aware of, is the University had 20 substance abuse beds and they closed those. MHI Mt. Pleasant had 60 substance abuse beds. They closed all 60 of those beds and then reopened 30 of them until the legislature was in session. So, that is pending right now whether or not they are going to close those again. What is happening is that there are far fewer resources, so there are more and more people who can’t access assistance. What is happening is there are more civil committals. What families are doing is they are going through the civil committal process to get people into treatment because they can’t get people into treatment voluntarily. That’s a problem. I don’t think that is going to diminish. I think that is going to accelerate.

Stutsman: I was going to ask if you could talk, you’ve been with MECCA a long time, if you could talk about the changes that you have seen as far as the populations you serve and such.

Schut: Actually this is my 21st year. I came for a couple of years and just never left. The people that we see today are more acutely ill. In the last 4 years alone, we have had substantial increases in stimulative use, substantial decreases in alcohol only folks. So, people that have problems just with alcohol diminished substantially. That’s replaced by people who use alcohol and other drugs as well. When I came, basically 70 or 80% of the people we served had alcohol problems and the other 20-30% had other drugs as their primary problems. We are at the point now where about 55% of women have alcohol only and the rest have other drug problems, primarily stimulants. Methamphetamine and cocaine, as well as other drugs including alcohol. Men are down to about 60% alcohol and the other 40% drugs. So, there has been a shift in that and there are more multiple problems, people who have acute physical problems related to their drug abuse or other kinds of impediments. So, there has been a major change in the acuity level and the severity level of the people we serve. It’s shocking. There has also been an age drop.

Stutsman: Younger you mean?

Schut: Yes.

Lehman: We have these presentations to educate us and inform the public and stuff. We talk about a certain number of cases, but you realize how far reaching it is. You talk about individuals, but there are families, spouses and, it’s a very large area. It affects a lot of people. That’s not just talking the individuals who actually come under your care.

Schut: It’s remarkable. Gallup did a poll and one in three families reported that they were impacted by alcohol and drug abuse. So, it is something that tends to touch all of us. Just in terms of expense and economic expense, it affects the insurance premiums we pay. It has a huge impact in terms of health care. People with substance abuse problems, if they enter the hospital for another difficulty, end up staying twice as long as people without substance abuse problems.

Harney: Art, do you have any statistics on the number of people that come in for help on their own that stay and complete the program?

Schut: Yes. Actually, we are very fortunate by being in Iowa City because people like to do research. In fact, the problem we have in life is selecting who and turning people down, which is nice. So, we have been the site of several funded studies done by the National Institute of Drug Abuse and the Center for Substance Abuse Treatment. We actually have about 55% of folks who successfully complete, which is consistent with the national statistics. There is not any significant difference between people who are voluntary and people who aren’t. People who aren’t voluntary do a little bit better than people who are. It’s because people who aren’t voluntary have to persist and stay connected and stay involved and people who are voluntary, sometimes when the immediate crisis subsides, may decide I have enough for right now and then don’t complete.

Lehman: That is an amazing number. The Jail Task Force we heard a quote that people for alternatives and trying to rehabilitate and stuff, how hard it is for you as an individual to change your habit. Dieting or just a little habit during the day, things you try to do, what’s your success rate, what are these people faced with and what their success rate is. Any success is considered very good.

Schut: It is extremely difficult. There is actually quite a bit of literature comparing. Substance abuse, diabetes, and asthma and hypertension are all very similar in terms of requiring the behavioral cooperation of the patient in order to overcome the difficulty. The asthma folks and hypertension, the people who deal with asthma, hypertension and diabetes are looking at substance abuse treatment techniques to help increase their outcomes because our outcomes all run at about the same percentage in terms of the cooperation of the patient then and avoiding relapse.

Lehman: When these individuals come to you, do they stay with you? They’re not like a doctor’s appointment, they’re not coming back and forth to you.

Schut: About 80% of the people that we see, we see on our outpatient basis. We may see those people daily or we may see those people eventually once a month. The other 20% of the people that we see, we see in some kind of a sheltered 24-hour setting, be that primary residential, which is like inpatient or Halfway or some transitional care setting.

Lehman: I think the difficulty would be you’re trying to counsel people but they go back to a different environment…

Schut: It’s very difficult.

Lehman: …for them to adapt and change their lifestyle.

Schut: Yes, they have to… People don’t normally develop alcohol and drug problems quickly. They tend to gradually occur over time and they tend to end up involved with other people who also have problems. So, they have to change their entire lives and it is difficult.

Harney: Thank you Art. It was very informative.

Schut: Thank you. Thanks for the opportunity. It was nice to see you.

Harney: Next item of Business is from Jim Schintler, an update on the Senior Center.

Senior Center Commission Member Jim Schintler: Good morning.

Harney: Morning.

Stutsman: Morning.

Schintler: Jim Schintler with the Johnson County Iowa City Senior Center. I guess I would first start off, have any of you received your Post yet? I didn’t receive one. I stopped into the Senior Center and I guess they had several problems. One main one was printing and as a result it isn’t out yet. But in it, it has a draft of the proposed budget concerns for FY 04. I will not go into detail on it, but maybe highlight some of it and then if you have questions, I will try to answer those. As you know, we are having, I guess I wouldn’t want to say problems, but having concerns funding the deficit for our Senior Center for FY 04. The Commission has come up with a plan, a short-term plan and a long-term plan to help fund this. As it stands right now, we are assuming that you are going to propose a Block Grant of $75,000. Is that correct?

Stutsman: That is what was included in the budget.

Schintler: Yes, OK. By the way, Carol, since you are not on the Senior Center Commission Board anymore, I don’t have you to fall back on for my senior moments. But, anyway, getting back to the plan, to highlight it, first I guess I would like to say that there have been many people working on this. In addition to the Commission, we’ve had the 3 advisory committees working on this. Robert Welsh with the Johnson County Task Force on Aging has provided a lot of material. So, in addition, we have had extra meetings. It is a high priority thing for us to handle to come up with the approximately 9% shortfall. It is pretty much agreed upon by everyone that has been working on this, that some form of fee will have to be charged at the Senior Center. The vast majority of the people want to keep that low and it has been kind of suggested around $10 per year, which doesn’t begin to cover what we need. The Commission’s proposal, and it is just a proposal at this time, we are suggesting $25 per year for Iowa City residents. For the County it would be doubled to $50 and then for out of County it would be $100. Presently we do not charge for class fees. If there is a class fee it is going to the instructor for his fee and/or materials. So, we are thinking, down the line we’ll probably have to have a class fee also to help fund. We are exploring many other options, from basically trying maybe to rent out some of our building for meetings to other people to scholarship type programs where you could try to help fund some of the operational…so someone could belong. You need to clarify that a little bit. Help someone who isn’t able to support their own fee, so we would have a structure somehow to help support that. I won’t go into all of the details here. Hopefully you will be getting your Post shortly and can go through it. Like I said, we have short-term and long-term plans. Several other things, we’re going to try to do a better marketing of our Senior Center and that sort of thing. Does anyone have any questions that I could try to answer at this time? By the way, the public meeting is March 10th at 2:00 at the Senior Center Assembly Room. Are there any questions that I could hopefully answer?

Stutsman: This public meeting is to talk about the proposal?

Schintler: Yes, it will be to discuss the proposal. Then, the Commission will meet at their formal meeting and probably incorporate any changes if there are changes. From there on it will go to the City Council and back to your Board for review.

Thompson: I noticed at one of the public meetings there was a suggestion that some people would contribute more voluntarily.

Schintler: Yes, that is one of the ideas that we had. There would be basically a fee structure and then anything beyond that fee structure that you’d want to contribute would be a tax deductible item, if you are listing tax deductible items.

Harney: Jim, how does the Senior Dining Program going? Is that still maintaining?

