MINUTES OF THE INFORMAL MEETING OF THE JOHNSON COUNTY BOARD OF SUPERVISORS:

JANUARY 26 AND 28, 1999

TABLE OF CONTENTS

 

Chairperson Jonathan Jordahl called the Johnson County Board of Supervisors to order in the Johnson County Administration Building at 9:04 a.m. Members present were: Charles Duffy, Jonathan Jordahl, Mike Lehman, and Sally Stutsman.

REVIEW OF MINUTES

Jordahl: First order of business following the calling to order is the review of the formal minutes of January 21st. If you've had a chance to look at those do you have any questions or comments? If not we'll have those on for formal approval on Thursday. We're going to skip over the Nutrition Advisory Board item for a minute and... There we go.

Assistant county engineer Jinyeene Neumann: BIDS RECEIVED FOR JOHNSON COUNTY REINFORCED CONCRETE BOX CULVERT PROJECT L-U-16-1 (AT THE INTERSECTION OF 640TH STREET AND UTAH AVENUE IN SECTION 16-77-5)

Assistant County Engineer Jinyeene Neumann: Can I come up here?

Jordahl: Yes. Present business from the County Engineer.

Neumann: I'm here to discuss Johnson County project LU16-1. The letting for it was on Friday. You should have a spreadsheet in front of you. These are all the bids that we received. You'll notice that Winfield Construction was the low bidder underneath engineer's estimate.

Stutsman: Winfield?

Neumann: Winfield Construction. It's on the last page.

Stutsman: OK. Yes.

Neumann: We would like to request that the Board take action on Thursday's formal meeting, authorizing that the Chairman sign the contract and the bond.

Jordahl: OK.

Stutsman: They were the low bid right?

Neumann: Correct.

Stutsman: OK. We've done work with them before?

Neumann: Yes.

Stutsman: OK. So that's...

Jordahl: (inaudible)...40th street...

Neumann: It's at the intersection.

Stutsman: So they were even under what we estimated.

Neumann: Correct. About $12,000 under.

Duffy: Sounds good.

Jordahl: Yes.

Stutsman: Yes it looks good to me too.

Jordahl: That's excellent. Well, any additional discussion we need to have of this.

Stutsman: I might add this is Jinyeene's first time before the Board presenting a bid. Both Mike and Al are out of town today so they turned over the responsibilities to Jinyeene and she did just fine.

Neumann: OK.

Jordahl: Thank-you.

Neumann: Thank-you.

Jordahl: We'll take action on that Thursday then. Business from the County Auditor?

Administrative Assistant Carol Peters: We need to call Kit for that though.

Jordahl: Are they budget amendments? Yes, I guess maybe we can move onto business from the Board of Supervisors here. We have our relocation question before us. First item there is the discussion regarding relocation of the Department of Human Services Income Maintenance Unit to Eastdale Mall. Sally you want to...

Stutsman: Cheryl Whitney needs to be here for that...

Jordahl: Oh is Cheryl over here?

Stutsman: ...and she's not here yet.

Jordahl: OK.

Stutsman: So I think we probably better wait until she gets here. But we do have Jerry and Sue Tank who are from Eastdale Mall so they're with us this morning to help with the discussion.

MINUTES RECEIVED: HERITAGE AREA AGENCY ON AGING ADVISORY COUNCIL FOR OCTOBER 22, 1998; EAST CENTRAL IOWA COUNCIL OF GOVERNMENTS FOR NOVEMBER 30, 1998; SIXTH JUDICIAL DISTRICT DEPARTMENT OF CORRECTIONAL SERVICES BOARD OF DIRECTORS FOR DECEMBER 1, 1998; SENIOR CENTER COMMISSION FOR DECEMBER 15, 1999

Jordahl: Well let's see here. We know that we've received minutes from the Heritage Area Agency on Aging, East-Central Iowa Council of Governments, 6th Judicial District, Department of Corrections Board of Directors and the Senior Center Commission for October, November and the last 2 from December. Well should we go through reports from members of the Board of Supervisors? Earlier in the agenda, earlier in the hour than usual?

Lehman: Yes.

Stutsman: Yes.

Jordahl: We can't very well go to the work session of department heads because it's not 1:00 yet so. We could go to discussion from the public. Anybody have any topics they want to raise? We just can't get people to talk in these meetings. We can get them to come and we can't get them to talk.

