MINUTES OF THE INFORMAL MEETING OF THE JOHNSON COUNTY BOARD OF SUPERVISORS:
OCTOBER 7, 8, AND 9, 1997
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Chairperson Stutsman called the Johnson County Board of Supervisors to order in the Johnson County Administration Building at 9:00 a.m. Members present were: Joseph Bolkcom, Charles Duffy, Jonathan Jordahl, Stephen Lacina, and Sally Stutsman.
Stutsman: October 7, 1997. Review of the formal minutes, any corrections or changes on those? If not, we'll put those on for Thursday.
SENIOR CENTER COMMISSION MEMBER WILMA CONNER: SENIOR CENTER UPDATE
Stutsman: Business from Wilma Conner, Senior Center update. Good morning.
Senior Center Commission Member Wilma Conner: Good morning. Am I close enough that you can hear me?
Stutsman: I think your fine.
Conner: All right. My name is Wilma Conner. I'm on the Senior Center Commission. This is my first visit, I've been trying to do this for quite awhile but they'd filled up the schedule and I couldn't get in.
Stutsman: Oh. I'm glad it worked out for this morning.
Conner: I'm glad that it did too. I just wanted to tell you all that the Senior Center Commission is practically up to par with all of the things that we've been trying to do for quite awhile as far as the building is concerned of the heating and air conditioning system will be completed... The renovation of that will be competed by February. That was established last month and so we're looking forward to that and hoping that the weather cooperates at the right time for that one. The floor for the exercise room is in, it's beautiful. They're in the process of doing the finishing coats and then the period of time that it has to sit after that's done. Then we'll be able to use it again. I am particularly excited about that because I've been doing the weight training class down there for a couple of years and this is going to be a real treat to have a good floor to work on rather than what we've been using. I think it will also be very useful for some of the other classes that they intend to be able to use that kind of a wooden floor for. We're going to comply with OSHA and get in a mezzanine and second floor sprinkler system, it's currently in the lower level, but this needs to be done in order for compliance, and so that's an ongoing thing that we'll be working on. Our programming is starting for this fall, we have some exciting things going on. Julie Seal is doing an extremely good job with that. I think and a broad variety of things. Susan Rudosky who is our volunteer person staff is working on the holiday bazaar which is a big event where little kids can come and where for 3 to $5 find something pretty exciting to buy for any member of their family. It's also good exposure for the Center because they have hundreds of kids and their parents who come and so this is a nice community project too. I think you've probably heard about this last month but I'd like to mention it again. On the 22nd of October we're having our town meeting. We had our first one last year, it went extremely well. We got good response from all of those who attended and had a nice response of people attending and so we're going to do it again hopefully on an annual basis and that will be October 22nd from 3:30 in the afternoon until 5:00. So just a reminder on that and we'll hope to see as many of you that can come. Thanks a lot.
Bolkcom: Great.
Stutsman: Do you know the date of the Holiday Bazaar.
Conner: I just happen to have it here. I'll see if I can find it. They've changed the day, I think it's normally been on Sunday. Saturday December 6th, instead of Sunday as it's been before.
Stutsman: OK. Well good.
Conner: OK.
Duffy: Sally, I for one, and I think other Supervisors would probably say about the same thing, that we really appreciate the Senior Center Commission have a representative and you Wilma this morning to keep us up-to-date on what's going on at the Senior Center and I wish more other groups would do it in other parts of County business, but I just think it's great and thank you for coming down.
Conner: We appreciate that working with you people also, because that has been a tremendous help for us obviously and a lot of the things we do, we couldn't do with out the Board of Supervisors and the City Council.
Lacina: I was down at Wal-mart the other day and I happened to notice that all of their Christmas stuff is now out so I'm going to plug one of my favorite stores which is the Elder Crafts at the Senior Center.
Conner: Yes.
Stutsman: Gift shop.
Lacina: Before Christmas and that they have a lot of handmade wooden toys and things that would make a great article to talk about some of the people and history. A couple years ago they had a set of horses that this guy had hand crafted and they were just outstanding. I mean you could tell the mare from the stallion because of the muscles in the shoulders and the neck. This guy was just a wonderful craftsman and everything from that to people with arthritis who are just doing simple potholders. But it's a really neat story and the story about all of the people that generate things that are fantastic.
Conner: It was quite phenomenal. I think that they start the minute they finish with this and it's a tremendous amount of work and about 300 volunteers involved. They start working on crafts and things for the next year. Most of the things are all made. But in the gift shop, I remember a lovely train. My husband was so taken with it we had to get it. He was a frustrated train buff when he was a kid.
Lacina: Well I have a lot of tulips that I don't have to water.
Duffy: One other thing, Steve is a little modest because he's one of the best customers. He told me before he loves these tulips. You don't have to water them, but he does.
Lacina: Yes, the wooden flowers.
Conner: Grandmothers are another good source.
Stutsman: Thank you very much for coming in.
Stutsman: Business from the Assistant Planning and Zoning Administrator. Discussion regarding requests for proposal and the objective of this is to seek a consultant that can do an analysis of growth in Johnson County and what the cost benefits of that growth.
Assistant Planning and Zoning Administrator R.J. Moore: Good morning.
Stutsman: Good morning.
Moore: I've given you drafts of the RFP in the past and gave Carol a new one this morning for you. The one you got this morning is basically what you had received before with some minor editing corrections. The reason we're here is as you are all aware of Johnson County is a very fast growing county. A lot of that growth has been directed into the unincorporated areas. There are many theories and thoughts behind that growth and what the impacts of that growth is not only on the environment, agricultural land, but also on the County's ability to provide services to those citizens that reside in the unincorporated areas. So not only as a planning tool but as a tool for decision-makers like yourself Rick and I have talked this over and felt like if we could do such a study, have that done for us that it would help us perform our duties and providing information to you as well as how few make decisions based on impacts of that development. I contacted a consultant firm out of Minneapolis, I believe, Virchou Kraus and Company and spoke with them and they have done this in the past not only for governmental entities, but for developers as well. So if you give us the go ahead for this, we will definitely have them on our list of consulting firms that we sent it out too. I guess if there is any questions that I might answer.
