Reconvened at 1:30 p.m. as a meeting of elected County officials.

Chairperson White called the Johnson County Elected Officials Meeting to order in the Johnson County Administration Building at 1:30 p.m.

Elected officials present were: County Attorney Pat White; County Auditor Tom Slockett; County Recorder Deborah Conger; County Sheriff Bob Carpenter; County Supervisors Charles Duffy, Jonathan Jordahl, Stephen Lacina, and Sally Stutsman; and County Treasurer Cletus Redlinger; Supervisor Joseph Bolkcom arrived at 1:34 p.m. Lacina left at 1:32 p.m. and returned at 1:38 p.m. Staff present were: Board of Supervisors Administrative Assistant Carol Peters, and Auditor's Office Recording Secretary Jodi Hisel.

White said there was a lengthy discussion on this subject at their last meeting and since that time Board members have met with the Auditor on this subject. Stutsman said a subcommittee of Jordahl, herself, Slockett, Deputy Administrative Assistant Deana Pillard, and Peters met, drafted a memo to the elected officials and department heads, put a timetable together, discussed what the roles would be of the Auditor, the department heads, the Board of Supervisors, and Pillard, and created an agenda for meeting with the department heads and elected officials for reviewing the budget process. Stutsman noted everything was in a draft form and the material was presented earlier in the day at the Board meeting. She added that there would be a work session on Tuesday, September 8th to continue discussion on the budget. Stutsman said there are some proposed changes this year. Their focus will be on more communication with the department heads and elected officials. She said they would try to provide a daily update through either e-mail or a hard copy, so that they would know where the Board is at in the process. Stutsman said they would move up the whole schedule for the budget process. They were thinking of having the budgets submitted to the Auditor's Office by October 23rd so that there would be more time to go through presentations. They are looking at scheduling presentations for up to 2 hours, if the department head or elected official wanted that much time. If they don't need that much time they don't need to schedule that much. Stutsman said a proposal made was to consider proposed budgets prioritized for the possibility of 1%, 3% or 5% increases.

Jordahl said they had talked in the morning about the Auditor's revenue-expense adjustment and they thought they should ask department heads to come in a little closer on expenses and revenues, so there wouldn't be the need for such a large adjustment. The target figure discussed was 3% for both expenditures and revenues. White said hypothetically the goal was 100% accuracy. Duffy said in some cases it could amount to a lot of money, depending on the department. He noted an error of 3% both ways would be a net difference of 6%. White said it ought to be easy to develop a report account by account to show some history and then talk to departments about why they are off. Slockett said that has been available for many years before the revenue-expense adjustment and is still available. He said the report breaks down the percentage expenditures are reached and what percentage of the revenues are reached. He said it still never resulted in any more accurate budgeting. Slockett cited the example of the Recorder's budget, which is getting markedly better, but has been off every year by 50% or more on revenues. Conger asked if that wasn't purposeful. Slockett said in a fictitious example a department head will come in and say they've come in under expenditures again, they've saved taxpayers a lot of money, they brought in more revenues, and then the Board would pat the department head on the back. Slockett said it wasn't a matter of saving the taxpayers money, it's a matter of can't they budget any better than that. He said for every dollar underbudgeted on revenue and overbudgeted on expenditures it was a direct property tax increase to the taxpayers. Slockett said this was why they developed the revenue-expense adjustment. He said it is much more difficult for a department to predict what will happen because of things occurring which were unexpected, but it is easier to predict in a macro sense. Slockett said there wasn't any question that most departments could do a better job at budgeting. He said they have been able to reduce the revenue-expense adjustment in response to better budgeting on the part of the new Recorder. White said that an honest assessment of the problem is somebody submitting a budget doesn't want to overspend or underearn at the end of the fiscal year, which would have to be defended in a public meeting. White said there was a year when they were down to something like $12 or $18 dollars at the end of the fiscal year, which made it very tight for meeting a payroll.