INQUIRY (REVEREND BOB WELSH): POSTING TENTATIVE AGENDAS ON WEB-SITE

Reverend Bob Welsh: Jonathan one thing. 2 or 3 weeks ago you made a suggestion which the Board of Supervisors agreed to about posting your tentative agendas for your meetings ahead of time so that persons could have some knowledge of that. And that was agreed to, and yet to my knowledge, unless I'm accessing the wrong pages...

Jordahl: You're probably accessing the right pages.

Welsh: ...is not there and even for example, the agenda for this meeting, even a tentative one, was not on over the weekend. At least as one citizen, I thought that was an excellent idea that you had because it would help. If you know that something's going to be discussed 3 weeks from now it would be good if citizens could do that because that way they could provide more input that if they found out the day before or... I know technically it's at least 24 hours is all you completely have to do, but I thought your suggestion was a good one because it said hey when we know something is scheduled let's share that information with people. I know you've got into a discussion as to would you update that every hour or Thursday or (inaudible).

Jordahl: Or every 3 weeks or whenever we got around.

Welsh: ...have time to keep it current and see what that was. And at least I thought that was a very good idea. I just want to point out to you that as yet that hasn't been implemented and I think people would find that helpful.

Jordahl: Well I take responsibility for not following through on that sufficiently to get that done Bob. I'll look into that this morning right after the meeting. Is there any other discussion on that issue or anything else?

DEPUTY COUNTY AUDITOR KIT WONG: FY 99 BUDGET AMENDMENT REQUESTS

Jordahl: Well let's see, where do we go? Kit's here. Should we go to the budget amendments?

Stutsman: Uh-huh.

Jordahl: Kit Wong from the Auditor's Office.

Deputy County Auditor Kit Wong: Good morning.

Stutsman: Good morning.

Wong: How did you want me to do it? Just summarize each department that's asking for an amendment?

Stutsman: That's what they've usually done in the past is just kind of go through and give us a brief update.

Wong: I'm just going to go through this sheet here. First page. The total expenditures increasing by $445,802. Total revenue is increasing by $219,443 for net increase in expenditures of $226,359. And individual departments that are asking for an amendment is Ambulance Department. It's increasing by $2,422, that's just a salary survey phase 2. County Attorney's Department is $20,027 increase of salary survey, due to the salary survey phase 2. Onto Public Health. There are several things here. Revenues and expenditures in the HIV Consortia and revenues in the Child Health Program are decreasing due to reductions in funding from the Iowa Department of Public Health. Revenues and expenditures decreased for the Tobacco Project due to grant not awarded, that's $12,000. Decreasing revenues due to Mercy Hospital not funding the cardiovascular project that's (inaudible). Increasing revenues and expenditures due to funding for the new School Based Youth Program, that's $10,408. The Head Start Program, $10,000 and Empowerment Program. Revenues increased from food inspection fees that's, $8,000. Expenditures increase for personnel include a 1.75 full-time equivalent, that's relating to food inspection. 2 full-time employees changing from 37.5 hour week to a 40 hour week. Also implementation of phase 2 salary survey so expenditures are increasing by $50,858, revenues increasing by $4,708, for a net increase in expenditures $46,150.

Stutsman: Jonathan, do you want to wait until Kit's all done before we ask specific questions or should we...

Jordahl: I think in terms of the salary survey it probably makes sense to remind anyone interested in listening to the discussion this morning that this is an effort on the part of the Board to address a kind of a compression problem between middle-management salaries and union wages where there have been regular increases for line employees that are multiple in character. They have step raises and union contract negotiations and cost of living increases that are incorporated with that, that have had the effect of raising the wages of the people being supervised while the people supervising have not had the equivalent raises. So in order to address that we did a survey of county wide positions and this is basically authorizing the adjustment of that money from the fund where we had budgeted it into the various departments where wages are being paid. But now, regarding the Public Health Department I think there's enough complexity here that we should probably stop at this point and ask any questions we have about that.

Stutsman: Yes. I guess where do I start? I'm still real confused about these personnel additions with this food inspection. Deana I know that you've been trying to clarify this too.

Deputy Administrative Assistant Deana Pillard: I'm still confused by it so I'm not going to be of any help.

Stutsman: OK. And I though maybe Graham would be in this morning to kind of explain this. I'm wondering too, are the revenues from that Empowerment Grant, they're not included in this amendment.

