• Review of Minutes
• Selection of Chair for 1999
• Discussion: FY 2000 Budget
• Discussion: Space Needs Committee
• Discussion: Local Option Sales Tax
• Discussion: GIS Status/Structure
• Discussion: Scheduling the Next Meeting

Chairperson White called the Johnson County Elected Officials Meeting to order in the Johnson County Administration Building at 1:35 p.m.

Elected officials present were: County Attorney Pat White; County Auditor Tom Slockett; County Recorder Kim Painter; County Sheriff Bob Carpenter; County Supervisors Charles Duffy, Jonathan Jordahl, Mike Lehman, and County Treasurer Tom Kriz. Staff present were: Board of Supervisors Administrative Assistant Carol Peters, and Auditor's Office Recording Secretary Darby Cole.

County Attorney Pat White: Item one is review of the minutes of the November 10th meeting which have been distributed to you. The Auditor's Office continues to do this on a volunteer basis for us which is very much appreciated. I don't know that we're structured in a way that we need to worry about approving them which is why the agenda says review. Does anybody have any things that they would like to change?

White: If not, item 2 on the agenda is selection of chair for 1999. We're loosely structured, have been right from the start. There isn't anything that specifies who our chair should be or how long whoever it is should serve for. I just thought that since this was our first meeting of the calendar year I'd see if I could turn this over to somebody else.

County Auditor Tom Slockett: Why would you like to do that?

White: We certainly had some discussion about whether it should rotate. I continue to think I'm not necessarily doing it justice like so much else on my plate. I just thought it was a good time to... We have 3 new members with a 4th coming. We haven't ever discussed this with them before.

Slockett: I think you've been doing a great job with...

White: ...Thanks.

Slockett: But I'm certainly open... I don't want to truncate discussion if there's interest in a different method.

Duffy: Can you handle it again Pat with your business schedule?

White: I can do it about as mediocrity as I've been doing but...

Duffy: ...I think you're doing a great job. I nominate you for chair for 1999.

Slockett: Second

Jordahl: See in what esteem you are held?

White: Yes.

Jordahl: If there is room for discussion here...

White: There is. There is. Quite a lot of room for discussion.

Jordahl: I want to reprise a little bit the joint meeting we had between Iowa City, Coralville, North Liberty and the School Board. As you know it was quite a bit of people. We had a discussion open in that about what the purpose of the meeting was. And I think the purpose of that meeting, as the discussion turned out, is very similar to the purpose of this meeting which is to get to know each other better. It's not to have any particular agenda item that we act on. It's simply to talk. On one hand, having a chair and an agenda and all this stuff, which we have to have because we're kind of the majority of the Board here... hopefully, in most cases. That this is not a normal, stiff thing. I draw the analogy to the (inaudible). It would be nice if we go meet in the basement of the courthouse and have a nice dark place with some old wooden benches that people scrawl their names into in 1582 and we could just talk about the nature of life. Okay, so we can talk about specific items of County business but we aren't going to make any decisions here. We're going to talk about stuff. I want to throw that out there as a ... Not to say that somebody else should be Chair, but to say we have to maybe be a little less tense about what we talk about here. And I'll open that up as an aspect of discussion of who should be chair. This shouldn't be a real loaded situation.

Slockett: What do you mean about being tense about what we talk about?

Jordahl: If you have a meeting where you're going to take action, or you're going to make a decision that's going to spend somebody's money, then it's a pretty big deal. You have to be sure you have all the bases covered... But here, this is an opportunity to give feedback to one another, and in a sense to know one another as people reacting to a situation and not exclusively in our official capacities because we're not deciding to act in one or another ways through our official capacity in this meeting.

Slockett: I understand the point you're making, I just don't see how it's associated with the decision about who is chair.

Jordahl: Because I think the question of how much of a burden this appears to be to Pat has to do with the stress that's placed on the agenda. I'm trying to say that maybe this is less of a burden then it seems to be, or could be, in some way. We said something about how meetings were to be structured that reflected the kind of attitude that I'm trying to convey. Did that make any sense to you Pat?

White: Yes, some. I don't mean to say it's been a burden the way I've been doing it. All I've really been doing is when I realize the next meeting is creeping up I send out a note asking if anybody has any agenda items. Most of the time nobody responds and then I just wing it.

Jordahl: Make stuff up? ...Maybe we could have a standing agenda item that says free for all discussion between elected officials about whatever they want to talk about. People would really be excited by that and come attend the meetings.

White: I actually thought I recognized that agenda item when I walked in on it because we've had similar discussions here trying to identify what the role of this meeting is with sort of fuzzy results. I probably disagree with you a little bit. I think there has been at least a couple of times where, clearly there's no voting, this isn't a body that has any legal status. But I think we have made some judgements by consensus and the then the Board has moved in a direction as a result of that. One of the things I think the Board was pretty clear about, when we discussed the role of this meeting, was that it was open to some shared discussion about decision making. Nobody ever suggested this meeting would create something that was a done deal for the Board. Part of the concept is the Board was receptive to more participation by the other 5 elected officials. I think on a couple of points we've had some success with that.

Jordahl: I don't mean to suggest that we in some way act or treat one another with disrespect. By the contrary, the more that we feel free to talk with one another the greater the likelihood that we'll have a result that reflects something that is less, again I come to the word stressed, and more of a meeting in the middle.

White: One of the things that I also feel, to expand the discussion a little bit about Chairs, as a general rule I think it's better to have an end point where people can work their will to make a change. I think again as a general rule some change, and who is presiding, is healthy so that you don't become a creature of one person and what they want to do or what they want to talk about. So I would go so far as to say in an absolute ideal, I think that this particular group could profitably change every year or every 2 years.

