MINUTES OF THE INFORMAL MEETING OF THE JOHNSON COUNTY BOARD OF SUPERVISORS:
MARCH 23, 1999
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Chairperson Jordahl called the Johnson County Board of Supervisors to order in the Conservation Education Center as a Department Head Meeting at 1:41 p.m. Members present were: Charles Duffy, Jonathan Jordahl, Mike Lehman, Sally Stutsman, and Carol Thompson.
Department heads present were: Ambulance Director Mike Sullivan, Conservation Director Rod Dunlap, County Auditor Tom Slockett, County Engineer Mike Gardner, County Recorder Kim Painter, County Treasurer Tom Kriz, General Relief Director Mary Kay Hull, Human Resources Administrator Lora Shramek, Information Services Director Jean Schultz, Mental Health/Developmental Disabilities Interim Director Deborah Conger, Planning and Zoning Administrator Rick Dvorak, Public Health Director Graham Dameron, SEATS Director Lisa Dewey, and Veterans Affairs Commission Director Leo Baier. Staff present were: Board of Supervisors Administrative Assistant Carol Peters, and Sheriff's Department Captain Duane Lewis, and Auditor's Office Recording Secretary Casie Parkins.
Reports and updates from department heads
Planning and Zoning Administrator Rick Dvorak asked about the condition of Sheriff Bob Carpenter. Sheriff's Captain Duane Lewis said that Carpenter had a successful quadruple bypass surgery and was recovering.
Dvorak said that his office had been studying the possibility of building codes with the help of a study committee. He said the Building Code Study Committee would have a recommendation for the Board of Supervisors soon. Dvorak said he hopes they have the support of the Board of Supervisors and that his office will make a lot of money if they have building codes.
Conservation Department Director Rod Dunlap welcomed the Supervisors and Department Heads to the Conservation Education Center. He said the complex was raised from REAP funding and he was pleased with the facility. Dunlap said the landscaping would be finished this year. He said they were restoring 3 plant communities that were native to Iowa. He said the plant material for landscaping would also be native to Iowa. He said due to costs, they will be planting seeds and there will be several types of grasses they will be planting. He said they have also discussed having a butterfly garden.
Ambulance Director Mike Sullivan said their Saturday EMS event was the biggest ever. He said they had 200 participants. He said they were ready to start their Journey Unknown programs which they have great success with. Sullivan said they would be kicking those programs off around prom time. Last, Sullivan said he is still working with the space needs committee and he has many positive ideas to share with them.
Human Resources Administrator Lora Shramek said with the upcoming implementation of the new pay plan July 1, 1999, they need to have everyone trained on a new county-wide performance evaluation. She said she will be looking for a committee of volunteers to help her develop a new performance evaluation form.
County Treasurer Tom Kriz said his office will be having new office hours of 8 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. starting on March 29th. He said that on March 31st they will be open until midnight for tax deadlines. He said the new office hours wouldn't cost the County any money. He said he was able to develop new schedules from volunteers within his office. Kriz urged all of the department heads to get a hold of him if they have any questions on their accounts.
Public Health Department Director Graham Dameron said a number of area restaurants became non-smoking over the weekend for a 2 day period because of a visit to the area by former Surgeon General C. Everett Koop. He said the Board of Supervisors recently passed onsite wastewater regulations, which they are in the process of implementing and the Health Department is implementing state resolutions. He said there is a provision in the law for a County infraction provision. He said thanks to the Board of Supervisors for Employee Recognition. Dameron said the Health Department is also working on Community Assessment.
County Recorder Kim Painter said her office hours were changing also from 8 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. on Tuesdays and Thursdays, and it was also done with volunteers so it wouldn't cost the County any additional money. She said the Recorder's office had been carrying the ball on the Document Management Committee. She said they have a meeting tomorrow to talk about document management.
County Engineer Mike Gardner said they have quite a bit of paving scheduled for the upcoming summer and they recently took applications for their summer help.
Mental Health/Developmental Disabilities Interim Director Deborah Conger said they recently finished their draft of the Services Management Plan. She said she developed a staff committee of 4 critical areas that are facing the office, and the committee will report back to the department at a staff meeting. Conger said the new Mental Health/Developmental Disabilities Director Elaine Sweet would be coming on Board April 12th. Jordahl thanked Conger for stepping in as Interim Director.
County Auditor Tom Slockett said he was looking forward to meeting Elaine Sweet. Slockett said he submitted a bill to Mary Mascher to protect addresses of people with P.O. boxes on their voter registration. He said the Auditor's Office is currently conducting satellite voting and that so far 1,200 people had requested ballots. Slockett said he is working with Thompson and Jordahl on budget changes and with Department of Human Services Area Administrator Cheryl Whitney on a 28 E agreement.