Duffy: How much is this going to cost?
Stutsman: Let's cut right to the chase.
Bolkcom: How much do you want to spend?
Duffy: (Inaudible).
Stutsman: Did you get any feedback from the firm in Minneapolis?
Moore: About cost? No, but that we could submit it to them and they would submit a proposal to us. I'm not sure about the cost.
Bolkcom: The firm that you called, I forwarded that to Rick. I got a couple of examples of reports that they've done. I just go these Friday and I've just scanned through them. I visited with probably the same person, a Don... Ron and he indicated... I mean you can spend whatever you want, but in the neighborhood of say $10,000 was the ballpark figure he gave. They've done these... They're actually out of Madison and they do audits for a lot of local governments and counties in Wisconsin, understand local government there. They've done about 10 of these fiscal impact statements, if you will, on what pays, what doesn't. Do people need impact fees? They've also worked with developers that have been required by cities to conduct a kind of a fiscal analysis. So here is a couple of examples of villages they've done if people want to take a look at it. More specifically I guess looking at the specifications that we've laid out on page 9 and 10 and talking with Mr. Ron he indicated for them to be successful and he said you could go to any CPA firm and talk about having this kind of an analysis done that we need to be extremely specific about what we want them to do for us and look at I think over the last few months as we've interviewed, as we've looked at consultants for other projects, we've had those consultants come in and say well what do you really want. I think in looking at we've proposed we need to flesh this out some more in terms of being more specific. In visiting with him I asked him if he'd seen an RFP before, in terms of could he send us something that we could use, he said they had never been solicited through an RFP. So he wasn't very helpful. He did send these 2 studies and I share these with RJ and take a look at them. He indicated there might be some language in these, specifically verbs was the word he used, to try and describe exactly what we're looking for.
Stutsman: If he doesn't respond to an RFP, then what does he respond too?
Bolkcom: I suppose they are just working fairly closely with local government that approach them and say can you give us this analysis. He said it would probably be the kind of thing that any firm that you would choose to work with you'd probably want to meet with them a couple of times and basically kind of be interviewed and lay that out. So in terms of what we've proposed here I guess I'd be concerned that this maybe too general at this point. It alludes to the comprehensive plan as a tool for this consultant to use a guide to determine things and I'm not sure if that would be the existing comprehensive plan or the new comprehensive plan. It's not actually done yet so... Anyway, just a few observations.
Duffy: Joe, are we all going to get this information, or evidently you've got some special information...
Bolkcom: I responded to an article to one of the governmental magazines we get about this firm. I just called them up and asked them about it, because I saw it on the agenda.
Stutsman: I'm going to suggest...
Duffy: I suggest that the Planning and Zoning handle this. Was Joe's consulting with you before on this to call?
Moore: No, I didn't speak to Joe. Rick gave me this and asked me to contact him. It's an advertisement for the firm out of Madison.
Duffy: Where did that come from?
Bolkcom: I think that was out of City-State Magazine, something like that. I mean it's just a national magazine advertising for fiscal impact stuff. It's something we've talked about before, trying to get a sense of this and our staff is just kind of trying to pursue it at this point.
Duffy: I didn't think we did talk about that firm.
Lacina: Well going back to the salary survey that we did. We basically went out, we had something given additional information, we kind of made some changes on it. The cost of going out for the RFP is going to be the cost basically of the paper and some time.
Stutsman: Right.
Lacina: Then we can make changes as we go through it. If we discover that it's going to be too expensive, we don't have to accept; as opposed to the bidding process, where we have some limits. We can also... We can modify this as we go through so I think this is a starting point. It may not be the finished document, but I think we should start the process.
Stutsman: Well I guess I feel the same way. I think pursuing this has some value but I need more information. So I wonder if we could maybe sit down with RJ and another Board or a couple of Board Members to kind of work the specifics of the RFP a little bit more so it can be more detailed maybe after communication or seeing what's in these we can just embellish it a little bit more and then go from there. Is that OK with the Board?
Moore: That's fine.
Duffy: I've got a problem with 2 members setting down. I think this should be brought up in a special meeting.
Stutsman: Well I guess just to get something to respond too.
Moore: The language.
Stutsman: I don't think all 5 of us need to sit in. I guess I'm suggesting a small committee to work on the details, bring it back and then we can respond to that.
Jordahl: I agree with Charlie. I think this is something where there is a... It's kind of like with a survey you can to some extent determine the results of the survey by the questions you ask. You ask something that's really skewed and people are of course going to react to it in a certain way. The only language I see in here that specifies what this proposal is actually to study talks about a present tense, an assessment of the cost of providing County services including road construction and maintenance but it doesn't allude to what I think is the largest problem when I think of what a study would show if it looked at things through time is the future cost of continuing the present process unabated. So to me I think it's important that we all sit down and have some input on just exactly how this is going to be phrased.
Bolkcom: I would agree.
Stutsman: But the reason I'm... We've got several things on the agenda this morning and I know 2 people need to leave at 10:00 and so I don't want to spend a whole lot of time hammering out details right now and I thought...
Jordahl: Not necessarily hammering out...
Stutsman: ...it could be better if we could just have a committee work on some of these things, bring it back to the whole Board to respond to it, rather than taking up 2 or 3 hours of putting in the ands and putting in the the's.
Jordahl: Well I'm really focused.
Stutsman: But I mean if everybody wants to work on it as a whole body then that's fine too.
Lacina: Well I'm willing to do this, I think the more general it is the better off we are, because we might get a proposal which we would see something that might influence in that direction as opposed to narrowly defining something that all of a sudden is predetermined. But whatever we do, I do suggest we do it in the next week to 10 days to get this thing rolling.
Moore: I must have misprinted this because there is a page missing and I'm sorry I was in a hurry, Rick's gone in our office and when Rick's gone it gets a little hectic. But I had a discussion in here on page 2 there that purpose. I'm not seeing it right now and it could be, because I'm a little nervous here, but I had expanded on that and I think where I expanded on the purpose part of what we were looking for is more on the lines of what you're looking for. I don't see it, but again, I just think it's something we need and I don't care how we get to it. All 5 of you or only 2.
