IOWA CITY MAYOR NAOMI NOVICK: EXTENSION OF SEATS CONTRACT WITH CITY OF IOWA CITY
Stutsman: OK Business from the Board of Supervisors. I'm going to move down to discussion regarding one month extension through the month of October for the SEATS contract with the City. Naomi Novick, Mayor of Iowa City is here and will add to our discussion this morning because the City had this on their agenda last night, the SEATS contract. So if I can kind of summarize what you told me this morning Naomi was that the City was asking for a 3 month extension till the first of January and basically no negotiations to go on during that time. The focus of that time will be to work on getting the statistical information together. So that issue is resolved between the City and the County.
Mayor of Iowa City Naomi Novick: May I add something?
Stutsman: Oh, please do. Come on up to the table.
Novick: What we said is that we would allow 2 months to pull the statistics together and get at some of the reports that we've been asking for and not receiving. As we understand it that deadline is the 1st of December and then contract negotiations would resume on the 1st of December, hopefully with some real numbers. Then we would like to negotiate a long contract at that point but we did not specify exactly how long.
Bolkcom: Could you describe what real numbers are?
Novick: I cannot. What we said was Burnell and Joe Fowler had agreed that these numbers were going to be produced, they were going to come to us once a week and they haven't been done. We did not go into the management of exactly which numbers those 2 people had agreed upon. We said if they agreed that those numbers were producable that was good enough.
Bolkcom: That's what the City council said that if the numbers were good enough the reports were good enough.
Novick: If we get weekly reports as specified in the contract which we have had with...
Bolkcom: Which contract?
Novick: The one that had expired without receiving weekly reports.
Bolkcom: I think there was a general feeling that what was agreed to in that contract, that as the ink dried, the reporting data that was included didn't really correspond with how the negotiators decided how they were going to track costs and that was on tour minutes. If you look at the contract and the report that goes along with the contract tour minutes are never discussed and that is the basis on how the costs are being assigned in the last contract and proposed to be assigned which I think everybody agrees to and so... That's what we've provided, that's the data we've provided. We didn't provide the weekly reports. I guess, I'm a little frustrated about that, that the suggestion continues to be made that we've provided no information to the City and...
Novick: Not that the information doesn't exist but it is not provided in the form that was agreed to in the contract.
Bolkcom: But the form that was agreed to in the contract didn't talk anything about tour minutes and that was the verbal agreement that the contract was based on. So I think it is important that our staffs if we've going to go forward get together and define very, very clearly what the City wants, because we've provided information and it just doesn't ever seem to be satisfying to the City.
Novick: I'm not here to discuss that. What I'm asking for today is an extension for 3 months instead of one month. We're planning to do that tonight at the City Council level. We're hoping that the Supervisors will go along with that.
Bolkcom: I would like to see what the specifics of the reporting are going to encompass before I'm ready to sign off on an extension. Again, I'm frustrated that no matter what information we've provided the City and I'm talking more than just the last year, this goes back... This has got a history that it seem like whatever we provide report-wise for some period of time more than a year just never seems to be what you want. So I would like us to be very clear about what those reports are going to be so that we can... I'd hate to spend the next 60 days working on reports and then present the information and if it isn't exactly what the City wants it to say, they say well that's not really what we wanted. So before I would be willing to go with an extension I would like to see at the staff level what information is needed, can we provide what the City wants and then go forward from there.
Novick: We're giving the County 60 days to polish the computer program and to produce those numbers, but I did not come here to talk about exactly which numbers. That's not my mission.
Jordahl: May I ask...
Stutsman: Excuse me Jonathan. I was going to say Naomi I did try to get a hold of Jeff Davidson and he was unavailable and out of the office till 11:00; so that's why Jeff is not here. I'm sorry Jonathan go ahead.
Novick: OK.
Jordahl: In your earlier discussion of how this would go forward, agreeing on these numbers, you mentioned that Joe Fowler and Burnell would work together to try and figure this out and then what was satisfactory maybe to Joe in concert with Burnell somehow then that would become what Joe is asking for here. So my question goes to the process. Is this something that will be resolved through some additional discussion between our negotiators and your negotiators or is this something that is more or less in the hands of Joe and Burnell.
Novick: We would like the negotiators to take a rest for 2 months. The negotiators have not been doing very well with this and we all understand that we cannot depend on those kinds of negotiations to be determined fairly without some actual numbers to work with. The numbers that we felt were in the agreement a couple of years ago to be provided weekly were not provided weekly. We understand there were problems with computers and computer programs. This is not my field. I just say OK, I understand there were problems, lets concentrate on those problems. If Burnell is working half-time I would hope that he can work half-time on this issue alone and hopefully get it polished off. I can't tell you exactly what numbers he needs to do. He needs to work on that, he needs to be the expert.
Jordahl: With the... Excuse me Sally I just wanted to, I get this notion that there may be a resolution to the problem sort of lurking here in the process. That if Joe can be satisfied with what Burnell can produce then we could have numbers. I'm hopeful about that.
Novick: I'm hopeful as well.
Stutsman: I did talk to Jean Schultz from our Information Services to see that if she would be available to help Burnell and she said she would. That this would be a priority for their office, to get as much help to Burnell in working this out. We still come back to the discussion about just exactly what we're looking for and the numbers. I guess I share Joe's frustration too, it seems like no matter what we produce for the City it's never exactly what they want. I don't know by going on for 2 months if we're ever going to reach any better reporting. So I don't know how the rest of the Board feels about the situation. I want to get it resolved too and I want something that's going to work for everybody, but I want to protect the County's interest too as far as what we feel are fair.
Jordahl: Well, as I was just suggesting, it sounds like there has been movement toward an alternative method of resolving the numbers question which is to have the 2 folks who are most familiar with the actual situation and the need to digest the numbers sit down together and over these 2 months maybe... If the question is how do we get the numbers and the people who want and can produce the numbers can talk to each other during those 2 months. We're not talking about total immobility during that time. We're talking about ideally arriving at a solution.
Novick: Hopefully yes.
Stutsman: What did you say Naomi?
Novick: No I was just agreeing with Jonathan that I hope we will arrive at a solution.
Stutsman: Charlie.
Duffy: Well, the other night I tried to get a word in and I couldn't do it because.
Novick: It was a little confusing.