Stutsman said they were still on target to have a meeting with department heads and elected officials on the 10th. White asked if any of the other elected officials had questions. Conger said that she didn't expect real estate to grow the way it's grown. Conger said if she continued to project her budget at the same rate of real estate growth and it doesn't happen, then they're going to be much more than 3% off.

Bolkcom said they are on track to move to the second phase of the salary survey. He said the Board met with Jerry Thompson last week and Human Resources Administrator Lora Shramek is in the process of meeting with department heads on the second round of improvements. He said the Board is on track to do the implementation October 1. He said they are looking at a scenario where they have a 1% step increase with the possibility of a 2% merit increase which would entail a performance evaluation. He said there is the issue of people being between steps. Bolkcom said this puts into place a long term pay plan which makes sense to employees. Stutsman said they are fortunate that Shramek is with them and complimented the work she and Peters have done on this. Jordahl said the flexibility that this provides to department heads in rewarding merit is a significant step. White said he didn't agree with that, he said they are taking a step in the right direction but the scales are modest and they can't trumpet this as an opportunity for people to make significant progress based on merit. He said if they could afford it they would be at 5% for the automatic increase and 2 or 3% for merit. He said that once the plan is in place it provides predictability and a modest opportunity to advance based on merit.

Bolkcom asked if there was any implication of this survey to the Compensation Board that's meeting later this year. Slockett said he hoped so because this totally leaves out elected officials. He said their deputies are paid significantly less because they are paid at the maximum percentage of the elected officials' salaries and are left out of management raises. Slockett said the CPA's in his office are not getting any of the raises and all of the people they work with are and they deserve it. Slockett said he was of the understanding that the deputies would be included in the salary survey and when he talked to Shramek she indicated they still could be included. Slockett said this was exactly the type of information the Compensation Board would like to have available when it sets salaries. Bolkcom asked when the Compensation Board was meeting. Slockett said that was part of the budget discussion and they were hoping that the Compensation Board would meet in October. Jordahl asked if Slockett wanted the elected officials or the deputies included in the salary survey. Slockett said either one would be fine but there was some concern there might be a political aspect with including the elected officials. Jordahl said he was in favor of including the elected officials in the salary survey with the logic that the salaries they were setting for the rest of the employees in the County are set within the context of everyone who works at the County, and the original reason for doing the survey was a disparity between middle management and union scale. Slockett said personally he would like to have the elected officials included but if that can't happen they should at least have the deputies included. Conger asked if the deputies salaries were based on the elected officials salaries. Slockett said the maximum was based on that and he has paid considerably less when he has promoted people from clerk positions, but that was before salaries were at a level that they could attract CPA's. Duffy said the state law should change the limitation on deputies' salaries. Slockett said he wasn't quite sure what the logic of the Legislature is in limiting them, maybe to try to keep them from overpaying the deputies. White said that some of it was historical fears about patronage and wanting them not to reward supporters with huge salaries. White said he doubted there was much to be gained from the salary survey that would be helpful for deputies or elected officials. He said he didn't think it was going to tell them anything that they didn't already know. Slockett asked if the salary survey didn't examine the local job market, providing information on Iowa city and Coralville. White said it did. Slockett said they needed documentation for what they know. White said an option would be for the Board to ask Shramek to do a small targeted study for the elected positions which would carry over to the deputies and that could be given to the Compensation Board. Stutsman asked if they already collected that information. White said they didn't, they have the opportunity to but they only have the information the Auditor can collect. He said they don't survey private sector and federal government jobs, and cities are more difficult to make comparisons to. Slockett said state law directs the Compensation Board to make those comparisons and they do look at as much information as they can but they're not specialists in that area. White suggested the committee of Bolkcom, Stutsman, Peters, himself, and Shramek could discuss this issue. Slockett said that if White's assistants could be studied then his deputies should be studied. He said the only difference is the assistant attorneys are not at the limit. White agreed. White said there has been a built-in county bias in just comparing county governments. Peters said one of the problems they ran into is county government is unique and they had trouble comparing some positions with city positions where there wasn't a comparable position. White said that Shramek has the ability to meet with the elected officials, identify a list of positions that they think are relevant to what their salaries should be, have her put together a survey of those and turn a report in to the Board of Supervisors and the Compensation Board. White said that the hard part would be identifying positions comparable to Treasurer, Recorder, and Auditor. Slockett pointed out that the positions of the deputies need to be compared to other positions. Bolkcom said that Slockett raised a good point because one of the things about the salary survey that sold it to people was the idea that the bargaining units were keeping up and there was a whole other group of employees that were not staying up. The idea was to bring everyone along together. He said they have left out a group of people because of the delicate nature of elected officials and their deputies and they should look at it from the biggest perspective possible. He agreed with Whites suggestion to identify the positions to look at comparable positions and present that information. Carpenter said that it has to be something that the Compensation Board has to know that the Board of Supervisors want to see happen because year after year they've tried to do things and they've been shot down. He said it's gotten to the point that it's almost a mockery having a Compensation Board. Carpenter said that this last year was the first time he knows of where the Board of Supervisors has followed through and done what the Compensation Board suggested. Carpenter noted there are other government law enforcement positions that have been designated for comparison when reviewing the Sheriff and his Deputy. White said that his assistants are different than deputies in other offices because deputies are political policy-making employees by law. He said that his assistants aren't policy-making. White asked if there was anybody that was uncomfortable about taking this discussion to committee that meets with Shramek. Lacina said personally he felt it was a waste of time because if the Board would have followed the Compensation Board's recommendations in the past the elected officials salaries would have to be higher, and if there is a valued employee they don't have to chain them in a deputy position. Lacina said if they aren't a deputy you can pay them what you choose. Slockett said that the Board needs the information too because they would have a case to support to the public.