Stutsman: What does the Board think.
Bolkcom: I think we should put it on another time, a different time.
Jordahl: Yes, a different time.
Bolkcom: ...and have everybody involved, because what we want to have looked at is very important. I think if we're going to spend the money to do this I think we should have all of the opinions represented.
Lacina: Could we just all go through it make suggestions in writing to RJ and incorporate those.
Stutsman: I think we could do that and then pass it out ahead of time and could give it all...
Jordahl: But there is a perception here that what we're talking about is 9 pages of stuff and most of this is pretty well boiler plate. The only thing that's really of interest is I see is the first paragraph.
Moore: The purpose.
Stutsman: But I think some people may want to look at those things that Joe got.
Bolkcom: You're going to have your eyes opened. This is a very complicated process here. I would raise a question about the timing. I want to do this. I think it makes sense , we've got a number of other studies going on. We're in the midst of the Land Use Plan. We've got a transportation plan that we need to work on. There's a lot going on in whether or not, you know we don't have a transportation plan yet. I would think that some assessment of the costs of a transportation plan over 10 years, is I think Jonathan points out correctly, we're really looking into the future here. That's what these plans do. We don't have that yet. We don't have our comprehensive plan done. This document cites specifically an analysis of how the comprehensive plan, what it's going to cost. We're not done yet with that, so I'm just wondering about managing all of these projects and whether the timeliness of this right now, whether this makes more sense if when we're further along with some other decisions.
Lacina: Actually this may be information which affects the comp plan. I see this as a component along with the transportation and that. If we set up some great land use comp plan and we discover we don't have the transportation infrastructure in place, or we discover that this comes back and gives us information, I see these as helping us build on the comp plan.
Stutsman: I guess I do too. I see this as a tool to helping us make those decisions. Jeff Davidson is coming in next Tuesday to update us on the transportation plan, so maybe it would be a good time to put this on for next Tuesday.
Moore: Do it then.
Lacina: In the meantime we'll give any comments we have to Zoning and hopefully next Tuesday...
Moore: And I'll get you the revised copy I did where I changed and expanded on basically what that purpose is, what we're looking for. Because it includes things like schools, environments, social costs. We've really expanded on this and I apologize I was too quick on, I went to a file, I think Cole updated it and moved it to another spot on me. I apologize for that, but that's fine. I can get the revised copies that I do have to you. There's one other thing then. I would like part of the discussion is how to share the costs for doing this. We agree that we think that if you have this done before we finalize the comp plan it's going to allow you to make decisions on what's going to be in that comp plan. If you know ahead of time what the cost of development is, then you can determine what densities you will allow or not allow based on these numbers that we don't have anymore. Right now we throw out some buzz words in our profession, in our planning profession, that trigger decision-making and we don't have data to support that. We feel this is a tool to finalize the land use plan as well. So I think that as part of the discussion not only whether or not you would like to pursue this, but also how to allocate those costs for this proposal itself.
Duffy: Yes, Sally. There is on page 9, proprietary and confidential information. I think the County Attorney ought to look that over.
Stutsman: Oh, probably we would have him review it.
Moore: I sent this to Pat.
Stutsman: Did you send it to Pat?
Moore: Yes, and when I figure out where the one is revised, I'll not only give copies of it to each of you, I'll make sure Pat has one in his mailbox as well.
Duffy: Pat will send us some information.
Moore: Well I hope so.
Duffy: This is an important area you know.
Moore: Yes.
Stutsman: OK, thank you RJ.
Moore: Thank you very much.
Bolkcom: Thank you.
JOHNSON COUNTY AGENT OF RECORD BOB SAUNDERS: INSURANCE BUDGET AMENDMENT
Stutsman: Business from Bob Saunders regarding amending, lowering insurance budget. Morning Bob.
Johnson County Agent of Record Bob Saunders: Morning.
Bolkcom: Good morning.
Saunders: I'll give you a quick overview of why I'm here today. As other department heads do in January, I always meet with Lynnette to set up your insurance budget. So last January we set up your insurance budget for this October. In reviewing that we take a look at historically what's been trying to go on, increasing building values, increasing payroll in the area of the workers compensation and we set up a budget for basically that point in time, $581,000 for the insurance budget for the year. At your instructions we went out and did a little shopping this year on the insurance program and as most of the communities in Iowa have found, they found 2 things. When they shopped, almost without exception, and I can only name 2, one city and one county who have changed insurance companies this year, but every single one of them has experienced a decrease in their rates. Some a little bit and some a lot. The good news for Johnson County is that our insurance quotes are in for the October 1st renewal period for the next 12 months and we're just in a little bit in excess of $100,000 under what we're going to need on the budget side. So rather than just leave that money sit there, when you've I'm sure got other interests that are asking for money in the department I would like to request and Lynnette is preparing the formal paperwork to lower our budget by $100,000. It's not necessary. The nice thing about this decrease in the budget is we were still able to increase over all property values both on buildings and contents within the County in the range of $700,000 dollars higher than last year and in addition we have a payroll increase in the County, but yet the workers compensation rates dropped $40,000. The State of Iowa continues to experience fairly good histories in the last 5 years in workers compensation rates. The feeling is pass it on to the customers, that's what it's all about. So the formal paperwork will actually be coming back from Lynnette. We'll be asking that the insurance budget, well have it broken down by the individual lines for you, but the overall budget which is at $636,000 will have to be pushed to $536,000, freeing up that money immediately. One other footnote that isn't on here, I'd like to cover it just very briefly by backing it with something more formal later on. The reason I wanted to mention this today is I just received this envelope. This is virtually an envelope full of money. There is $50,000 dollars in here. This represents the first portion of the checks we've received from the hailstorm. Basically we have 2 areas of concern in the hailstorm. One is the buildings. We are very fortunate in the hailstorm, in the buildings that were damaged were the 2 buildings at the Health Department, their main building and their garage, the Ambulance building, the Courthouse, the Administration Building, and the small building at the rear of the Courthouse. Those were the only buildings in the County to sustain any damages. I should say one other one, the main building at Chatham Oaks. Which is interesting at Chatham Oaks we had one building damaged out of their cluster and no damage across the street at the Secondary Roads department. So we have made the repairs at the main Health Department building. We have made the repairs at Chatham Oaks, we have contracted for the new roof at the Ambulance Department and the garage behind the Health Department, with the same firm that would be doing the work on the Administration Building and Courthouse and garage behind the Courthouse. I'm meeting with Pat Langenberg because we do have a little concern now, the owner of that company had a heart attack and died last week.