Schintler: I think there has been an improvement. From the people I talk to things are going good and just recently, I think we finally have a signed draft of the agreement with the people running the Dining Program. There are still a few minor things in limbo on ownership of various things. But, I think, according to Jay Honahan, we’ll get those ironed out.

Harney: Thank you.

Schintler: The only thing I might add here in closing is if somewhere in a dark, dusty corner you have another $25,000 lying around, we would certainly like to add it to the $75,000 that hopefully we are getting. The reason for that is if we could increase anything here to help keep the dues structure down. Of course, there are a lot of unknowns here for this coming year. We will definitely be far more intelligent next year as to where we are at. We are anticipating possibly a 40% drop in our membership, just due to having to go on a fee basis. So, if we can somehow manage to drop our fee schedule down a little bit, that would help. That is the number one complaint that I think we have is the fee structure. We do have anyone over the age of 85 would be no fee. Originally we wanted to do it as over 80 and we went to the figures of the people that belonged to the Senior Center from age 80-85 is quite large. So, if we deleted those people from a fee structure, it would really hurt our budget. So, unfortunately we’ve had to arrive at the 85 years of age and older. Thank you.

Harney: Thank you.

Thompson: Thanks.

Harney: Next item of Business is from Joan VandenBerg, Youth and Family Development Coordinator for Iowa City Community School District.

Iowa City Community School District Youth and Family Development Coordinator Joan VandenBerg: Thanks for your time this morning. I’m with the school district and I also want to introduce my entourage here. This is Sandy McFarland, a parent from Hills. This is Becky Ertle, our guidance Counselor at Hills. This is Chris Roblisky and she’s our 21st Century Learning Center Director. Jessie Montgomery is our Family Outreach Coordinator who really would have liked to have been here this morning, but she has a sick child, so she said to call her if you have questions for her specifically. So I think your all pretty familiar with Hills. But just to give you a little bit of background, Hills Elementary serves both the Hills Community and also the outlying rural areas, Lake Ridge Trailer Park and Regency Trailer Park. So about 30% of the kids come from Hills proper and the other 70% from the surrounding area. It’s about 50% of the students attending Hills are on the free reduced lunch. Right now our enrollment is right around 250 children. There are unique challenges, serving kids in rural areas and families that just don’t have the same access to resources in Iowa City that the schools that we have in town have. So in 1995, we established the Family Resource Center. That was through a State grant and the whole purpose of that was to provide some additional support to families and also link them to those other County services that we have. That program has been very successful. We’ve also been able to expand. In 1999 we were able to add Empowerment Program Services to reach families with very young children, birth through 5. Then also the real big coup, in 1999 we also received a Federal 21st Century schools grant. This Federal grant allows us to extend the school day and extend the school year. So that has been $200,000 for the past 3 years, which has been kind of like a dream. It’s not usual that we have that kind of money to work with in a program like this. What we’ve really been able to do with that is provide more individualized attention to students after school, both dealing with academic and social skills. So there’s some tutoring things. We also have kind of a theme to give children background knowledge to introduce them to things that maybe they haven’t had the opportunity to do. So something that has been very popular is going out to the McBride Field campus because many of the kids never knew that that existed. Also doing some enrichment things like art has been very popular, drama has been very popular. So it’s just kind of expanding those experiences that the children have. So today we are coming to you because we need support to keep this program going. We have the opportunity to apply for another 21st Century schools grant, but it’s to the State of Iowa. So unfortunately I think State bureaucracy has met Federal bureaucracy and we have a 112 page application to complete. Thankfully the district has to hire a professional grant writer to help us with this, but it’s very competitive because as you know there’s not very much State money at all for anybody to do this kind of work, so many, many districts are going to be going for this. We get points if we have local match, so we’re hopeful that the County can help us with some financial support so that we can get those extra points. It’s not a requirement to have a match, but it will certainly make us more competitive. Also, even if we don’t get the grant, if we had that chunk of money, that would allow us to at least keep a smaller version of this program going. That we maybe won’t have $200,000, but $15,000 would allow us to hire a half time person, coordinate some volunteers and serve at least some of the children after school. I would be happy to answer any questions, but I thought before I would get to the questions part I would have Becky talk about the impact this program has had on the school and have Sandy talk from a perspective of a parent of how it’s helped her.

Hills Guidance Counselor Becky Ertle: I cannot say enough positive things about this program as far as the extra benefits that the children get by the extended day program. One of my main concerns of course as a counselor is always safety. I think that’s true of any school, that their primary concern is safety. Certainly the added time of children being at school under direct supervision of teachers and the volunteers that we have also provides, number one, and in addition, then there’s the fun part. The fun parts are that it really is a great way to add enrichment to children who haven’t had different experiences in life. That could be anybody’s child. I’m teaching sewing right now and apparently they haven’t had that experience. There’s all types of experiences that the children are able to chose from and participate in. One of the major things that I really want to emphasize is how it benefits all economic classes and socioeconomic classes of children because it’s open to everyone. There is not fee at this time. The biggy for us, being a rural school, is that there’s transportation provided. So that really does mean it’s available to everyone, which many programs, that’s the big hang-up; getting children there and getting them back with working parents. As a counselor also, I’m particularly away of how this offers a service for families who are having, particularly the older children, that when do you stop babysitting and when do you start them on their own. So we really attract a lot of the latchkey children and provide a lot of the safety for them that I’m particularly interested in. Then if you go to statistics, you’ll know that between 4:00 and 7:00 for these age children are the times that they tend to get in trouble when they’re not supervised perhaps closely enough, perhaps parents are coming and going from work, would like to be there but they just can’t be. So this covers that time period up until about 5:00 usually and sometimes even later with the transportation involved. So I just can not say enough positive things about how this program has benefited our children. It also allows teachers to be involved with children in a different way. I think it promotes some bonding and some emotional support that carries over to their daytime teaching. We also have the advantage of volunteers from the community, particularly from students to come down and be exposed to the children’s programs and promote their volunteerism. I think you can never get enough volunteerism, so that’s another benefit.

Stutsman: How do you provide transportaiton?

VandenBerg: We got a van which is ours to keep. So that’s the good news too. We don’t have to think about the transportation. We have that.

Sandy McFarland: Hi. I have 3 kids at Hills right now. They are all participating in these after-school programs. They are so wonderful. The kids want to participate in more of the programs than they’re able to because of how many kids want to participate in the programs. The class size is limited, which I feel is really good because the attention paid to them is so much more individual. The kids have gained an even more deep sense of community and love of the school. They’re there longer. They’re getting to know the teachers better, having the contact with the college students that come in and volunteer. They’re great mentors for the kids. I have one of my daughters, well all 3 of the kids just love the science explorer programs. Anything to do with science. One of them in particular has excelled so much. She had an interest in science before, but when she started taking science explorers, now when they do something in there, she comes home and works on it more. She works on it in the van. She works on it in the weekends. So she’s spending more time reading doing that. Her computer skills with working on these papers to present, which it’s an after-school program, it’s an enrichment program and yet it’s re-enforcing what she’s getting during the daytime. The kids are willing to try different things. My 7-year-old son is doing sewing right now and he loves it. I thought he might say, "sewing?" but he loves it. The kids seem to all embrace these programs and they have a chance to not only learn new things, but get involved in programs that they may already have a talent in, so it helps boost their self-esteem. I don’t know what else to say. I love it. I suppose I should address the Tuesday night, the family night. Is that part.

VandenBerg: Sure, it’s part of the whole package.

McFarland: The Tuesday nights are something that comes about through the Family Center. It’s an opportunity for families to get together, sit down, not have to prepare a meal because the meal is already prepare. We have a chance to visit in a relaxed way with each other, which is sometimes hard to do when you’re working full time and you have kids. It’s kind of hard to find that time to visit with other parents and the kids are being supervised. We also have that chance to do stuff with the kids there because there’s crafts and it’s fun to do those with the kids. Then we’ll have game nights. It’s just a really nice relaxed evening for a family to spend together. Then I’ve referred numerous parents, especially single parents, that are needing help finding resources maybe because they can’t pay the bill, they’re homeless, they need clothes, they need support, to Jessie Montgomery in the Family Resource Center. She’s wonderful. She goes out and pays home visits on a regular basis and even evaluates the younger kids before they even enter school. I just think both of these programs are just really wonderful. I love Hills elementary and I know part of it is because of these programs.

