MENTAL HEALTH/DEVELOPMENTAL DISABILITIES DIRECTOR CRAIG MOSHER: SOCIAL WORK POSITION
Stutsman: OK. Business from Dr. Craig Mosher, Director of Mental Health/Developmental Disabilities Services for Johnson County. This is regarding social work position, discussion on that. Have Mimi Haithcox and Jessica Montgomery with us too this morning. Good morning.
Mental Health/Developmental Disabilities Social Worker Mimi Haithcox: Good morning.
Mental Health/Developmental Disabilities Social Worker Jessica Montgomery: Good morning.
Bolkcom: Good morning.
Mental Health/Developmental Disabilities Director Craig Mosher: I'd like to introduce Mimi Haithcox and Jessie Montgomery, 2 of our social workers that came in to help explain this this morning. You've all gotten a copy of the memo. There's some additional... Do you... Carol... OK. As you can see from the charts that I've passed out, we've had a serious jump in the number of clients that we're serving with social work services since the first of July. It's gone up by 123 new individuals and that's on the non-case management line on the table. Then you can see on the chart on the next page that our caseloads had been running about 55 individuals per social worker. As of July 1, that was up to 57, and then it jumped to 71. That's with the additional social work position that was added in July. So that's really become an unmanageable number. You can see that it's a one-time increase. If you look at the last page, you can see how the line has leveled off again. So it really is just a, it's a one time increase that's related to the switch to fee for service funding from the block grants that we used to use. There are really 3 agencies primarily involved here. The Mental Health Center and Chatham Oaks and the ARC are contributing the individuals to this situation. As you know at Chatham Oaks we had to assign social workers to individuals there and also to the Mental Health Center, but also at the ARC, which I didn't mention in talking to your earlier, but there are a number of families who are getting child care services for special needs children through the ARC. Those families require a fairly intensive amount of social work help to get them geared up to explore the services that are available and what their children need and so forth. So this is a need that's really got staff very overworked right now and we need to really do something about it. The salary is there on the sheet. The money will come from our existing budget. Since these people do provide direct services to individuals, it's appropriate that we take it out of the services budget that we currently have, so we're not asking for any new dollars. This is simply a reallocation within our budget, but because it's a new position, we need to get your OK to go ahead with it. So, I did ask Mimi and Jessie to come because I think it would be helpful for you to hear a little bit about some of the specific situations that they're in, trying to do their jobs and what the caseloads have meant to them, so if they could each take a couple, a few minutes to explain that, I would appreciate it.
Stutsman: Sure, that would be great.
Mosher: That be all right? OK.
Montgomery: I did a lot of the intakes for the families, particularly through the ARC that we're getting the day care block granted and those were all people that we welcomed into our unit that we told, that I told would be getting a social worker. Then I ended up keeping many of those people and I did such a fabulous job at intake that when I described to them the door that we were opening and then later took a caseload, everybody ran through the door. Which is what I wanted them to do, which has been really good. That has often been a savings, because they realize that they had more choices in picking who would provide day care for their children, it led to respite services, that kind of thing. So it's been very empowering for them and I think most people are really pleased. A lot of these families we had never met, they were out there and they were using the day care block grant, but we didn't know them. So now they have a worker, in my case if it's me and they're very pleased with that, it sort of feels like a squeaky wheel for me; though there are many people I have other than switching over, I have not even been able to meet them. The families that I have worked with have been very good about wanting my help and I have to think that so will the others if I can get to the place where I can meet with them. I want to do that, it's just been very time consuming and well worth it. That was the perspective that I wanted to give. These were families that we really didn't know before and now we're meeting them. Its led to other services that they've wanted that I can help them with, it's just very time consuming to do that. I assume that it will be ongoing on some level.
Jordahl: Is this part of the number that Craig is talking about here in the increase in caseloads, or is this just an increase in the type of services provided?
Montgomery: Excuse me?
Jordahl: When you're talking about these Arc families, are they represented in these charts that show total cases and social work cases.
Montgomery: Right.
Jordahl: So that's part of the increase. This is a policy change, rather the memo refers to Mental Health Center and Chatham Oaks. So what part of the number increase that we have are ARC families?
Montgomery: About 50, isn't it? Approximately?
Mosher: Yes, about 123, we think are Arc families.
Montgomery: Right.
Mosher: Around, Steve you'd asked about this too, around 35 or maybe 40 are probably the most people on the balance. So you can see it's kind of spread among several of those block grant agencies and we took on the fee for service switch over, we have to provide this service so Mimi and Jessie are the ones that make the decisions about how the County dollars are actually going to be spent. They're the ones that say yes, we will allocate so many units of service to this individual for this service. So they're the ones that are actually riding herd on the County budget on a case by case basis and we simply have to have time to do that.
Jordahl: And it was previously handled within Arc through block granted dollars.
Mosher: Right, see previously we'd pay the Arc to do this and now they've reduced the funding for the ARC because they are no longer providing what they call the case management service. We're doing that in-house now. So this is actually dollars that are not going to ARC now that did go to the ARC last year.
Jordahl: Are they the same dollars? How did the dollars that were going to the ARC compare to the dollars now necessary to provide case management services?
Mosher: Well the ARC funding just in terms of what... We don't set a set amount for a particular agency, but we do budget that way and we reduced the amount we budgeted for the ARC by about $30,000. So it's pretty close to what we're talking about and we're only part of the caseload.
Jordahl: So the approximately 50 cases is approximately one social worker's worth of cases and so if you're at approximately $30,000 coming out of that budget as we've been addressing the personnel director's position here, looking at the relationship between salary and benefits and so forth, does $30,000 cover a social worker's salary and benefits?
Mosher: No, salary and benefits are $38,000 total, but all of the cases involved are not ARC cases here, so we wouldn't expect the numbers to match up exactly.
Stutsman: So in other words, this social worker just wouldn't be dealing with ARC.
Mosher: That's right.
Jordahl: No, I had assumed.
Stutsman: It would be Chatham Oaks.
Jordahl: Per our earlier conversation that these people are distributed among the various social workers so there's a mix for everyone.
Haithcox: We try to share the fun.
Stutsman: Mimi, did you have any comments?
Haithcox: Well yes, I just wanted to say this is sort of the good news, bad news scenario with fee for service or managed care. I think actually it's pretty terrific. When we switch to fee for service under a no more managed care situation, what we begin to realize is that we were creating more choices for people and actually giving them a more active role in how they served and treated their own families. It's actually pretty exciting because we're seeing it can work and it can be cost-effective. On the other hand, though because there are so many choices and so many more sophisticated ways of pulling down funding that spares County dollars, it requires more time on the social worker's part to help families, just to educate them. What's available, how does it work, what are your rights, what are your responsibilities. How do we manage these resources for you and what suits your family best? That does take a lot of time. That's something that one of the primary services that we provide is to sort of help families and individuals win their way through a very increasingly complicated Human Services system. From my perspective, that's one of the largest challenges in the fee for services, that we've got this wonderful way of doing things now. But it requires more time to do it and it's more difficult to do when there are more than 70 consumers. I'd be satisfied with 55.