Duffy: Well I felt a little inadequate because really your our boss when it comes to the SEATS contract. We're a vendor. I thought that things got out of hand. I had no problem. I think Ernie Lehman suggested that there was enough information. We thought that they were getting the information and as a far as money contract, Dr. Craig Mosher and being as we had help for Mental Health, from the State, they want to know where they're money is going; I don't blame Iowa City for that either. I was going to suggest I don't think 2 months is long enough and I don't like to extend it just for a month. I think we ought to provide the same service at the same contract up to July first of next year. Now that might surprise you. Now that will give us all time, a lot of time to try to hold this thing together, because we feel that's the best thing for the County to have one service, but if we're still haggling over this, say towards the 1st of July, then I say we do our own thing. That's all I guess we can do. Keep in mind that Larry Olson after being director for I think what 14 years, decided to retire and Burnell has some serious health problems. But I thought we were getting you the information. But if you want to do that I would be for that, we're getting into budget time, holiday season, a lot of other things and maybe that will surprise you, but I would go as far as July first. That's the next fiscal year. This month by month thing, we're just crawling along.
Novick: Well we talked a little bit about how to be sure we're going to get these reports because we haven't gotten them. The negotiating folks were talking about monthly penalties. We're talking about setting up an escrow account. It's just difficult at this point to say that we want anything longer than 3 months because we've had trouble getting some results with the numbers.
Stutsman: I want to clarify. There have been reports that have been sent. Is that right Joe?
Duffy: Yes.
Bolkcom: We've provided quarterly data on the number of rides and the number of tour minutes. We have to remember that the basis... What we're trying to really to get to is everybody paying their fair share. It's all about money, OK? We're focusing on these reports because it's about money. The City wants to make sure it's getting it's money's worth. The County wants to make sure everybody pays their fare share.
Novick: Yes, it's accountability. That's the question.
Bolkcom: Exactly, exactly. But it's money. Nobody is coming in here, nobody is coming to the City Council complaining that they're not getting good SEATS service.
Novick: Correct.
Bolkcom: All right. So we're providing a quality service and it costs money and we're trying to figure out who should pay for what and the way that the County and the City agreed to was tour minutes. How many minute does each vehicle spend in each city?
Novick: Each week.
Bolkcom: Each week, each month, each quarter, for the entire year and we've provided that information. That information though when you look at the contract for last year is not even talked about. It's not even alluded to. The weekly reports that he City said we haven't been providing and we haven't been are trip sheets by the drivers. It has nothing to do with tour minutes. The drivers don't track tour minutes, the computer system does. So we have this problem, the City says you haven't followed the contract and they're right, but the negotiators agreed on a different way to measure fair share and who pays for what and that is not even discussed in the contract. So the County has spent all of this time focusing it's eye on that goal of providing that information in tour minutes which we have provided and we've provided it for an entire year and we've also provided how many people form Iowa City have ridden on the SEATS busses by number and that's about 81% of the people that ride on the entire SEATS system live in Iowa City and about 73% of the tour minutes, how many minutes those vehicles are in Iowa City. There doesn't appear to be any debate about that. So when we say we're not provided reports, we've provided information that we think is the information that determines how we determine who pays for what. We continue to hear we haven't provided information, I don't know if the negotiators haven't shared that information with the Council, but to suggest that...
Novick: We're not talking about this.
Bolkcom: But to suggest that we haven't provided information is not exactly accurate.
Novick: The information was provided at the end of the year as contracts were negotiated. The monthly reports, the weekly reports, the other information was not. We would like to see a contract that's fulfillable. If weekly reports are going to be produced we'd like to see them produced within 60 days. The whole contract may change based on these reports not being able to be produced.
Bolkcom: We both are at fault for not making sure that contract in '97 was more clear about this. It said weekly reports but if you talk to your own staff the report, it was the reporting form that we all agreed on was obsolete when we signed the contract. Because we agreed on some different parameters on how we determined fair share of costs. The proposal that we think is pretty good right now, you have 81% of the riders, 72% of the tour share and the contract amount at 560 is about 63% of the costs.
Novick: I'm sorry, I'm just not going to talk about the contract. I'm asking for 90 days, 3 months and that's all I'm asking for today.
Stutsman: So how does the Board feel.
Lacina: Well, a couple of points that need to be clarified. The negotiators are powerless. The negotiators don't change the contract and the negotiators don't make verbal agreements. We have a contract that's legally binding. Verbals are not legally binding and if there are changes made those verbal agreements need to be changed and amended into the contract.
Novick: Correct.
Lacina: There was a form at the end of the contract which we did not deliver on. Somehow we got off on tour minutes and a whole lot of other stuff that did not answer the questions that were asked. So I think we all need to realize anytime that there's a change made it needs to be made by the bodies that sign the contract and negotiators are not empowered to do that. The second thing is I don't think it's a concern over what to produce. It can be agreed upon as it was with the first contract. The problem will be can we produce it? That's something that we need to discuss and I think Sally may have the correct idea as to, and maybe now a little bit, because of the tension that's in place, take it out of the hands of Burnell and to put the data crunching into someone else's hands that can deliver the requests. But again and we do... Needs to be formalized and everyone needs to understand exactly what is up, because I do think Burnell and Joe Fowler have discussed what is needed and that's clear between the 2 of them. So staff has worked that part of it out. I don't recall seeing anywhere the tour minute thing. Now maybe you want to include that in the future. But as to the request now on the table, I don't know, can we deliver what is needed in the next 2 months? Do we know specifically what is being requested? I guess what I'm going to need to see first before I make a decision will be a formal description in writing of what is being requested.
Stutsman: Right, and then present that to Jean Schultz and...
Lacina: And see if we can do it.
Stutsman: And see if...
Jordahl: Yes.
Bolkcom: We need to also meet with Burnell and Jean and figure out what we're agreeing to, because again we've provided information and this is not something that just arrived here in the last few months, this has been an ongoing concern that we've had.
Stutsman: Well would it be appropriate to have Jean and Burnell and Joe Fowler and I guess I would suggest a Supervisor sit down and agree and put it in writing just exactly what we want in that contract. Naomi it's up to you whether you want a City Council person to... Just so that everybody is on the same wavelength as to what is being expected and requested.
Novick: Uh-huh.
Jordahl: It is in my hope in what I was trying to discuss a few minutes ago that as Joe, I think there seems to be there's a compromise lurking here that Joe is talking about we've produced the type of data, not at the frequency and (inaudible) that the City has wanted or was specified in the contract but we have produced the very kind of data that it wanted. It seems to be possible that through this process of working together that Joe might agree that information which will provide the city with a kind of insight into the processes that they want can be obtained without the kind of pain that maybe we would have to go through to produce the kind of reports that were specified under the current contract or whether agreed to verbally or whatever. Is it possible that we might get to that kind of an agreement and if we overly specify things upfront saying this is what was wanted in the current contract, that we've had such trouble providing that we might be setting up a kind of an insurmountable obstacle where we...