Stutsman: Oh, dear.
Saunders: According to his employees, he was the heart and soul of that operation. They're a fairly large company in the respect that they're in the process right now of putting most of the roof on the Coral Ridge Mall. We had 2 concerns. Initially one was if he was so busy at Coral Ridge, could he get back to our buildings? The Health Department garage and the Ambulance Building are kind of a priority. They need to be fixed now. We've indicated to that firm that if they can't get over there in the next couple of days, we'll take them off of the job and replace them. We have other firms available. The Courthouse and Administration building are a little bit unique. They're a slate roof and frankly there are only 2 or 3 companies in this entire half of Iowa that are even qualified to do the work. We've already been in contact with a couple of those regarding the timetables and things about getting those in to do that work now. So I'll be getting back to you, just letting you know through a memo or whatever what the status of that is. But we are going to get those Ambulance and Health Department buildings fixed immediately. Regarding the auto side of things then, we had 57 vehicles damaged in the hailstorm, approximately half of the fleet. Half a dozen of those suffered major windshield damages and I'm happy to report that within 24 hours of the storm, and in most cases within 12 hours of the storm all of those windshields were replaced. That's a thank you to the glass companies who gave a priority to the city, county, school systems and put their vehicles on the schedule first. The other vehicles sustained anywhere from minor damage to a lot of dents and what we're learning about hailstorms is if you don't do anything to those dents they gradually will disappear. In visiting with the risk managers and the insurance people in a half a dozen communities in eastern Iowa that suffered extensive hailstorms in Dubuque in '94 and Pella and Oskaloosa in '95, they were all rather unanimous that they fixed none of their vehicles other than the broken windshields. They didn't pound a dent out of a vehicle, car, truck or anything. They felt it was a poor use of the money. In the case here, for instance this first wave of checks is in excess of $50,000. All bills have been paid to this date to repair the vehicles in terms of the broken windshields. But it would be my suggestion to you folks that frankly none of these vehicles be repaired and you just take the $51,000 plus and use it as you choose. Put it in the general fund and prioritize something, whether it be buying 3 or 4 more vehicles or doing something else with it. That's your call, I just think that we would be consistent with other governmental bodies, Iowa City is not fixing theirs, for instance they told me. There's no point in it. They said if you park these vehicles outdoors all day long, in a couple years all of the dents are gone anyway. So I'll be giving you more thorough document just for your own reading reference to the hailstorm at this point in time. But overall we've got about $130,000 damage between buildings and autos and all of that money is going to be in-house in the Auditors office in the next couple of days. Like I said we won't pay the roofing contractors until the work is actually done. But like I said that's really all I've got this morning, it was just to pass that good news along and then get out of your way.
Stutsman: Good news.
Bolkcom: Great.
Stutsman: Good report Bob. Any questions or comments from the Board?
Duffy: Congratulations Bob, that's great.
Bolkcom: Good work.
Jordahl: Yes, how often is it and wants to give us back $100,000 dollars?
Stutsman: I wanted to make it clear that the department heads were in agreement with the vehicles, not getting them repaired and things.
Saunders: As a matter of fact a couple of those people came to me before I even got a chance to talk to them and said we don't want to fix these vehicles, we think that's a poor use of our money.
Stutsman: OK.
Saunders: I'll keep you informed.
Bolkcom: Thank you Bob.
Saunders: Thank you.
Stutsman: Thank you.
DISCUSSION: REQUESTS FOR PROPOSALS FOR FY99 BUDGETING PROCESS
Stutsman: Business from the Board of Supervisors. Discussion regarding requests for proposal for the budgeting process. Jonathan you handed out...
Jordahl: Yes, I don't know if you all got a chance to look at that? I put it in your boxes yesterday and it may be that that didn't get picked up.
Stutsman: Does everyone have a copy of that?
Bolkcom: No.
Stutsman: Karen, can I have you make copies of that and then there's something else.
Jordahl: This is a simple attempt at a requests for proposals here. It does not contain all of what I referred to as boiler plate in RJ's document, although it may be that that type of thing is important to have. I'm kind of new to this RFP business here and I'm willing to accept advice and council from anybody who is more experienced in it. What I have drafted is more comparable to that first paragraph in RJ's, which is kind of the meat of the matter is to say what do we want to study? If I could read this, it's really only a couple of paragraphs and pretty short at that. It says, the Johnson County Board of Supervisors is interested in implementing performance-based budgeting throughout all County departments. We would like to begin with basic correlation's in program area budget reporting for the FY99 budget cycle which begins with instructions to the County departments which would be issued this November, 1997. We anticipate a 2 to 3 year startup process with a strategic planning component woven into the budget process. We would like to have your proposal for the cost of assisting the County with this transition including the cost of any software training and maintenance which would be required. Time frame for beginning implementation for this next budget cycle is short so we would like to request your proposal be submitted by, and by the time I wrote this I suggested October 15th, I think that's pretty unrealistic at this point, but we could tinker with that date. The question is is this what we want? Does it need to be more detailed. My feeling is that companies that would offer this service that we would be interested in employing would already have done this before with numbers of other counties and would be quite familiar with the questions and the options and the opportunities.
Bolkcom: Did I miss a meeting? I feel confused here. I thought we were implementing, in terms of the 99 year I didn't realize we were pushing to get a consultant hired to help us do this year's budget.
