Jordahl: Yes, a productive discussion. We have received minutes from the Johnson County Emergency Management Commission, Iowa City Chamber of Commerce, and the Johnson County Historic Preservation Commission. If anyone is interested in looking at those, they're on file here. I'm going to postpone... well, let's see here. We've got to discuss collective bargaining in executive session.

Stutsman: That's not executive session.

Jordahl: No, report discussion. OK. It does say executive session.

Stutsman: Oh it does. Are you ready to do that?

Jordahl: It's pretty clear that we're not going to have a work session before 11:45 on strategic planning so we'll have to reschedule that.

Motion by Stutsman, second by Duffy, to enter Executive Session at 11:25 a.m. to discuss collective bargaining strategy for the Administrative Unit under section 20.17(3), Code of Iowa: "negotiating sessions, strategy meetings of public employees... shall be exempt from the provisions of chapter 21 (Official Meetings Open to the Public)." Roll call: aye: Lehman, Stutsman, Jordahl, Thompson, Duffy.

Duffy left at 11:46 a.m.

Stutsman left at 11:48 a.m.

Thompson left at 11:49 a.m.

Motion by Lehman, second by Jordahl, to leave Executive Session at 11:50 a.m. Roll call: aye: Jordahl, Lehman; absent: Duffy, Stutsman, Thompson.

Recessed at 11:50 a.m.; reconvened at 5:34 p.m. with Duffy, Stutsman and Thompson present, as a public hearing on the FY 2000 proposed budget.

County Auditor Tom Slockett summarized the proposed Fiscal Year 2000 budget for the public hearing. He stated that revenues are received from property taxes, interest, charges, licenses, permits and funding from federal, state and local governments. He said that it is estimated that in FY99 $36.9 million in revenues will be collected. He said that property taxes account for 52% of total revenues.

Slockett said County expenditures are human services, roads and county environment, public safety and court services, inter-program and government services, and capital projects and non-program current. He said FY 2000 proposed expenditures are $37.2 million.

Slockett said there were $1,159,900 in capital projects requests and $950,000 was budgeted. He explained that there was $389,042 requested in capital expenditure fund requests and $283,221 was requested. He said there was $647,196 in technology expenditure requests and $549,401 was budgeted.

Slockett gave an example of how every tax dollar is spent, citing examples in Iowa City and Jefferson Township.

Slockett explained the tax bill comparisons for the different areas in the County. He also compared County taxes with other governmental entities. Last Slockett went over percent changes in tax bill comparisons from Fiscal Year 1990 to Fiscal Year 2000.

Jordahl said that the Board of Supervisors goals in developing the FY 2000 budget were to address growth within the County, respond to needs that were deferred during the property tax freeze from fiscal year 1994 through 1998, to keep increases to a minimum by focusing on core County functions, to plan for long term growth of the County and the resources needed to meet that growth, balance what we need verses what we can afford, and to minimize the tax impact on agriculture.

Jordahl explained that County priorities in the Fiscal Year 2000 budget were capital budgeting, personnel, law enforcement, Health and Human Services, Computer Technology, Secondary Roads, and County Administration. He said that in capital budgeting the priorities were space needs such as the County Jail, Human Services and land acquisition, and also capital expenditures for departments. Jordahl said that in personnel the priorities were the County Employee Health Fund, the extra pay period in FY 2000, and to develop a Human Resources Department. Jordahl said the priorities in law enforcement were juvenile detention, new Sheriff employees, and new County Attorney employees. He said the Health and Human Services priorities were new Ambulance employees for the Coralville location, foster care needs, new MH/DD employee and a new Public Health employee. Jordahl said the priorities under computer technology were continued implementation of the 5 Year Plan, networking, document management, GIS and the Web. Jordahl explained that the priorities under Secondary Roads were accelerating road, culvert and bridge projects, and a new Secondary Roads Maintenance employee. Jordahl said the priorities in County Administration were the budget process, and strategic planning for the Board of Supervisors, the elected officials and the department heads.

League of Women Voters Representative Pat Jensen asked why there wasn't an increase in staff of the Planning and Zoning Department. Jordahl said the new Land Use Plan looks forward. He said the 1977 plan was difficult to live with and practice. He said in order for the new Land Use Plan to be implemented, the Board gave the plan a number of initiatives. He said there is a drain on the professional staff in the Zoning department, but the Board balanced their request with other needs and prioritized. He said when the Board decided to fund other positions there were larger questions, such as what was the Building Code Study Committee going to recommend. He said the Board didn't want to spend taxpayers dollars for building codes.

Tom Carsner asked why the Board of Supervisors was adding a new position to the Human Resources Department. He asked what the Board of Supervisors can do with a new position they couldn't do with the existing one. Stutsman said the Director of Human Resources Lora Shramek is overworked. She said there are several projects the Board wants Lora to work on, but she is already busy with her daily duties. Several department heads agreed with what Stutsman said.

Reverend Bob Welsh said he would have put additional staff at the top of the list as a priority for Planning and Zoning. He said he recommended that the Board of Supervisors use personnel funds for personnel items only, and that the Board not budget 100% of personnel needs. Slockett said part of this was already accounted for the in the revenue expense adjustment.

The Board thanked all of the County employees who worked on the budget process. Duffy recommended talking about doing a 2 year budget.

Recessed at 7:10 p.m. ; reconvened on March 4, 1999 at 10:23 a.m.

(Continued in Part 5)