MINUTES OF THE INFORMAL MEETING OF THE JOHNSON COUNTY BOARD OF SUPERVISORS:
WORK SESSION WITH DEPARTMENT HEADS
OCTOBER 8, 1997
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Discussion: Salary Survey of Johnson County Employees
Chairperson Stutsman called the Johnson County Board of Supervisors to order in the Johnson County Administration Building at 2:00 p.m. Members present were: Joseph Bolkcom, Charles Duffy, Jonathan Jordahl, and Sally Stutsman; absent: Stephen Lacina.
Department heads present were: Ambulance Director Mike Sullivan, City Assessor Dan Hudson, County Assessor Jerry Musser, County Engineer Mike Gardner, County Recorder Deborah Conger, County Sheriff Robert Carpenter, County Treasurer Cletus Redlinger, General Relief Director Mary Kay Hull, Information Services Director Jean Schultz, Mental Health/Developmental Disabilities Director Craig Mosher, Physical Plant Manager Pat Langenberg, Planning and Zoning Administrator Rick Dvorak, Public Health Director Graham Dameron, Interim SEATS Director Burnell Chadek, Senior Dining Director Mike Foster, and Veterans Affairs Commission Director Leo Baier.
Staff present were: Board of Supervisors Administrative
Assistant Carol Peters, Sheriff's Department Captain Duane
Lewis, Assistant Planning and Zoning Administrator R.J. Moore,
Conservation Department Secretary Rose Grace, Board of
Supervisors Employee Karen Lienau, and Auditor's Office
Recording Secretary Casie Parkins.
DISCUSSION: SALARY SURVEY OF JOHNSON COUNTY EMPLOYEES
Sally Stutsman asked Jack A. Lipovac and Associates Senior Associate Jerry Thompson to review the salary survey for Johnson County employees. He explained that all of the department heads would be receiving questionnaires for each employee in their department that would be used in the survey. Thompson said he wanted to go through the questionnaire page by page. Thompson explained that employees shouldn't leave any question blank; there must be a response for every question. When answering the questionnaire, he said that people must think about the job and not the person who does the job. Public Health Director Graham Dameron asked if that meant that a person might not be at the level given in the response, but that is the requirement of the job. Thompson said yes. Thompson said that it would be possible that a job today might require a 4 year degree, but 20 years ago it didn't; likewise someone with a Masters degree may be doing a job that would only require a high school education. Thompson said that high school diploma and GED are equivalent. Thompson said a requirement might be 2 years of college supplemented by 5 years of experience rather than 4 years of college.
Thompson explained areas of the questionnaire such as prior experience required, on the job training, problem complexity, and contacts. He explained that the area of the questionnaire regarding supervision meant the amount of time an employee spends supervising other employees. Thompson said the category discretion meant how much discretion does the employee have in making decisions. He said the contribution category meant how much contribution does the employee make to the organization. In the mental effort category, Thompson advised that people filling out the questionnaire select the normal highest mental level needed on a recurring basis. He said that on visual demands some will score higher because they might work at a computer all day. He said the time pressure category should be answered in the same way as mental effort and visual effort. Dameron asked if employees would only have one response to each question and Thompson said yes. Thompson explained that the end of the form would be the hardest to fill out, because employees have to write down the duties they do in their job. He said it might be helpful if department heads gave their employees an example of their job description, if available. He said there is space for 10 items and at least 6 or 7 should be written. Thompson advised that department heads allow their employees an hour or an hour and a half of work time to fill out the questionnaire.
County Treasurer Cletus Redlinger asked who was supposed to fill out the questionnaires. Thompson answered anyone not covered by a union contract, except elected officials. He also said that anybody who has a new job description probably won't have to fill out a questionnaire. Thompson said his firm will create a draft job description for those employees who do not have a current job description. Dameron asked if the purpose of the questionnaire was just to be able to write a good job description. Thompson said yes, that it had nothing to do with performance. Dameron said that he had some people who didn't agree with their job description as he wrote it, Thompson said that Dameron would have to make the call on his own whether the employees descriptions were right or not. Dameron asked if the questionnaire would make a difference if the person was full-time or part-time. Thompson said that a clerk should still be a clerk whether they work 20 hours a week or 40.