Stutsman: I think that's what we talked about at the last meeting, the last meeting I was at that we were talking about putting together a Request for Proposal.
Bolkcom: I didn't realize. I thought we were going to this department head meeting to talk to department heads about what their vision for this is, get their feedback, see... There's 3 things. One is can we do it ourselves? There's people that think we can't, want to do this. Then there is the question of the timing and trying to rush this through so we can begin to do performance-based budget immediately. That's what I'm seeing here through a consultant. I just think that we run the risk of trying to bring people along too quickly in a new process and I guess my sense was that we were going too go to this department head meeting tomorrow and continue to talk with the people that do our budget about how to proceed. This seems to have the cart before the horse in that way. Whether we hire a consultant or not down the road, maybe that makes sense, maybe it doesn't. But it's like we're going to basically hand this decision down on high to our department heads tomorrow that we're doing this and I guess I got the sense that we were going to wait and kind of get a feel for what was going to happen tomorrow.
Lacina: So Jonathan based on your memo this really won't affect the department heads as much as the Board of Supervisors, correct? In reading this what I see we're going to start with some basic correlation's, so a lot of the data that they generate now is probably going to be useable.
Jordahl: That's my...
Lacina: Giving us the raw budget. What we're trying to do is to set up the basic procedure, which will give us ratios that then we will use in making decisions on the cost versus the benefit. So this is more geared to us and our being able to analyze that information, is that right?
Jordahl: Well yes, however to some extent that will involve... I guess the reason for asking this that this be, that we start this year is that it would be nice to have some feedback from someone who is gone through the process of implementing this before about how we go about that. I mean it is advice to us, but then it's advice that would impact our requests for the formal of reporting from the departments.
Lacina: Because we might need to make a change but on the other hand there may not need to be any impact on the department if they're already getting us the information.
Jordahl: My hope that it would be a minimal impact on the departments and to address your concern Joe, it would not be a case of performance-based budgeting being up and running for FY99, but rather it would be as we've discussed in the previous couple of times that we've talked about this including the department heads meeting, something that we could implement in a way that's a smooth slope from where we are rather than having a big block of OK now, your going to do things differently. That we can say look we already have a lot of information that we can base useful correlation's and we just want to make the correlation's.
Bolkcom: Well that's an assumption. That's a big assumption that somehow we're going to hire some firm to come in here and look at all the information we've gathered and tell us what it means. I think we need our department heads. I'd like to know from our department heads what information is available. I think we're making the assumption that there is all this information available and suddenly it's going to be right there present and available for some consultant to come in and do some correlation's, to tell us what it all means. Whatever system we're going to do it's going to be more work than we're doing now. It's going to be done primarily by the people in our departments.
Lacina: I may be reading this incorrectly, I'm viewing this that we're not going to go out and have some firm come in and tell us what to do, but what we're asking is for some firm to come in and give us a menu of possible ways of evaluating departments. Now we might choose certain ratios of that. I don't see this as being ratios we apply this first year, it's just giving us an opportunity to find out what questions and information we're going to need in the future.
Bolkcom: I guess this might make more sense to me next week after hearing from department heads tomorrow about how they see the process going, what they think of the process, what information is available and how... Just to kind of check in and see where we're at. I think there is a willingness from department heads to work towards this. I just want to do it in a logical process that doesn't have us... Because we did get some feedback after that meeting, some of us did. Some concerned at the department head level about what's going on here. I just think the process about how we implement this which I'm fully supportive of is important. If we're not going to have finished... people are putting their budgets together now. We're asking for some very basic performance measurements from them. I don't think we're going to have it up as you say right of way. That's fine with me, I see this as an incremental improvement we're going to make over time.
Duffy: Sally, it surprised we that you changed like the weather, Joe
Bolkcom: Pardon me?
Duffy: Because you were quoting some things that I said, that we should before we do anything to meet with department heads and other elected officials.
Bolkcom: Is that OK? I agree with that?
Duffy: Well I'm glad you agree with it now, but you didn't have too much support when I'm the one that suggested it.
Lacina: Would this be the document... This would not be the RFP that we go out for, or is it?
Jordahl: I'm asking for input on that.
Stutsman: Yes.
Jordahl: What I'm trying to reach for here is to... Joe just mentioned the idea of a logical process and Charlie raised very good point a week or so ago about involving the department heads.
Duffy: I said that at the start.
Stutsman: Having a consultant come in.
Duffy: About doing things without getting the rest of the elected officials especially and department heads involved before we make decisions.
Bolkcom: Right, I agree.
Duffy: When it affects them directly.
Lacina: Well we can easily take this document to department head meeting and say here is what we're thinking about going out. Please give us some additional input if you would like.
Stutsman: Is that what you want to do?
Lacina: And ask them for that in writing by a certain date, and then we incorporate it and go on with it.
Stutsman: Well, tomorrow what are we going to ask the department heads for? It seems like we need to give them some specific indicators or whatever.
Jordahl: Well yes, I think there is confusion about what is going on tomorrow. This is where I think I differ with you Joe on the interpretation of what's supposed to happen tomorrow. My sense of that meeting is that we will ask people to begin to work towards performance measures. Starting as you suggested by asking what data is there already that's being collected. That's certainly a logical place to start. But then moving beyond that to what data would it be reasonable to collect if it is not now being collected in order to accurately measure what other primary functions, what their goals for themselves are and to talk about that in terms of a strategic planning process, which we're going to then actually engage in on the first of November. I mean we know that we're doing that. I do not see the meeting tomorrow as one of asking the departments whether they'll go along with this, but rather to start talking about how correlation's that are useful in the budgeting process can be made with respect to their individual cases.
Lacina: So we'll be asking them specifically for suggestions on indicators they would like to see within their own departments which would help as well.
Bolkcom: Right, exactly.
Jordahl: I don't see this as asking for permission, I think we're asking for perspectives on how it can be done.
Bolkcom: I agree with that. But I don't hear anything in that that requires us to have this pay somebody a lot of money to tell us how to do that.
Jordahl: Now that's...
Bolkcom: Maybe it's going to come but...