VandenBerg: Just in closing, I want to thank the County for the support you're already giving us at Hills. The City of Hills applied for a grant to match what they give. So the City of Hills gives $6,000 to the program and then you all match that. I think you clearly have understood the unique challenges of working in rural communities. We’re just interested in keeping going what we’ve got and to continue to hook families up to each other and to the resources in the larger Johnson County area.

Harney: You mentioned Joan, that the grant would be for $150,000 over the next 5 years. Is that $150,000 a year?

VandenBerg: $150,000 a year, so it’s big money. This could be seen as an opportunity to leverage those additional dollars.

Thompson: What are you asking for from us.

VandenBerg: $15,000. 10%.

Harney: That’s one time.

VandenBerg: Yes. Other questions.

Stutsman: When are you needing this money. Is it this fiscal year or it just depends?

VandenBerg: No, our grant application is due in April. We’ll find out in May. So this would be for the fiscal year beginning July 1st.

Stutsman: So the question becomes where do we come up with these additional dollars. I know Jeff is here.

Budget Coordinator Jeff Horne: To include it in next year's budget at this point, you would have to take it from somewhere else within the service area. It would fall from the Health and Human Services service area. Otherwise your other option would be to wait until the year starts and amend it.

Stutsman: From the ending year balance?

Horne: Assuming that we have balances. It's not in our General Fund a lot a sizeable amount in and of itself. But that would be your other option. To do it now, you'd have to tell me on Monday, give me direction on Monday to make that change.

Stutsman: In the service area. We can't increase what we've already…

Horne: You'd have to take it from else in the Health and Human Services Area.

VandenBerg: Does the fact that it's rural… I don't know enough about your budget…does that make any difference.

Harney: No. What has happened, the budget has been published. We can't increase our budget. We can lower it, but we can't increase it.

Lehman: We can move line items if it's in the same service area. If we add to one we're going to have to take it from another.

Horne: You couldn't use that from the rural side of the budget, because there would be kids from the cities that are also in the program. If there's any kind of mix-over, it would have to be strictly rural.

VandenBerg: Because the kids from Hills, they're considered to be City.

Horne: They are City.

Stutsman: Unincorporated. Little civic lesson here Joan.

VandenBerg: Well I plead ignorance totally.

Stutsman: Well I'll start by, I certainly have supported what they've done at Hills and the Board has been supportive over the years. The dilemma we face is we know we're in a tight budget year and we said no new projects. But then I look at the leveraging potential for this. I'm thinking well does this justify consideration of a new project. But then the other side, I'm sharing with you my thought processes, is where do we take the monies from. What other Human Service?

VandenBerg: That would be disturbing to me as well because we also collaborate with many of those same agencies. We work pretty closely with a number of them, so that's a tough dilemma to be in.

Stutsman: Have you approached the City of Hill for match funding?

VandenBerg: Well they are giving us $6,000. Kathy was going to explore, perhaps, a little bit more, but I don't know. I don't think they can do much more than $6,000.

Stutsman: Our $6,000 that we contribute…

VandenBerg: That will be, it's reflected in the program as well. So we'll put that in the grant.

Stutsman: Just these additional dollars.

VandenBerg: Right.

Lehman: Would it be the school systems themselves that are applying for this grant.

VandenBerg: Right. Well actually non-profits or school systems can apply for it, but you have to serve schools with more than 50% free and reduced lunch and you have to show academic achievement. So that non-profit would have to collaborate, at least, with the school.

Thompson: How many of those schools are there in Iowa?

VandenBerg: 300, which I was really shocked by, because I thought maybe 50. I think the level of poverty in Iowa is way more than…

Thompson: Gosh, that's sad isn't it.

VandenBerg: It is. I found that disturbing of how many there are. The other kind of advantage I think that we have, is that we do have a professional grant writer writing it, because there's some districts that just could not do this because it's such a complex application. In some ways that helps us because the district has agreed to hire someone to write it. The other thing I should mention is Twain Elementary is applying for the same grant.

Stutsman: Will they be coming to us for match dollars too?

VandenBerg: No. We went to the City. So Twain since it's in the City boundaries... If you would like to provide match to Twain they would certainly welcome that.

Stutsman: Well that's what I was thinking. You always think, does this set a precedence and then will we be asked to provide match funding for other rural schools in the County too. I don't know if Lone Tree is applying for this.

VandenBerg: I don't think they're eligible because they have to be 50% free reduced lunch, school-wide Title One. I think in Johnson County, Hills and Twain would be the only 2 schools eligible because the other schools don't have the higher level of poverty.

Thompson: Well Hills certainly has proven it's worth over the years. There's no question about that.

Stutsman: I guess I would be supportive. I don't know, contingent on you getting the grant. If you don't get the grant, then I don't know if I'm as comfortable committing the $15,000 since this is taken out of our budget process and things. I do see an opportunity for $150,000 to be brought into the Community. I don't know if I can really ignore that and feel that would be a good use of taxpayers dollars.

Lehman: I don't know maybe, if Jeff or Joan might want to comment on what we're doing now for Neighborhood Resource. We are putting money in.

Horne: Yes, we have the matching funds that Joan was talking about for the different schools. Penn. Hills.

VandenBerg: Penn and Hills.

Horne: I think are the only 2 in the DHS for matching currently. You also have a block grant a general basic block grants for neighborhood centers.

Stutsman: So we could take this out of the DHS, Fund 45.

Horne: You could pay it out… It's not set up in the budget. You could certainly set it up in there.

Stutsman: OK.

Horne: I don't know the timing of the payments to the neighborhood centers out of there, are during the fiscal year off the top of my head. You would have some flexibility in that during the fiscal year next year in terms of being able to adjust. I think early in the year it's harder to amend because you don't see how your funds are coming in for that fiscal year yet in terms of your other outside revenues because basically you budgeted in our carry-over already so if you did it in July, that's when it's pretty tight. So if you had some flexibility in the timing of payments, where it could carry through somehow later it the year, it would be better.

Stutsman: You have to know by April. When is this submitted?

VandenBerg: Yes, it's due the first week in April.

Stutsman: Because I think I'd like to visit with Cheryl, because she's head of Budget 45 and see how she feels about maybe taking these dollars. See if there's flexibility within that budget.

Horne: I know she has some flexibility. There's a couple of payments they make later in the year.

Stutsman: That's what I'm saying. I think historically I think that budget has not used it's entire budget. Is that right Jeff?

Horne: Well they don't come up against it. I think they leave some contingency for assistance and things like that.

Stutsman: Well and that's taking that away, so that's why I want to consult with Cheryl. How does the Board feel?

Thompson: Actually I think it might be Kay's money that's often under-spent.

Stutsman: Well there's some childcare money in…

Horne: I'd have Cheryl comment on that specifically as to those issues.

Harney: Should we just have Jeff look into that and perhaps put it on the agenda for discussion next week.

Stutsman: Well is there enough interest in the Board to continue to pursue this. To look for that possibility.

Lehman: I think we need to be prepared. Hopefully it will get accepted. I think it's interesting discussion this morning. It went from youth to seniors. I think the public gets a pretty good indication of the gamete of priorities we have to do.

Stutsman: Throw in a little substance abuse there. There's lots of needs, lots of needs.

VandenBerg: That's right. You've got a tall order in front of you, that's for sure.

Harney: So it appears there consensus to put it on the meeting next week for discussion and perhaps Jeff can put some possibilities together for us.

Horne: I'll just consult with Cheryl basically. I'll get her feeling about it and report back to you.