Lacina: And that's some of the information that hopefully performance-based budgeting in time will give us. We're going to need to know how often you see the clients. For example, at Mental Health Center when we looked at some of their budgets, they see individuals once a year in some cases, they just do that initial treatment and that. If that is one of the cases, it's not going to take a great deal of time. The 40 individuals at Chatham Oaks had case management before. I haven't seen that position disappear, so now we are assigning our case managers and so we've got some fundamental overlap in that. Their cost per day is going to go up again, again we've got additional staff. So the time on the case, the success rate, how many people have we had on these cases for 10 years, 20 years, 6 months, are we successful, or is the caseload just continually going to grow? Was this a one time blip? Is this the best way to deal with it? Again, when I talked to Craig the other day, I've expressed concern that since the beginning of the CPC position which the State mandated that we do, we're now in excess of $319,000 we've diverted from the tax stream, that could have been used for clients into labor. We have to be aware of that...
Haithcox: What if, Steve, part of what we do, it's interesting, the State sort of requires that we perform certain functions as social workers so we're sort of told as much by State standards as by local standards how we should conduct our jobs. So a lot of what we do is the actual work that people at Community Mental Health Center do, that people at the ARC do, that people at Chatham Oaks do. Somebody gets discharged from the hospital... It's not uncommon for us to be the one to pick them up, take them home, go to the grocery store, make sure that their very basic human needs are met, so it's a real direct service that we perform. If a family is in crisis, we're the ones that go to their homes to help them identify their strengths, so that they can solve the problem on their own. So in some cases, it's hard to describe what's our success, because we work with a population of people who have ongoing needs. But we actually do provide a service. If you compared, if you compared the cost of our service per hour. For example, I might cost $18 per hour, if I did something for a consumer and it costs $18 per hour and I didn't have to make a referral to another agency to do the same thing for $35 an hour, it's a savings.
Mosher: It's really cost-effective.
Haithcox: It really is cost-effective.
Lacina: But we're not getting that information. We're not seeing on paper that this is a result. So I guess in my mind and when a taxpayer comes to me and says my taxes are too high, why didn't you outsource to Chatham Oaks for their case management person, and they're already on the salary line, why didn't you just assign those people and have them some kind of a 28E agreement; why did you pick up another one, I don't have a good answer. So the things that you're telling us today, hopefully in time will come in paper and again I told Craig, I'll support the position, but the amount of money that we're reallocating which are tax dollars, maybe not from the County, but tax dollars from the State or the Fed, we're going a lot into labor and I'm getting concerned about that.
Mosher: Well, but these are really, as Mimi said, these are direct service positions. These are people that are actually serving clients and individuals.
Lacina: Well, OK, but answer the question Craig, why didn't we go to Chatham Oaks and enter into a contract with their case management person that's actually providing that service, because the individuals in that facility for the most part stay in that facility.
Mosher: OK, and we've discussed this several times. But the Chatham Oaks social workers, case manager, provide service within that facility to those individuals. But they don't have responsibility for that consumer's overall situation. Whereas we do. We have responsibility for the other services that individual gets. Whether at Goodwill or at other agencies in town. We have responsibility to that individual when they leave Chatham Oaks. So you need someone who has that overall responsibility. You don't expect Chatham Oaks to do that. Because that's not their job. They're different jobs. The 2 positions are not doing the same thing, even though the names may be the same.
Lacina: But if you look at the 40 people, not all of them are going to Goodwill. A lot of them are staying within that facility.
Mosher: No, and the ones that stay there are lower, they have lower demands on our time. So that's why we can have a caseload of 55 and get away with it, because you've got some people like that on your caseload who don't take a lot of time and they're balanced by people that take a great deal of time. There are some individuals that you're seeing more than once a week sometimes because they're in crisis and it takes a great deal of time.
Stutsman: You know, maybe what would help with this discussion, because it is real confusing when we call everybody social workers or case managers what everybody does. If we could take a sample case, leaving out names, and just explain how you case manage that case. Or what role the social worker... I don't know if that would help to explain what you do. But I think as Mimi says, you do more than just sign a paper or whatever. You are providing a direct service for these clients. I think we just have a general confusion as to what the role of the Chatham Oaks case worker is versus the County case worker and that might help to...
Lacina: It would also be beneficial to see results, success rates. A few years ago, we had a request from Carol Thompson when she was the Director for about $275,000 which included a very experimental drug for 3 individuals and then services for 2 people to be, well the one example was to take their wheelchair and push them around the walk out at Kent Park. Not important when you consider the entire needs of the community. So I have no doubt that you're working very hard, the services that you have provided are really important to the client, but what I'm saying, and I'm saying it over and over again, we are diverting money away from clients into labor that yes, helps the clients, but at the same time, when we're in a period of about 2 years, $300,000, I get a little concerned. So we certainly can't continue this trend. As we see the chart on the case management, some counties do have waiting lists. They go in and do evaluations of the cases to see what's the best way. And like the Mental Health Center, group therapy for some, instead of a case worker, yes we have to have an assigned person to each one of them, but there are ways that maybe we can get some efficiencies and then have you spend more time on the more critical cases. I know that they're all critical for every individual, if you make a determination this one isn't critical and they do a suicide on you, obviously you made a... And you're in the situation to make those most touchy decisions. But again we're diverting a lot of money.
Mosher: And you're quite right, we need to get some data on outcomes, so that we can sort of show you what the effect of some of the services really is. That's part of the task, that's in the plan and that's something that's on the agenda for us to be working on. I think that will be helpful because we'll be able to look at how people's level of functioning for example, changes over time in different services, make some decisions then based on that. That is part of the challenge that's coming up in the next year or 2 is to get that kind of data.
Lacina: That won't be cheap either, I realize that, because the State's given us this mandate for this information management system.
Stutsman: I think we do need to have that information so that we make sure that we are making good decisions as far as increasing staff and I don't think any of us have a problem with that if we know that is saving money elsewhere or it's doing a better job of managing the system.
Mosher: Well, we haven't talked about them this morning yet, but there are a number of cases where we could have saved some County dollars if the worker had the time to follow up on the case and get the paperwork done and all that kind of stuff. So that's part of the reason for this request is that it really can save some dollars in terms of making decisions that get someone into a more efficient service or get someone from an institution into a community-based setting where the waiver can pick up the cost and so forth. It really does save some County dollars as well so...
Stutsman: Well and I think what we forget too, is when you're working with these clientele, you don't set up a program to last a lifetime. They're constantly changing. And what may work today requires some different strategy tomorrow. I think that's why you have to continually work with these clients, because their needs are changing and our resources are changing and so to make sure that they all gel takes a lot of time and energy.
Lacina: Now you have the job description which gets cleared with the County Attorney.
Mosher: Yes, it's the same job description...
Lacina: For the case worker.
Mosher: For this position.
Lacina: So, basically all you need is the payroll authorization for the position.
Mosher: Yes, we just need the OK to go ahead and, if you agree then we'll advertise for it and begin the process.
Jordahl: When we talked the other day, Craig, I raised the question, and it's been discussed somewhat in passing this morning, the idea of the Chatham Oaks caseload for individuals perhaps being a somewhat lighter load in that they do have on-site social workers that are doing therapy and so forth in that situation and part of your response was that they were, and don't let me misquote you here, but that those cases are distributed across the social workers that you have. So although they may count differently, they're spread out, so that you still have an increase in work for everybody and some need for additional staff, but I think Steve raised the point earlier of looking at how much time, or how much effort does it take to deal with each one of these individuals. If all it takes is a phone call to find out if somebody's going, it takes 3 minutes, that's not the same as a person whom you're actively serving.
Mosher: Absolutely.
Jordahl: So, the raw numbers we're looking at performance-based budgeting, one of the things that really is a question about this is what do the raw numbers actually represent, if they represent a mixture of people who are very time consuming and people who have very little time consumption, maybe it's like for example, maybe the Chatham Oaks cases should be put in a different category and counted differently. I'm not sure how time consuming those are. Sally's suggestion about let's have an example of what it does in fact involve does in fact to some extent assuage this concern on my part. But if you say the jump is to 71, but actually some significant third of those are not very time-consuming, then the number doesn't mean quite the same thing.