Jordahl: Again the logical... Go ahead.
Bolkcom: That's it.
Jordahl: The question of a logical process is, to me it's more logical to start down the road of performance-based budgeting with some idea of the end in mind, that is related to the end where you hope to ultimately achieve, and if that will include the services of a consultant then it does not make sense to me to take a lot of steps prior to engaging the consultant. At least asking for a proposal from the consultant to return to an earlier discussion of the proposal that RJ brought before us. To go and ask what it would cost to have someone help us is not to obligate ourselves to pay that cost.
Stutsman: What they can do for us.
Jordahl: Do we want what they can offer? Maybe we do and maybe we don't but right now we don't have that and it would be... I don't see it as in some way jumping the gun to go out and ask what it would cost. To me that's just gathering information.
Lacina: One suggestion and since we're using Linn as somewhat of a mentor to help us through this process, because they've in effect have a good process where they can review this information, if we faxed this to Dawn up there and asked her for suggestions as to what to go out as well, together with the department heads, since they've gone through it, they may be able to give us some suggestions or mistakes that they made we could miss. I don't know how busy your schedule is but to fax that up this afternoon and probably get feedback yet this week, or maybe even tomorrow before that department head meeting.
Bolkcom: We did have one consultant come in on this right? I mean we did have somebody come in and they pretty much told us we had to be pretty darn clear what we wanted and I don't think we know what we want. I mean you talk about having some logical process that has a target out there that is going to take somebody else's process off of the shelf like Linn or Scott and we're going to say well that's where we want to be.
Lacina: That's one of the things that a consultant would do would be help us narrow down to define where we need to be as opposed to where we think we need to be so we can use data that's actually worthwhile.
Stutsman: Exactly.
Lacina: I mean we can generate tons and tons of analysis that aren't meaningful.
Bolkcom: That's my concern.
Lacina: Right and that's why if we do it ourselves with the departments not having experienced in this one department may see a direction they would like to go versus another. We need some standardized norms that we can use across the board. So what's our next step? Tomorrow we're going to talk to department heads. We'll ask them for what they see as important performance indicators, if somebody could send this up to Linn or Scott and ask for feedback prior to Thursday, do we discuss it Thursday, do we discuss it next Tuesday? I would like to see this move along because we could process something to death...
Stutsman: Why don't we put it on for next Tuesday. That will give us plenty of time to gather feedback and...
Lacina: So based on that the information we're going to have next Tuesday, will we have this document or a little bit more flushed out to review then, something, would that be beneficial.
Jordahl: I think the idea of conferring with these people and also with consultants that might be approached with this RFP about what an RFP should contain. That's all useful legwork that should be done. I think this comes forward here more as a question to the Board of Supervisors as do we want to do this. The...
Lacina: I do, I think it's a good idea. I think your right on right now, where we need to... We just need to keep taking these steps. We can't quantum leap into this thing and expect that in December we're going to have performance-based budgeting. But we do need to keep asking the question what's our next step and this is a good way to do it.
Stutsman: Yes. OK. Discussion regarding SEATS staffing...
Reverend Bob Welsh: Sally before you go on, may I interject one other question you might want to ask at your department head meeting? That is, what assistance do you need, you know your asking them for performance-based. I think this is where I heard Joe say he might be more enthused about the RFP after the meeting. I think a logical question is what assistance do you need? It might be that you'll find that your department heads say hey if what your looking for is sort of a mission statement, some key strategies and some performance measures, yes you can do that. I don't know what they'll say, but I think that might be a probable question to ask, what assistance to you need?
Bolkcom: Good point.
Stutsman: Discussion regarding SEATS staffing. I put this on. I think we need to have a decision about whether we're going to go ahead and advertise for the Director's position and if we want to start that process I need to get some feedback from the Board on where we're at on that.
Lacina: I think we could prepare the advertisement, but I guess until we have a contract with Iowa City, we really don't know the scope of the job. So at this point I'd suggest we prepare for going out but that we hold off until we get something nailed down.
Bolkcom: Good point. We've kind of been in that mode for a number of months, fill in the blank how many months. Quite a number. We have one person who is our acting director doing like 2 peoples, 3 people's jobs and at some point we need to say we're going to be in the SEATS business and go on ahead so I guess I'm... I don't know if that day is here yet, but if we are not going to hire a new director we need to make some other arrangements to provide more support down there.
Lacina: I agree.
Bolkcom: In the short term because, this thing with Iowa City could be another 90 days, it could be another 6 months. It could be July.
Stutsman: This is such a dilemma because the acting director was a former assistant director so we really are short of staff down there and there really isn't anybody from within who is willing to continue in those managerial positions right now. For that reason I guess I think I'm almost ready to go out for the director position and fill that with the plan that we will be continuing the contract with the City. I'm real concerned about the shortage of management staff down there and continuing that on indefinitely.
Jordahl: Do we have management staff in other departments that might conceivably be drawn upon to bridge this interim gap in terms of vehicle maintenance and such things, scheduling or not?
Stutsman: It's such a specialized field. It's really hard. You can shift some supervisory skills and what not but when you get into some of those specialized areas it's difficult. By the time somebody learns what they're to be doing then it's time to hire somebody else so.
Jordahl: Well you know we're doing a salary survey here and one of the components of that would be what are the duties of that job and I think Steve's point about this scope of the job. Is this going to be a person supervising a SEATS operation that's county-wide including Iowa City or is this going to be something that's a rural transportation system?
Stutsman: Well it will change drastically if we don't have the contract with the City. But I don't know when that will be.
Bolkcom: So will every other position.
Lacina: We did go through this last spring and selected an outstanding individual, offering the position and after going through the entire process and in fact offering him more than we advertised, he walked away. I think that in fairness to the applicants, we don't know what we can really tell them.
Bolkcom: We can tell them what we know.
Lacina: If I'm selected as a director, I don't know if I'm going to be operating 2 vans, 4 vans, 24 vans, it's kind of a dilemma for them to leave a secure position and come to us without that contract really hammered out.