VandenBerg: Anything else that you'd like for us to do. So we'll just come back next Thursday and see where we're at? OK. Well let us know if there's something else we need to do. Thank you very much.

Thompson: Next week's meeting is in the evening.

VandenBerg: Oh, OK. So what time is it.

Stutsman: 5:30.

Reverend Bob Welsh: Would it be next week or would it be your budget hearing on Monday.

Stutsman: Well this would be outside the budget hearing, so it would be next week.

VandenBerg: So next week Thursday at…

Harney: We'll have to check, why don't you give Mike a call.

Stutsman: 5:30.

Harney: We begin at 5:30, but we have a lot of things on the agenda, so he may be a better time to be here.

Sullivan: But if you're on the formal agenda, you'll probably one of the first items after your normal formal business.

Stutsman: I think it's still under informal isn't it. Because there'd still be the 27th, before the first of April to vote on a formal or would we even have to vote on it formal.

Horne: You wouldn't have to vote on it. I just think you have to find out if you have the flexibility through Cheryl.

Stutsman: If not from Cheryl then where is there is…

Horne: It's the Board's choice ultimately, but Cheryl can certainly give her thoughts on it and report back. We can have some pretty good time at the 27th, at least to give them by April 1st.

VandenBerg: Great. Well thanks for your consideration.

Harney: Thank you Joan.

Harney: Next item is business from the County Engineer. Good morning Mike.

County Engineer Mike Gardner: Good morning.

Stutsman: Morning.

Gardner: The first item, we sent out bid documents for our calcium chloride letting this year. We sent them out to 7 suppliers. We opened the bids this past Tuesday, the 4th, at 10:00. This is for the application of the calcium on the County roads for our safety program, is basically what it covers. Those are the roads that we shoot dust control on at the County’s expense. Basically, it is limited to the roads that are carrying 150 vehicles a day or more. We shoot the calcium at bridge approaches, intersections, rural residential driveways, hills, horizontal curves where there is limited sight distance and those types of things. This year we received 4 bids, but 3 of them we were not able to read them. 2 of them did not include a proposal guarantee with them and a 3rd wasn’t received until after the 10 a.m. deadline. So, we were only able to read one bid for this letting. That bid was submitted by Binns and Stephens of Oskaloosa, Iowa. Their bid was 60.9 cents per gallon for the calcium. I did email everybody copies of the bid tab for this. Did everybody get one? OK.

Stutsman: How does this compare to last year as far as the price?

Gardner: Last year it was 57.9 cents, so that is about a 5% increase over last year. We were anticipating 3-4%.

Stutsman: When you say you couldn’t read the other bids, what does that mean?

Gardner: They were required to submit a proposal guarantee, which basically guarantees that they are going to stick with their bid and sign a contract if the Board awards it. So, we require that they submit that with the bid to give us a little protection in those situations. 2 of them did not include that.

Stutsman: Did they just forget or they just didn’t?

Gardner: I am not sure. This is the first time Johnson County has gone through the formal bidding process for this program. I don’t know. The 2 that didn’t include were not local.

Stutsman: Were they a lot lower than this?

Gardner: I didn’t even look at them.

Harney: The one that was late, did you look at it?

Gardner: I did not open that one at all. I am not sure what time it came in, but we checked right at 10:00 and it wasn’t there. The Auditor’s Office received it, but it was later in the day.

Thompson: That would be part of the bidding process wouldn’t it be, to not look at the ones that do not fulfill the initial requirements.

Gardner: That is correct. We opened them because we had to see if the check was in there or not. But, we did not read them.

Lehman: Just for clarification, this is the first time you’ve done bidding. Before, you just asked for quotes.

Gardner: That is correct, in the past.

Stutsman: Just for my information, are these rules set out in the Code for Secondary Roads? I know we’ve had other bidding things where we’ve looked at all of the bids that come in later.

Assistant County Attorney Janet Lyness: It’s in the bidding proposal. So, it’s like, whatever the rules are for this particular bidding.

Stutsman: But who makes up those rules?

Gardner: We did. We used typical for what our contracts are for letting like DOT projects and that is required on those.

Stutsman: All right. I was just getting a handle if these rules are applied to every bidding situation.

Thompson: There is a difference between a formal bidding and a request for proposals, which can be a little looser. But, it applies (inaudible) stuff.

Stutsman: You know what I am getting at. I am getting at FinCore. Why were those opened up, but that was a request for a proposal.

Thompson: That was a request for a proposal.

Stutsman: OK.

Lehman: Did our gallons, are they increasing? Did we ask you to look at a couple of different roads or did your traffic significantly?

Gardner: We are still working off of the 1998 DOT Traffic Count Map. We are using the same map that we had last year, except that we won’t have the detour up at Solon this year. But, we may have one down on the Lone Tree Project if that gets going in time. So, that will probably be a trade off. I did talk to the DOT a couple of weeks ago and they are anticipating getting the 2002 counts out, probably some time in May. So, we may be at our 2nd application and be looking at some additional roads that are going to come under the program.

Lehman: For any residents out there that do not fall under the coverage now, they are going to be able to contract through you with the companies, but this amount here does not include any of that material?

Gardner: That is correct. We do have a separate program, that we aren’t involved with other than just approving the applicators, that rural residents are able to contract directly with the supplier. There are several of them that are out there that supply either calcium chloride or lignin sulfinate, which is the tree sap. So, they have that option and the prices are set by the companies and they work directly with the residents.

Stutsman: I notice your estimate is about $2,000 less. I’m assuming you have money in the budget. What are out choices here? To open up the bids again and they might even be higher the next time around because of the oil crisis or uncertainty.

Gardner: That is possible. I think we were a little earlier in getting this out this year, so I think we may have… The later you get, their workload fills up. My recommendation would be to go with Binns and Stephens. We’ve worked with this company in the past and they are a reputable company. We have not had any problems with them in the past. They have been real easy to work with. If there have been any problems, they have worked with us on them. So, that would be our recommendation.

Thompson: Will this be on for next week then?

Harney: Yes, put that on for next week. I am much more comfortable with you sending out for bids, even though they didn’t come back as we’d like where you couldn’t open those. At least they’ve had the opportunity to bid on those.

Thompson: Do you talk with all of them so they know that next year they have to follow the rules?

Gardner: Yes, we will send out a bid tabulation and state what the circumstances were this time. So, that should bring that to their attention.

Lehman: In informal bidding you either have to hand deliver it and have it stamped time or it has to arrive in the mail by a certain time. That was the factor on some of these.

Thompson: It’s either there or it’s not there.

Harney: Next item is the bid for the seeds.

Gardner: OK. This one we had a little better luck with the bidders following the rules anyway. We sent out bid documents to 9 suppliers. We actually received 6 bids with the seed thing. It was opened up on Tuesday at 10:15. I emailed everybody a copy of that as well. The low bid on the seed was Mark Seed out of Perry, Iowa. I feel that it is a fairly competitive bid. When you look at the 3 lowest were all within $380 of each other. So, that is a pretty tight group of bids right there.

Stutsman: This is my personal opinion. We don’t have to take the low bid on this do we?

Gardner: I believe we do.

Lyness: You do. It was in the bidding proposals.

Stutsman: It was. All right. I am always disappointed when the bids are this close and we award it to somebody outside of Johnson County, who is not paying property taxes. It is just a personal thing I have that I feel if a business is paying property taxes, then I think they have a priority in my mind. I support local businesses.

Gardner: I know we had this discussion a few years back and considered putting some type of an incentive in that the local people would be given an incentive. At that time it was decided that we weren’t going to do that. So, the bid documents this time did state that we would take the low bid.

Lehman: As long as the other criteria was met as far as germination and delivery times.

Gardner: That is correct.

Thompson: Have we worked with this company before?

Gardner: We have. It’s been a couple of years, but we have worked with them.

Thompson: Was it satisfactory before?

Gardner: In the end, yes.

Stutsman: In the end.