Mosher: Right, but the challenge is in trying to figure out a way to represent that. Because you might have a case that required very little time on the part of the social worker for six months and then that person had a crisis and then they might spend 15 hours that one week on that one case. So if you put a person in a particular category, they may not stay in that category. So you need some flexibility in how you do that. I agree, they're all over the map in terms of the amount of time that each case takes. But that's just the nature of what we're dealing with. We're working with human beings and they're not sort of an easy categorize, but we can certainly try to give you some specific examples of what typical cases would be like. Maybe that would help.
Jordahl: But we do have at least one category here that's objectifiable. We have people who are receiving duplicate social work services to some extent.
Haithcox: No, no, it's really not duplicated. It's kind of complicated and I don't know if we have, I don't want us to take too much time. But the system is so complex that it's really not a duplication. I want to say on behalf of Chatham Oaks that they serve a wide variety of people and they serve a number of people who have enormous needs. So the idea that if you're out at Chatham Oaks and things are stable and fine, it's not always true. They really do a very good job working with very challenging people. So that requires a lot of coordination between and among several groups of people. They have a social worker as a requirement of State standards in licensing of how they perform their function as a residential care facility. That's a very different job function than what we perform. That's true of a number of agencies that have licensing requirements. Some residential care facilities don't refer to their staff as social workers any longer, they refer to them as technical assistants or things like that. They just sort of changed the way they describe what the person does. But we don't really duplicate, we work together. A perfect example of something that might happen at Chatham Oaks is a gentleman who has a long history of chronic schizophrenia and emphysema becomes critically ill. He doesn't have Medicaid, he has to have gotten through the Medically Needy spend-down program, so that we can preserve County dollars, so that we don't end up paying 100% of his bills for him, which we would otherwise be mandated to do. That's my job to take care of that and it's my job to contact all the people involved, meet with them, get information, fill out prescription forms, MEV's they're called, Medical Eligibility Verification forms. We have to fill out all the prescriptions, all the doctor's reports, we have to get all of these together, we have to turn them over to another office in the State to verify that they do meet the guidelines, so that they can have Medically Needy, which is a form of Medicaid so that we don't end up spending County dollars to do that. That's just one person, one example.
Jordahl: Uh-huh, but the Chatham Oaks social worker would be aware of this medical situation and be directly involved in the administration.
Haithcox: We would work together.
Stutsman: But they wouldn't know how to fill out the papers. They wouldn't have...
Haithcox: They don't know how to do...
Mosher: They don't do that.
Haithcox: They don't work for the Department of Human Services. They don't have the familiarity with, nor are they expected to.
Mosher: That's our job.
Haithcox: That is part of what we do. That's just one small thing.
Lacina: On the other hand, we did have an individual in a mental institution, who was suicidal and repeatedly banged his head against the door until he fractured his neck, ended up in intensive care at the University. Chatham Oaks was able to get involved, took the individual under their care. A secondary problem, he's also a pyromaniac and the worker's had to constantly watch him because he's set fires out there. But they were able to physically get that individual out of the institution which was extremely expensive, place him into Chatham Oaks and then care for him there at a local base, which he has a better quality of life, they have been able to set up some things, so that he has been able to have limited interaction within the community. So they do a lot. I also miss spoke. In the diversion dollars, I had added into that $90,000 lawsuit, so it wasn't $300,000, it was like $229,000. I tagged you with the lawsuit which I apologize. That was...
Mosher: That's really a good example of the kind of case where it's good to have a local agency that can handle someone like that and they do a good job with people like that, but imagine how busy that social worker at Chatham Oaks is going to be working with that individual, and they're not going to have time, or it's not part of their job to do the kind of thing that Mimi was just describing in terms of the paperwork and getting people in the right programs that we draw down Federal dollars to avoid having to use County dollars to pay for stuff like that. So it's important to have the different positions because they're each very busy people.
Lacina: Well and as I told you the other day, I'm going to support the position, but it all points out to the fact that we need more information.
Stutsman: Right, and I do think we need to have that too, because if we had figures saying because this position was here and you were able to process those papers, save the medical bill of $60,000. That pays for one position right there. Those are the kinds of things that we need to have.
Mosher: So that would be helpful.
Jordahl: Yes, a money saved line in the budget, wouldn't that be nice?
Bolkcom: We already to some degree have some of that with Chatham Oaks, ARC, we got that, what $80,000, $40,000, $50,000. I think Mimi hit it on the head in terms of the double edged sword of managed care. We are just maturing this system where we've brought block grants to fee for service. Part of managing the dollars is paying attention to what consumers need on all points. Unfortunately, that takes some staff to oversee that. I think the Board, our hesitancy in general, no matter what the department, is adding more people, we want to be as parsimonious as possible with that. But it's almost impossible to manage these dollars without having people managing them.
Haithcox: I think we could probably demonstrate right now some savings...We could do that. I think we'll...To try and be creative with all the different ways that we can present the information to you. Because it is helpful to know individual situations and also...
Stutsman: It's a complicated system.
Bolkcom: Yes.
Haithcox: Yes. It is.
Stutsman: Charlie?
Duffy: Well first of all, I'm glad it was explained where that $37,000 was coming from. The department heads as my budget, it's not going to cost taxpayers any money. Some people might think you're over budget. So I'm glad that...I suppose we should have invited Mary Donovan here today, or one of her group out there when we're talking about this, but... Anyway, so I'm going to support it.
Stutsman: OK, so the Board is in favor of going ahead and authorizing this position? Joe?
Bolkcom: Sure.
Stutsman: Jonathan? Yes or no.
Jordahl: Yes.
Stutsman: OK. Any other comments? We have said this before, but I think it's so important to have regular contact between Craig and your staff so that we do have a good understanding of what's going on and that the dollars are being managed and savings are being found.
Lacina: There are huge successes out there because of the work you do. We want to thank you for...
Haithcox: Thank you.
Lacina: In a very difficult position.
Stutsman: I was going to mention, a letter just came in this morning from an individual who has had contact, it was Mimi she mentioned specifically and with the department saying what wonderful service she had gotten. She has 2 children with disabilities, and kind of explaining the complicated maze and how valuable it is to have somebody that works with you to get the services needed for her children so...
Haithcox: Thank you very much. That was really...
Stutsman: It was good timing.
Haithcox: Maybe we can look up who that was.
Stutsman: We'll let you know, because I think a courtesy copy was to Craig. I don't know if you have gotten a copy of it yet.
Mosher: OK.
Stutsman: If not, we'll make sure that you do get a copy of that.
Mosher: OK, would you like us to schedule a time to come in and present a typical case to you?
Stutsman: I think that would be real helpful. Maybe Carol, could you kind of see when
we don't have a real long agenda and...
Haithcox: When is that...It's getting harder for you all too, isn't it?
Stutsman: Well...
Lacina: Maybe an update on that information management system that the State is imposing upon us would help us as well.
Jordahl: It does really help to get an appreciation for what you're doing.
Haithcox: Oh, we've got lot's of stories.
Stutsman: Yes. Thank you...
Mosher: Thanks.
Bolkcom: Thank you.
Stutsman: ...very much for coming in. We will take just a short five minute break.
Recessed at 10:25 a.m. Reconvened at 10:31 a.m.