Wong: It's a wash. It's increasing revenues and increasing...

Stutsman: OK so that personnel increase isn't a reflection of the staff that will be added because of that Empowerment Grant or is that?

Wong: No that's not included in the personnel.

Stutsman: So the 1.75 is that just for food inspection is that what...

Pillard: (Inaudible).

Jordahl: I thought that number had been adjusted to 1.5 FTE.

Stutsman: Or even .5. I told you we were down 2.

Pillard: Yes the .5 was what you guys were discussing or 1.5 was them but this was (inaudible) ...their narrative ...

Wong: They didn't really break it down ...

Jordahl: ...This is any one of (inaudible) ...

Stutsman: Yes because I need to be clear if we're adding a staff.

Pillard: Right and they didn't break it down in their narrative either.

Jordahl: No.

Pillard: What Kit put in the summary sheet is almost word for word what they have in the narrative which they weren't clear on that either. And just as a FYI, one of the people going to the 40 hours is a food inspector. Though 2 full-timers are always changing, one of them is a food inspector. I did find that out.

Lehman: We're going to cease their inspection in the other 2 counties and we felt that those employees could cover more inspections in Johnson County?

Stutsman: Right.

Jordahl: Uh-huh.

Stutsman: I guess I'm just a little hesitant if we're starting to add staff during a budget amendment. I don't know if I'm comfortable with doing that.

Jordahl: Uh-huh.

Stutsman: Carol do you have 8?

Peters: Would you like me to call Graham and see if he could come up?

Stutsman: Yes. That might be... Save us some time doing speculation and what's going on and just...

Duffy: I was going to ask, like for example decrease for Tobacco Project due to grant not awarded from the State $12,000, that means we drop the project or are we going to pick that up?

Jordahl: This is revenues and expenditures decrease.

Duffy: Yes but it's not clear to me that some of these were one year grants. In the past we kind of got stuck with. They'd have the grant for one year and then after that... I think that's a viable question, maybe Graham can answer that.

Stutsman: Yes I think so too. Because if we hire people for this grant, and then the grant is gone, what's happening with that personnel? Are they just transferred over to other programs and are we ultimately picking those salaries up? It is just not very clear.

Jordahl: Uh-huh. Yes when it says increases in revenues and expenditures due to funding for the School Based Youth Program. Do those then equal one another?

Wong: Right. I believe that's what...

Pillard: It looks like it on the one hand.

Jordahl: Yes, one of the line items. (Inaudible).

Stutsman: I wonder if we can go through maybe the rest of...

Jordahl: OK. We're going to get Graham here.

Stutsman: ...these until...

Jordahl: Right. So Kit.

Wong: To continue on. Human Services Department's salary survey increase at $1,366.

Jordahl: Actually Human Resources.

Wong: Oh yes, right. Excuse me, Human Resources. And for Information Services another salary survey $3,344. Physical Plant has another salary survey $930. Central Services' expenditures decreased due to the phase 2, $39,299, that's where we transferred into the (inaudible). I guess increase for Employee Assistance Program $7,700 and for net decreasing expenditures at $31,599. Planning and Zoning...

Jordahl: Does that exactly balance the increases in other departments?

Wong: Right.

Stutsman: So in other words the salary survey money was already budgeted in Central Services so now we're just taking it out of that budget and putting it into the department's budget.

Wong: Right. Planning and Zoning, 2 full-time employees changing from 37.5 hours to a 40 hour week and phase 2 of the salary survey. Conservation Department, salary survey $671. Juvenile Justice, increase of $158,000 due to detentions costs.

Jordahl: I think we better stop and talk about that for a couple of seconds just to... In previous lines we've been talking about $600 and $2,000 and here we're talking about $158,000. Sally perhaps you could give a brief summary of that.

Stutsman: I think it's just an indication of increased costs with juvenile detention that... Johnson County as well as just about every other county in the state has seen their detention costs double. And what aggravates the problem is that the State hasn't lived up to their commitment as to their share of the cost of detention so the County has no choice but to pick these up and this is a cost that we don't have a choice in. We're required by law to provide detention services so we have to pay this. Part of the problem too that enters into this is that detention, in some instances, is being used as a place to keep juveniles until there is a place for them to go into residential treatment so that even aggravates the problem. There's a cap on the residential treatment beds, you have to wait until there's an opening, and when there's no place else to put these juveniles then they are kept in detention. So there's a lot of issues that need to be dealt with on the State level. I think the Board needs to be pretty assertive with the legislature in getting the situation remedied because it's not going to go down it's going to continue to go up.