MH/MR/DD Director Craig Mosher explained to Thompson that all of the job descriptions in his department have to comply with various 28E agreements and they should probably get together and talk about them. Thompson explained that he would be back in Iowa City in a week or 2 for a few days to handle individual concerns. Redlinger explained the 2 employees in his office not in the bargaining unit are deputies who are restricted in pay by the Code of Iowa. Thompson said he might still want good job descriptions, because there may be duties added beyond statutory requirements. County Sheriff Robert Carpenter asked if Thompson would be doing job descriptions for his civil service employees. Thompson said that regardless of the pay situation it would still be beneficial to have a current job descriptions. Planning and Zoning Administrator Rick Dvorak asked if the salary survey would also take into account recent department head evaluations when determining the new salaries for employees. Thompson said it could be as a third step, but he didn't see it related to the salary survey.
Monday Nov. 3rd was set as the deadline for returning the questionnaires. Assistant Planning and Zoning Administrator RJ Moore asked if when the salary survey was done the department heads would get to see the methodology. Thompson said he would give the Board of Supervisors a report showing them the data they collected, and what the Board does with the data was up to them. Moore asked if he had already been given direction as to how to do the study. Thompson said he had already been given direction as to what counties and entities to study in comparison with Johnson County. Stutsman said as the study gets near completion the Board will study how best to communicate the results with department heads. Thompson said he would coordinate schedules with Carol Peters and if any department head wanted to meet with him they could arrange a time with Peters.
DISCUSSION: FY99 BUDGET PROCESS
Jordahl stated they had introduced the concept of performance-based budgeting at the prior department head meeting and suggested there may already be certain indicators that are already gathered by departments. He said the implementation of performance-based budgeting was not something the Board was going to be able to do this year, but they may be able to establish certain correlations with existing statistics. He stated that in 2 weeks the department heads would also get together to discuss strategic planning, which would serve as the basis for performance standards which will correlate the vision or mission for each department with the outcomes or effects. Jordahl explained that performance-based budgeting would be an incremental process and today he wanted to discuss the first increment of establishing performance-based budgeting. Jordahl asked for a department head to give examples of information that could begin to implement performance-based budgeting in their department with existing facts. Ambulance Director Mike Sullivan said his department could use statistics like cost per unit hour, unit hour utilization, call volume, response locations, and response times. Jordahl pointed out that the Ambulance Department has a lot of information that is already being kept. Jordahl asked Sullivan if he was required to keep the information or if it was internal to the department. Sullivan answered that it was internal to the department. Jordahl said he hoped performance-based budgeting would reflect what departments were already doing. Jordahl pointed out that the Ambulance Service keeps a lot of statistics and that the Board wouldn't necessarily want to see all of those, but if Sullivan could focus on some relevant statistics, what would they be. Sullivan said call volume would be one, because if there are more calls he might have to ask for another ambulance or more staffing. Cost per unit hour would also be needed. He said accounts receivable would be another relevant factor. Jordahl said it would be nice to focus on revenues. Jordahl said a key concept in performance-based budgeting was planning, planning ahead for 5 years, and using data from previous years to do that. Jordahl said he hoped that eventually they will get to the point that they will be able to project what they are going to need in the future. Sullivan said the population projections in the proposed Land Use Plan will help him plan for the next few years. Jordahl said this was also related to the Transportation Study in the North Corridor, because they will need to project how much money it will cost to repair the roads.
Dameron stated that the Health Department annually published a services index on about 40 programs. He said this index answers if a program is mandated, and if so by whom it is mandated. He asked if other departments do annual reports that could be relevant to performance-based budgeting. Dvorak said Planning and Zoning does, but that it's not broken down by a time-costs study. Dvorak said he would have a problem with doing a time-cost study, because they are so time consuming. Jordahl said there was a point to be made about time-cost studies; he said he wouldn't want to keep track of five minutes at a time, but they could keep track of the number of staff people in the office and the number of applications processed during a year and correlate the two. Dvorak said they'll give the Board pie charts and the last 5 years' analysis. Jordahl asked Dvorak how hard it was for him to provide that information. Dvorak said it takes about 5 minutes. Dvorak said it was hard to keep track of time costs; one reason being that time spent on a project such as the proposed Land Use Plan did not occur the previous year. Jordahl asked the department heads what information would be useful for them to keep track of that they now don't and it might not be difficult for them to keep track of. He said this should come out of the strategic planning process. Jordahl said the goal wasn't micro-management; that it should be useful information to the departments, and it should be more understandable to the public.