Stutsman: No I think it has to be very clear and very spelled out and everybody sign off on it, so that everybody is communicating the same information, and that we all agree on it.
Bolkcom: And that the staff gets support from the Board and the City Council. There's been some question as to what are the targets, what are the parameters that define fair share. The staff agree at one level what it is and then we've had a difference of opinion form some of the City negotiators. It's like we don't really care about that, we want this information. Well I think we need to succinctly put down on a piece of paper what reports are going to be and then not change our mind after that data comes in. Say we either want that, we want this.
Stutsman: So how do you feel setting up a committee like that to...
Bolkcom: I like your suggestion.
Stutsman: Do we want to agree to a 3 month extension or do we want to have a committee look it over for a week?
Bolkcom: I want to look at the details of that before we go forward with extension.
Novick: We're going to have a 3 month contract signed today. If the County chooses to not go along with it, then we're back at the negotiating table, but I'm hoping that when you meet again next week you will sign it.
Stutsman: OK we have only one more Tuesday in the month and the current contract goes till the end of the month.
Novick: OK.
Bolkcom: Can we get together in the next 24... Can we get together Joe and Burnell and Jean and all of the interested parties in the next day and nail down what these reports are going to be and then by Thursday have some sense of that?
Novick: Would you like to have someone come from Iowa City's computer department?
Stutsman: I guess I don't feel at this point it's necessary. I want Jean to look at it first and then if it's something that she thinks she needs additional help I think that would be good if she could consult with Iowa City.
Novick: OK.
Stutsman: There's costs involved with Iowa City isn't there as far as... It wouldn't cost us anything to have Jean look at it, but I understood you to say that it's...
Novick: If we put it into the contract that Iowa City would produce the statistics, then the Information Services Department would bill our Transit Department, but that's an ongoing continual basis. I suspect to come to a meeting one afternoon, there's no cost.
Bolkcom: I think we're prepared on this side to get reports organized in a format that the City would hopefully be able to use and I think we can do that.
Stutsman: Who would like to set up that meeting then with Joe and Burnell and Jean and...
Duffy: I think Steve would be the one to do it. he's been in on 3 of these so far.
Stutsman: ...to clarify the, what's being asked? Would you want to do it Steve?
Lacina: I think staff is in agreement of what's needed, so I'll get a hold of Joe today and see if we can get something set up soon. And you want this before Thursday?
Stutsman: Hopefully right.
Duffy: (Inaudible).
Stutsman: Yes we do have to have (inaudible).
Lacina: This could depend upon (inaudible).
Bolkcom: Within the next week.
Lacina: The goal will be to have some type of meeting this week to get something set up and then a report back to the Board on Thursday if at all possible.
Bolkcom: That would be good.
Stutsman: OK, All right.
Novick: The City Council will not meet again this month, but you really can do this next week if you want to.
Stutsman: Right, well we just have informal on Tuesday and if we take action it would require...
Novick: Oh, it would require taking action therefore Thursday. I understand.
Duffy: I don't want to put too much pressure on Burnell, just getting out of the hospital and it really catches us at a bad time.
Novick: I do understand that, that's why I said that if Burnell is working only half-time he should be allowed to work on this without worrying about the rest of it, let some other employee worry about the rest of it. But that's just a suggestion, because I do understand that's he's not very strong at this point.
Lacina: Do you have a representative from Iowa City that you would prefer from Council?
Novick: I'll put my name in on it and then I'll maybe delegate someone else. Just call me and let me know and I'll see if someone else wants to do it, but for now keep in touch with me.
Lacina: All right.
Stutsman: OK. Any other questions.
Novick: Thank you. No this is it.
Stutsman: OK.
Novick: I hope that we can agree on the 3 month extension and sort of cool it in terms of negotiations.
Stutsman: OK, thank you Naomi for coming over on short notice.
Jordahl: Thanks for coming.
Bolkcom: Thanks Naomi.
Novick: You're welcome.
DISCUSSION: PROCESS FOR HIRING HUMAN RESOURCES ADMINISTRATOR
Stutsman: OK. Discussion regarding process for hiring Human Resource Administrator, the timelines. I wanted to just go over with the board a timeline for hiring a Human Resource Administrator, mainly because I don't want the Board to be making other commitments in the week or so that we want to do interviews and things. So I thought if we could kind of get some ideas on our calendar then we could plan accordingly. Let's see the ad is currently running and résumé's are going to be asked to be submitted by October 24th which is on a Friday. So I wondered how the Board felt about maybe reviewing applications the 27th and the 28th, getting priorities, which applicants they rank with their highest priorities by the 29th and begin interviewing the first week of November. I'll throw that out, has anybody got any other ideas or... I think that's what we've done in the past is all of the Supervisors have reviewed all of the résumés and then we list maybe our top 3 choices and then Carol compiles those, or our top 4 or 5 depending on how many résumés come in.
Lacina: On the 3rd of November we've got the planning with Tim Shields.
Jordahl: And the department heads right, that's a big one.
Bolkcom: On the 4th is the election.
Stutsman: Oh.
Lacina: So.
Stutsman: City Council election, well I don't think that would effect us that much. Can we direct... All I'm trying to do is just so the Supervisors have times blocked out so that you don't schedule other things so that...
Bolkcom: So the 5th, 6th, 7th for interviews maybe or the 4th, 5th , 6th for interviews.
Stutsman: maybe the afternoon of the 4th and the morning of the 5th, kind of look at that. Just kind of block those out right now. OK, why don't we plan on that. The afternoon of November 4th and the morning of November 5th. Any other comments about that?
Bolkcom: There is a conference going on on the 27th and the 28th on negotiation training. So we'll have to... If we're going to...
Stutsman: Oh, OK. Well...
Bolkcom: Select that against those... I'd just throw that out, I'm going to be at a conference.
Stutsman: We will have them in on the 24th so I think people can be reviewing them up till that time because Carol has been real good about always keeping us updated so that we don't all just get them at one time.
Bolkcom: Sounds good.
Stutsman: I think just still keep on (inaudible). All right.