Jordahl: The Chairmanship?

White: Yes.

Slockett: I guess one of my concerns is that the most experienced people at conducting meetings are clearly the Supervisors. In so many settings that I participated in with Supervisors, the discussion becomes a discussion between the Supervisors. Where one is waiting for the next one to stop speaking and then they pick up right where the other one left off and then the next. The rest of us aren't used to that kind of setting, we tend to sit back and listen. There doesn't tend to be much gain by the Supervisors or by the rest of us from the discussion except for getting the respect of the Supervisors. That's one of my concerns about rotating Chairs, is that we would have 5 Supervisors then someone else being Chair, and it would end up being not totally dominated by the Supervisors. I don't know if that's a valid perspective or not but it's mine.

Jordahl: I'd be happy to say we rotate the Chair except for the Supervisors. That would be fine with me. I don't feel slighted by that or anything.

Slockett: One thing we could do is to rotate it to the Chair of the Supervisors or something like that so that each office got a chair and it wasn't... One office didn't have five times the amount of time with the others. I'd just like to have it addressed in some way. I don't think excluding the Supervisors would be acceptable either, or appropriate. I don't know, I guess I sort of feel we haven't even been meeting for a whole year, have we?

White: It's pretty close.

Duffy: A year? I thought it was closer that that.

White: I don't know if I can tell you when we started. I've got minutes that were from March.

Slockett: So that's less than a year and so ...

White: ...and I called that meeting to order and I know I wasn't calling the first one or 2 to order. I don't remember.

County Sheriff Bob Carpenter: Do you remember when we had that meeting at the Highlander? That's pretty much what kicked it off.

Slockett: That's right. It came right after that didn't it? Do you remember Carol? She's got the best memory in the room.

Administrative Assistant Carol Peters: February.

Slockett: A year ago February?

Peters: Yes.

White: It's about a year. A year or a little more. So you're not going to get me on the it hasn't been a year argument.

Slockett: Well, it hasn't been a year and...

White: It's close enough.

Slockett: ...and you said a year or 2... It's to change after a year or 2 and since this is the first year, I don't see anything wrong with continuing it. I just think the assets that Pat have, is that he is just so easy to get along with. He doesn't force his point of view on anyone. He's a very careful listener. He is extremely inclusive and I think that's a good model for the Chair of this group and I'm not sure it's imprinted quite yet on everyone else in the room. Another year of it might help.

Carpenter: I'd also like to thank Tom on that note, he also keeps us from doing something we're not supposed to do.

Duffy: That's right.

Jordahl: He'd probably do that in any case.

Carpenter: Well, he's not going to let us...

Slockett: I don't know. He's only the lawyer, it doesn't mean he's right.

White: It's true.

Slockett: You see he agrees with me.

Carpenter: (Inaudible).

Slockett: It's better to have him on your side than against you though.

White: Any other discussion?

Duffy: Yes. I make a motion, nominations cease and cast a unanimous for Pat White as chair of the Elected Officials Meeting.

White: For 1999?

Duffy: For 1999.

County Treasurer Tom Kriz: Until such time determined...

Jordahl: ...to be incompetent or...

Duffy: For 1999.

White: Is there a second?

Slockett: Second.

White: It's been moved and seconded that nominations cease and that I chair the Elected Officials meeting for 1999. Is there further discussion on that motion? ...If not, even though we don't take action, those in favor indicate by saying aye?

Elected officials: Aye.

White: Those opposed by saying no? The ayes have it.

Duffy: Congratulations Pat.

White: Thank-you Charlie.

Jordahl: We need a plaque for this.

DISCUSSION: FY 2000 BUDGET FY 2000 BUDGET

White: Item 3. Fiscal year 2000 budget... We prevail on the Auditor or somebody on the Board just to bring us up to date on how you're coming and how good or bad it looks.

Jordahl: Well, I can try, and then Tom can correct me when I stumble. I figure we've got about a million dollars in money due to new growth which I hasten to add means new growth everywhere in the county, not just in rural areas, it includes the cities.

White: Is that a little higher that it's been in the past?

Slockett: Actually that figure includes unexpected growth and balances.

Jordahl: The unusual needs for unexpected growth and balances, which are we talking about here.

Slockett: Unexpected growth and balances plus the ...It's the available funds including the growth with no increases in taxes on...

Jordahl: ...It's not just the growth though.

Slockett: It's not just the growth. Correct.

White: Is there a division between ...

Slockett: Yes there is...

Jordahl: And I probably don't have it here.

Slockett: I don't have it with me and frankly I'm not up to speed on the budget yet after my vacation.

Jordahl: OK. Here we go. The allowable growth dollars are $518,670 in the General Fund and $55,963 in the Rural Fund so approximately 56 in the rural fund. If we were to... These are figures that are vestigial from the tax freeze and in fact we're allowed to do whatever we want but the legislature would probably pay attention if we do something way beyond this. The unusual needs dollars figures would have been $187,800 in the general fund and $31,800 in the rural fund based on the tax increase of 1.42% which is the government price index for FY 2000. All this information is supplied by the Auditor's office in a nice memo from January 11 so don't think that this is my competence reflected here but simply the excellence of the Auditor's office. In terms of the unexpected cash balances, I'm less able to speak to that. If you could ...(inaudible) Tom does that stick in your memory?

Slockett: No. I don't have the specifics. I know the general lay of the land. I just know that the number you quoted includes available resources with the taxation from growth which includes for example the unexpended budgeted amounts that were not predicted during last year's budget season. There was more budget not expended than was predicted by our estimates so the number million... Pat is right, is more that we've normally had for growth and the growth was... Jonathan since $500,000 for the General Fund, did that include General and Supplemental? It seems to me it was a little bit more than that but I'm basing this on really old information I got from word of mouth and I don't have the documents in front of me.