Lehman: This doesn't address anymore slots or spaces it's just strictly an increase of what we are already getting.

Stutsman: Right.

Jordahl: The one thing that they are doing something creative here, they requested that we fund a purchase of, I believe it was 3 additional slots in an alternative detention program that could be used as a kind of intermediate option for a foursome, particular children for whom it would be appropriate. And they anticipate because that would keep those children out of the more expensive detentions, costing $65 to $70 a day instead of $200 and some dollars per day... Were actually, by spending that money for those 3 alternative slots, saving far more that we're spending on it. So although the problem has ballooned for us, the Juvenile Court Services Department has done a creative job in responding to the situation that nevertheless does leave us quite a whopping increase in cost during this fiscal year. And they project that will continue to next year for the FY 2000 budget. They requested an increase from their initial request of $400,000 as opposed to this year's $290,000 original request for FY 2000 they're requesting $521,500 which comes close to doubling the cost that was originally projected for FY 99. So we've got a problem in that area.

Duffy: Those are big item bills. I think the State should step in and should help fund some of this. And if they don't I don't know what we're going to do, it's going to break the bank it looks like to me.

Stutsman: I think we need to keep moving on Jonathan.

Jordahl: : Yes, we've got people arriving here, huh? OK, where were we at?

Wong: OK. Elections.

Stutsman: Elections.

Wong: Increase of $57,700 in expenditures for the Sales Tax election. And revenues are increasing $44,100 for that Sales Tax election. That's for reimbursement. Replacement van that was in an accident, that's $19,500 for a new one.

Jordahl: Yes, let's stop there for a second.

Stutsman: Yes.

Jordahl: I went down and talked to Julie Bartholomew yesterday about this. And we had discussed the van replacement issue in our budget meeting on Friday. At that time I understood, or thought I understood that we were talking about budgeting a replacement for the wrecked van. We got one hit this year, or this last year, for the FY 2000 budget because it was part of this budget request for next year. But as I got this divided out, I talked to Kit also since that used to be your area, and it looks like we're talking about 2 vans. We're talking about replacing the wrecked one now with this budget amendment and we're talking about budgeting to replace the other one later. So the items are sort of blended in the budget requests. It seems like the lift and the body repair are actually for the wrecked van, right?

Wong: No, that's for the one that's working.

Pillard: No it's for the other one.

Stutsman: It's for the van that's...

Wong: That's working right now.

Pillard: They wanted to get the sheet metal and get it painted.

Jordahl: But the urgency that I felt about getting another replacement van rather than fixing up the old one.

Pillard: That was still the issue. That's why I took it that way, was that the $4,000 they wanted to paint and sheet-metal, the one that currently...

Jordahl: Yes, works still.

Pillard: ...is operable you wanted to throw into the capital in order to get them a newer van to replace that one faster.

Jordahl: Right. What I didn't understand though at that time on Friday when we were discussing this, was that we were also talking about getting a new van to replace the wrecked. I sort of figured that it was the wrecked one we were talking about replacing.

Pillard: No, no.

Stutsman: I guess I didn't realize we were talking about 2 vans within...

Jordahl: One calendar year really.

Stutsman: Yes, really. Now there's been no money budgeted for this van at all?

Wong: No.

Stutsman: Right. OK. So this would come out of reserves.

Wong: Right.

Jordahl: And what about... We're self-insured here? Does Bob have anything to do with this, I mean did we get insurance coverage for the hit...

Wong: Right that's the thing.

Jordahl: Was it our fault? What happened?

Wong: It was our fault. It's the county's policy not to ensure old vans, so that's the reason why.

Jordahl: OK. So there's no money for this. In the price quotations that are included here, there's used, the used/new price quotations and it seems pretty clear that repairing the old one would be pretty silly.

Stutsman: But why the new dodge van versus the used van?

Wong: Those are just different prices I was getting for new.

Stutsman: OK.

Jordahl: Uh-huh.

Wong: And we're still waiting from Chevy to get back. Chevy Chrysler new van.