Gardner: We had a little problem. They wanted to deliver more material than we had room to store, but we pointed out that the bid documents told them that and so they had to abide by the rules and those same rules are in effect right now.

Harney: We’ll put that on next week then as well.

Stutsman: So, then the Board… Well, we have to go with them.

Thompson: There again, that is a little bit more than the estimate. Is the money OK in your budget?

Gardner: Yes. These are just estimated quantities. So, we can reduce the quantities so we can keep it within the budget. These are estimates that we have to come up with right now or at the time we sent the bid documents out. It’s a best guess at what we are going to be using. But, we pay for what we actually take delivery on.

Lehman: Is this dollar amount usually a little lower? You had Mehaffey Bridge Road last year. Is this some follow up on that because we don’t have a major road construction project this year so we are spending less?

Gardner: That is right. If the project south of Lone Tree gets completed, then there will be about as much disturbed ground there as there was last year. I checked the bids. Where the difference was this year versus last year and the major increase was in the pasture seed mix. Chris is out of town right now at a conference, so I wasn’t able to discuss it with him. But, I did notice that he changed the mix on that. I don’t know if that influenced what the bid came in at, but that is what the estimate was based on, was last year’s bids. He felt that it was going to come in at about the same. It did come in a little higher.

Harney: Thanks Mike.

Harney: The next item is Business from Rick Havel, the GIS Coordinator, referencing a contract with Aerial Service Incorporated to provide ground control targeting flying and photography.

GIS Coordinator Rick Havel: Good morning.

Stutsman: Morning.

Havel: Basically, I want to talk about the project to collect photography for Johnson County. This has been researched over the last year starting in January, as far as basically identifying what products we needed, what type of services were required and assembling specifications to submit out requests for quotes throughout the year. In the beginning we requested prices from 3 companies, this was back in January, for photography for the County. Aerial Services came up with the lowest cost for that project and so we moved forward in working with them to define the more detailed project throughout the course of the year. In doing so, over the course of time, we’ve come up with new specifications, new items that we wanted to evaluate and consider within the contract. In doing so, it was tough to go back to other companies during that course of time and get additional quotes and additional prices. So, at this point in time we have broken the project up into 2 phases. The first phase, which would be to collect ground control, flying and the actual photography of Johnson County. The 2nd phase would be the higher cost item, which would be the actual processing of that photography into digital format. So, then it would be useful for software and computer applications and other utilities and uses. So, to jump back, I want to briefly explain what ortho photography is. Essentially, it’s the process in which aerial photography is corrected to compensate for distortions due to altitude of the aircraft and relief in the terrain of the surface of the earth. That process is the most costly part of this type of project. It’s labor intensive. It requires the service provider to create elevation models for each particular photo that they collect and use that model to rectify the image to make it more accurate and compensate for those distortions, such as angle of camera and so forth. So, that part of the project is in phase 2. To get photography for the spring of 2003, like I said, we broke it up. The initial product will be the collection of that photography and then we would send out our specs that we have come to collect at this point in time to other vendors to see if the prices that ASI have currently submitted are fair and competitive. Why are we doing this project? I think the need for it is great. Currently the Auditor’s Office is supplying the public with photography that is dated in 1992. It is in hard copy format, so it makes it very hard to get at. You have to actually go down to their office to see it and to review it. The products that we will be purchasing will be digital. They will be made available through many types of media and formats, one being the Internet. People will be able to log in and pull up these photos through the Internet. It will be available through hard copy. It will still be available through that format if needed to facilitate other uses and users. So, if they don’t have Internet access they will still be able to come in and review and get a hold of that data. How it will benefit the County? I think the public will be getting better access to this information, these photos. The Assessors will use it for building and permit tracking and ag land assessment activities and for other activities as well. The Attorney’s Office will use it for trial maps, if needed. Property map maintenance by the Auditor’s, public meetings for the Board of Supervisors, Conservation in regards to wildlife areas and parks. Planning for Emergency Management, wetland identification for mosquito control efforts from Health, permit and public notification for Planning & Zoning, road plot project planning and public education for Secondary Roads and assistance for developing a road center line data base to assist in Phase II compliance for 911 applications by the Sheriff’s Office and other agencies. So, it will help us to develop that information.

Thompson: Excuse me Rick. I wanted to mention to the Board that yesterday, at Rick’s Advisory Board Meeting, the roads person mentioned that they can use this photography to do the feasibility study so they won’t have to pay twice for that. So, that will help us out in that area.

Havel: Good point. Also, I’ll jump back for a second. As Carol stated, we reviewed this project in a GIS Committee that met yesterday and it was unanimously approved. The funding for this project has already been put in place. The County Assessor allocated $100,000 in FY 03 and an additional $50,000 in FY 04 for this photography. The Board of Supervisors have approved an allocation of $100,000 from the GIS budget in FY 03 to assist in this project as well. That money can be carried over and when it’s needed a budget amendment, if approved, can be put into place to carry that money over.

Harney: There was another, I believe last month, E911 Board approved $30,000 towards GIS for tracking cellular telephone services for emergency calls. So, you will be getting that as well.

Havel: Great. That sounds good. So, moving down, they will be flying the project in either late March or probably April. That is the 2 windows of opportunity, dependent on weather. There are stipulations as far as what type of environmental conditions have to be during flights, such as no snow, no clouds, and so forth. That was all specked out in the initial proposal. Like I said, we have done research for this. I’ve talked to several different vendors. I’ve talked to several different experts that are unbiased and they agree that the project, as we have specked it out is very good and will produce a very useful product for the County. As far as selecting ASI for this Phase I, they are a very reputable company. They are used widely throughout Iowa. They currently conducted and completed a project with Iowa City and Coralville for photography that is dated at 2001, that is currently becoming available and that project is near completion. The Phase I of this project will also include a detailed review of the products received from Aerial Services. The cost of that is not yet determined but it is going to be approximately $5-10,000. That is my initial estimate. We’ll be requesting some quotes for service providers to do that for us beyond ASI. So, ASI would not actually conduct any QAQC, we would have that specked out to a different company. The 2nd Phase, like I said before, is the digital processing of this photography. It’s the big ticket item. That is why we have broken it up into 2 segments, since we’ve over the last few months come to the specs that we are currently at. To get the photography flown in a timely fashion we have decided to go with ASI and move forward with that project. In terms of funding, our intent is to exhaust the Assessor’s funds of $150,000 over the course of this project before utilizing the additional funds that the GIS budget has put into place and that has been agreed to by the County Assessor.

Thompson: What was the cost of Phase I again?

Havel: Phase I, I’m sorry I didn’t get that put in there. It was $45,000 for flying the photography and providing the necessary ground control. Once again, the additional part of that will be the review of that product that we receive. Essentially what we will get from them is hard copy contact prints of each photo frame that they take. Those pictures will be reviewed, and my opinion or my preference would be by an expert to insure the quality of the data before it goes on to the 2nd Phase, which is the processing. Once that happens, my intent is to have digital versions of this software by the end of this year. It will more likely take until the end of December to start receiving or to have the full package received. Basically, as far as my recommendation for this project is the County Assessor, I would recommend that they enter into this contract to start this project and get it rolling.

Harney: There are various detail or levels of the photography. What level are we looking at here?