Stutsman said the Space Needs Committee did a tour of the Armory and sent a letter to Colonel Rogers in Des Moines who is head of the Iowa National Guard facilities indicating the County's interest in the Guard's future plans for the Armory. She said they have done some work in looking for space for the Department of Public Health and the Department of Human Services on Mall Drive. She said they are taking up the Jail needs at the Board of Supervisors meeting on Thursday. White said they talk over 5 or 10 or 15 years about new facilities for DHS, for the Department of Public Health, a new or expanded Jail, expansion of administrative space, additions to the Courthouse and they are talking about 20 to 40 million dollars and at this point they only have $600,000 to spend. Slockett said he had an idea to throw out for investigation of space. He said that they should check with the University for land around the Jail and the Courthouse. Stutsman said they are hesitant. Slockett said that former Supervisor Janet Shipton had the idea to negotiate with the school administration and at one time they wanted them to purchase the school which is now the administration office and tear it down and swap with the federal parking lot and then they would have that land and they could close the street and build a county campus. He said it was worth thinking about. Slockett said that a county campus was very encouraging to him and it was discouraging seeing Health and DHS breaking off because it cuts away from the economies of scale. He said that after the recent big storm they've had considerable discussion about emergency preparedness and electrical backup and if they had a big County campus they could have a wonderful generator backup that would be cost-effective. He noted the Courthouse would never be given up because of its historical value and the Courthouse and Jail would be the site to build a County campus around. Jordahl asked if Slockett's idea had been discussed. White said no, but that he now understands Slockett's idea better than before. He said he had been assuming that the Administration Building was a given. Slockett said if the School Administration were here the investment would be preserved. White said a campus could be built around the Administration Building if land could be acquired around it. Slockett pointed out it would still be close to the other County buildings. White said the economics of the Jail indicate it should stay at that location. Slockett noted the savings in prisoner transportation costs by staying close. White said the question for the Sheriff and the architect will be how much expansion the Jail will need because projections are tough. Carpenter said the Jail may need to double in size because they may be required to eliminate the double-bunking they have used. Stutsman said the committee agrees the ideal would be a campus but acquiring the land was a problem. Stutsman said she could contact the school district and have them come to the next space needs meeting. White said that within the next couple of weeks they are going to need to get some direction from the Board on how seriously to pursue acquiring space for DHS. Jordahl said that the idea of having everybody in the same place is an important positive. White said there is more interest by DHS in being located near Kirkwood, Goodwill, the DOT Systems Unlimited, and the Workforce Center. Duffy asked if the University had changed at all because he was under the impression that they wouldn't give up any of their land. White said that his talks with them were cordial, candid and ongoing. Bolkcom said they have an existing jail at that location and it would make sense to expand there. White said a difference between the County and University was bargaining strength. He said one of the things they've been consistent about is they budget to be available to buy property they want when it's available. Slockett asked if the Post Office would ever move. Stutsman said they were in a prime location. White said they too are experiencing crowding. He said they sized their building but the community has grown pretty fast. Slockett said the Administration Building was straining to meet needs. White said the Supervisors made a choice based on what the Board wanted to do then. Stutsman said a big part of this was how they were going to pay for this. Slockett said the Board has got a good start on saving the money. Carpenter said the Jail was operating under maximum right now and they would be in serious trouble in 5 years. White said that at that point they may have to talk about in-home detention. Conger asked if Iowa City would build a jail. Carpenter said they've got it made right now, so why would they want to. White said in terms of safety of inmates the State wants the County Sheriff to run the jails, not the city. White pointed out an expansion of the Jail by 100 beds would probably add to the operating budget a half to one million dollars. Carpenter said personnel would increase at least 10 to 14 staff members. White said the bottom line to the Board was they better keep putting aside money.