DISCUSSION: FY99 BUDGETING PROCESS AND BUDGET PRESENTATION FOR DEPARTMENT HEAD MEETING
Stutsman: Discussion regarding budgeting process. I wanted to talk to the Board about the budget presentation for this afternoon with the department heads. Jonathan and I have kind of been working on this together about what we wanted to do as far as presenting this information to the department heads. What I was thinking about doing was first of all going through and reviewing the memo that we sent out. The department heads all got a copy of the budget memo and see if there were any questions or any problems with that. Then go into talking about performance based budgeting and maybe just clarify with them where we're at why the Board has decided to begin looking at this process for our budgeting process. Explaining about the frustrations we felt with last years process, talking about going to the ISAC presentation, and starting that process of thinking about changing our budget format and then the fact that we've included this in one of our strategic goals is to work on this budget process. Then talking about Jonathan and I and Carol's and Kim's experiences with visiting with Linn and Scott County and seeing how their budget process worked and feeling it was something we could look at doing here in Johnson County and then talking about how this type of budgeting, performance based budgeting is now being done on the State level through the GASB Board, the Governmental Accounting Standards Board, that they're starting to make overtures to make this a recommended process across the nations. Then going into talking about just exactly what we're talking about with the budget process or performance base budgeting. I'd like to hand out some handouts. This one that was sent to Tom Slockett from Dawn Gingrich in Linn County and it was a handout that was put together by Deloitte and Touche for a NaCo conference and it talks about bench marking for government performance and it gives a pretty good overview about what is performance based budgeting, why it's a good idea to do it and a little bit about how it's accomplished. It's pretty general, it doesn't get real specific, Jonathan and I kind of reviewed the handout that was given by that consultant group and that was geared more towards Supervisors and not to department heads so we decided that that probably wasn't a good tool to use. I would like to work from this handout if that's OK. Then present an example of what they've done in Linn County as far as performance indicators from their budget handout, so that people get an idea of what we're talking about with that. Then kind of go from there as far getting it from department heads and what we want to put in place this first year.
Jordahl: I have done some looking into what we may already have in place. I think it's important to note that we're not completely not without the foundation of doing some of this. Our existing budget is reported in 2 different ways. There is the object budgeting, or what are we buying. Then there is the functional reporting of the budget which talks about what are we doing with what we buy. It's that what are we doing with it question that gets very close to performance base budgeting. The only thing that would remain, I say only, that's probably a little bit to easy, but what would remain is to establish correlation's between the number of staff members for example that are used to perform this service. The number of dollars that are being put into the service, the amount of materials being put into it and the units of service provided. It's those correlation's that have been missing from our budget process to date. Some of these statistics already exist in a number of departments. Some of the departments are farther along down this road then others. Cheryl Whitney and the Social Services has the mandate from the state already to do performance-based budgeting and this is something that is being implemented throughout the statewide department of Human Services and there is some indication that we may be mandated by the State to implement this in some point in the fairly new future anyway. But some of the departments, Graham's for example, Graham Dameron in the Department of Health, they have a number of grant funded programs and they have to do a great deal more of accounting of how that money is spent, what the results are, is that grant producing what it's anticipated results were. So they do a lot of this kind of thing breaking down programs and looking at the effectiveness of the programs. Our existing budget does have a breakdown into a sort of program approaches into a number of areas and so I'm going to discuss that as we look here at the County Attorney's Office for example in our budget report, or the expenditures by program area we've got here criminal prosecution separated out. That's something that they do. You can ask how many attorney's are associated with criminal prosecution. That number is not here on this page, but it could be. You've got the dollars here that are spent on criminal prosecution so that's a function, that's a production of the office. At what efficiency is that produced? What's the workload on those attorney's? How many prosecutions are conducted? That number isn't here, but it could be. It wouldn't' be a great big problem for the Attorney's office to produce that number, they know that number. In fact they've provided me with statistics right here as a sheet that were brought over by Danelle from Pat White's office, showing the number of criminal cases that were prosecuted over the last 10 years or so, 15, of how the case loads have risen. In fact if I get her memo off the top here you can see the increase in those lines, obviously they were experiencing an increase. Well how many cases can an attorney handle before the attorney is overloaded. If we've got correlation's between the number of cases and the number of attorney's, then we can see where the justification may be for an increase in dollars to pay for another attorney to handle the caseloads. This type of a breakdown I'm saying already exists to some extent of the budget. Just the correlations, some very basic correlation's are not being made. I'm hopeful that we can begin to do this without a lot of tooth pulling, that this is going to be a... We can make a significant start on a process of doing performance based budgeting with existing numbers that are fairly easy to correlate in terms of staff and units of service provided. In some cases the units of service may not be tracked by our government at the County level but may in fact be tracked at the state level and we may be able to retrieve those statistics and actually produce a chart of what the costs and production of a number of departments has been over the past 10 years or so. You could establish trends even in a first year budget by using existing figures. So I hope this doesn't need to be a lot of work for everybody at least to get started with.
Stutsman: Yes. Well and I think that we have to emphasize that this is a long term process. That we're not going to have all of this in place in the next month, in the next 2 months or next year or next 2 years. But I think it's something that we need to keep working at and it's going to be an evolving process as we go along.
Lacina: What specifically will be requesting the department heads to do in relation to this fall? Because that's one of the concerns is going to arise will be if we're setting a set of standards and some of them have already been working on their budget and we switch now, so what specifically... Are we telling them that this is an objective that we're going to work through next year using your existing numbers or are we going to say you will now give us all these ratios.
Stutsman: Well I guess I was just thinking that we'd ask them to begin looking at performance indicators and to me that will be the first step. Do we ask them to start...
Lacina: Will we be asking them to help us generate meaningful indicators?
Jordahl: Yes.
Bolkcom: Absolutely.
Lacina: I think that's one of the things we have to do this afternoon.
Jordahl: Part of today's discussion definitely.
Bolkcom: I think we need a working... Once today's the day to launch the idea, but I think we need a follow up work session in a couple of weeks or whatever with the departments specifically to kind of kick around some of their ideas and how we're going to do this and maybe that's the time where they come back with a handful of indicators that they think are important to their department that this year they begin to gather information on. But I think we're going to need a more kind of down and dirty work session just to chat.
Stutsman: I agree with the way that you put it Joe, that this is just to launch this or to explain it and say OK, now we need your help in implementing this.
Bolkcom: Good work.
Jordahl: It's my hope that a lot of these statistics already exist. You talk about people gathering numbers, in order to implement this in all departments to the level that we may ultimately want there may be some additional gathering of numbers that has to be done. But I think it's also true that there are numbers that are either in the departments or in State records that could produce a lot of these correlation's without any additional numbers gathering this year. So there is 2 ends of this continuum of how hard this is going to be to do.
Stutsman: I think it goes without saying that anytime you have change or present something to do things differently there is going to be resistance. So I can't stress enough how important it is that all the Supervisors are in agreement that this is the way we want to proceed and that the department heads recognize that. Now Charlie you're smiling over there.
Duffy: Uh-huh.
Stutsman: We need your support on this Charlie.
Duffy: We do, but I still, and I hate to... Scott County is a great county and it looks like we're going to pattern ourselves after Scott County.
Stutsman: Not at all. Not at all.