Carpenter said he would like to see the Board of Supervisors turn around and do the same thing for the other elected officials that the Board is asking them to do. Carpenter said they are trying to reinvent the wheel. He said he has asked for an extra secretary and personnel, and has documented it for the last couple of years and has never gotten anything. Carpenter said he can give the Board the information they want, but it will take personnel to do this. He said he hasn't seen any help from the Board of Supervisors in terms of personnel for the last 3 years. Carpenter asked the Board to tell the elected officials what their goals are so they can get on board. Carpenter said the Board was keeping the elected officials on the outside and he thought it was time the Board started sharing with the department heads, so everybody can work together as a team; instead of the departments putting in extra paperwork for the Board when they don't know where the Board is headed with it. Jordahl said it was a good point. They have been doing strategic planning with Tim Shields and he didn't know if that information had been distributed to department heads.
Carpenter said that in the last 6 months, and it all started with the League of Women Voters, the elected officials have had a lot of stuff pushed on them because the Board of Supervisors has about 110 things on their plate that they want to accomplish to try to make somebody happy. Carpenter said there was really nothing wrong with the way County government was working right now. He said he thought everybody was trying to work in the right direction, but he thought that people were taking on too big of a bite to get everything done. He said he gets a stack of papers every week for different meetings that they're supposed to try to attend to help make the County run easier. He said that was fine, because they used to never hear anything from the Board of Supervisors. Carpenter said the Sheriff's Department runs differently than any other department, because they have no idea how many calls they will get in a year, or how much he will be able to offer for benefits because they've got to answer every call that comes in. He said that his goals were to take care of the people of Johnson County the best that he could with law enforcement. He said his goal was just to try to make budget at the end of the year. He said the Board was adding a lot of extra work on his department for something they already do. He said he felt it was getting to the point they are going to have to start saying no to some of the Board's requests because they don't have the time to do everything the Board wants them to.
Jordahl said that on November 1st they will tell the department heads what they've been up to with strategic planning. Carpenter said that he might find out 3 months from now that he needs something very desperately, that he had no idea about, and asked how is he supposed to set a goal on that. He said he could understand long range planning, but the Board is asking for some things that are not known. Jordahl said that there are periodically things that are unforeseen needs that will need to be responded too. Carpenter said they may be more interested in collecting revenues than providing services. Bolkcom said he heard Carpenter saying there was a communication problem He listed some of the strategic goals the Board is working on and said they need to do a better job of keeping the department heads informed. Carpenter said a good example of the communication problem is that when he made a budget request in the past he found out from the Auditor's Office that the request was turned down, without an explanation from the Board. Bolkcom said that every department has probably experienced that. Bolkcom said that there are probably legitimate needs that every department needs that they are not funding. Carpenter said he knows the Board is not picking on his department, but he wants an explanation from the Board as to why a request is deleted. Bolkcom said they need to do a better job of that. Stutsman said the Board is not asking for a prediction of what the statistics will be a year in advance. She said they are asking departments what they did last year, they can collect information for the next year, and so forth, and then they can start seeing trends. Stutsman said Carpenter brings up a good point on communication, because the Board is doing a lot of things without the benefit of a lot of support staff. She said one of the things that gets overlooked is communication and she said they do need to work on that. Stutsman said November 3rd Tim Shields is going to meet with the department heads and they're going to talk about what the department heads see as the vision for the County and how that ties in with what the Board is doing. She said it's going to be an evolving process and that feedback is going to be important
Jordahl said he suggested County Auditor Tom Slockett attend a budget school, which he attended and Slockett met Ray Weirson from Scott County. Weirson recommended a CD-ROM on performance-based budgeting and Slockett ordered it. Jordahl said he was going to give a presentation of the CD-ROM and he hoped it would be put on the network server. He said departments should be able to access the CD-ROM on the server or if outside the building to borrow the CD-ROM. He said he hoped it would be as useful to departments as it would be to the Board during the budgeting process.
Stutsman announced the strategic planning session for department heads would be the morning of November 3, 1997. Dameron said that he felt the communication between the Board and the department heads was better because they have been having more meetings lately. It was decided the next department head meeting would be December 2nd at 2:00 p.m.; elected officials will meet with the Board beginning at 1:30 p.m.
Dvorak said several people from Johnson County attended a conference on GIS at UNI, and they learned about lot of things that are possible with GIS. He said they sent out an RFP for a needs assessment and they will have responses back soon.
Adjourned at 3:20 p.m.
Attest: Tom Slockett, Auditor
By Casie Parkins, Recording Secretary