Jordahl left at 2:40 p.m.

Duffy said they started checking into armored car pick-up of deposits 8 or 9 months ago. He said it was hard to get started because the first time they talked the person that runs it in Johnson County, he wanted the head person in Des Moines to look over a contract because they would've charged them a certain point to pick up a certain amount of money. Duffy said that Redlinger and Conger got information and then one day the director from Omaha showed up. Duffy said he figured out what they would need in a contract and then they had a meeting in Redlinger's office. Slockett said that Conger has gathered a lot of information and put a lot of work into it. White said he had some problems with the contract and he couldn't get through to the person from Omaha. White said the changes he would like aren't weighty but he's not sure what his feeling is. He said maybe they need to put it on the Board's agenda to get to a decision. He said one of the questions was, for the benefit of the Board, who would sign the contract. He said it was clear to him that Conger and Redlinger would like to proceed to get to a contract with somebody. Duffy said he tried another company but they just called once and never called back. Bolkcom asked how much the contract was. Duffy said it was reasonable. White said they proposed $176 a month plus $12.50 per special trip. Conger said it was $176 for them to pick up money every day. Duffy asked how much money they would pick up. Conger said up to $1,000,000. White said a problem he has with the contract is that they limit their liability to one million dollars. He said if that continued to be the case they would have to make sure not to give them more than a million, or give them more knowing it didn't have security. Conger said in her opinion they would just do that because there would be very few days that it would actually be over a million. Slockett said around tax time it might get close. Conger said she felt it was probably a boilerplate contract and they can probably change it. White said one of the options would be for him to change it, send it to them, and see what happens. Bolkcom asked if they could pay more to get more coverage. White guessed that was the amount of their bond coverage. Redlinger said there were some days where 4 or 5 million dollars would come in. Redlinger said he didn't have a problem with the contract but he wanted to know who was going to pay for it. White said the Treasurer and Recorder would pay for it. Conger said she was willing to pay. Stutsman asked if they could allocate it from all of the budgets that will be using it. Slockett said they could just pay it out of Central Services. Bolkcom said it wasn't that much money. Bolkcom said that they should have the departments that use it pay for it because it's cleaner that way. Conger asked who was going to use it besides the Recorder and Treasurer. There was general agreement those two departments would use it most.. Duffy asked what they should do about the million dollars. Slockett said they could ask Johnson County Insurance Agent of Record Bob Saunders if they could have some kind of umbrella policy for anything above and beyond the million. Conger said that Polk County has their agreement for one million dollars also. Redlinger said there was also some initial expense of bags and locks which are around $25 or $30 a piece. Bolkcom and Stutsman said they should do it. Redlinger said it didn't seem feasible that they could lose a deposit between here and 4 or 5 blocks away, and that most of the money they take in is in checks. Stutsman asked if they will get criticized for hiring a company to drive the money when taxpayers could ask why they didn't have Sheriff's deputies do it. Carpenter said they couldn't afford to do it that way. White said he would talk to Saunders and if he was OK with it, he would send Lewis a revised contract.