Duffy: You know they are 11 million dollars in debt and I just wondered if that is what it's going to come to. Now this isn't a slam towards Scott County, but I just wondered that.
Jordahl: I don't think that performance-based budgeting itself in any way leads to debt. Ideally what it is is a way of us seeing more clearly what's going on in the budget and being able to make a more informed decision about how funds should be allocated to provide services at the lowest cost and yet meeting the needs that there are. The idea of going into debt, that's a decision they made. Linn County too. I mean they chose to go into debt, they didn't somehow slide there because of their budgeting process. They saw an opportunity that was indicated, now in part I think you could say, because they had people explaining to them how this would work, then they made that choice. Their Finance Office I think would point to the idea that the government can sell bonds and they can pay a lower rate of interest than what you could earn in the market in other ways. Or you could avoid paying interest. For example, we recently had something in Secondary Roads, we're buying a large piece of equipment and they proposed to pay for it over 2 or 3 years and pay interest. That interest that they're paying is much larger than the interest that we would have to pay to sell money on a bond. So I think that kind of a calculation that Linn County looked at and said we can actually save money over doing it the way we were proposing to do it by going into debt, it's debt either way. You know, whether it's a piece of equipment that you have to pay for over 2 or 3 years or whether it's a bond that you're going to pay back, in either case it's debt.
Duffy: Jon, I think you're twisting the thing. As far as the Road Department is concerned, that piece of equipment, being as they trade it back in and the Road Department has a very good name taking care of their implements that they buy, you know graders or whatever they do. But that is the only one that I know in the whole County that it has worked that way. But to say we're going to save money, no we're not going to save any money, by having bond issues. Is that...
Jordahl: I'm not suggesting that...
Lacina: You can't float bonds to buy machinery anyway, so it was just an example. It's not relevant.
Bolkcom: I think the point is if we're going to go into debt we're going to decide to do that.
Duffy: Go into debt?
Jordahl: You're the one talking about going into debt.
Bolkcom: To suggest because another county is in debt means we're going to go into debt, that doesn't follow for me. If we decide we're going to go into debt, we'll decide to do that. That isn't what we're talking about here with performance-based budgeting. We're basically just trying to get a better handle on how we're spending what we've got. We're not talking about spending more.
Lacina: In time GASB, which regulates industry and requires them to file their reports will take on government. They are preparing now, so in the future it will not be a choice.
Stutsman: Uh-huh.
Lacina: So we might as well start moving towards that now and it will not be as disruptive as all of a sudden being hammered, do it tomorrow.
Bolkcom: Right.
Duffy: Well, being as I'm outvoted I hate to even discuss it, because I'll go along with what the Supervisors say. But there is other Supervisors that have worked hard and long. This is a very good county.
Stutsman: Oh, it is.
Duffy: People know it, but again you heard me say before, when we go to ISAC you'll see a little rumbling on what's happened in Johnson County because they think we do provide great services. (inaudible)
Bolkcom: Well we're going to continue to. I don't see any change in that.
Duffy: Well we'll see, but to say it's not going cost any money. It's going to cost.
Lacina: It will cost to set up an information system to give us better numbers. Absolutely, it will cost but hopefully we will be able to use those numbers more efficiently. We'll be able to know the cost per hour of employees. We just got a report where the cost in one department was so low. Well when you take 400 part-time employees and average then in you get one number. If you take full-time personnel and look at it, it's a different number. Both of those numbers are meaningful in certain applications. But we need those numbers to make decisions. That's the beginning, is knowing where we're at, how many drivers it takes to respond to how many riders, what our cost per hour is, and those types of functions. Jonathan is correct. The raw data exists. We just now need to start doing some analysis of those numbers.
Stutsman: Uh-huh and pulling it together.
Lacina: We're not going to ram this down the departments' heads quickly, but this afternoon will be the beginning of trying to explain what we're coming from and asking them for help to help us establish meaningful indicators for unique departments.
Jordahl: Uh-huh.
Lacina: That's my interpretation.
Bolkcom: That's mine too.
Duffy: Remember there are other elected officials also.
Lacina: And we need their help.
Duffy: Yes.
Stutsman: Right. Right. Any other comments?
Bolkcom: Good work Sally and Jonathan for pushing on this and keeping it going. There has been a lot of work you guys have done behind the scenes to get us ready.
Stutsman: Thanks.
Bolkcom: Thanks.
Jordahl: I think Steve makes an important point that we are going to be dependent on a great deal of assistance. There is going to be a process here involving the departments where they will be the ones cooking up their performance indicators. Things that they will find useful in their own budgeting. I think that looking at their own staff operations. I think this is going to be in the long run something that will be helpful and valued by the various departments. But today's... I think the most important thing is to make clear that this is not us doing something to them, but that this is something that we want to see because we think it will be good for everybody.
Lacina: Some are already doing it. Ambulance gives us a good report.
Stutsman: Right.
Lacina: You know, cost per hour, how many personnel.
Duffy: I was going to say the departments could do it themselves. We could have gotten together with them and then asked other elected officials to do it.
Stutsman: Well this will give us a start toward standardization of probably what a lot of departments are already doing and then we'll just develop a standard format. I was going to say too, Jonathan and I will take the lead on the discussion, but I really would ask Supervisors, if you have clarifying points or things that you want to add please be part of the discussion. Anything else on that?
Jordahl: Well, I have spoken to a number of department heads about speaking to the group in response to this, so that they would be prepared to respond. I think we've got a fairly decent range of departments covered that either are keeping some sort of track, as in Secondary Roads, they have a lot of detail already being taken about how people spend their time. I mentioned Social Services, the Department of Health, the County Attorney's Office and the Auditor's Office of course, are all going to be prepared to respond in some way about how this related to their existing functions and what might be needed in the way of changes to make it happen.
Lacina: How long will this meeting last?
Stutsman: This afternoon? Well we told department heads to plan for 2 hours.
Lacina: OK, I may have to leave, I've got a meeting with the Cedar County Supervisors. I did not realize it was 2 hours, I thought is was one hour.
Stutsman: Yes, because we have the salary survey is on first and then discussion about the budgets. Then I think Jean had some things about the web page that she wanted to talk about, some other things.
Lacina: I apologize. I got confused on that.
Stutsman: Yes and it may have been confusion on my part. I think Carol and I talked about you know and looked at the agenda and thought wow, we better let department heads know that this is going to be longer than an hour. So and probably just didn't convey that to the Supervisors.