DISCUSSION: BRAINSTORMING SPACE OPTIONS FOR THE ADMINISTRATION BUILDING
Stutsman: Back in session and we're here to talk about space needs. Dwight Dobberstein (Inaudible) here to talk about additional office space in the Johnson County Courthouse.
Langenberg: (Inaudible).
Stutsman: Excuse me Pat would it be better to talk about that? I was going to say with the several elected officials and department heads it would be better to talk about space options for the Administration Building.
Langenberg: Sure if everybody is here that's going to be yes.
Stutsman: Why don't we do that first then.
Langenberg: I've talked with the Board different times. I guess we really direction as far as different ideas and what we're looking for as far as space in the Supervisor's office or throughout the building.
Stutsman: Maybe what I might explain is that last week we just started talking about this and we just brainstormed some. Different ideas plus the plans that we had gotten from Dwight before and then we soon realized that we needed, we were kind of talking about everybody's space in this building and we thought we probably should have department heads and elected officials in here to be part of the discussion so that we can have everybody's input.
Dobberstein: Pat and I walked around to all of the different departments, this has been awhile ago, I don't quite remember when. But looking for utilizing your spaces and we really didn't find large amounts of space that weren't being used. I guess when we designed the building we designed it for some growth and I think you're seeing that. Each department had a little bit of space at the time. Some have used it up and some have not. It looks like the Supervisors was the one we did not provide enough room for growth in. What I'm hearing the needs are was that you've got a couple human resource people coming in and a budget director and you're finding out that the Supervisors would like to have more enclosed private offices so that they could hold conversations with individuals. Past that I haven't heard what the needs are from other departments or from Supervisors and it would be good to have a discussion about what you think those needs are. Who wants to start?
Bolkcom: I think the thing that got it rolling, the Board I think has felt like we've been pretty cramped but we've been able to live with it and probably could continue to live with it. But I think the thing that kind of pushed it off center was the need, we're hiring a human resource person that probably will be on staff by I think roughly December 1st.
Stutsman: I wanted to clarify that we're not hiring a new budget director this is a position that's in the office, so we're not creating another space for that person. It's somebody that was already here and so we need to...
Dobberstein: Needs an office though?
Stutsman: Right.
Dobberstein: OK.
Stutsman: Yes.
Bolkcom: Good point, I didn't think we'd hired that position yet either.
Duffy: I don't agree with that.
Bolkcom: That's later on the agenda.
Jordahl: We'll get there.
Bolkcom: So we needed space for this one person, this human resource person. The discussion had been trying to maybe take some space from the Recorder's Office. Basically cutting a doorway and taking the existing Recorder's Office and then the question became we need to build another space for the Recorder in their existing space. Then we got into a broader discussion, if we're going to do that, is that just piecemeal is that going to solve our bigger problem, in what ways could we solve the Supervisors larger problem of space. So that's kind of the background of how we've gotten to here.
Jordahl: In as much as we're bumping into the space of the Recorder's Office is the question of what other space ought we to be addressing. Is there some more global solution that would perhaps with greater efficiency address a greater range of needs perhaps with somewhat greater cost, but this is a good time to ask people what their space needs are.
Bolkcom: So then we looked around the building in the space underneath the entry way. Whether or not that was reasonable space to try and enclose.
Dobberstein: Yes and we looked at that a little bit, I know that last time we looked at putting maybe Supervisors offices down there and that was one solution and I think we were talking roughly 250,000. The other solution would be to take just this Board room and put it down there and that would open up this whole area for offices which might work more efficiently for your communication on a day to day level. Looking at that, that could work too. It's basically the same space that we're sitting in. If we wanted to in fact push out to the column line here that would add some additional space that we could talk about for downstairs. That really changes the function of the access to the Treasurer or Auditor. We looked at how much space was available there and again just for budgeting reasons thinking if you had $100 a square foot you're looking at maybe $300,000 for doing a Board room down there. Not doing anything up here then, you'd have to add to that if you wanted to... You could easily get offices up here or maybe an open office area, it would be hard to provide windows for everybody obviously unless you had an open office if you wanted to divide off offices to be more private. That cuts off some of the windows but it would certainly open up room for you to expand as an office for the Supervisors. I guess we really haven't looked past that from what I talked to Pat about just this last week to see what we could do in other departments because like I said when we walked through originally last spring maybe we didn't find a whole lot of space available and assuming that there is still going to be some growth and I'm sure those departments probably used up what little space they had.
Stutsman: Well and storage space is just unreal. Aside from finding office space, the storage space needs are just incredible.
Jordahl: But we do have that storage facility.
Stutsman: Well but we keep referring to that and I think sooner or later that's going to reach its max. too. Where is that Pat as far as...
Langenberg: We do have one room that's 20 by 40 down there. It's got Recorder's Office books in it, and Treasurer's Office books and there's really not a whole lot of space left there. Outside of that we are really full down there. The landing that was built on the south side that's full. I shouldn't say full, the County Attorney said that he will have it filled in 5 years. We have talked about a landing on the north side if we were to do that at some time down the line.
Jordahl: With regard to the Supervisors' Offices here and light to jump all over the place on topics here, the one plan that we have here and I don't know if people can see this is to keep our offices much as they are but to run walls between them instead of where we now have some partitions and some no partitions and to put entry way doors here into this area, as is currently the case with Carol's office. There's a window through Carol's office so the interior light can be provided here by windows in this wall.
Dobberstein: Sure right, get some borrowed light through and we could put blinds up if you wanted privacy for... Right I think it's very doable to open this whole area and get some more office space. We'd be glad to brainstorm more on paper and bring back ideas. I just wanted to get some input from people here first.
Jordahl: Doing things cheaply is probably the number one concern. That's why we thought well OK we've got a new person. The Recorder's Office is right next door lets use that, and it would probably be cheaper than anything else we could think of to do, kind of the cheap thinking.
Dobberstein: Sure.
Stutsman: But then we kind of realized that that's 2 small offices, it may serve our needs in the short term, but are we really accomplishing anything for the money we're spending. Is this just going to be a Band-Aid approach to something that we really need major surgery on.
Jordahl: It isn't just limited to the cost of putting up a couple of doors and walls to make that area accessible from this office but it also asks, we still have a Recorder where does she go and that person is going to need space and so then we have to probably provide for that. I don't mean to speak for the Board on who is going to pay for such a thing but somehow somebody is going to pay for making another office for the Recorder. So that's part of the cost of taking the Recorder's Office space. So these things all lined up against one another like dominoes and we just kind of figure is there a cheap way of dealing with lots of dominoes rather than just making a little mess in the corner.
Dobberstein: Well I guess you hit it first when you said that's a Band-Aid approach and is there another long term approach and I guess you need to decide what the growth will be long term before we can decide how to handle it. In this building there's no good way to add onto it other than probably downstairs in the front there.
Jordahl: The shrinkage is one possibility Deborah and I were discussing. The reduction of paper volume that has to be maintained in an office. With computerization there's a document management system being implemented in the Recorder's Office and as that comes to pass and as documents are transferred from paper form to electronic form it was possible that the paper records could be stored elsewhere. Not that there necessarily is a good where Pat, where they might be stored but that notion is that we could have some reduction in space needs.
Dobberstein: Well and I remember that was discussed as we designed this building though. That there was all those records and they were starting to microfilm them and we thought that that space would get smaller and I really don't know how they come in the time since we've designed the building but I imagine they've got more records and they've managed to reduce some and they're just going to maintain them. Maybe they can speak to that more but I think everybody should be looking at that, reducing the amount of record storage that they have, just to maintain the space that they're in.