Jordahl: I think precision is less important here than the general outlines of the situation.

Slockett: Yes. The general outlines at this point ...

Jordahl: There was a significant, unexpected carryover at MH/DD from FY 98 in July that we realized. According to the figures I have here, it's in the neighborhood of it looks like $800,00 or not quite ...almost $800,000.

Slockett: But that's a separate fund that doesn't effect any...

Jordahl: Right. That stays there...

Slockett: ...other areas of the county.

Jordahl: Right. Correct, that money stays in the MH/DD.

White: Is there an identifiable explanation for the balance growth?

Slockett: In MH?

White: No in whatever else would be available to the General Fund.

Slockett: Not that I have determined at this point in time.

Jordahl: It's re-estimated that general supplemental looks like it's $585,000 above and the explanation for that was an estimated $450,000 extra interest income due to the activities of our Treasurer in moving some moneys to higher interest bearing accounts. Do you want to talk about that Tom?

County Treasurer Tom Kriz: Part of the process that we've had time to do in between our appointment things is going through all the County's investments and looking at where we've got... Undoubtedly, there is definitely a trend to lower interest rates, and I think there will be lowered interest rates so we're going to have some c.d.'s rolling off. But we've also been able to take a number of accounts and double the interest rate on the basic working accounts that we deal with everyday and so far we've picked up, I did some more today, about $30,000 now in growth just in those projected over the next year. There's still a lot of that to go so some of that all enters into those figures. I figured out ways to hold it longer, tie it up...

Slockett: ...Plus there was about $200,000 that was determined to be... That will be earned the current year higher than expected which will be, this is oversimplified a little bit but most of it will probably repeat itself in next year's budget so between the additional amount received this year and the additional amount above what was budgeted this year that will be received next year, that was $400,000 of it. So that was the lion's share of it. That helps prompt my thinking.

White: That's pretty good news.

Slockett: That's significant yeah.

Jordahl: Uh-huh.

White: Do you have a ballpark figure yet as to what people are asking you to fund?

Jordahl: Yes. That's an entertaining figure.

White: Above and beyond the current level?

Jordahl: Yes. We have about a million dollars if we take into account... Does that include the unusual needs?

Slockett: That's separate there on the spreadsheet. I don't believe it does, it's a little bit... It's another $150,000 or something with unusual needs.

Jordahl: Uh-huh. In any case we've got... So around this million dollars to divvy out we've got about $900,000 in departmental requests including personnel. About $500,000 in capital requests and... All you know the jail ...

White: Nobody made a request for the big ticket items.

Jordahl: Right. If you add in the space needs stuff it's totally off the charts. Then you've got a... Assuming a 3% cost of living increase is another $300,000 there, so you're going to see how this adds up to more than a million. Then we've got the technology requests on top of that. FY 2000 requests is $693,000 so about $700,000 in technology. There's also the merit raise number and I don't know if we have that yet. I think Lora was here earlier, I don't know if she's... And the question of how much we're going to need to increase our premiums for the Blue Cross health insurance. Carol and Mike and I were discussing that earlier, the Board has not decided on whether to accept the Blue Cross recommendation or not. It is the realm of though, if I'm remembering this morning's discussion, the neighborhood of half-a-million dollars?

Peters: If you go to what they are recommending. This is the result of the tax freeze (inaudible). It hasn't been increased since ‘90...

Lehman: 94.

White: There's a question that it has to be increased. I just haven't heard a number.

Peters: But that's the outside.

White: Yes. They always I think recommend conservatively.

Jordahl: But the point that I raised in the discussion this morning is having to do with the demographics of the County employees. We've got a big bulge of people, about 12-14% of the county employees are between the ages of 55 and 65. So in 10 years, now we have 9 people that are retired of their... paying for health benefits, we may have 50 or 40 people paying for health benefits. It may have significantly elevated health care needs because of their age and so it's not clear to me that Blue Cross in their recommendation may not be sort of looking at actuarial tables and saying you're going to need this in the future. I'm going to ask them that when we meet with them tomorrow.

Peters: Tomorrow Ryan is going to come down and visit with a couple of Supervisors, Lora and myself and anybody else who would like to participate. Then she will be giving a presentation to the Board.

Slockett: One thing you might want to explore with them, I know that in the past there's been a disconnect between their recommendations and what they think the recommended balance ought to be. So the balance has soared beyond what is necessary or even advisable, and yet their recommendations would continue to escalate and so the Board has, year after year, gone below the recommendation without any noticeable consequence whatsoever. It seems to me an attempt ought to be made to get them to take into account what the projected, what the actual and projected balances are and how their recommendation impacts on that. I've always been surprised that it...

Peters: ...We're on the other side of that now...

Slockett: It didn't seem to be...

Peters: ...We're spending down now. It has to go back up.

Kriz: We've past that curve then.

Lehman: We've used up our resources and...

Jordahl: We're spending more than we're paying now ...

Slockett: There's no balance or...

Jordahl: It's not that there's no balance. Up until last year we were paying more on premiums than we were giving out in benefits but in the last 2 years we've been paying out more benefits than we've been paying in premiums. Since we're self insured that can't continue in the long term. Have we got a momentary blip of large claims? Yes, there's a $100,000 claim in there and there's some other big ones but who is to say in the world of non-socialized medicine whether we won't have larger claims?

Peters: And it's not just the big ones it's just overall. It's just have your usage.