Jordahl: There is an additional matter, I mean I think we have a lot of agreement about how we're going to proceed this afternoon in terms of discussing the idea of performance-based budgeting. The more controversial idea, which is wrapped up with this, is the question of can we do it by ourselves? We had Tom Slockett come up a couple of weeks ago and we spoke about this. Tom's office I think clearly will be able to provide a lot of assistance on this. There is going to be a need for a strategic planning process. We've employed Tim Shields of the Institute of Public Policy, is that they right name, to help the Board with strategic planning. But I'm wondering about as we go forward into involving strategic planning with the budget process and trying to implement performance-based budgeting, whether we're going to be able to do all of this guiding it kind of ourselves. That's been discussed here. There's been some pretty clear differences of opinion about it. There is always this question of majority rule and how do we proceed about hiring a consultant? Now the newspaper here, was it Saturday, had an article on how much we don't spend on consultants in Johnson County. I think is was set off in a box like this was really different.
Duffy: That really flatters us I think.
Jordahl: It made us look pretty good, didn't it?
Duffy: Yes, but Iowa City didn't look good.
Bolkcom: I think we should wait, my general sense on a consultant or not a consultant, we should go to the meeting this afternoon. We should see how the response is, set up a work session, see what our own level of expertise is about doing this. Then, visit that question. That's my own judgment about it.
Stutsman: I guess I would agree with Joe too.
Jordahl: Uh-huh.
Jordahl: Seems like a reasonable way to proceed, but I thought that should be mentioned anyway.
Lacina: Yes, down the road. That motion is way down the road.
Stutsman: OK, I'm glad you brought that up though Jonathan.
Jordahl: All right.
Bolkcom: Well it is something we're going to have to deal with here pretty shortly.
Lacina: It depends on the level of sophistication of what you want out of this information system. It's just like Craig and the State working on that MIS. At some point, we probably want to consider that consultant, but that's down the road.
Jordahl: On the other hand, the argument for considering it now would be if we wanted to get this up and running faster and have a program that was not... As we were discussing with the GIS System, for example, that wouldn't set up a set of incompatible functions where it was somehow difficult to program. You referred to the SEATS situation earlier where we have a type of reporting that is desired but we can't produce it. If we had a consultant come in up front and we knew what software we were going to use up front, then we would articulate a method of reporting and categories that were apt or fit to the system that we're going to use. So we might wind up going through a lot of work and then make difficulties that could have been avoided if we started out in a systematic way to begin with. I think there is a case to be made for starting with what you're going to finish with.
Lacina: The consultant will come in and will ask us what do you want out of this system? Right now, as Joe has implied I think, we don't know yet what we want.
Stutsman: Yes.
Lacina: So I think it's too early to bring it up. Or a consultant will come in and if we give them the wrong answer they will design that system for that answer, which may not be what we're actually headed for.
Stutsman: Yes I think it's good to wait and see where we're at with department heads.
Jordahl: Yes and I think if we talk to the department heads today and we get a meeting in 2 weeks, but I'm thinking that this is not a way too early question. This is like OK we have these couple of meetings, but then it's right in our laps again. It's a question of are we going to implement a systematic process that's guided by someone who does just that for us or are we going to try and run this ourselves? I think that is timely.
Bolkcom: It frames it up pretty good.
Stutsman: OK, anything else? How about reports? Let's see, let's start with Jonathan.
Jordahl: Can we start with Joe? I want to breath for a second here.
Stutsman: OK, Joe?
Bolkcom: I'll start. Had the What/When Committee Meeting. Whenever I say that What/When I think probably say they clearly don't know what they're doing here, but it is fairly focused. It's our Computer Needs Committee. We met Friday, had a good discussion about the Web page. We had a demonstration. We had actually reports from each of the 4 subcommittees on progress being made and believe it or not, we've got some good things going on in all those areas. We're going to see a demonstration at the department head meeting this afternoon on the Web page and pass out some of the materials to departments about how to get that up and going. But we had a report from the Networking Committee, the Document Management Committee, and the GIS Committee. They continue to work. Also attended the HACAP open house at their new building and that was a good turnout. They've got quite a nice center there to provide services. Jonathan and I both had a Decat Meeting last week. I don't know if I brought the headline in, if folks saw this or not. The Foster Care law was struck done last week by the Iowa Supreme Court. That basically eliminated the cap on foster care, which the legislature had put in place a number of years ago. Apparently, the nub of it was that the Department of Human Services never had a very clear set of criteria in place that established who would get care and who wouldn't get care. There was a case brought to the Supreme Court and they said...
Stutsman: Was that from Des Moines, Carla, the judge in Des Moines?
Bolkcom: Right. I'm looking for a name here.
Stutsman: Yes, Carla and I can't remember what her last name is.
Bolkcom: I don't see it. I'll go ahead and pass that down. But anyway we talked about that at the meeting. This was last, I believe that was Thursday's paper. We met Thursday and talked about it. It has the potential to basically eliminate all Decat funding because the concern is that more people are going to be in foster care and that the State Decat money will basically be absorbed to pay for those costs. In fact, there was a Decat meeting, I believe in Linn County scheduled for last Thursday, the same day and they canceled the meeting because apparently the folks involved didn't feel like they had a mandate to meet. So it's a fairly serious decision. It may have... The other thing going on is that the State is in the process of, there is an RFP out to manage child welfare dollars, have like Merit or somebody do like managed care on those dollars. One of the issues is that the Decat money, if there is any, will go under that managed care contract. In the draft RFP there is language that says that whoever gets the contract would have to continue to fund Decat, which are basically services to families and children around the State, including here in Johnson County. So there is the proviso in there. It isn't at all clear if that means a dollar of funding or more. So while there's a requirement. The other unintended consequence is because there has been a cap on foster care placements it has probably put some adolescents in detention at a higher cost. So we may see, because now that foster care the cap is off, we may see and other counties may see an actual reduction in detention costs as a result. So that's going on and folks are concerned about that. I have the court case, I have a whole bunch of information on the foster care thing if people are interested in it, including the court's decision. A couple of other things, I mentioned it earlier in the meeting, there is a session that was going to be actually held in Cedar Rapids in the middle of October on negotiations training that's being put on by the Iowa Mediation Service and others. They didn't have enough people to go to the Cedar Rapids one and so there is going to be one in Des Moines on Monday, October 27 and Tuesday, October 28. Sally and I have been talking about attending that. At any rate, I don't know if others are interested or not, but if we go to that, we would not be here on the 28th unless we changed the time at which we met. I believe it's 2 full days. It might be... I guess I wish I'd been to that negotiation training before now.
Stutsman: It seems like it comes up on a regular basis where you need some negotiations here.