Stutsman: Are we kidding ourselves with this record storage stuff? Will we ever get to the point where we won't need hard copies of at least the original?
Lacina: As long as the Federal Codes in that dictate that for land transactions and that you must have originals and in some cases 3 or how many was it 18 plats for Linn County now that they require when there is a platting process up there for some of that stuff. As long as they maintain those written requirements probably not. The other fear is that on the microfiche some of the early attempts now are not readable now on some of those documents, they tend to yellow.
Stutsman: You know we may not need as much storage but I don't think we'll ever get to the point where we'll have...
Lacina: There will probably be a need also because the technology that is not going to be reachable to 100% of the population, or the individuals who can't read or need to see the written plat or types of things in order to just operate with it.
Jordahl: That will be available, I'm not suggesting that we burn them. I'm saying that they need to be stored but they don't need to be stored in this building.
County Recorder Deborah Conger: The legislature did pass a bill last year saying that electronic formats are now legal documents so...
Lacina: But in land transactions if you go into something like that with the attorneys and that I think it's required, you can't fax for example an original, they still require the original document. Yes we can use a lot of the other stuff electronically, we're still stuck.
Stutsman: Well I guess what I was trying to say was I don't think we'll ever be able to get out of the need for storage.
Conger: Part of it is a mental thing. I mean there's a thing with getting rid of paper. We've dealt with paper for so long that that's our psychology and this is a whole transition over into electronic formats. I mean even myself as much as I am buying into this I still find myself printing out documents in my computer because I just feel more secure if I have that piece of paper. But you know if we can get away from that that transition is going to take awhile but I think eventually paper will become a thing of the past but it's going to take awhile.
Lacina: And it sells. The people trying to sell us imaging and that, it's a good pitch. But when the computer systems came into the County it was going to get rid of all of these employees, it takes technicians and lots of people and printer repairers. But going back to the concerns about the HR function, the position we've got for the financial analyst and in time we're going to need support staff as the information requirements grow, the MIS system that Human Services is going to have to have. We're going to have to be able to do meaningful analysis of those numbers. We are going to grow in need within this office for managing that.
Bolkcom: Maybe it would be helpful, there's other department heads here that may have some ideas, if we're going to do a more comprehensive solution we probably need to have a committee of people that have space in this building try and figure out what it is. We've been kind of kicking it around but there may be some other ideas.
Stutsman: Tom did you have a comment? You have your hand up?
County Auditor Tom Slockett: Yes I was just wondering if you could fill us in a little bit on where... Are you talking about expanding the ground floor for additional Board room, I didn't really, I'm not familiar with that discussion.
Dobberstein: We really haven't drawn anything. The only easy place in this building to add on would be on the ground floor underneath the over hang there and just fill that in and how we do that we're not sure. We haven't explored that. Only to say that it's about the same space as what the Supervisors have now for the Board room. If it fits. That's about all we have done. There's no place to go on 3 directions, I guess we could go out front if you're trying to add on this building. It would be difficult.
Slockett: Is there any thought of, I want to be careful of how I say this because Pat is a wonderful neighbor to have downstairs but sometimes I've wondered is that the best place in the County for the Physical Plant Offices to be located or if you're talking about expanding the Courthouse, the Jails and so forth, Social Services, Board of Health, is there another place where it would be better to have the Physical Plant manager in space would be available there? One reason I mention that is he has a very nice shop that has a door that opens right onto my office.
Stutsman: Do you pound in this shop, Pat? Oh I see you're looking at coveting this.
Slockett: If you've looked in our voting machine area you've probably noticed that we have really packed the utilization into every square foot. That way we've gone vertically with big shelves, there's literally no room for anything there. I do think you should take seriously what Deborah is saying. I do think that hopefully a lot of these records will be able to be put into electronic format and then filed out of the... Where the laws require physical documents have it be shipped off to a lower cost per square foot storage area. I think in many cases the laws will eventually change. Some of the things that Steve is talking about, these aren't laws that were created when we had electronic storage and it's going to take a long time for that to change. In turn we're also talking about doing more and more. We're talking about GIS system, I don't know where that's going to be located. There is going to be space requirements there and I just wanted to mention that since the subject is space needs that that would be a handy place for our office to expand into because it's attached to the office. That would be convenient so I just wanted to throw that out there as something for you to consider. The only other point I wanted to make is that I'm really proud of the fact that this building was built without borrowing any money, without bonding. I think the Supervisors have a right to be very proud of what they're doing with the Capital Expenditure accounts in which we're identifying appreciation needs in future and large future needs and putting the money away and saving it and being able to build either twice as much or build it at half the cost other than as an alternative to bonding. So I hope as you look at these needs you also look at progressive ways to finance them. We're perfectly able to do that by doing what you're doing. Planning ahead, not waiting till the last minute, declaring an emergency, bonding and doubling the cost. It's not necessary to do that.
Stutsman: I think that's motivation for this discussion, for we can plan for this.
Slockett: I applaud and encourage you.
Stutsman: Charlie do you have a comment?
Duffy: I don't agree with you, Tom. I just wondered when this discussion got down to Pat's Office. We started out here with a human resources person which I was against anyway. So the other day we talked about knocking holes in everybody's walls. You said that you need your office remodeled if we went south, isn't that what you told me the other day? Our City Assessor wasn't even in here which kind of bothered me a little bit because we're talking about heading north. Then we got down to Zoning, watch out you wont' have a place to eat in that room if your not careful. So now we're downstairs and I know it effects the Treasurer's Office.
Stutsman: I think we hit every corner in this building.
Duffy: All on account on this person that there is votes enough to hire this person. It looks to me like we're cutting off one end of the rope to sew it on the other end to make it longer. I think we should have a place... If you're going to go and do this, this human resource person don't have to be in this building.
Stutsman: Well I don't think we're doing this just because of the human resource person.
Duffy: I think you are.
Stutsman: I think there's a lot of identified needs and storage concerns and space concerns. We're a growing county and I don't think we can just nail it on one position.
Duffy: Well I'm not so sure, Sally with the way we're growing if we're going to keep growing. Watching tax payers money, what's all of this going to cost and I don't see any good reason here yet that this human resource person has to be in this building. So if you give me a reason I might change my mind. What's the reason this person has to be in this building?
Jordahl: I've got a reason that's related to this, Charlie. One of the reasons we're looking beyond the question of the Human Resources person, making this a larger question, for me as a Supervisor I've repeatedly said it's easier to work at home, I get more done, no interruptions. Because I've got privacy there. Over here we're all strung out on desk, desk, desk here and we can all hear each other talk every time the phone rings, it's really distracting. Hard to get any work done here. I think that we could be somewhat more available to people and get more accomplished, I think better serve the public if we had some privacy from all of this constant interruption.
Duffy: I'm going to agree with that but I haven't seen a cost figure on this yet.
Jordahl: They said 220 on that one, that's what I got here on this piece of paper.
Duffy: That's covetousness. That's wanting our neighbors room and I'm not like that.
Jordahl: Well this one here was suggested I think by Mr. Dobberstein wasn't' it? With a kind of just drawing the walls here and putting doors in this wall and that figure that Pat gave me on that was $220,000.
Stutsman: The problem with that and my concern with that one is that it opens up into the Board room. If somebody else is using this Board room and I think this Board room should be used as often as can be, that means to get into our office we have to go through a meeting every time we want to go to our office and I just don't think that's a good...
Jordahl: This is that domino effect we're talking about here.