Slockett: It's always better to be safe than sorry but at the same time that's the main thing in the past that I've found surprising was that there just really seemed to be that perspective when they made the recommendations. They didn't balance it on... So, it might be that we need to do it and keep a close eye on the balance. If it goes up really rapidly then make adjustments.

Kriz: We have strictly gone by what they asked us or thought we should be accruing in that.

Slockett: No, we've hardly ever. We have never gone with what they've asked.

Lehman: We've always gone less, now it's catching up to us is what we're saying. Now we do need to make an adjustment.

Jordahl: It was a conscious decision made a year or 2 ago to spend down the balance in part on the recommendation of the Auditor, not to point fingers. If you open up the topic, let me just put it that way, of what is a recommended balance? I want to ask the question jointly of you and of Blue Cross is how do we establish what a recommended balance should be. On the one hand there is our past pattern of spending but then I think... I return to my point of the demographics. Are we going to see an increasing expenditure in the future predictably because of the older employees we have are going to be retiring?

Slockett: Basically I think you have to rely on them. And that's what we did in the past. We relied on them to tell us what they recommended the balance to be and it was less, considerably less than the one we had and that's why we didn't then accept their recommendation to increase what we were paying into it. In a sense you can look at this as a... I'm not quite sure how to state this but we're talking about whether we want to keep up... One way to look at this is we're deciding whether to keep this money in the General Fund or to put it in the Medical Fund. If we don't increase the premiums it stays in the General Fund. If we do increase the premiums it goes into the Medical Fund. If it's not needed there then maybe... It's a question of priorities in spending as always. Do you need it for social services or for law enforcement or emergency medical services or the various County functions more than it's needed as a balance in the medical area. But always know that in the health care... in the health fund. But at the same time always know that if you don't have adequate resources there, we're going to have to come up with it somewhere because it's a priority to take care of people's health care needs. We have a contract with the employees on that so it's a delicate balance. We just have to make a judgment about where that is.

White: One of the goals though I assume would be to avoid a big peak in how much money is being allocated and so maybe you take their recommendation and try to stretch it out over 3 to 5 years and move toward it gradually, restoring funding a bit at a time as part of the priorities that each... I think our work force is going to get older.

Jordahl: Yes, there's a chart. Carol, do you have that by any chance with you?

Peters: I'll get it.

Jordahl: We had a nice graphic from Blue Cross that they gave us last year as part of the budget presentation. It shows with histograms, where you've got your column here that shows that we have a relatively larger percentage of people between 55 and 65 than in any other age group.

White: If you look around the County at seniority I think you see a real change over the last decade. You have more long-term employees in different places than you're used to seeing. The Treasurer's Office historically had really long tenure, Secondary Roads. But you're starting to see it in other departments as well. More of it anyway.

Carpenter: In the Sheriff's Department we used to have a fraction of the County employees. Now we're one of the major departments. Due to the fact that back in 1972 or 73 the Sheriff cleaned house every time he went down. Now that's different so the services brought that it. We're seeing people in our department, we get to start again talking ... We don't see a lot of people either. Ten or 20 years.

White: Sheriff would be a good example. He's got a bunch of people, I would say are 8 to 12 years...

Carpenter: ...Yes. Probably I'll bet even 15 would be more the average.

White: And once they've stayed that long the likelihood is there going to stay 25, 30 ...depending on what the legislature does...

Carpenter: ...what the legislature does.

Slockett: ...And that has a lot of other ramifications too. I'm having the same thing in my office with some notable exceptions, I wish more was the case because I have had some turnover. That means that people's vacations are increasing. You have to hire more people to keep the same number of people on the job. You get a bunch of people taking a month's vacation and pretty soon you need a new person to replace them while they're gone.

White: That's one of the reasons, in collective bargaining, we've been getting requests, and in this year I'd say stronger requests than we had before, for 5 weeks of vacation at the top end of the tenure scale and I recommended and the Board has continued to agree that we're not going to go above 4 weeks unless some arbitrator someday orders us to do that.

Slockett: With the university as the backdrop that might be harder... More and more difficult to do.

White: Well ...I'm sorry, go ahead.

Peters: Every year they bring in their health management review and these 2 pages show the population of Johnson County's inhabitants. Also, it compares it to (inaudible) ...

Lehman: Well, the other thing I might come in with that is you've got people been in the currents of the County longer. They probably don't have the number of dependents that we're covering also, as they retire we're going to replace them, possibly with younger people that have family members and we're going to have coverage to pick up there too. This may be a little be a bit of a roller coaster, or as say we have the cost of the retirees, they may be replaced by people down here with more dependents so, I don't see the number dropping.

Jordahl: No, that's why I'm personally inclined to go with the recommended issuing or something approaching the recommending issuing of Blue Cross because I suspect that the answer to my question is that, yes, they're taking this into account. Both the bulge of the block of older employees retiring and their being replaced with additional employees who will have dependents.

Lehman: Right. Or the elders are probably playing spouse and down here we're going to be employee, spouse and family.

Slockett: One of the things, perspectives from the 12 candidates we just interviewed... Tom and Kim can back me up on this. You'll get a good sense of this when Reverend Welsh is preparing a summary of the answers to the questions by all 12 people and we're going to present the answers to the Board. We're even discussing whether or not to invite the 12 people who interviewed to come to the meeting and make a presentation to you about it. But there's bad news on the tax front. I would say it was unanimous from people all across the political spectrum that nobody wants to raise taxes. They feel that the Board should live within its budget. They did make exceptions for things like the jail, we've got to put people somewhere, there's an emergency or something like that in some instances. But it was still, even in that case, strong, and actually some very articulate statements about what to do before you raise taxes and how seriously they'll view the notion of increasing taxes and feeling that this is a prosperous County we ought to be able to live within the increases that we get from growth and that sort of thing. So just know that that's the perspective we got from the small sample but a sampling of people that might be considered to be opinion leaders.