Bolkcom: Either that or the need for some cognitive behavioral therapy. One of the 2. But, at any rate, that is going on. Finally, the Amana Road, we had somebody stop up last night, yesterday afternoon after 4 that is concerned about dust alleviation on Amana Road. I don't know when the last time we did a traffic count on that was, but whether or not the Board would be interested in directing Mike to do a traffic count just to kind of see what the numbers are. I know it's part of the management plan that Jeff Davison was going to be looking at, but I think Amana Road got kicked off the list. There was a big list and then they refined it to a smaller list. I don't believe it's on there.
Stutsman: This has come up periodically all during this dust season, the Amana Road, so I do have some counts from Mike that I will share with you.
Bolkcom: OK, recent ones?
Stutsman: Right.
Bolkcom: Great. Very good.
Stutsman: That it hasn't been that long.
Bolkcom: Well, this... OK that would be fine. This constituent wanted some follow-up and I'll just get him those numbers. I don't know if that's something that we want to put on and talk about. I don't know what the numbers look like.
Stutsman: Well we can't talk about this.
Bolkcom: Anyway, I'll just share it with the Board as something that came in yesterday.
Stutsman: OK.
Bolkcom: That's it.
Stutsman: Charlie?
REPORTS (DUFFY): ATTENDED SENIOR DINING MEETING; AND UPCOMING SENIOR DINING VOLUNTEER BANQUET
Duffy: I had a Senior Dining Meeting yesterday and I've had some calls of Senior Dining that last couple of weeks that thought the County funded the program and whether we were going to lose the service. I said no, that Heritage does and in the budget for next year it would be $353,473 and this fiscal year was $336,302. So we'll still have the program. I think they kind of got confused when we asked for some extra dollars for a couple of employees. But if anybody asks you, it's not a County, it goes through the County, but we couldn't ever fund it that way. The raw food costs really don't fluctuate too much. I think that it all depends how much that Mike pays in a month. Maybe towards the end he'll push it into another month, but it fluctuates probably from $1.16 cents to $1.22 or $.23. There is all kinds of information here if you want to look at how the other, well the 5 or 6 different places like Swisher, Solon, Autumn Park, Senior Center, Hills, how many attend and that sort of thing. The big thing is the volunteer banquet, and I like to say banquet because they have some great volunteers, will be October 20th at 6:00 p.m. Usually the Supervisors will help serve the meals. It wouldn't hurt to get there earlier. Usually being on a committee you get there at least by 5:00. Some of that will start I think about 3 or 4 more about. Some of the help in the kitchen.
Reverend Bob Welsh: I think that if the Supervisors came at a quarter until 6 that would be sufficient.
Duffy: Yes, I'll be there a little bit earlier, because I'm on the... But anyway this is not taxpayers money. This will be some of the interest off some of that funds that were left to the Senior Dining Program. Most of this will come off the Sterba Trust Fund. I think once a year we can afford to do that, without the volunteers, forget it. We wouldn't be any program. Wouldn't you agree with that Bob?
Welsh: Sure.
Duffy: So we need to be sure and put that down.
Jordahl: I've got it down here Charlie for 3:30 to 5. Maybe that needs come clarification. Does anybody know what's going on at 3:30?
Bolkcom: That's assuming the town meeting is on the 22nd at the Senior Center between 3:30 and 5.
Jordahl: I've got that on the 20th for the dinner, that doesn't seem to make sense, I've got dinner at 3:30 does it?
Welsh: The dinner is at 6:00.
Jordahl: OK.
Stutsman: That would be lunch. Steve do you have anything, any report?
Lacina: Actually wasn't the Senior Center on the 27th?
Jordahl: That's the town meeting we're talking about.
Bolkcom: The town meeting is the 22nd at 3:35.
Lacina: Oh, I have written the 27th. OK.
Duffy: That is on the 20th isn't it?
Lacina: Thank you for clarifying that.
Bolkcom: Dinner is on the 20th.
Stutsman: The 20th and the 22nd, OK.
Lacina: I do have a conflict for the evening of the banquet, so I will not be able to make that.
Stutsman: I'm going to be out of town on the 20th, so I don't think I'll probably be...
Bolkcom: I have a 7:00 conflict that night, but I'll be there to eat.
Jordahl: Goodness gracious.
Stutsman: (Inaudible).
Jordahl: I guess it's you and me Charlie.
Bolkcom: (Inaudible).
Jordahl: I can serve you bet.
Duffy: How do you like prime rib Jonathan?
Jordahl: Oh, prime rib, you bet.
Stutsman: Well maybe I'll change my plans. Steve did you have...
INQUIRY (LACINA): OBJECTIVE OF SEATS NEGOTIATION MEETINGS
Lacina: Just a clarification as to the objective of the meeting on SEATS.
Stutsman: OK.
Lacina: Our charge is to come back to the Board with the specific information that the City is requiring.
Stutsman: Uh-huh, that's my understanding.
Lacina: OK.
Bolkcom: A list of agreed upon... A list that both parties agree on for reports.
Stutsman: Right, and that's it's written down so that everybody knows what's expected of these and signed off on. That we can do it, and that's why I want Jean to be there, too see if it's feasible to come up with those kinds of...
Lacina: We'll see what we can do.
Stutsman: OK. Jonathan?
Jordahl: Yes, I didn't mean to bow out entirely. The What/When committee had an interesting discussion on the use of County computers by people for personal types of things. It was a very interesting discussion, because we want to have people to know how to use them well but we on the other hand don't want people sitting around on County time playing solitaire either. It has been a very interesting discussion, there's a lot of different angles to it and as we look to providing more people with the Internet access and with computers and it's just one of the things we have to address. I have attended last night the Social Welfare Board, or Cluster Board meeting that Bob Welsh so masterfully chairs and arranges and provides us literature for and so forth. Cheryl Whitney gave a description of the range of services that her office provides and in was included a piece of the performance based budgeting question that we've been discussing this morning. She says that in terms of her budget, outcomes are a necessary part of the budgeting, is what result are you achieving. Is it something that is mandated by the State Body, Bob correct me, Council on Human Investment that is requiring that. But it looks like its' going to be happening throughout the place as (inaudible). This week I go on to the department heads meeting this afternoon at 2:00. I'm looking forward to that. Then the HACAP Hawkeye Area Community Action Program, I serve both on the planning board and the Board of Directors and those managed to be on 2 different days this time. So I'll be in Cedar Rapids on Wednesday and then Board of Directors is going to meet down here at the New Family Care, something like that, I can't remember the name of the thing.
Bolkcom: Family Resource.
Jordahl: Family Resource Center, thank you. Down on Southgate and Sand Road, or what is the name of that street? Waterfront Drive.
Stutsman: It's not that important.
Jordahl: Yes, on Thursday, yes, that's it.
Stutsman: OK. Just I don't have a report this morning. Discussion from the public?