Stutsman: And nothing's perfect I know it isn't and we're just going to have to be give and take no matter which option we use but Tom do you have a...
Jordahl: I'm just saying a bad solution implies some other questions and that's the big one. What about this room here, can we create another one. What is the total end cost of this, as you move one piece another falls down and so we're just trying to talk about that.
Slockett: I agree with the Board members, I agree with Charlie and Jonathan and Sally were saying and I think I saw nods of assent from Steve and Joe as well. I think the Board really do need individual offices so that they can talk to members of the public about matters that aren't for... Then another member of the public will walk by and overhear and that sort of thing. I think that would be good and in line with what Sally said are we just patching up something that isn't really going to provide solutions to our needs or are we going to address the needs. Before we moved here, before we built this building we had clearly the Board's facilities weren't adequate. We were in that temporary building, it was temporary for decades, but one of the options we had at that location that we used from time to time was the option of when the Board room itself had a large meeting and overflowed we could go to the large courtroom and have a larger public hearing facility available and we did that a number of times, not routinely but on a fairly regular basis and in fact when this building was built I argued for having a larger public room such as this and also I argued for individual Supervisor rooms at the time. I think it's even more apparent that those thing are needed and if you do move and you address this I would like to see you have a larger public area. There are many times when people are spilled out into the halls and we try to accommodate them with the PA system and so forth but it's not the same as being in part of the meeting. So I would try to encourage you to try to figure out a way to knock these walls out and make this whole room larger or something and then create other space but I would encourage you to make a large public area room as well.
Langenberg: One plan we did have was moving this wall out but this was also bringing the offices into here and then...
Slockett: Yes. I can see that Sally's got a real valid point.
Langenberg: We're getting conflict.
Slockett: You're going to be caught walking and it's going to be hard to get into it as well through a meeting that's being put on by someone else.
Jordahl: Yes, so the entryway is an interesting option. If we brought the outside wall corresponding to the Supervisor's windows here down to ground level, there then becomes a large space there. The question you began to speak to earlier, Mr. Dobberstein was the, question of how do people then access the Auditor and Treasurer's Offices? Do they go around that boardroom on the sides or what's the plan.
Dobberstein: Well, yes, and we would have to go back and draw a plan, but yes I think just looking at it, we could get access around the boardroom. Have the boardroom right in the middle, basically where we are right now, only down a floor, come in the front door and you have to go around to either the Auditor or the Treasurer and still have this open area in the middle. I'm sure there might be quite a few different ideas on how that might work and some might appeal to you more than others. We have talked about the possibility of opening it up and having some glass in there so they can be visible to a lot of people who are maybe in the lobby and that way it could open up and be a much bigger space than what you have here. We're not proposing to close off this open space here with the big sculpture and everything, but I think it would be a way to utilize that better so that you could view into the boardroom.
Stutsman: What appealed to that is that when we talked about moving the Board offices downstairs, that meant splitting up the Board from staff.
Dobberstein: Right.
Stutsman: And I just couldn't see how that could work, having Carol up here and the rest of the Board, well actually 4 members of the Board downstairs, there wasn't room for a 5th office. I thought if we could just keep everybody, the offices in one place, then have the Board space room in another place, it seemed like that would be more conducive than splitting everybody up.
Dobberstein: That makes a lot of sense to me too, because then everybody's right here and you can work more efficiently together and have a receptionist and people meeting in public and then the boardroom is downstairs. But it's a little more expensive than just poking through the wall of the Recorder's Office and putting in an office, it's more than a Band Aid approach. I think what would solve your problem for the next, at least next few years to come, but it has a bigger price tag and I guess that's what I'm not sure if I'm hearing what your budget actually might be. That's why we kind of threw out just a square foot cost estimate of like $300,000 to do that kind of thing. If that's what we're talking about, we could go back and draw up some plans here, just look at, it doesn't have to take a lot of time on our part just to make these quick sketches and you can see how it might work.
Stutsman: Rick, did you have a comment?
Dvorak: This is brainstorming, right?
Stutsman: Right. When I say brainstorming, I mean throw out any idea, we're not going to...
Dvorak: OK, why do you guys even have to be in this building?
Lacina: We don't.
Dvorak: I mean could you just convert all this to more office space for the other offices that need it and then you folks go to an annex building.
Stutsman: Gee, they want to get rid of Pat and now they want to get rid of us.
Jordahl: Would you want to be with us?
Lacina: Again, this is brainstorming and not a proposal, but it was discussed whether the Assessor's needed to be within the building because of their workload. Now one thing is with networking, they would have to be connected to the Auditor's Office and the Recorder's Office because there's a lot of interaction going back and forth between the 2.
Stutsman: Maybe that's...
Dvorak: I'm in that office more than they are.
Stutsman: Yes, and maybe that's the discussion we need to have, is who really needs...What's the priorities. Who needs most access? Because we talked about the City and the County Assessor. Did they need to be here? Well then we realized a lot of real estate people go over and they stop at the County Assessor's Office and they stop at the City Assessor's Office. So it does make sense to have both of them.
Dvorak: Well if somebody, I assume when GIS is in place, that will take care of a lot of the County work, and theoretically you can go to one office and you'll be able to get every bit of information that you want. You can even do it through a remote...But today, I don't, did you answer my question, does the Board have to be in this building?
Lacina: Years ago Donnelly wanted to buy the house across the street which would have been a good move and have, he could have had the conference room and stuff here, but that's history and that's gone and...
Dvorak: Well and he wanted to buy the Armory first.
Lacina: Well and that fell through. I was seriously trying to swap a piece of ground for them.
Duffy: In years gone by the Board was in the Federal building.
Stutsman: Did that work?
Conger: They were in the school house too.
Lacina: Until they shut the heat off at night and turned the air on and you died in there.
Conger: They were in the school house too, (inaudible).
Peters: (Inaudible)
Lacina: So yes, it worked, but...
Stutsman: Well and with us talking about e-mail, maybe we don't need to be here. Because I'm thinking well we run down and ask questions at the Treasurer, Planning and Zoning, and things like that, but can those things...
Dvorak: I'm not advocating this, I was just...
Stutsman: Well, no, and I totally encourage you to do just exactly what you've done. Just throw out these ideas and let's just discuss them. Deb did you have...
Conger: One of the issues too that we're dealing with when you're talking about increased population is parking. I know with vital statistics we have more cars now out in the lot. On Tuesdays and Thursdays when you're having a meeting and if there's a good public response to some issue you're dealing with, there's no parking out there. So having the Board in this building and having restricted parking really makes public accessibility an issue, I think. From comments that we get up there from people who've had to drive around and park up on Madison or Capitol in order to get to the building.
Duffy: Yes, but we're more accessible to the public than the City, we'll probably have to have a parking ramp down here. If this is filled up out here, they can park over here at the...
Bolkcom: We're only charging $5 a month to our employees to park which doesn't nearly meet the cost of maintaining the parking lots. If you wanted to have more parking, we could have more parking by having disincentives for our employees to park here. We're brainstorming.
Jordahl: That sounds like a popular idea, Joe.
Lacina: I'm glad I didn't...
Jordahl: You know, if you work downtown, I don't know, what do you pay downtown, $30 or $40 a month to park there?
Stutsman: Oh, yes. When I worked downtown, it was $120 a month and that's been several years ago.
Duffy: Well and half of the time you don't get your parking place anyway, just some...