Jordahl: My thinking on this, not to attempt to micromanage the Auditor/Elections department is that as low as your mileage utilization of the van is that we could probably make out well on a used van and not have to take a depreciation off of the new one.

Stutsman: Is that van worth repairing at all?

Wong: We had to do one or the other. We can either repair it or buy a new one. Or a used one.

Stutsman: And the repairing would be... How many miles was on that?

Wong: Between I think between 130 and 150,000 van.

Stutsman: And I haven't had a chance to get down there and ride in that van.

Duffy: I think it's been shot ever since we bought it.

Jordahl: Well that's the thing. SEATS used it up first right?

Duffy: Right.

Jordahl: It's a...

Lehman: I hadn't heard any figures of how many miles we put on them per year. Do we have an estimate on those?

Wong: It's probably... We haven't kept track, maybe 2000? It's hard to say. Depends on how many elections we have.

Duffy: I agree with Jonathan there. Surely some good used vans around. A new one we'd then have to have collision insurance and all that too.

Stutsman: I think $19,500 is way too much. I guess maybe I would...

Jordahl: Uh-huh.

Wong: Right. We did get an estimate from one place. It was about $14,000 for a used van, that I have on here. But we can surely do more research on different places.

Stutsman: Yes.

Jordahl: Yes, I would suggest that we consider a $12,000 budget amendment and encourage them to go shopping.

Stutsman: I guess that's what I would suggest too.

Duffy: $12,000 or less.

Jordahl: Yes, $12,000 to include the lift.

Stutsman: I was going to say $10,000. OK.

Wong: The lift itself is $2,000.

Lehman: OK but you're going to check to see if the old lift maybe adaptable to a used van.

Wong: Not this van was in wreck. The lift is also shot.

Lehman: Damaged, OK.

Stutsman: So are we in agreement then to change that to $12,000.

Duffy: I'd say $10,000 maybe.

Stutsman: Well

Duffy: $10,000 or $12,000 around in that maybe

Lehman: $12,000 with a lift.

Stutsman: I think $12,000 with a lift.

Jordahl: $12,000 with a lift installed.

Wong: $12,000?

Jordahl: Yes.

Duffy: I'd kind of scrutinize the price, not saying anything against the dealer, but surely there's a good used van someplace for that amount. I'd only be

Jordahl: I gave them a couple of leads yesterday on a couple I know about.

Wong: We'll go ahead and try to find a van that's within this price range.

Stutsman: OK.

Jordahl: To the extent that micromanaging is legitimate here I don't think it's probably a good idea to repair that van. I wouldn't want anybody to get that impression that by authorizing $12,000 that we're taking the repair van option. I don't think that would be wise.

Duffy: Will the thing run at all? Trade it in?

Wong: It will run, but it's not safe. OK, continue on?

Jordahl: Yes.

Wong: Increase in general election expenditures $7,764. Voting machine service contract over the time period, adjustment of $3,000. And increase in expenditures for the Swisher City Special Election, $861. Revenues increase due to reimbursement for the special elections, re-estimated school election reimbursement (inaudible) and forms. And so there's an expenditure increase of $88,825, revenues are increasing by $69,890 for a net increase in expenditures of $18,935, salary adjusted for.

Jordahl: The parenthesis are not necessarily indicating plusses or minuses here, they're just more grammatical in this presentation? When it says expenditures will increase $88,825 and there aren't any parenthesis, revenues will increase 69. Often times when your office does these budget things the parenthesis mean plus or minus.

Wong: OK the way I did it, I just For example, Swisher SEATS Special Election, in parenthesis. That just means expenditures and revenues increasing by the same amount. That's a wash.

Jordahl: So what is the voting machine service contract pay period adjustment mean, is that a decrease in the...

Wong: No that's an increase in $3,000.

Lehman: Is that a one year contract?

Wong: It's a one year contract and normally we pay it in December but they want to have all service contracts now in June so we're paying one-and-a-half years actually. So that's why there's an increase 3,000.

Stutsman: Kit, on the memo that came, where it says, at the bottom of the memo. Do you know where I'm referring to?

Wong: Right.

Stutsman: What is that estimated reimbursement for cable TV public measure on general election ballot under revenue?

Wong: OK, that's what we estimated, we don't have the exact figures yet, but we're estimating for the City of Iowa City and the City of Coralville. They had that public measure that was on the general election ballot. So we get reimbursed for that, for part of the costs for having that placed on the ballot.