Havel: The 2nd to the last page, I think everybody just make sure I had supplied copies of the map. It should be on the 3rd page. That map of Johnson County shows the 2 phases of the 2 details of data. The gray areas, which include virtually all of the villages and all of the towns outside of Iowa City and Coralville and a major part of the North Corridor will be in what is called 100 scale ortho photography. That is a more detailed image. It will provide what is referred to as 6-inch pixel resolution, which provides a very fine picture. It will be flown at 4,800 feet in altitude. That altitude will be used Countywide. So, typically, vendors and companies like to go at 2 different altitudes, one for the rural areas and one for the urban areas, as I proposed, using the same altitude, which is the 4,800 foot at the entire County. One reason being because in the last year a new technology has evolved called airborne GPS. What that does is it attaches an actual geographical location to every picture that they take and it assists greatly in the amount of time to process that data, as far as rectifying it into geographical coordinates before the actual digital processing occurs. So, with that, we’re looking at approximately 1,200 photos for this project. So, that is a large amount of pictures to look at and to review. So, that process, that new technology which is being used by other vendors as well and other service providers, but it allows them to do lower flights and process that imagery quicker over time. So, it reduces the labor that is required. So, the advantage of doing that of flying the entire County at 4,800, what it allows us to do is to take photography that was processed to the 400 scale, which is the 2nd Phase or the 2nd product. So, we will receive 100 scale and 400 scale. The 400 scale is the rural areas. That’s out in the townships and out in the areas that are unpopulated or undeveloped. But, we can take that imagery, or those photos, and if we come back and say that we need an additional 100 scale accuracy and imagery, over time we can use that existing photography without having to go back and re-fly and process that into needed resolution and needed accuracy. So, flying it at, like I said, the 4,800 is a very good option that has recently become available.

Lehman: You said this includes all but it looks like Coralville and Iowa City and maybe some of the growth area. But that was done in 2001.

Havel: In 2001, yes.

Lehman: We are not duplicating anything.

Havel: We are not duplicating.

Lehman: They have been working with us real good, the other… Coralville and Iowa City have been real good sharing data.

Havel: Very well. We already have Coralville’s data and we will be receiving Iowa City’s data either this week or next week.

Lehman: But as those communities possibly annex out, we’ll have that data to share with them so it will be a benefit to everyone in the County.

Havel: Definitely. We will collect because they will actually go ahead and fly those areas, Coralville and Iowa City, at the 4,800 foot. So, they will collect photography for that area, but we won’t process that because it’s easy for them to do that. Plus, it gives us a complete snapshot of the County for 2003. But, we won’t need to process any 100 scale data for that area.

Lehman: I think your point is just in 2 years time, Iowa City and Coralville has changed quite a bit.

Havel: Definitely.

Lehman: If you’ve ever been up in an airplane over Iowa City and you see the rafters, the building projects and Coralville, too. Things change very rapidly.

Havel: Definitely.

Thompson: How often do we have to do this? When will we have to do it again?

Havel: It’s kind of based on need. Obviously the County hasn’t done it since 1992, but I think preferably, and we’ll look into this in more detail as far as how often, some counties do it every 2 years. Some counties don’t do it every 5 years. It’s kind of based upon verbal need. There is also times where you can do what is called offsetting years, such as, you do a detailed project like we are doing every 5 years. In the 3rd year, in between those 2 detailed projects, you do what is less expensive and it is basically just photography and that is slightly rectified or rectified enough so that it gets you a view of what is going on at that point in time. It is considerably cheaper and it is not as…so you don’t have to go through the full processing that is required but you still get a snap shot. You couldn’t use it for detailed mapping, but it is good enough that you can see change and detect change or kind of evaluate that over time. Also, this project is kind of the first one for Johnson County. So, our options are to just update certain areas over time and not do a complete Countywide coverage. That is the options at hand. So, we can come back in and say, let’s not do the entire County but just an additional area of the North Corridor area and center in on that. So, the idea is, this project gives us a complete coverage for the County to start from. Then, over time we can update it as needed or do additional reflies down the road.

Lehman: The first phase is having the photography done and reviewing it. The second phase will be processing it. You're talking about 1,200 photos. What's the timetable of actually having all these or the majority of them into usable form?

Havel: My goal is to have everything into usable form by the end of this year. I think we definitely have time to select requests for quotes for the second phase and review the vendors… They won't be flying until April, so we won't probably see hard copy prints until May or June because this is the busiest time.

Lehman: It's hard to think how this all fits into place. You worry about, it's going to take you 2 years to process, well they're out of date by that time.

Havel: No, we'll get it by the end of this year. Maybe early 2004, but we'll definitely get it in, in a timely fashion so we can use it.

Lehman: Well it's nice to see… Was it 4 years ago we started budgeting for this? There was a lot of skepticism about what we were going to come out of this. I think you've been onboard for approximately 2 years now under the guidance of Jean Schultz in Information Services, had great support from the other departments. I think we're starting to see the fruits of the labor now of how the public's going to be able to use it. We've heard from private engineers, contractors, realtors. They're all going to benefit from this and the public too, their time savings, their lower fees possibly that their going to be charged to research this data. Pat had mentioned about the 911 efficiency effectiveness and Carol had said this is going to be a savings to our Secondary Roads in doing some of their roads projects. So it's all starting too come back and the dividends are going to be seen here.

Havel: Definitely. I'm getting a lot of support by the departments as far as their acceptance of this technology and their willingness to take it on.

Lehman: They're going to be able to use it. That's the thing. It's not going to just lay there. They're going to be able to use it for their projects that they need to do.

Havel: Exactly, so it's been a team effort I feel definitely. I could not do what's been done by myself. I think there's a lot of people beyond me that deserve credit for keeping this going by providing support for me and participating in the GIS Committee and those type of decisions and taking time. It's definitely an investment in time and money. I think it's a worthwhile investment and I think it's definitely going to start paying off. We have plans and goals to get a public Internet mapping web application out by this year, preferably by early summer. We have the technology in place. There's just some additional issues we need to resolve before that occurs. We have an internal web application right now that's function and available to the public. There's 2 computers specifically set up in the Auditor's Office to facilitate that need and request. Over time we'll see that more and more common I think, especially as the public has access to that information through the Internet, you're going to see a drastic reduction in counter traffic to the departments. So the efficiency of those departments should increase because they'll be serving less people at the counter as this data serves people at their desktops.

Lehman: How are we doing on our checklist. Has the County Attorney seen this contract yet?

Havel: Yes.

Thompson: Well the good news is we don't have to do a contract because the Assessor's money will pay for this. So this is really just to inform the Board.

Havel: But the Attorney's Office has reviewed the contract. Andy Chappell reviewed it and the only question he had is they require a $12,500 deposit and it's supposedly non-refundable. So before we sign it, we'll get some more clarification on that.

Lehman: They've got to buy film and pay for fuel for the plane.

Havel: Yes, but it is… For the majority function part of this, it's an Assessor contract more than a Board of Supervisors contract so that the Assessor will enter in to, at least the first phase of it for the most part, but they will be paying for the majority of this project.

Harney: Thank you.

Havel: Thank you.

Harney: Move that on to next week then for official or do we need to…

Thompson: No, we don't really have to take action because the Assessor's going to do the contract. That will save the County's money for other costs of the projects like the road center line that we were talking about. So that will help us.

Harney: Next item is from Jeff Horne the Budget Coordinator referencing the monthly report for February 2003.

Horne: The end of February marks the 2/3 mark of the year. Expenditures and revenues should be around 67%. Departments are doing an outstanding job keeping within budget this year. There's really no issues, very few issues rather, with department spending that's going above the targets. Revenues still continuing to come in at a very good rate. I'll give a summary of a few departments that have some items of note this month. The County Attorney's Office has had some problems in terms of the division of their payroll among their 2 services areas. I've talked to the County Attorney about this. I'm going to assist him in, for instance, he's allocated all of some of his administrative staff to the public safety function when in reality that should be split out some more between the civil or inter-program function and the public safety. So I'm going to work with him to resolve that issue. If you look at their overall budget, they are on track for budget, but there's a service area problem within it. The Medical Examiner, the Medical Examiner's Office is 12% below its expenditure budget through February. This reflects the sharing arrangement that we have now with the University of Iowa really coming online. The physicians, I noticed, are using fewer hours and more administrative function is being completed by the field investigators. That's what we envisioned and that results in savings because the hours we pay the investigators are less costly than the hours we pay the physicians to cover this. I think you'll see the lowering of the budget in fiscal year 2004 that further reflects that. That should be pretty steady as time goes on. The Recorder's Office has now exceeded 100% of it's budgeted revenue for the year. I previously stated that this was due to the recording of instruments, documents, real estate documents, documents like that etceteras, at higher than normal levels caused by growth in the County and the low interest rates. We've already re-estimated the revenues up as we look at our 2004 budget that will allow us to lower tax askings in next year's budget somewhat. Mental Health/Developmental Disabilities is at 61% of expenditures and in the month of February it exceeded 100% of its expenditures. That shows me that the Department is making an effort to catch up on it's billings and is getting more close to being within the range where we'd like to see it. That's getting much closer to the targeted area.