Jordahl: You know I think it's possible to distinguish the 2 questions of what are we going to do with the Human Resources person and what ought we to do globally. The fact that we're thinking globally because we have an immediate problem is very nice and very good and we need to do that. In terms of what Tom's talking about, long range planning, we should be doing this, what do we want to do, when we can afford to do it. But we also have an immediate problem with the Human Resources person coming in here and what do we do with that person. So I think...
Bolkcom: We've solved that.
Stutsman: Well, yes, we've solved that.
Lacina: We solved that Thursday.
Jordahl: Well we have, but that office has no windows. To me, that was a stop gap interim solution.
Stutsman: Well yes, it is a stop gap interim solution. But we do have...
Bolkcom: Well there are plenty of offices that County employees have that don't have windows.
Stutsman: And we won't find a solution that will be perfect for everybody.
Bolkcom: We could put a painting up that has a window.
Stutsman: There's going to have to be give and take. But...
Duffy: The Human Resources person does not have to be in this building period.
Stutsman: Charlie, that decision has already been made.
Duffy: Well here, look at this...I know we're crowded here, but still this thing hasn't really surfaced, it doesn't make sense to have a new person in this building when that new person could be in another building.
Stutsman: Tom?
Slockett: I just have one more comment to make in support of what he said earlier about spending money on long term solutions rather than a lot of money patching things up. The architects practically begged the County to build a 3rd floor on this building when they built it. Because the additional cost...
Stutsman: (Inaudible).
Slockett: Would have been so small, but their concern was that the appearance of building more than was necessary. If you look back at our heritage, if you look at that Courthouse built at the turn of the century, imagine the foresight that those folks had in building that building, how long it lasted and how functional it was. Wise old Bob Burns always said that he never got in trouble for building public facilities and the story was, and Charlie you've probably heard him tell this as many times as I have how they sweated blood and worried about putting new doors on the courthouse because it was costing so much money. They put the new doors on and they got nothing but compliments, the public loves to have its public facilities in good shape and well taken care of. So that's just a couple more points I would...
Duffy: We put more than 2 doors on the Courthouse because I've got a whole (inaudible) stuff.
Bolkcom: What about a basement?
Stutsman: Yes, can we go up or can we go down in this building now?
Dobberstein: No, not practically. But there are, Tom brings up a point that there are a lot of needs at the Courthouse. Maybe we ought to consider those needs as well as these needs, and there's always been talk about a building behind the Courthouse that might serve some storage for them and maybe there's space there for some of the departments that are here.
Jordahl: Yes, a very interesting idea was proposed when I was asking that question at the Courthouse of going underground, of building into the side of the hill to avoid disturbing the historic appearance of the building sort of prominently by itself. Building down and connecting to the Sheriff's Department. I don't know how realistic that is.
Dobberstein: Well we've looked at a lot of different plans in the past. There was, way back when the big 6 million dollar...
Lacina: Jail.
Dobberstein: Jail back there and that was going to provide a nice back drop, it was very plain compared to the Courthouse and that would have provided a lot of space and that's still an idea that could be looked at.
Stutsman: Rick, did you have a comment?
Dvorak: Well yes, as you're aware, we've been contacted, and I think you folks have been contacted about investigating into the possibility about the building code. Coming to you folks with some people from the public that would like to see this within the next 2 weeks. So if you...I'm grabbing now too. (Inaudible) stay at our office.
Stutsman: Does Rick have to be in this building?
Jordahl: He should be out by Secondary Roads, don't you think? Pole barn out there?
Dvorak: I'm saying if you're looking to the future that if we would go along with the idea, I'm not promoting, but I'm just saying if you would go along with it, it is feasible, we'd need at least 2 more or 3 more people. Obvious long range looking you want to keep us in this building, you would almost have to go into the break room. So if you're playing with those ideas and that's already been discussed about punching a hole in that wall, going in those directions, I would like you to investigate that possibility too.
Stutsman: What's the best way to approach this from now on, Dwight? Do you have enough information? Do we need to form a subcommittee? Do we need to...
Dobberstein: Well, I was going to suggest that maybe we go around and interview each of the department heads and get their projections for their needs over the next 5 to 10 years.
Stutsman: Staffing and storage?
Dobberstein: Staffing and storage. Then we can compile that into a list of space requirements. Then we could give some better numbers to you on what the cost might be and we could look at options of maybe building a new building wherever the site might be, if it's some other site we don't know about, near the Courthouse, or somewhere around this site, so we could look at adding on as an option.
Jordahl: Out by Secondary Roads is, I think a possibility there that ground that...
Lacina: It's too far and it doesn't have a bus route. But going back to this idea of the $300,000, and again we're brainstorming. One of the questions we have to answer is, is this the best investment for utilization of that money in the long term? Or is that money invested in an office complex that would be a wraparound around the Courthouse, it could be expandable by sections if it's designed correctly, might be a better investment, but again brainstorming, we don't know right now whether we're better off trying to have six offices downstairs or a bigger conference room downstairs or take a look at the court needs and everything else and go with that, we already own the ground up there. The legal facility....
Stutsman: Up where?
Lacina: At the Courthouse. Which would be on the bus route. Compounding the location up there though, it's still parking. If the City does come up with that ramp that they're proposing on the south side of Burlington, that might catch some of it, but those are kind of the questions that we're struggling with. It goes back to Sally's point of what's our next step? I think you're right, we do need a total assessment of what we see coming for GIS, if we do have building codes, if we have the document imaging and we need some electronics or who knows what, but an assessment of all the departments and where they're at. Plus, we're going to have more needs.
Stutsman: Well, and do we include Department of Human Services? Do we include SEATS, do we include the Health Department in this discussion too?
Lacina: Possibly so.
Jordahl: You and Charlie are already looking at an overall space needs study and it sounds like we're sort of incrementally expanding to that very question. So I think it's important to keep in mind the short term...The kind of global solutions that we're talking about, to get back to Tom's point of how we're shepherding money, not in the current budget. So we couldn't turn around and do what we're talking about until we've saved up for it. That puts it off at some significant time in the future. So there is the more immediate question of how we deal with expansion of the staff in the Board of Supervisor's Office in the form of the Human Resources person.
Bolkcom: But we've short term solved that if we're going to put that person in the (inaudible).
Jordahl: So what does short term mean? Is that short term like the temporary building outside the Courthouse?
Bolkcom: Well I don't know, it could be a year, it could be 2 years. I don't know.
Jordahl: 2 decades? That's the...
Bolkcom: Well this set of problems in the Courthouse and in this building and in other locations is not going to go away. I think the Board has it as a strategic goal, we have a couple people working on it, we're spending a fair amount of energy today talking about it. I think in the short run, I don't know how to define that, but as you say, we need to save some money and it could take us a couple of years before we do a more global solution, whether we build a building, whether we add on downstairs,
Jordahl: I've got an idea...How about putting the Human Resources person at the back of the break room?
Stutsman: We've talked about that.
Lacina: We already have a space that we don't need to build walls and re-do that. It's downstairs and...
Jordahl: Yes, but that's a very short term solution. This would be a long term solution.
Stutsman: I think that would still be a short term solution.
Lacina: That would be short term. They're going to need support staff at the other end of the building, if we've got personnel files they need to get...
Stutsman: Well let's not re-visit that Human Resource position right now, let's concentrate on the space needs and where we go from here. Dwight, can we ask you to do this, is this going to cost us?
Dobberstein: Sure, I can work with Pat and we can do a space needs evaluation of the entire County if you want or whatever you think is appropriate if you want to include the Health Department in that or whatever.
Stutsman: I think we need to...
Dobberstein: Certainly the Courthouse and this building I think and...