White said he wanted people to tell him whether the meeting was fulfilling the purpose that they started out to hold it for, if they are on target. Slockett said there was good humor in these meetings; he felt it was progressing nicely. Stutsman agreed, anytime there was communication in an organized fashion. Conger said she noticed when they had their discussion of performance based budgeting among the elected officials the discussion was intense and long-lasting and then when they got to the department head meeting, it was quiet. She said she could attribute it to certain things, that the department heads thought the elected officials had already discussed it and come to a conclusion. Conger felt this was a negative. White said there was some evidence in the other direction. He said they weren't the least bit bashful to disagree with Slockett on the mission statement in the same meeting. Slockett said it was perfectly natural and the same reason why the Board's employees are reluctant to discuss things with them if there is a difference of opinion. Conger asked if they were somehow obstructing discussion between the whole group when they have meetings beforehand and discuss the same items as a smaller group. White said the Board is about to do a couple of things to try to address the question Conger raises. He said they are getting ready to reinvigorate the process of evaluation meetings with their appointed department heads, and they are also about to hold their first ever staff meeting where they meet with just their appointed department heads. Slockett said the Board really has to encourage people to speak their mind who they appoint. Conger asked if they needed a separate meeting from the group as a whole and why. White said one of the theories behind the elected officials meeting was the five elected non-Board members saying they wanted a larger stake in County management and decision-making. He said they went into this saying they really did want a separate meeting and the Board agreed it was appropriate to get elected officials participation in elected official decision-making. Carpenter said the elected officials didn't want to come in and spend some of the time going through some of the things that the others wanted to go through if they didn't pertain to the elected officials at all. Carpenter said he didn't think the elected officials were being treated on the level that they should have been treated. He said he is treated differently now. Carpenter said that all elected officials sat on an equal level and they should have the same amount of say so except in budgeting, when it comes to County management. He said he was concerned about listening to other elected officials. White asked if this meeting then was useful time for Carpenter. Carpenter replied that it was, and that he didn't have time to be here today but he didn't want to miss it. Conger asked if they were also expected to attend department head meetings. White said the Board's hope was that they would attend the elected officials and department heads meeting, but that would be a meeting if they couldn't make it they could send a deputy. Bolkcom said the elected officials meeting has really been a productive one and it continues to get better. He said that department head meetings were an opportunity for the whole organization to get together. He said that maybe in 6 months they will feel like they are meeting too much, but he thinks they are on track. Bolkcom said the smaller group was helpful, which should also help with the appointed department head meetings. He said everybody could play a more constructive role in encouraging dialogue at these meetings. White said he was going to take their discussion as a consensus to keep the basic format they've been using.

White asked for future discussion topics. Conger said she would like to have updates and status reports of the negotiations of the bargaining units, what their plan was going to be. Slockett asked why she was interested in that. Conger replied that she has employees in the bargaining unit. White said they were going to have a meeting of Administration Unit department heads. He said they weren't going to talk about bargaining strategy in a public meeting. Bolkcom and Slockett agreed they wanted to keep space needs as an issue on the agenda.

Bolkcom announced that the Communications Committee continues to meet and they are on track to try and organize their first County newsletter for County employees around October 1st. He said they have a working subcommittee of people from different departments. They had over 100 people respond to a survey about what kind of content they want in the newsletter. Duffy asked what the cost would be. Bolkcom said they are looking at 450 copies, 4 pages, and maybe $100-125 to print it. He said there had been some discussion about trying to get the newsletter to people's homes, but initially they would not do that. He said the newsletter would be quarterly.

The elected officials decided to meet again on October 6, 1998 at 1:30 p.m.

Recessed at 3:25 p.m.; reconvened on September 3, 1998 at 9:43 a.m.

(Continued in Part 5)