Kriz: It's a pretty diversified sample.

Slockett: Yes.

Kriz: I think that's what hits home to me is the diversity of those people.

Slockett: It was. It did ...

Kriz: It rang out clear and strong that ...

Slockett: ...come through. It was kind of surprising.

Kriz: ...was the last resort.

Jordahl: One possible take on that is to go back to the idea of the development impact study and to suggest that if our needs, as articulated by our presumably conservative and responsible County department heads, outstrip our increase due to growth, than it must be the case that the growth isn't paying for itself. And we need to increase taxes in order ...

Lehman: Or we're not watching our cost. Or we're not watching our costs.

Duffy: ...(inaudible).

Lehman: ...It's both ends. (Inaudible) enough money or your expenses are ...

Jordahl: Well, yes our expenses are going up. But where are these requests coming from and the requests for departmental increases are not led by, if we look at the departmental increases rather than the personnel costs that the Board drove with the salary survey, we're still looking at an amount that basically consumes twice the growth figure and that's due to growth in the need for primarily staff across County departments. Now why are other staff needed? They're needed to serve the additional people that we have, those are additional residents in the county, presumably they're paying taxes, they're here, they need to be served. It takes us more staff than we have to serve them, well then we've got to pay the staff. Is it the fault of the departments that they're not using people efficiently? I doubt it. I think that people are strapped and they've been trying for years to get along with less. In part we're catching up for the freeze. The freeze existed and we were not able to increase budgets.

Slockett: Well the freeze was never a freeze either.

Jordahl: But the growth was there. But the growth was always there. We always got the allowable growth, took into account the new money from growth, and so you can say alright we weren't able to keep, that still proves the point. That over all these years, during the freeze, when what we got was phenomenal growth, we had developed a backlog of both building needs and staffing needs to service that growth. If that's true, and it seems to be, then the growth's not paying for itself and we need to have a tax increase to pay for it because we have to cover the costs of growth. There's a popular position. Anyone want to support me?

Kriz: I don't know that I agree with you but I do agree that its a perception out there. Whether it is or not I don't really have an opinion on that. But that's definitely the perception out there that growth is not paying for itself. That's the underlying, I think, perception out there.

Duffy: ...I sure wouldn't agree with that Tom because I've done a lot of work, including comparing this county to a county in Wisconsin for example. We shouldn't even be compared to them, I say it's a different kind of county for land use... Part of it was land use using tax payers dollars to buy this prime farmland but say growth isn't paying for itself then no way, it's paying for itself on it.

Kriz: Well, and that's my point Charlie. As they say, I say that's a perception out there. But then it's our job to say that it is or to figure that out if that is the case.

Duffy: (Inaudible).

Jordahl: It's to hear the numbers alright? In all the growth... The new growth has given us $518,670 in the general fund, another $55,900 in the rural fund. OK so we've got about $570,000 total including the rural side to spend and we've got requests that are triple that and beyond, quadruple that. Are department heads are being profligate and saying oh gee, we've got to spend all kinds of extra money just because we like to live high. Look at your own budget. Are you requesting a lot of new computers because you're going to computerize the department? No, you're proceeding piecemeal, say well let's do what we can digest. Pat, is he requesting enough County Attorneys to keep pace with the increase in criminal cases since the freeze began let's say? Not even close. Whose the spendthrift, let's point the finger at them. Whose asking for too much? If they aren't asking for too much, if your services are spare for holding things to the bone, then how come that $518,000 doesn't pay the bill ...$570,000 doesn't pay the bill ...

Duffy: Well Jonathan, first place 46% of our budget's for Human Services. We know people are coming into this county for them too. Laws aren't the way they used to be, there's more stricter laws, driving while intoxicated, things like that. It seems to me everything is really going up I think if we look at our budgets. I've been saying this for a year or 2. We're just paying for something with the taxpayers' money that we don't need.

Jordahl: What's that?

Duffy: I'll make a list of them before we're done here.

Jordahl: I'd really like to see it Charlie because we're going to need that when we start cutting departments.

Duffy: Uh-huh.

Slockett: Well see Jonathan, that sort of attitude, that anyone comes up with a way to save money is going to get cut. Anyone who dares to say that there might be a way to improve our operations is going to have the wrath of the Board come down on them. It's no way to deal, to try to have a positive solution to the problem.

Jordahl: What did you just say to me? I didn't understand that.

Slockett: I thought I just heard you sort of telling Charlie that if he came up with ideas to save money that it was making you angry.

Jordahl: Oh goodness no, it make's me hopeful. I'm very eager, very eager to see Charlie's list of where it is we could save money because that's great. We need that. I want everybody to come with a list of where we can save money. That's your homework assignment OK? Everybody do that, I'll do that, we'll all... Let's look at where we can save money. That's what you did when you made up your budget was look at where you can save money, wasn't it?

Slockett: Sure. I guess what I... The perspective I have is one that I know Charlie has, because he's been here for a while. The Board of Supervisors is very, very different than the Boards in the past. The Boards who... About the last thing they would ever do would be to hire additional people. This can be good and it can be bad. About the last thing they would do would be to give raises that nobody asked for. We've fought for years over how to proceed on technology and there was never a question of... The question was do we go towards microcomputers and diminish our mainframe or do we stick with the mainframe, but there never was a consideration of doing both. Well, the Board decided to do both, and so these things have financial impacts on the County, and we're beginning to see the effect of it. It may be good and it may be bad. Part of the reason the costs are going up is because of decisions that have been made, and it may be for a very good reason that they've been made or it may not be but at least that's part of a reason it isn't because somebody is wasting money or... The Board is also meeting a lot more, it's very much more active. We've set up all these committees that require a lot of County employee's time and efforts and that requires more people. So all of these things add to the cost of County government, how much is up for grabs and whether it's good or not also could be debated.