Stutsman: And that computer services original estimate $600, new estimate $700. What is that Kit?

Wong: Oh right. OK, that's just increase in revenue.

Stutsman: From?

Wong: From $600 to $700. So that's $100 increase that we think will be...

Stutsman: But what's the computer services? Is that

Wong: Oh that's voter lists.

Stutsman: Oh OK. All right. Thank-you.

Jordahl: OK. While we are... OK, we're done with this that it for the Elections Department? Any other questions? All right, let's finish going through this then Kit.

Wong: OK, to continue on. Human Services, expenditures and revenues increased due to state grant funding, so there's a net in fact of 0.

Stutsman: And that's the Empowerment?

Wong: No, that's not the Empowerment. They had a... It's another grant. It's Healthy Homes Grant.

Stutsman: OK, all right.

Wong: Foster care and (inaudible) Families Initiative. MH/DD. They're decreasing their expenditures by $3,615, that's too match their salary survey increase in September.

Jordahl: Now I understand that that department has a frozen budget so we can't go over it. So in some sense we're putting money into that department and we can't so we've got to do something. But it isn't exactly decreasing expenditures, in that their expenditures have not exceeded their revenue anyway.

Wong: Right, this is just to because they were to have a cap so they... When we increased it in September by $3,615, we had to decrease it somewhere else.

Jordahl: Because we have authorized expenditure of 100% of their budget?

Wong: Right. That's the way I understand it.

Jordahl: So we must also be taking $3,615 out of that department's budget overall somehow. How do we do that?

Stutsman: We can't take money out.

Jordahl: We can't take money out of the budget. We're spending money there that is more than the cap and we can't take money out of it so what can we do?

Wong: What this does it makes it a wash when we increased it in September for the salary survey we increased their line item first but their salaries. So now they're decreasing somewhere else, another line item.

Jordahl: So we're giving them In other words, the salary survey did not take, did not put $3,615 into this budget.

Wong: Right.

Jordahl: We just authorized them to spend it on salaries.

Wong: Right.

Jordahl: OK. Nutrition.

Wong: Nutrition. Salary survey increase of $5,580. And last, SIH Consortium Trust. They just had more donations and so they're spending that. So it's a wash.

Jordahl: I have to admit that I don't remember what this money is from or for. Is this related to the Nutrition Program?

Wong: I'm not sure.

Jordahl: Does anybody now?

Stutsman: No.

Duffy: Well we could just look up department 89, we'll find out.

Wong: I talked to Rebecca from the Health Department.

Stutsman: Is this

Duffy: This is a Health thing.

Jordahl: Say Graham...

Stutsman: Rebecca is here.

Jordahl: Is SIH Consortium Trust related to health?

Director of Public Health Graham Dameron: SIH? That is the Southeast Iowa Consortium Trust Fund. And we receive donations from other entities for that. And we're trying to increase the level to allow those to come in basically. It's not a cost to the County.

Jordahl: OK. As long as you're involved in the discussion here, we had some questions earlier on which is why you came over. Maybe you'd like to take a chair next to Kit here we can talk budget for a minute.

Dameron: Yes.

Jordahl: Sally you want to lead off?

Stutsman: Well I was going to say there is just general confusion about these personnel increases related to food inspection. We've talked about it in the regular budget process about what this is meaning as far as adding staff and now when we have this amendment I just need to be clear as to what personnel we're adding and what for and if you could explain that.

Dameron: In our original estimate, we asked for a 1.75 increase.

Stutsman: For what?

Dameron: For the food program.

Stutsman: For the food program.

Dameron: For the Food Inspection Program. When you asked specific questions related to that, we re-looked at that, we have increased a couple of people to 40 hours per week.

Stutsman: That did food inspections?

Dameron: One of them is related to food inspections but we feel that that could be changed a bit. So we came back with a revision of 1.5 FTE for the food program.

Stutsman: OK.

Dameron: Now I did not change that in the amendment because of the time factor here. But that amendment could be reduced by a couple thousand dollars because it would only ask for 1.75. I'm not going to hire 1.75 for the amendment and then have the year 2000 at 1.5. So I think we're at a point where we can be very pretty clear on the 1.5 FTE request.