Thompson: Are you able to project how much will be left at the end of the year, cash basis.

Horne: A little over a million dollars. That's what we're currently projecting. Of course that depends on what happens in the last few months will have a big impact. It's a large budget. You can have some fluctuations that affect that a few hundred thousand dollars each way. Veterans Affairs is right on budget at 67%. I talked to the director and he's aware of his limits on the budget this year and plans on staying within them. There should be no need for an amendment this year for that department. Those are the only departments that really have items of note. Everyone like I said is doing a pretty good job and being very aware of our budget situation. The County budget, I just have a few notes here, for Fiscal Year 2004 is nearly completely. The budget's been published in the local newspapers, North Liberty, Solon, Lone Tree and the Iowa City Press-Citizen. The public hearing is going to be on Monday March 10th, coming up at 5:00 p.m. I wish to note that if the Board wishes to make changes within the Fiscal Year 2004 budget, it would have to lower funds from one item to add to another and both items have to be within the same service area. Publications for the budget amendment are going out again for next week. The public hearing for that is going to be on March 27th. It's going to be basically the same one again that we had the newspaper problem with before without any changes. I've been working with Tony Roetlin from Springstead regarding the issuance of the debt. We have a resolution for the public hearing on March 27th, along with the notice of publication to go to the newspapers. That resolution for the public hearing will be on next week's agenda. Then after that the bids will be taken just after that, March 13th to Wednesday March 26th from the banks. Then we'll report back to you on March 27th. Tom Kriz will be involved with that regarding what kind of response we got.

Harney: Would you explain that a little further for the public by what you mean by the debt.

Horne: Sure. What we found in the budget because we have a large amount of TIF areas in the County and because interest rates are historically very low levels that it was more effective for the taxpayers to use a debt service levy for certain items that we're allowed to use it for under the Iowa Code. These are, basically it's short-term debt. It's paid off within the next fiscal year. It isn't long term debt like a Capital project or anything like that. It's simply allowing us, shifting it into a larger levy, spreading out the tax base further thus lowering the cost of these items per taxpayer in the County. The banks, we're hoping the local banks will bid on this similar to what we did last year and that we'll be able to reach an agreement with one of them and proceed that way rather than having to go to an open bonding market. It's about $3.6 million dollars. Finally Johnson County's financial health is very good. I think if you look at in the context of nationwide, we're primarily a property tax based government and not subject to fluctuations in sales tax or other taxes, which can have wild swings and are notoriously difficult to predict. There will be some cuts in some classes of real estate in next year's budget and modest increases below 1% in some others. This is well below the consumer price index rate of 2.6% from January 2002 to January 2003. That's my report.

Harney: Thank you Jeff. Next item, is there any business from the County Attorney?

Lyness: No.

Harney: Nothing. OK.

Harney: Business from the Board of Supervisors. First item is discussion/action needed reference setting a date for the joint informal meeting with the Johnson County Township Trustees and Clerks. Suggested the date and time be set for September 2nd, 2003 at 6:00. That will be at Montgomery Hall. Is that correct Mike?

Executive Assistant Mike Sullivan: Yes.

Lehman: We normally hold these every 2 years as elections come around and there's a change in some of the trustees and clerks. The County Attorney's Office normally does some review on what their duties and obligations are. It's basically a work session.

Stutsman: But the Board isn't putting this on, are we? It's usually Extension.

Lyness: Yes, it's usually Extension, County Attorney's Office, Mike I know you were there, I can't remember who else, and Jeff was there.

Lehman: We like to be there because we get a lot of questions from… I think we all try to attend.

Stutsman: Right, but it's not a meeting that… It's an informational meeting for the trustees.

Administrative Secretary Casie Parkins: We do an agenda.

Lyness: Well I guess there is I guess.

Parkins: We always do an agenda. I don't know. There have been times where you haven't all stayed, but Pat White has said since your all going to be there, it needs to be a Board meeting. I don't know if I did go last year, but I've been to about 3 of them I think. So I'll double check on that.

Sullivan: We have done agendas on Board letterhead in the past.

Lehman: I was trying to think if out Chair calls that meeting to order. Has it been that way in the past or not.

Stutsman: You know, maybe he does.

Lehman: So we do need to set an agenda in case there are 3 or more of us.

Sullivan: It's prepared.

Harney: Thank you. So we'll put that on for adoption for next week right.

Stutsman: We don't need to vote on that do we?

Lyness: No, it's just information. Right.

Sullivan: You're ready to go.

Harney: Next item is reports an inquiries from the Board. Terrence do you want to start?

Neuzil: Sure. Board of Supervisors. Been another fun and busy week as always. Getting a number of phone calls. I've been meeting with a number of people on 2 areas of particular interest. One is the area located near the cheese factory. I encourage people to continue to phone the Board of Supervisors or set up some meetings. We'd like to hear your concerns about that particular development that's going on down there. In addition the North Corridor continues to be a hot topic and I think it's real important for the Community to let the Board of Supervisors know what your feeling on that in the area of where you want roads to go, where you want development to occur. Like I said I've met with 6 different people this week, when it comes to those 2 issues. Had an opportunity to be the master of ceremonies for the Johnson County Cattleman's Association and their annual banquet this year. It was a real pleasure doing that and despite the pretty lousy weather and the snow that was coming down on Tuesday night they had over 200 people in attendance. I was informed that all 200 of them had 4-wheel drives so everything was fine with that. Tonight I'm going to be in the Community of Solon. The Solon Community School District is holding a government forum. I'll be working to represent the Board of Supervisors on that sharing, with that organization and the citizens of Solon in particular, issues concerning County government. Invited guests as well will include a number of the Iowa Legislators that should be in attendance as long as their session will end today and not go into tomorrow. Besides that it's been a busy week and I've been enjoying being a member of the Board of Supervisors and looking forward to Spring Break.

Harney: Sally?

Stutsman: No report this morning.

Harney: Mike?

Lehman: I might touch on a couple of things. Terrence and I last Thursday attended a presentation by John McGillicutty down in Hills. It was informative about the agricultural part of it. Trying to get Terrence adopted here a little bit on the farm background stuff, but like a lot of these things we all attend it gives us a chance to discuss things with, in this case, rural citizens that don't get to see these televised sessions. They always have questions of what we're working on. Things that may touch them or they all affect the budget and also affect them too. Last Friday morning, along with some of the other Board members here we attended a talk at the 4H grounds on Biomass. It was the use of alternative energy sources and here in Iowa we have such things as corn stalks, forrages, things like that that can be used. We've got them here at our disposal. Many of them are byproducts such as the cornstalks, but one of his points was the even crude oil that comes out of the ground has to be refined before it can be used in a finished product. Even like corn is used, alcohol is taken from corn. Syrup, stuff like that, for sweeteners. You still have the pulp and things that could be used for animal feeds or processed into other things. Even like soybeans are used for steering wheels in your cars. A lot of those come from the byproducts of soybeans. It's interesting, he's trying to share his vision of, people have to have a vision of an end use or a need, but there's a lot of research and technology that has to be done to get that. That creates jobs, stimulates an economy and stuff like that. But it's the fact that we have a lot of resources here that we need to tap into. We have the know-how here with the Universities that we have and some of the companies that are available here, they're looking for new fields to get into. I think here a week or so ago we talked about, we always do fireworks permits and I think on March 8th at Lone Tree Fire Station, you need to be certified or have someone that's certified in fire works. It's the PGI or the Pyrotechnic Guide International Inc. certification to do that and they'll be holding that on Saturday the 8th, from 8:30 to 4:30. If you're interested in that, Gene Zdrazil of the Stumptown Shooters, you can reach him at 319-629-5162 if you're interested in that. Like to congratulate the Regina girl high school basketball team. They compete in the State Tournament next Wednesday, I believe 1:00. The Secondary Roads did a tremendous job clearing the roads here on Tuesday, the snowfall we had. Also I believe Terrence, we have a birthday to congratulate you on.