Jordahl: So you're pointing the finger at the Information Services Department as developed by the Board of Supervisors and at the proliferation of meetings which is resulted in all these personnel increases.

Slockett: I see you're very receptive to a discussion on this.

Jordahl: I'm just trying to clarify what you said. It sounds like there are some allusions being made. I want to know what they mean.

Slockett: I think you're trying to put it in the worst possible light.

Carpenter: In a way I think we're cutting our own throats here. The people in Johnson County are feeding themselves here because number one, some people probably aren't going to like what I have to say here, but in my business what I see here is this is the promised land. Johnson County and Iowa City and Iowa have set themselves up for the promised land. We have got all kinds of groups and organizations willing to hand out and give to people anything that they need to make their life improvement. That's fine if they're amongst us. I think we have to take care of our people here. But I'll tell you, a good example is a case we just got through working with last summer that took several months. I think we arrested 5 and the 6 ones to be arrested. All these folks come from out of state, and the reason they came here is because they could sign up for this and get free housing, free meals, free everything and now we get to house half of them. One moved into town and said come down to Iowa City because we can get you anything in the world you want, we'll give it to you, all you have to do is sign up for it. We pay them to come in here and live, and we pay to house them because they don't like stealing or gun lines we have established here. I think we've spent an awful lot of money to support people who really aren't from here but are encouraged to come here because all these militants are foreign. I don't see a thing in the world wrong with taking care of the people that need help. I think we have to, I think that's what these programs are for, but I think Iowa City has gotten way carried away. We've got organization after organization out there that fall on top of each of other that really doesn't know the other one exists but do exactly the same thing. We're trying to get handles on it. I know that there's meetings going on to try to eliminate that but a lot of these groups are doing the same thing the other group is doing and we're paying both groups to do it. That's one way, it seems to me that we need to start watching what we... I'm not saying this for Johnson County alone as far as the Supervisors go. I think that's just the feelings of the whole city and Iowa City and the county as a whole. We're a big loveable county that will take people in and help them out whenever they need it but we pay for it and when you do that you got to pay big bucks and it's not going to pay for everything. I don't think you can help but raise taxes somewhere along the line when we operate like that. There's not too much in this town you can't go and apply for something and get some freebies or some help because you need it. Whether you need it legitimately or not.

Slockett: These costs aren't really centered around human services.

Carpenter: We talked about human services budget though being what, almost 50%? Is that what you said?

Duffy: I think there was (inaudible)...

Slockett: But a big chunk of that now is mental health funding that's provided by the State, so that's...

Carpenter: We're still talking a lot of bucks.

Slockett: Yes, oh yes.

Carpenter: And we're talking... When you take half the budget or close to half the budget, whatever that is, it's still a lot of money that we support people on for this county here that really... The opportunity to get jobs here, that isn't the fact that people can't work. I mean I think you can probably go out and get a $7 or $8 an hour job pretty easy even if you have to work McDonalds.

Slockett: It's hard to hire someone for $7 an hour. We've been trying to do it.

Carpenter: I know that, but there's people out there that can ...

Slockett: And I see an awfully big smile on the minute taker's face.

Carpenter: No, I don't disagree with that...

Slockett: We need to pay them more.

Lehman: You're talking about personnel and space needs it all compounds it.

Kriz: It all ties together.

Carpenter: Look at here... We're looking at housing a... putting up a new building for Human Services. Because they need more staffing space. That's what we're talking about. I mean if we invite everybody in we got to take care of them.

Slockett: Well, this is one of the fastest growing places in the state if not the fastest growing place. The new Coral Ridge Mall had definitely impacted on our temporary labor costs. I mean McDonald's is paying $8 to $10 an hour I've heard is the range.

White: It's impacted on our budget. It's an old refrain of mine but they've added to the cost of the County providing service and we're not collecting a cent to help pay for it. The line I keep using is the farmer in Lone Tree is subsidizing that mall. He doesn't understand that he is but he is.

Kriz: In the long run he is though.

White: Absolutely.

Kriz: And Bob's point is well taken.

Carpenter: That's just the mall. You look at all these towns around us, every town that we have on contract for law enforcement...

Kriz: ...pays that price.

Carpenter: ...is the same way. It's been that way forever since we've been under contract. And try to pull out of that now would be a real disaster. North Liberty's in the process of trying to get their own police department started. Boy that would be the best thing in my life when they get that done.

White: Not mine.

Carpenter: Well friend it up for Pat. Because it's going to give him another police department that he's got to deal with but...

White: I'd rather they stuck with you.

Carpenter: But I can't afford that to hire people.

Slockett: I wonder why that wouldn't be a better solution.

Carpenter: ...for what they (inaudible).

White: The more agencies is just another complication for me.

Slockett: Why wouldn't they just increase the number of deputies and help subsidize instead of hiring their own?

Carpenter: You know Tom that's a good question, but you know what the size of my force would have to be in order to do that? In order to catch up it would... They could probably do it cheaper.

Slockett: Do you really think so?