Information Services Director Jean Schultz said she had some Y2K handouts. She said that some people might want to contact vendors to make sure their equipment is Y2K compliant. She said there was a bill in legislature also that would help people with Y2K compliancy. She told people to keep track of time looking into Y2K compliancy issues. She also said they are in the process of scheduling appointments with department heads to talk about Y2K issues. Schultz said that some PC's weren't Y2K compliant. Schultz said that they have several calendars on the web. She said they have counters on several of the web pages so that they can look to see how many hits there have been and there is also a page with statistics. Schultz urged that department heads give her department any information they wanted posted on the web. Dameron suggested that employee job openings be put on the web.
General Relief Director Kay Hull said that for awhile the number of requests they had for assistance had gone down but they are rising again. She said this could be due to the fact that many people were employed at Coral Ridge Mall for Christmas help, but are laid off now.
Veterans Affairs Director Leo Baier said that their participation is improving. He said they are under their budget. Baier said that in the upcoming week he is attending a Veterans Affairs Spring School. He also said there is a new Director of State Veterans Affairs.
Lewis said they have gotten some new PC's so hopefully shortly they will be linked with other counties. He said the wolf crisis is solved and they are really busy due to a recent homicide.
SEATS Director Lisa Dewey said they are trying to put out a Riders Guide. She said they are looking at a control area for ticket sales, having businesses sell tickets so the drivers don't have to. Dewey said she will also be talking to some department heads about selling tickets for SEATS because they are in optimal locations.
REVIEW OF BUDGET PROCESS: INPUT FROM DEPARTMENT HEADS ON BUDGET PROCESS; AND INPUT FROM STAFF
Jordahl stated the Board of Supervisors had been trying to change the budget process for clarity. He asked the department heads for their opinion on the last budget process. Dameron said he thought it was better. He said he knew more about how things were shaping up. He said that people say if you do a strategic plan well enough you won't need to do a budget. Jordahl said he liked that comment. Dameron said he thought the communication was much better between the Board of Supervisors and the department heads. Jordahl said they didn't do as well getting feedback to the department head as they said they would. Dameron said the Board did better than they usually did. Jordahl said they didn't want to give the impression that temporary numbers were permanent. Stutsman said they didn't have computer updates in place like they thought they would. She said they all learned a lot during this budget process. Slockett said they changed things dramatically in this budget session. He said the Board was sensitive about contacting people.
Dameron said he didn't think the percentages worked. Jordahl said he didn't think they worked either. Stutsman said that Deputy Administrative Assistant Deana Pillard had said the Board followed the percentages even though they didn't know they were following them. Stutsman said she was not ready to give up the percentages yet.
Dameron said it might be a consideration to include contracts and grants into the percentages. Dameron said that grants come at various times so you try to project at when that will occur. Jordahl said the Board will be discussing if the County needs a grant person. Jordahl asked if the County should hire a consultant to come in and transform the budget process. Baier and Duffy said no. Jordahl asked if the County could do it by itself. Many department heads nodded that the County do it by itself.
DISCUSSION: LIMITING PERSONNEL BUDGET EXPENDITURES TO APPROVED PERSONNEL SLOTS
Thompson said the Board would like a way to track personnel funds. She said they were talking about a policy of only being able to expend personnel funds on personnel line items. Dewey said she has a position that she hasn't been able to fill but the tasks of the job still need to be done, so she has other employees working on the duties of the job. Thompson said Dewey was using those funds for personnel. Dewey asked if she could hire a consultant. Stutsman said it wouldn't be any different than hiring a temporary worker. Jordahl said currently that wouldn't be a problem.
Dewey said she would like to have flexibility within her budget. Thompson asked Dewey how she would let the Board know when she was spending unexpended personnel funds. Lewis said the Board sees all of the expenditures. He said departments need flexibility. He said if there is a large misestimate they bring the money back to the Board. Lewis said that micromanagement doesn't help the Board's ability to adjust. He said that some of it is a management thing. Lewis said when they come in to the Board their line items aren't overfunded. He said sometimes they are management tools. Jordahl said this gets back to strategic planning. He said they sit around at length and talk of line items. He said if it's not appropriate for the Board to talk about things of that size then maybe they shouldn't. Lewis said that Sheriff Carpenter has to answer to the Board and the voters.
Dewey said that during the budget process is when the department heads tells you about their budget situation. Lewis said it causes problems for department heads when they can't move their money around. Lewis asked what is the function of the department heads then. Thompson said that all department heads do it differently. Lewis said they need flexibility within their budget. Conger asked if this item was on the agenda because of people doing things wrong within their budget. Jordahl and Stutsman said it was on the agenda because of Bob Welsh. Slockett said the Board gets extra money because of the revenue expense adjustment. He said it was more a matter of information flow.