Stutsman: But we need to get some help for the Director down there.
Lacina: See I agree with Joe, I see it as 2 different positions. Somehow we need some assistance, because we have one management person and everybody else in the bargaining unit. We need some help down there right now. I guess, going back to Jonathan's idea, is there a way we can go and find a mid-management person for a short term to come in and help out?
Bolkcom: That currently works for us?
Lacina: No.
Bolkcom: Yes.
Stutsman: Just go out and advertise for that? Just...
Lacina: Well, maybe not even advertise, Maybe Kelly Services would have a retired exec or somebody in management level that could come in and that would be skilled in analysis. Maybe that's what we need to do. Find somebody to do the number crunching.
Bolkcom: Yes, I would... That's certainly a possible short-term solution. I would like to suggest that in less expensive, although we've got the money in the budget, because we've gone 3 months and haven't spent it. I think we need to send a signal to Iowa City that we're running SEATS and we intend to run SEATS in the future and that we have a staff that's competent and can do the job. I think that makes the case for just going on ahead and we'd just be as direct as possible with the applicants and say this is where we're at, we're working earnestly to get this agreement, but I think it will send a message to the City and other people that we provide this service to that the County is fully intending to run a high quality service and we're going to have professional people do it. If we don't get the contract with Iowa City, we have all these employees and all these other jobs... All bets, we're going to have to down size and whatever we're going to do, we might do it with one new employee, we might do it with all old employees, or we might do it with a temporary employee and a number of people that have been with us for a while. I think it's important to get some professional staff on and move on ahead, fully expecting to get this agreement.
Lacina: Sounds good, but we did it last spring and it didn't work.
Bolkcom: Well I say, I guess what I'm saying is let's do it again, we made an offer, we had somebody good, for a number of reasons, the person didn't choose to come here. It would have been great, he was a highly qualified person.
Stutsman: I guess there just doesn't seem to be any good solution to this. I think under the circumstances I guess I too think we need to out and advertise for the Director position and start moving towards getting those positions filled and...
Lacina: The dilemma that we've got is if you look at a time table and figure out from last spring the process... You're not going to be giving your acting director any assistance for probably 90 days.
Bolkcom: Well maybe we should do both.
Lacina: So I think we should consider both.
Bolkcom: I don't disagree. Try and find somebody temporarily for 60 days and go about the process of hiring.
Stutsman: Well how do we go about finding that temporary person then to step in?
Lacina: I would say a phone call to SCORE, to Kelly Services, we can come up with a list of possible places.
Bolkcom: That's a good idea.
Lacina: Then just pick up the phone and call them and say, do you have someone in this area and they say yes or no and...
Jordahl: What about ISAC, do they have some kind of a Supervisors affiliate or any sub group of ISAC possibly have their finger in what all the counties are doing in this area that maybe we have...
Lacina: I doubt that it's going to be that short-term.
Bolkcom: We need somebody local.
Lacina: Yes.
Bolkcom: That can come in I suppose.
Duffy: I would say to ask some students in the University of Iowa, it's a resource that we've been tapping into for Zoning and all that. But I'm a little confused here, we gave them an ultimatum for 30 days to have the data that Iowa City wanted, plus other things. Now all of a sudden we're talking about 6 months later, so Iowa City I don't think they've really said that. I would be for temporary help on a case like this.
Lacina: Why don't we just pick up... If we have the money in the budget, let's just ask Carol or Jo or Karen to pick up the phone and come up with a list of possible resources for us immediately to get some help in there. Because that's what we need, within the next 30 days, we've got to get some reports out.
Stutsman: And just hold off on advertising for the SEATS director then?
Lacina: Well let's....
Bolkcom: I would say simultaneously.
Lacina: Let's start the process by taking a look at the job description and maybe we can draft a what-if scenario that in the assumption and hopefully we have the contract, we'll have everything in place so that when we get the contract we can immediately go out and advertise and put in the position.
Bolkcom: I would like to begin advertising. We're going to need a director of the service, irregardless of if it's a rural service or a urban/rural service.
Lacina: Well...
Bolkcom: We're going to have to have somebody in charge.
Lacina: OK, I would not have a problem with that. I think we should..
Bolkcom: I think we should be going, it's going to take us, as you pointed out a couple of months to get somebody.
Stutsman: So let's... OK, we will start the process for advertising for the SEATS Director and then look for some temporary interim help.
Lacina: Right.
Stutsman: OK. Any other discussion or...
Lacina: If you have the job description, well no, actually, what are we looking for for this temporary assistance? The temp position.
Duffy: That's a good question.
Bolkcom: Maybe we should look at the Assistant Director's position as a template. There's some tasks in there.
Stutsman: Well and it's...
Bolkcom: We might want to visit with Burnell and come up with a list.
Lacina: And possibly Jean as far as some skills from the report side that would help us.
Stutsman: OK, do we want to have Burnell come in or do a couple of the Supervisors just want to sit down and visit with him.
Lacina: A couple of supervisors.
Bolkcom: That would be fine.
Stutsman: OK, who would like to do that?
Bolkcom: I would suggest we do that.
Jordahl: Those most familiar with the situation probably.
Stutsman: Do you have time to do that, Steve? Not right now...
Bolkcom: As he looks at the clock.
Jordahl: Before lunch.
Lacina: Not this morning.
Stutsman: I know it's harvest time and I didn't know...
Duffy: I would suggest Steve.
Lacina: Yes, we have to get it done so.
Stutsman: OK, why don't you and Joe work on that and...
Bolkcom: Sounds great.
Stutsman: OK.
Bolkcom: I have to excuse myself, I've been invited to be involved in a session dealing with some water quality issues out at Oakdale from 10 to 3 today with the Iowa Environmental Council. Are we going to be talking about the Director of Budget and Finance this morning?
Stutsman: I wanted to...
Jordahl: We're having a work session that could be postponed until later in the day I suppose.
Stutsman: I don't think that's going to work for Steve.
Lacina: Well and you'll be gone from 10 to 3 anyway, right? So that's... Unless you're going to do it after 3.