White: Yes. That's what is one of the intriguing things about county versus city budgets. They're willing to pay to get the sort of force they want as long as it's their own. But if you started expanding the Sheriff's Department to get the coverage that everybody... I mean, in the ideal Lone Tree could use the same staffing, or Oxford or Tiffin but if you tried to raise the County budget to do it they would be a great hew and cry. One of the things that always surprises me about local government budgets, to put this in some context. The Iowa City School District is now entering into the second year of slashing programs because they took on more than they can afford and now they're having to re-trench. Iowa City has borrowed these extraordinary sums of money, and they're paying for them with confiscatory water and sewer rates. But when we start talking about increasing the County budget, County taxes by 2 or 3%, people all get worked up.

Carpenter: Yes.

White: And I never understand why that is, other than we're more accessible, we don't have these slick administrators who will help package it. What you see is what you get here.

Carpenter: The only problem is that there are people who think that form of government is best.

White: Yes. And it isn't.

Carpenter: ...before I lose my mind.

White: The County, but before we start criticizing ourselves too much, the County budget is in wonderful condition and County government is doing an excellent job of delivering services efficiently and at very modest price. There's always likely room for improvement but, boy, we shouldn't be critical of our own fiscal house, it's really pretty good.

Carpenter: If you stop and look at... As long as I can remember, I think it was shortly after... I can remember Tom when they beat off the bonds for the jail. It was probably ‘60 no ‘84 or '85, somewhere in there. I know as long as I've been Sheriff the County has been debt free. Now I'll bet you that there's not many governmental agencies or groups and I know Iowa City can't say that they're debt free. I mean where can they go, and we catch heat because we cost too much.

Lehman: I want to stay debt free.

Slockett: I think that would be a great argument for these savings accounts.

Lehman: We've got to ask for more to do

Slockett: And trying to budget our capital projects and capital expenditures and to the future. But we do have options with debt. We can borrow up to $800,000 even without an election per project. It is true that interest rates will probably never be better than they are now. I guess I have mixed feelings about debt. For one thing, I'm against it generally. Because I truly believe that a really superb government that plans efficiently and effectively would be able to save the money it needs to replace its capital, its buildings and do repairs and so forth. But it has to be a government that's receptive to it. But if we are going to have to borrow money in the near future, in the next 5 years or so, it might be worth looking at doing it now. Because now is when the rates are at historic lows. So I have some mixed feelings about it. But my preference still would be to identify projects and figure out ways to delay, to cover the needs, until the funds can be raised for it. Then if some amount has to be borrowed at a point of construction, hopefully it would be a small amount. I would also like to talk about the idea that... I agree that the County government is in relatively good shape compared to any of the other governments nearby. I also don't like the argument that well, these outside forces are upon us and through no fault of our own we have nothing that we can do about it. We're forced to increase taxes, we have no choice. This is the argument that Supervisors have dreams about at night. They love to make decisions on that basis. We had no choice. Well maybe we do and maybe we don't. We ought to look at them. Maybe we ought to look at them and see if we have any choice or not.

Jordahl: Well given that no money has been set aside for capital projects over the previous however many years, and given that you've spoken positively about a government that would be able to replace its capital infrastructure without a bond issue through savings. Then I would suggest we're going to need about a, I don't know, a $4 million dollar tax increase this year in order to paste that out and help that we can get by on a jail and just keep that flat for perpetuity... We need to calculate that. Get the Space Needs Committee, look at the County's needs projected out for 300 years and see what it is. I think what we're talking about a fairly substantial...

Slockett: For 300, for 300 years?

Jordahl: Just kind of goofing and kind of not. I think it's one thing to say these are our needs today and look at an annual budget but we should be able to project a 5 year budget too and say what are our needs going to be? What's the growth expected in the population, what's that going to do to crime, what's that going to do to prosecutions, what's the going to do to social services and aim at it. What's that going to do to our building needs? You can build a jail that meets the needs and get people to kind of pay for this much more than what we really need today but not that much more. If we were saving instead of having to pass the bond issue then we can make longer term decisions. They'd be nice to do that, but to do that is going to take a big tax increase so that the base of the tax... The base of the amount of money we receive allows for capital savings. It doesn't. Now we get $600,000 and we put it away in the current year.

White: You sure it's that much?

Jordahl: Yes, I think it's 300 on one line and it's in a couple of different places.

White: OK.

Jordahl: Tom, am I close?

Slockett: I think it sounds in the ballpark. I'm not... I don't want to be held to any specific numbers today.

White: If there's a weakness in where we are that's what it is, is that we haven't planned for our physical plant needs in the long term. We've been adopting budgets year to year and we need this longer term planning component.

Duffy left at 2:34 p.m. and returned at 2:35 p.m.

Carpenter: One of the themes I've always heard was that our facilities we're in now was a 20 year projection and that was in 1980. Well we're 18, 19 years now, where's the money we supposedly were stockpiling the last 19 years to build on. The only reason we're as far as we are now is because through a loop-hole in the law we were able...

Slockett: Able to double the capacity.

Carpenter: ...stack them up. Yes.

Slockett: Yes.

Carpenter: That's the only thing that happened. And we can't do that today.

Slockett: It's very hard to save money for the future. Very hard to take resources today. The argument for borrowing is that its the mechanism by which you can pay, you can make the future pay for present costs which will serve the future. It's not a bad argument. On the other hand most of the... An awful lot of the investments purchased on bonds out the usage way outlasts the length of the payback of the bonds anyway. So I mean look at the courthouse. It was still functioning very well almost a 100 years. A 100 years later.

Carpenter: And Tom our building is functioning it's just that were not big enough.

Slockett: Sure, sure.

Carpenter: I mean we've got a good building... I hope we can... Whatever we do I hope we can stay right where we're at and someway I'll figure out something from there. I mean the building is in good shape yet and it's been paid for a long time.