Lacina: If it's going to be long term, we should have a look at....
Stutsman: Yes, if it's going to be long term and I think maybe what we do is divide this up, our long term goal. But we still have to start planning to put moneys aside for that long term goal. Maybe we...
Dobberstein: Well if you know how much you need to provide, then you have a better way to plan for it.
Stutsman: Because I have a hunch we're never going to overbuild. I have a feeling that no matter what we do, we'll be in this same discussion 10 years from now.
Langenberg: Well I think we should definitely move ahead with this area downstairs, because I think that's dead space. It would be nice if we knew really what, whether it be the City Assessor going down there and you people move next door, Zoning going down there, their talking more space and you move down there, there are so many...
Bolkcom: Or a board room down there.
Langenberg: Or a board room down there, yes.
Dobberstein: That would tide you over until you could do this more global action.
Lacina: Carol, when the Sup's built this building and they were very proud of the fact that they used revenue sharing funds, they didn't use any property taxes to build, but they obviously went through a great deal of planning, Langenberg and Donnelly and Laurie and everybody. How did they do it?
Peters: Well basically like Dwight said, they interviewed each department head to find out what the needs were. Another element of that study was in visiting with the department heads, they asked them how important is it for the City Assessor to be next to the County Assessor or Zoning or...The actual specific duties of their offices and how they interacted with other offices.
Lacina: On a day to day basis.
Peters: On a day to day basis.
Lacina: Yes.
Peters: Yes, those were 2 of the main criteria that they used. At that time, the Board as you can see with the end results, the Board had 2 things in mind. Number one, the Board was more concerned about the other departments than what they were concerned about themselves. They wanted the departments to have the area that they needed, which in turn shortchanged themselves. In addition to that was the money concern. That's why the 3rd floor was not constructed. At that time, it was going to be, actually in retrospect, it was a minute amount of money, what was it, $175,000?
Dobberstein: Oh, I don't remember at this point.
Peters: Yes, something like that.
Dobberstein: It wasn't a big percentage, no.
Peters: It wasn't a big percentage, but they were concerned that if they built it people may be asking, as I remember some of the discussions and Dwight you correct me, if they put the 3rd floor on...
Peters: Outside agencies wanting to utilize that space and of course, they're very frugal and they're very concerned about the additional moneys.
Dobberstein: I think it's just the appearance of building a castle or something. Too much or more than we needed.
Peters: Yes. They felt they were acting as very responsible representatives of the community.
Dobberstein: That's right. They did short change themselves and that's why you've got small offices here.
Lacina: But see while we continue to brainstorm it may be that this wall would become a counter space if it's determined that all of the departments need to grow and that in fact the Supervisors buy a building somewhere else and relocate. We could come back here, or to well they've had meetings everywhere from Montgomery Hall to you name it in the facility. Didn't they used to meet... I guess they didn't down at the Civic Center though. They haven't met down there.
Peters: No. No. The only thing that I would encourage the Board to do, having been a long term employee with the Board of Supervisors, is if you decide to relocate yourselves on an interim basis while trying to reorganize everything else, that really is not a good idea. The Board, I had it counted at one time, I think in a period of 15 years we had moved something like 7 different times. Each move cost maybe not so much in a monetary sense but in a time sense.
Stutsman: Well and convenience for the public too. You know, people get pretty...
Peters: Confusion.
Stutsman: Uh-huh.
Duffy: That's right.
Peters: It's really amazing. Confusion still exists today when people get parking tickets or speeding tickets. Or they have to appear in court for some reason and they say where's the courthouse and people show up here.
Stutsman: Uh-huh.
Peters: Or they say the meetings of the Board of Supervisors' Office, they go to the courthouse. So there's still a... Even though we're 11 years down the road there is still and element of confusion.
Lacina: But a lot of other counties that's where the Supervisors are they're in the courthouse and I mean it's just kind of a tradition.
Peters: Oh definitely.
Bolkcom: Let's move back there.
Stutsman: I think we need to just be very open to all the options and very creative and just start a needs study and see where we go from here.
Dobberstein: OK.
Reverend Bob Welsh: May I add (inaudible) the street system in this area could be altered. You have, I think, a real opportunity. There was sort of a joke, or not a joke, but the statement about Steve didn't have support for looking at some possibilities in relation to the armory, I mean the National Guard, in moving that and trading some land at that point. I think all of those kinds of things really need to be explored and at least as I've driven around this area, there is nothing that says the streets as they are need to be. I'm not a City Planner, or a Traffic Engineer, but I think I could see where there could be some changes in even the flow of traffic which would open up some street right-of-ways. In terms of building space, you've got an area of land right out here that you could go up on or over head in terms of a second or third floor above you're present parking area. I just think they're all kinds of possibilities. I think, Sally you're sure right. You're not going to overbuild. To really look at an expansion of your space here and a real consolidation of all your County Offices would be a tremendous thing. From a human services standpoint I realize what Carol said about outside agencies, from a human service standpoint, there is some real validity in consolidation of some of those spaces with the County Department of Human Services. That makes possible the coordination amongst (inaudible) much better. So I guess what I just as one citizen would urge you to do is to think in terms of expansion of the land that you have, working out trades and (inaudible) in terms of right-of-ways and really thinking about the real consolidation of the spaces.
Lacina: Well and I don't think we've given up Bob on next door. The snag we hit there, and of course this used to be on a park if you remember what was here before, but the snag we ran into there was the commanding general of the guard, about every 7 years they try to build a new facility in Iowa. Of course they would have liked to have been located on the interstate so I thought well OK if we could swap them a small portion of the lower part of the farm they'd be near 380/80 and allow us then to come in with roughly the 125,000 that we're spending in different rents and other things to apply towards the facility of remodeling this we could make them a swap of ground plus a monetary contribution over a period of time and we'd have this whole complex. The problem was the defense budget then came into a big screaming halt and put Iowa National Guard on notice that they weren't' going to be building the center in the 7 year period and so we fell out of the plan. So I think we'll still hopefully in time continue to look at this but until they decide to relocate we're kind of stuck. But that would be wonderful to pick up next door and then you could send everybody down here...
Welsh: (Inaudible) encourage that process.
Lacina: The Feds really need to kick in the money to build a new center.
Stutsman: Dwight do you have enough direction from the Board?
Dobberstein: Sure.
Stutsman: OK, is there any other comments before we start talking about the Courthouse space?
Jordahl: I'm just wondering about the cost, I assume there is a cost associated with this.
Dobberstein: Well, we've been just working on an hourly basis at this point and if you need a proposal we'd be glad to give you one. I really don't know at this time how long it might take but I could sit down and figure it out and give you an estimate, a proposal.
Stutsman: I think we probably do need an estimate, I don't know what we're going to do.
Jordahl: It's excellent that we study this but we've got the subcommittee of the Board chartered to do that but I think we need to ask for the dollars. Seems like a fair question.
Bolkcom: I agree and we also probably need to figure out with the space needs committee we have, what role they're going to play in shepherding this thing along, and whether or not we can conceivably do some of the legwork to define the need and then...
Because I can just see our department heads giving kind of a wish list and then Dwight spend a lot of time developing a plan that we look at and go there's no way we're going to do this.
Dobberstein: I don't think we'd get to that stage before we'd come back to that. We'd just get the numbers together and then come to the Board and say here's the needs and now which direction should we go so that we don't get too far down the road without more input from people here.
Jordahl: Talk about the future and not over building and so forth, I think part of this project should be projection, not looking at the needs now but what will the needs be?
Stutsman: I think that's what's being said.