Stutsman: I guess I In talking with Deana, talked about, you're not going to do the contracts any longer for Muscatine and Washington County, right?

Dameron: Right.

Stutsman: So I guess I need to be clear if those people, the food inspectors, aren't doing that, why can't they simply absorb just doing Johnson County without adding more people.

Dameron: Because they have virtually double the number of inspections that we're required to do.

Stutsman: If Deana figured right

Pillard: They did 500 inspections in the other 2 counties and if you double your Johnson County that's 800 inspections additional.

Stutsman: So it's hard to figure out why we're having to add new people when basically we're reducing what they were doing before. With the other 2.

Pillard: (Inaudible) additional inspections that would be covered by.

Lehman: (Inaudible) full time.

Jordahl: Turn that microphone around to point to you there for the auditor's yes.

Dameron: The number of inspections they were doing was only, I think, something like 30% of the total number that we did before. So even if you double a 30%.

Pillard: But in your, for 98 you said you did 500 inspections in the other 2 counties. I don't have that sheet right with me. And for Johnson County if you had to do the number of inspections you did in 98 for Johnson County for the one was 800 for 98. So if you don't have them doing the other 2 counties, so you do the and they have to do the additional 800 in Johnson County, 800 minus 500 is only 300 additional inspections.

Stutsman: So it just seems logical that you would just hire somebody to do those 300 inspections. And so I'm not quite clear why we're adding.

Dameron: The other factor that, and we can try to talk about this again tomorrow, but the other factor is that these individuals are doing other inspections as well in those 2 counties.

Stutsman: What

Dameron: Swimming pools, tanning facilities

Stutsman: In Marshalltown and Muscatine?

Dameron: In Muscatine and Iowa County. We will continue to do those inspections.

Stutsman: Do we get a contract for that?

Dameron: We have a contract for that with the Department of Public Health.

Stutsman: Does that cover their costs of I guess what I'm getting at is are we paying? Is Johnson County paying for something that were doing.

Dameron: No, no, no. No, I think we're covered by that Sally. And for those 2 counties.

Jordahl: Pools and what else they're doing over there?

Dameron: Tanning facilities, tattoo parlors and funeral homes. They're all combined.

Stutsman: We do want these inspected but I guess.

Jordahl: Yes, sound like the wild west doesn't it?

Dameron: The other thing that they've tacked... Of course with the food inspection you do the restaurants but you're also required to do all the schools in the County without cost. You do vending machines and hotel and motels. Those are add-on kinds of things that are required to do that. I thought that the memo that Kot sent through me was tried to explain this as well as we could. We felt that with the double number of inspections plus the complexity of the inspections.

Jordahl: That too has increased?

Dameron: Pardon?

Jordahl: The complexity of the inspections also has increased?

Dameron: Right. And get the best estimate that we have for the FDA which are some 8 to 10 hours per facility. We were pretty close onto the bottom end of that 8 hours with this one point. Well actually we had 1.6 but we just requested it at 1.5, we figure we could shave off a little bit there. So it doesn't just move I guess from that from one to another.

Jordahl: Deana had some questions about that math and I was trying to understand it myself. We really need to have a copy of that. I think I could probably lay my hands on mine. Do you know where yours is Deana?

Pillard: Yes.

Dameron: The 3 she'd asked about the percentage of time they spend on food inspections, 87%. So the other 13% they're doing something else.

Stutsman: What's the other that they're doing Graham? The other 13.

Dameron: Swimming pools, tanning facilities, vending machines well no not vending machines, excuse me. Swimming pools principally, tanning facilities, funeral homes, tattoo parlors and... funeral homes. Which is not a lot. We have had that program for about a year.

Lehman: We were just trying to do the simple math. Figuring that there were 2 people doing 500 inspections, that's 250 a piece, and if we were going to increase it by 300, one person might be able to do that by cutting down travel time if we're more local here.

Dameron: 800. How many inspections were done? 851 inspections were done in the County, food related.

Jordahl: Could you explain that. Deana's got the memo from you and Kot here, maybe we can grind out that math quickly and explain

Pillard: This was a question I had. You've taken out the (inaudible) minusing that out of...

Dameron: Right.

Pillard: For food inspections but actually you're not laying them off so wouldn't you actually be adding those people coming on to do inspections so actually you'd be adding that so it should be 3.1.