Jordahl: I might point out that a couple of departments have moved out of the courthouse in the last 100 years though.

Slockett: Yes, there's no question about that. But the facility itself is still sitting there serving the public very well. But an examples are... Some of the discussions we're heard in our meeting were about the library. The fact that the Iowa City Library was so short-sighted that they didn't build the footings into the ground to allow another story and the same thing about the County Administration Building.

Kriz: Of this building.

Slockett: But anyone who sat through that knows that was fully discussed at the time and it finally come off to the trade off of what the costs are to do that which are nearly the same as actually building the additional space. It costs so much more to provide that... those columns and make the infrastructure of the building strong enough to hold the new stories that it costs very little more when you've got the crews there and ready to build and everything else to actually build the story. Finally, the well intended decision makers decide we just can't afford it so we will cut back on that and we'll put wallpaper on the walls instead of having bare walls there. Those kind of trade-offs happen.

Jordahl: Earlier your comment about correlating the accumulating balance in the Blue Cross Blue Shield fund with the recommended rate increase and I would draw a parallel here between the cost comparisons that you are talking about were made when this building was built and the need for a capital a projects levy or budget that is sufficient in the present time to count for those future needs. Then draw the correlation between the difference in costs at the time of building with the difference between that cost and the cost of doing it now, in a different place, because we haven't got the foundations to do this, we'd got land acquisition, we've got the question how efficient is it to operate out of 2 locations and we've got the cost of a new building at the massively inflated rates of today. So I think that correlation needs to be held in mind too in terms of the long-term views. It is so much more expensive to build it now then it would have been then, that if we can find a way to build for a longer term and build for expandability in the future we could make that decision to buy new... To get new land and so forth to make a much more expensive investment now is to save, 20 years in the future, man we'd be way ahead. So that's why I think a flat levy for capital projects that would allow us to accumulate sufficient resources to make a decision that says we will make this building expandable for the future, is going to be possible without having to go to a vote of the public that says we don't want to spend that much. I understand that's what happened to the jail isn't it? Charlie you were saying this morning that there were 2 votes?

Carpenter: I think there was 3 wasn't there?

Duffy: (Inaudible).

Slockett: Well there was the one on the courthouse site. The jail and the expansion of the courthouse. I can't recall. Were there...?

Carpenter: I think they downsized the one where it's at now also because it was defeated. I don't remember for sure. Do you Pat?

White: I remember the last one, we basically made a somewhat arbitrary, albeit educated judgement about what we thought the voters would be willing to spend and then put together a package that came within that estimate and we were right.

Peters: Because we were certainly at a county (inaudible).

White: Yes.

Slockett: The difficulty in doing this future planning and savings is once you start it and then if we come in with a bunch of bond issues for Human Services and the jail or whatever, the public... If the public agrees to pay those costs their tolerance for an additional amount for the future, on top of it, becomes very, very tenuous. So that's why I think if... I hate to see... I'd like to see this County campus concept developed and begin building building-blocks on it so that people could see there's an investment for the future. Otherwise you're going to have a County campus but you've got a new building over here and a new building over here, people are going to think why in the world do it. So those were some of the suggestions we got to was to try to find more temporary solutions to the Human Services problem and then maybe fold it into the County campus concept at a later point in time. I added the last part with the first part.

White: We seem to have lapsed into agenda item 4. Does anyone want to say anything more about the fiscal year 2000 budget unrelated to space needs?

Jordahl: There's certainly the computerization problem. We have articulated a commitment as the past Board of Supervisors, that to implementing the Computer Needs Committee's report and proceeding with various types of computerization in accounting. We've got a plan in place to do that over 5 years and that budget request stands absent of massive tax increase, stands in conflict with the space needs problem and with our desire, and with the givens of personnel increases and with various departmental requests for new personnel. These things are all competing with each other. The question of priorities is just glaring here.

White: That's one where... I would agree with Tom. The Board was really out on its own on that Computer Study Committee implementation. I kept saying how on earth can we afford that, and the Board went ahead and did it. It doesn't surprise me in the least that you find a pretty steep bill staring you in the face without it fitting into your budget. Replacing every computer component every 5 years is an extraordinarily expensive proposition. When you made that judgement it just was not folded into the budget discussions it was...

Slockett: And replacing the mainframes ...

White: ...me looking star in the sky...

Slockett: ...and continuing to operate.

White: ...and I sort of gulped at the time and asked how can we afford that and the Board just went ahead.

Jordahl: I don't think the biggest piece of that is the replacement of the PC's.

White: It's a big piece. Replace everything once every 5 years. It's a very extensive package and it doesn't surprise me that it's a big ticket budget item. Now the Board is confronted with the reality of how they are going to pay for it along with everything else.

Slockett: I don't know if that particular item is so expensive but it's an indication of how extensive and ambitious the project is.

White: Yes. That really was a Board initiated study. A Board decision to implement. The rest of us were sort of bystanders wondering where the money was going to come from.

Jordahl: The PC replacement costs in the 2000 budget is $63,000.

White: Well, that'd buy my lawyer.

Jordahl: That's not very much by itself. There you go. Let's get Pat a lawyer.

Slockett: I think that would be an excellent idea. That would be a priority for me, in my book any day.

White: Are you on schedule on budget is...

Jordahl: Yes I believe so. We've been through the personnel requests in a run through. We've been through the technology requests. We're trying to look at the big blocks of things. We've speculated on a cost of living figure, 3%, and had that folded through and we're going to have that information available on Friday when we meet again for budget consideration where we will start looking department by department at these requests and try to assess whose needs outweigh whose and what we preliminarily can afford. I think we're going to start making new departmental judgements on Friday.

(Continued)