Stutsman: Do we want to put it on for Thursday? Or can we start discussion?
Duffy: We could put...
Lacina: Sure, Thursday night? Oh, that could be a long one.
Bolkcom: At 5:30, we could talk at 5:30 about it Thursday night. But Zoning's at 6.
Jordahl: It would be better to talk about it this morning.
Bolkcom: Depending what else is on.
Stutsman: I think we'll go ahead and at least start the discussion on that and...
Bolkcom: Let me just say I'm opposed to it and I would like to hire our, go with our current job description for Kim, or formerly Kim's position and hire that position.
Jordahl: I want to...
Bolkcom: So I'm not hearing any of the discussion, that's why...
Jordahl: Can I respond to that?
Bolkcom: My baseline position. You can, I'll read the minutes.
Bolkcom left at 9:55 a.m.
DISCUSSION: DESIGNATION OF FLOATING CHRISTMAS HOLIDAY
Stutsman: OK. Discussion regarding designation of floating Christmas Holiday for the Board of Supervisors office. Carol had a dentist appointment she's got a bad tooth. How do we do this in other years? The...
Lacina: County Attorney's Office basically coordinates with the judges and will set that independent of the rest of this, but then basically in the past what we have done is gone out to the department heads to ask for their input.
Stutsman: What they would prefer, whether they would...
Lacina: Because the employees may decide if they want a particular range of days open or come in after the holiday. But we can get just a real short quick survey from them to get some ideas. Those who don't respond we just figure are neutral on it.
Stutsman: OK, well the Christmas Holiday falls on Thursday this year. So do we ask if they want Friday off? Is that how that works?
Lacina: Or the following Monday, right?
Stutsman: Or do we just say that it's Friday?
Jordahl: It certainly makes sense.
Lacina: Could do that.
Jordahl: I think it... If it's a Wednesday, it may be more of a debate, but if it's like a Tuesday or a Thursday or...
Stutsman: It sounds like this one is a no brainer this year.
Jordahl: It kinds of looks like it.
Stutsman: What other day is there, but... Who wants to come to work on Friday and then have Monday off? Unless you want to wait until the kids go (inaudible).
Jordahl: Similarly, got New Year's.
Stutsman: Oh well that's right. And maybe that's what the discussion is... More whether to have... We need Carol here to find this out. So why don't we just put this on for Thursday and see where we're at on that.
DISCUSSION: APPOINTMENT TO THE COMPENSATION BOARD
Stutsman: OK appointment to the Compensation Board, I put this on as a kind of reminder, but I understand, Steve, that you and Carol have a name for somebody to appoint to the Compensation Board?
Lacina: Well Carol was going to contact Phyllis Pechman to see if she would be our rep. We'd still need... And I don't know if she got through to her.
Stutsman: She didn't. That's what she told me but she said she is in the process of getting a person lined up for that. So we'll have to wait until...
Lacina: Phyllis has served on the Computer Needs Committee, a very sharp business woman that I think would represent our Board well and I think she'd be good if she will do it.
Jordahl: Uh-huh, I've known her from another context too.
Stutsman: OK, so why don't... We'll just wait to hear back from Carol what her response was from Phyllis.
Lacina: We also need one from the Sheriff and the Treasurer.
Stutsman: And is it County Attorney too? Or is that...
Lacina: I'm not sure from the County Attorney, but their meeting is November 22nd, so we're going to... I think the 22nd. That's coming right along.
Board of Supervisors Office Employee Karen Lineau: So does that mean put it back on the agenda?
Lacina: For action if she will do it. So... As soon as we make contact with her, then on a Thursday we would have to put that on if it's acceptable to the Board.
Jordahl: That's a Saturday? November 22nd?
Stutsman: Yes, they meet on Saturday.
Lacina: At 10:00.
Stutsman: Along that same line under other, I wanted to get it on the agenda for this morning, but it didn't get on for some reason, there has been a resignation from the Board of Social Welfare. So we need to... Jeffrey Van Slyke, is that how you pronounce his name? Excuse me if I pronounced that wrong, is not able to serve any longer. His appointment as all Board of Social Welfare appointments is just for a year, so his term would be up in December. I didn't know if the Board wanted to go out and advertise again for that position or I think Bob you have recruited a couple of individuals that are interested in serving the remainder of that term.
Welsh: Jeff said this, I called Mary Blumenstein who Jeff replaced. She left the Board because change of her employment which made it impossible for her to attend meetings in the afternoon. (Inaudible). The Board has since gone to evening meetings. I just took the liberty of calling Mary up and asking would you like to be appointed to fill the rest of this term. She said that she could do so. She said one disadvantage that you should know about is in relation to next year she probably will be leaving the County in the spring of next year. But she'd be willing to do this October, November, and December meeting. Or we've had some people who have been attending meetings who've expressed interest and one of those persons could be appointed. The 3rd alternative that I mentioned, Sally, to you, was just leaving it vacant. I guess a 4th would be to ask some of these people informally to attend our meetings and participate through... Some persons like Bob Simpson have expressed real interest and have attended a number of our meetings and he was not at the last meeting, but Bob apologized. So I guess I just wanted you to know that I think it's important to have as many people involved as possible. I will surely do whatever you desire.
Lacina: If Bob was willing to do it...
Stutsman: Bob Simpson?
Lacina: Simpson. I think that would be a good idea. There are going to be 3 meetings left for the year.
Welsh: We sometimes have 2 a month. That would be 3.
Lacina: I would support just putting Bob in for the interim. Just to fill the position.
Stutsman: And then just waiting until November, just advertise for the Board of Social Welfare just like we usually do, just not do it this time, but just appoint Bob? Is the Board in agreement with that?
Jordahl: I can certainly work with Bob.
Stutsman: OK. Has he agreed to consider?
Welsh: No, I've not... All I can tell you is that he has indicated to me...
Stutsman: Why don't I contact him. Then if he's willing to consider that we could put that on for action on Thursday then and go from there.
Jordahl: We're not talking about a lot of time here before we'll be advertising anyway.
Stutsman: Right, OK.