Welsh: A couple things if I might. I think you're sure on the right track with the SEATS thing, in terms of getting the black and white, but the (inaudible). The thing that I heard Naomi say which raises a real red flag for me is then in December you would start renegotiating everything. It seems to me to start all over again is just a waste of time. It seems to me that you all from my understanding of negotiations, have some decent things that have been agreed to and there is no sense in reinventing the wheel at that point. It is my understanding that you have agreed to determine fair share by tour minutes and the tour minutes would be defined in terms of the time that a person is picked up and the time that they're let off. That if you pick up in Iowa City it would be those people picked up in Iowa City. I gathered you've agreed to $560,000 as the base for this year, the 4% raise each of the next years with an agreeable adjustment up and down on the basis of what the actual numbers turn out to be. I've gathered that you've agreed that the SEATS will be administered by the County and that you all would be open to any suggestions to the City. With that on those I think that I've heard that you would agree that all Federal, State, and other funding would be deducted from the total expenditures, that Iowa City's fair share would be calculated on relating to the balance. I gathered you've all agreed that all fares generated by Iowa City residents would be paid to Iowa City by the 15th. I gathered that you've agreed that Iowa City will negotiate descriptions of services with Systems would pass through to the County. I gathered that you've all agreed that the use of 6 vans by the City will be negotiated as a separate contract. It seems to me to lay all of those aside and start on December 1 with negotiating the contract, I've got to say I'm not sure what sense that makes. I guess I'm raising with you the question as to whether or not you want to say OK we'll take this time to work out the mechanics of these reports, but we're not going to revisit all of these items which we have mutually agreed upon.
Lacina: Also Bob, it's not realistic to project a years utilization off of 2 months. We know that if it's icy out some of the frail and elderly will use SEATS where otherwise they won't, because if they slip and fall and break and a hip, I mean it could be life threatening. So there are peaks and valleys in the utilization of the system that you just can't take one month or 2 months and say here, this represents the entire year.
Welsh: (Inaudible) I think I heard her say then based on that data we will start negotiation in December. That seems to me to be a futile thing. I guess all I'm suggesting to you is that you communicate to the City you don't want to reinvent the wheel and start negotiations all over again, you do want to get down what these facts are. But where you've reached agreement why do something else? I gathered from the paper, the one sticking point might be what to do with last years $103,000.
Stutsman: Bob we'll take these comments under consideration when we make that decision on Thursday, what we want to do. But I think there are some good points in what you have to say. Did you have something else that you wanted to...
Welsh: On management, performance-based management, don't forget that one of the real advantages is interpreting what the County dollars do to citizens and what they're paying for. I think that was an extremely important thing that it helps to communicate and interpret what are the services my tax dollars are paying for. The one last comment is, this is probably an unpopular thing, as your managed care dollars in terms of your disabled population increase and increase there has to be some balance there with the other persons that need social services who are not disabled, and how you'll treat those budgets. You'll say there's not a cost here because in the County's budget takes care of the computers, takes care of the space calls, I think you need to balance those things (inaudible).
Stutsman: Thank you. Any more comments, Joe?
INQUIRY (JOE GJOVIG): LARGE INCREASE IN NUMBER OF CASELOADS IN MH/MR/DD DEPARTMENT
Joe Gjovig: Yes, Sally, going through this chart that Dr. Mosher brought in. There is a question in my mind, I'd like to know the figure in the bottom of the page, how the case load jumped by 130 in one month. how is that possible? Man just one month 130 people. (Inaudible) I see it's in the case management area. Can you enlighten me where all of the 130 came from?
Stutsman: Well I think if I can explain it correctly, we used to fund Chatham Oaks and the Mental Health Center in what we called a block grant that was just we just gave them a set amount of money every year and then they took that money and served clients with that money. As part of the managed care plan we did away with that system and are now going to a system of what we call fee for service so that those groups, Mental Health Center and Chatham Oaks provide services to a client and then they bill us, so then we know exactly where the money is going, if we approve of the services that that client is given... Well in the changeover to that process that meant that some clients that we didn't have much tracking of we are now assuming a much more responsible role in providing the direct service to them. So they became part of the County's case management system where before they were just being seen and not really accountable for through the Mental Health Center, now we're taking a much more ownership role in these individual clients and keeping track of them. Because of that, that means that we have to provide another case worker to provide that service to keep track of these clients on an individual basis. In the long run we hope that's going to save money because now we can take each individual client and know exactly the services that they're getting and if those services are what they need and in the long term that hopefully that they will be more cost effective and that we're just not...
Gjovig: Did I understand correctly that there are some at the Johnson County Care Center from other counties.
Stutsman: Uh-huh, but we're not paying for them.
Lacina: Right.
Stutsman: They are being paid for by their home county.
Gjovig: So you won't have a deal like you did there awhile back.
Stutsman: That's part of the system is being more accountable, that we're keeping much better track of who is at those facilities and we're knowing that these people are Johnson County residents and they're our responsibility; so it's going to be a much better system as far as more accountability.
Gjovig: We should only be responsible for Johnson County, not for these other counties.
Stutsman: Right, exactly.
Lacina: Under the block grant system though we weren't sure, because we know we had a couple of individuals from the University, not County residents. Under block grants when we issue X amount of dollars to an agency per year it was hard to tell how much administrative expense we were picking up and that. Under this system is fee for service for the client and then so we do, we've got the differentiation of who is County and who is not. Then we can bill the Counties that have people up here getting our services. But in the mean time there does appear to be this shifting and what we have to be careful of is while there is a spike and we require case management over here, at that same time there should be some offsetting decreases, that's what we have to be careful of.
Gjovig: So I wouldn't' think there would be such a change in the bottom line, in the total figure.
Lacina: Well bottom line from the tax asking there probably will not be a lot, there will be some. But there will be a shifting in Craig's department now that has to pick that up. Obviously his budget will be going up.
Stutsman: But they're still under a freeze aren't they?
Bolkcom: Right.
Stutsman: Yes.
Lacina: For total dollars.
Bolkcom: That budget is capped.
Stutsman: Yes.
Bolkcom: Besides Mental Health Center and Chatham Oaks, the Association for Retarded Citizens also came under the management contract and also we are now managing consumers that get services there so that was part of the increase as well, those 3.
Lacina: While it's capped obviously we should be concerned about caps because if the court starts striking down caps...
Bolkcom: We'd like them to strike that one down.
Lacina: For foster care?
Bolkcom: No for the cap on our telling local counties how much they can spend on services to the citizens in their counties.
Stutsman: Well we need to recess for a short while. I need to recess; this has been a long morning. So why don't we recess.
Recessed 11:05 a.m.; reconvened 11:17 a.m.