Neuzil: Yes, I've got one tomorrow.

Lehman: He's marking off the calendar trying to get to the Senior Center discount.

Neuzil: That's right. I've got 17 more years to go, then I'll be eligible.

Lehman: That's all I have.

Harney: Carol?

Thompson: Well tonight I'm going to attend the League of Woman Voters' meeting at 7:00 at the Coralville Public Library. They're talking about economic development. They wanted to be filled in on what the County's doing in that area, so I'll be taking our draft to them. Last week I attended the MECCA Board meeting. For the second one. This is my second month and both months there have been good financial reports. I think that's a real relief for everyone. Also Sally you'll be interested to know that after the end of this fiscal year, the Federal fiscal year I mean, September, they won't be managing the STAR grant anymore. Terrence and I met with Lora last week for our regular HR meeting. Then on Friday, Mike and I met with Pat White at the County Attorney's Office about the MH/DD Audit workgroup. On Monday I attended the Senior High Alternative Center Advisory Committee that I'm a member of. Ever since I've been on the Committee, our meetings have been taken up with talking about over-crowding and how to make 4 classrooms do for 5 teachers and problems like that. This week we got to talk about what it will be like to be in a new building. It was really nice. Yesterday at the GIS Advisory Committee, I just wanted to mention to the Board, how extremely cooperative everyone has been. The Assessor has agreed to spend his money first because it's budgeted and isn't in a carry-over fund like our is. So that will really help us out. Also, Rick mentioned that there's a public safety foundation that might also be a source of funds for things having to do with 911. It's a foundation that cell-phone companies contribute to so it has a lot of money and distributes it nationwide. He's going to be applying for that to help with the center-line study. So that's all I have.

Harney: Thank you. I attended the East Central Iowa Council of Governments Board of Directors meeting in Cedar Rapids. A lot of discussion went on at that particular meeting. They set the one of the policies for staff responses to request from cities for letters of support for annexations. They kind of get caught in the middle when they have 2 cities asking or vying for the same properties. They were trying to decide how to address that. What they decided to do was give was give letters of support, but not necessarily provide support for one over the other, just that they meet the criteria and things like that. They also had a solid waste report and one of the points of interest in that is the recycling has really improved and they're concentrating on commercial businesses doing more on recycling. One of the real interesting areas was South Sioux City Nebraska. They've got a population of approximately 12,000 people and they administratively they're almost a completely paperless community. Everything is done by computer, the meters are read by computer. It cuts back on staff and paperwork. They've got also a policy where every child has access to a computer. They have 0% interest for families to obtain computers through their City. Real progressive in that particular area. There was a lot of discussion on STIR Iowa, the State Tax Increment Renewal. It eliminates 2,000 existing TIF districts and creates one Statewide TIF'ed area where those dollars would be distributed back into the areas into the schools, so there isn't such a loss of school revenue and some of the other supporting tax dollars in those areas. As Mike mentioned, the Biomass energy byproducts. I went to a meeting on that Friday as then Thursday night as well where Robert Walker from Bixby Enterprises talked about the future of Biomass. That's cornstalks and things like that as Mike said. They can make even car parts out of biomass. It's amazing the things that can be done with that. Bixby is big in the fireplace, the stoves, grills and corn pellet burning for the stoves and fireplaces. They're burning at 98% efficiency, so it's amazing what they can do with biomass. The pellets are made out of alfalfa and some of the other products. They get burned as well. They're actually more efficient than the corn is, but they're still running over 98% efficiency. Attended a fundraiser at Solon Methodist Church last Friday night. That was all those funds from that fundraiser were going to the meal delivery and transportation services portion of the SEATS community in Solon. It’s paying for their van and helping provide those services.

Neuzil: Did you get oyster stew?

Harney: Absolutely.

Neuzil: Yes, good choice.

Harney: You did show up there didn’t you, I saw you.

Neuzil: I didn’t see you over there.

Harney: The E911 Executive Board meeting they had the public hearing on their FY 04 budget. They passed all of that. There was a lot of discussion on the cellular 911 calls and the track systems, this GIS was talking about earlier. They did give, like I said, $30,000 toward developing the GIS through our GIS directors. The Board had a meeting with Secondary Roads and the public in reference to the North Corridor Road Feasibility Study. That was a very good meeting. They got a lot of input and I think we’ve gained a lot of ground on that area. I think there’s a lot to do yet, but I think we’ve progressed in that particular area. Trying to think what else. Last week I attended a meeting at the 6th Judicial Board of Directors meeting in Cedar Rapids. One of the discussions was the legislature is looking at coming up with boundaries for 8 or less judicial districts and also eight or less areas for Corrections. If they do this for Corrections it’s basically taking the community input out of the Corrections Department where you have community based Corrections. Everything will be pretty much run out of Des Moines under a department head and we’d lose that personal touch in the community. So they’re looking at what they can do in that particular area. There was a lot of discussion also on the Sex Offender Release Program and supervision of those being released. Many sexual offenders in prison now are being released; they’ve fulfilled their prison terms and some of those have had, what they call, civil commitments where they keep them in custody longer and try to give them some programming and training. I think we saw in the paper recently where one was being released to Oakdale. They’re looking at ways to monitor that for a year or 2 after they’re out so they can at least kind of keep contact with them and make sure that they’re being properly monitored so they don’t re-offend. Legislature also has set a prison cap at 8,800 prisoners and that means that there’s going to be 40 to 50 prisoners released into the communities each month from the prisons. Sixth Judicial and this particular area will be getting about 10 prisoners a month in their particular area. Even though the state has set the cap and has started releasing a lot of prisoners, they have not reestablished the funding for Corrections. So they’re short of staff, so the monitoring of these individuals is going to be very minimal. It’s going to cause some real problems. Another problem area is that the National Guard calling up their troops. A lot of the individuals in the prison system, the guards, are in the National Guard. Anamosa, for instance, has 10 to 12 employees in the Guard which will probably be… They anticipate may be pulled out as well. So they have some problems in those particular areas. That’s been my week.

Harney: Any reports or inquiries from the public? Bob?

Welsh: In relation to the Hills. I support what Sally was saying. One problem I have is in terms of the whole administration with Budget 45. It seems to me that you need to have a County employee or one of you in charge of that. I think you have a long history of looking at that particular budget. The thing which has always disturbed me is that it is underspent. So you know if you’re looking for 15,000 for Hills and 25,000 for the Senior Center my guess is if you look at the history of the last several years that budget has been underspent by at least that amount of money. There’s always the fact, gee we don’t know what’s going to happen next year. That’s true, but that has been said every year for at least the last 10 years and the budget is underspent. I gather from what I've learned today is that you don’t have to make that decision Monday? You can make that next week or so. But whatever your time schedule is I think those are worthy efforts and I think there are funds there. I just encourage you to look at that track record of the last several years as to what has been the unexpended funds. I think those are valid things in the area of Human Services. This may shock some of you, if you had to choose between children and seniors, I would choose children. I am a senior but I was once a child. That’s where my priorities would be. I really think you can do both. Thank you.

Harney: Thank you. Anyone else?

Adjourned at 11:00 a.m.

Attest: Tom Slockett, Auditor

By Casie Parkins, Recording Secretary

Sent to the Board of Supervisors on March 10, 2003 at 11:30 a.m.