Slockett said he recently attended a seminar at ISAC about courthouse squabbles. He said all over the state, Boards of Supervisors are micromanaging elected officials and independent boards. He said there is tons of case law about this and elected officials and independent board have always won their cases. He strongly advised ISAC to come down and talk to Johnson County about this issue. Slockett reiterated that this was all about communication. Thompson asked how the department heads saw this as a fairness issue. Slockett said that would depend. Dewey said that would depend on if a department head used their unexpended funds. Slockett said reporting is in the monthly budget reports. Dameron said this shouldn't be an issue because personnel vacancies are wanted to be replaced as soon as possible and that costs for personnel go down in the next year if they weren't used.
Jordahl asked why the Board shouldn't be concerned with $45,000 for personnel when they were concerned with $500 for a copier. Lewis said the Board should talk to people they are concerned with and that there has to be some flexibility. Dewey said that projections and reality are different and there has to be some flexibility. Schultz said the Board could set a limit that departments could only use so much of unexpended funds. Thompson said with the low turnover of Johnson County they may not have a reason to be concerned with this.
Dameron stated that the Board of Supervisors used to allocate money at the beginning of a year and not quarterly. He asked why they didn't go back to only allocating budget funds once a year. Slockett said it doesn't hurt anything to do it quarterly. Dameron said it seems like it would create extra paperwork. Jordahl asked why the Board goes through a budget and then is not concerned about how the money is being spent.
Stutsman left at 3:01 p.m.
Lewis said at points in the past the Board has not granted all operational needs and they were pushed over their budget, and had to go into other line items to make ends meet. Lewis said they need to be able to do some things without a formal process, especially if they needed to do an amendment. Dunlap said he didn't believe there was a level playing field going into budget discussions. He said that some job positions are hard to fill. He said there are too many line items in budgets. Slockett asked what the Board is doing.
Thompson asked the department heads what they thought of the idea of centralized purchasing of items such as copier paper, copy machines and cars. Dvorak asked where the Board would store surplus items such as those. He said the County has almost no storage. Dewey said that someone would have to do the central purchasing. She said they would then have to create a whole new department. Dameron said maybe having a contract with a vendor would be a good idea. He said they could also have a contract with copy machines. He said this might help on the price of contracts for maintenance. He said he didn't want a purchasing department. Jordahl asked about cars. Dameron said that cars are different to him. He said there would be such a difference through the departments on what was needed. He said he buys cars that are on the lot and even if they went with the State contract then they would have a new car. Dunlap said the County can purchase through State vendors. Slockett said he wanted to support local businesses, and enjoyed having that relationship with them. Baier said that cheaper isn't always better.
Kriz left at 3:15 p.m.
Shramek passed out a handout on flex time and compensatory time. She said the 1990 flex time policy will refer to non exempt employees. She said that flexible time is for exempt employees. She also notified department heads that when an employee leaves the County any compensatory time that has been accrued will be paid out to them in the form of a separate check. She passed out a worksheet that helped department heads figure out whether an employee was exempt or non-exempt.
Dameron said that he was having a training session for his staff with Paula Kelly from the Employee Assistance Program at MECCA. He said he would let the department heads know how it goes. Dameron said it is free and the only cost is in the staff time. Shramek said she has moneys in her budget and wants to bring in a good speaker. She asked department heads to let her know if they knew of any. Slockett requested that they don't have a motivational speaker.
STRATEGIC PLANNING: REVIEW OF MISSION STATEMENT; AND MEETING ON MARCH 31ST
Board of Supervisors Administrative Assistant Carol Peters passed out a handout on the Board of Supervisors Strategic Planning. Jordahl said that Strategic Planning can be a way for department heads and elected officials to focus on what motivates them about their jobs. Jordahl said the handout does not represent County Strategic Planning, but rather Board of Supervisors Strategic Planning. Jordahl said the Board had developed a possible revision of the county mission statement. Thompson said she was impressed with department heads because they are already setting goals and meeting goals. Dameron said his department has been going through a reorganization. Jordahl notified the department heads that there is a Strategic Planning Meeting with department heads and elected officials on March 31st.
DISCUSSION: SCHEDULING DATE AND TIME OF NEXT MEETING
The Board of Supervisors and department heads decided to have their next meeting on May 18th, 1998 at 1:30 p.m.
Adjourned at 3:37 p.m.
Attest: Tom Slockett, Auditor
By Casie Parkins, Recording Secretary