Dameron: Well the staffing level there, I think this in terms of the amount of time that they're spending for those inspections in those facilities.

Pillard: Right.

Dameron: Because they only have a certain amount of time that they're spending right now. There's not as many facilities in Iowa and Muscatine Counties as there is in Johnson County.

Pillard: Right, but you're subtracting out that time they spent there as opposed to adding it in because they won't be doing that anymore.

Jordahl: Maybe it would make some sense if you could confer about this and get this clarified by Thursday.

Dameron: Well we're talking tomorrow so we'll come up tomorrow and be able to

Jordahl: You're coming to our budget meeting tommorow. Yes.

Dameron: And we'll be happy to talk about this. In fact that was one of the questions you had, so we'll be happy to do that.

Jordahl: I think maybe we should just, if we're going to... Well we won't take action on the amendment until Thursday anyway so we can have that discussion beforehand and get that clarified rather than

Dameron: That would be fine. I think Kot can explain this a lot better than I. I wasn't prepared to, I didn't quite know what you

Jordahl: We had a few questions. And this is

Dameron: So we'll do that.

Jordahl: Included in that question Graham would be the issue that was raised here. Part of the expansion of hours from 37.5 to 40 is one of those folks was a food inspector as well.

Dameron: Right. That's why we're able to decrease from 1.75 to 1.5 was part of that factor.

Jordahl: OK.

Stutsman: And I guess I need to have that broke out more. Is that broke out down in the Auditor's Office? We just go kind of a lump sum as to what all these this budget amendment's going to mean as far as these personnel costs. So we can, I know what the staff costs will be and what the salary survey cost will be and everything. OK.

Dameron: OK.

Stutsman: So we'll talk about the amendment and then the budget request.

Jordahl: Are there other questions? We had a question of Charlie you wanted to know about expenses and revenues from the Tobacco Project Grant?

Duffy: Yes I was wondering, these grants that were funded by the State, this one here was $12,000. Is that going to be funded anymore? Does that mean that that project is dropped?

Dameron: We were not able to get that grant Charlie. And we have put that in as a projected cost. So when we amended the budget, we think that it was appropriate to put it in there since we're not going to be funded this year for it.

Duffy: But it wasn't funded right at the start?

Dameron: : Yes, it was never fulfilled even though we projected that it would be.

Duffy: Yes, but that's a little different. If it was in the budget and we didn't get it, then it probably shouldn't have been in the budget. But again grants like this, one year grants really don't do the County that good if we have to pick it up the following year or so.

Dameron: And we didn't pick it up and so...

Duffy: In other words we didn't do it period?

Dameron: We didn't get it funded. We had applied through the Tobacco Coalition here and I was to be the physical agent for that, it was from the Tobacco Free Iowa Project. And it was amounting to around $12,000 which we were not able to get. So we felt that we needed to reflect that in our budget.

Duffy: In other words we didn't do it all. Or did we take it out of the budget?

Dameron: No.

Duffy: Didn't do it. Are there any other ones the same... How about the Mercy Hospital one?

Dameron: Well Mercy Hospital didn't want to fund that Cardiovascular Risk Project. Now they are funding a major project which we'll participate in and there may be some funding in that but that will probably be next year. But that one that we thought they would work with us on, on our survey we had with the students and that didn't come to fruition.

Duffy: That will just be in a different category maybe next year.

Dameron: Well it will probably be in the cardiovascular risk. One that we didn't put in the amendment that we did get awarded here last month was $2,550 from the Tobacco Coalition or the Tobacco Substance Abuse and Health Promotion from the State, we did receive $2,500 to do a cardiovascular risk project in Lone Tree schools or another rural school. So that one's one that I didn't put it that we will are awarded as of this week and has to be expended by May. I didn't include that but we'll... So we'll have that revenue in, we'll have some expenses that we'll have to absorb but I didn't feel that that was significant enough to make a huge... We could do it in the subsequent amendment if we need to but I don't think so.

Jordahl: OK.

Dameron: Is there anything else in here Board members have questions about or members of the public?

Stutsman: Maybe it would be better to just wait until tomorrow then and get the rest of the questions answered.

Dameron: Thanks a lot.

Jordahl: All right thanks for coming in Graham we'll talk to you with interest tomorrow about that further. Anything else on budget amendments? Public? All right. Let's see. Bev stepped out, is she going to come back?

(Continued in Part 2)