DeKalb County, Illinois
	Minutes of the Administrative Services Committee March 7, 2001

The Administrative Services Committee of the DeKalb County Board met Wednesday, March 7, 2001, at the DeKalb County Government Administration Building’s Conference Room East. Chairman Roger Steimel called the meeting to order. Members of the committee present were Ms. Sonya Conway, Mr. Tige Hoffman, Mr. Robert Hutcheson, Ms. Sue Leifheit, Mr. John Morreale, Mr. Robert Pritchard, Ms. Ruth Anne Tobias and Mr. John A. Wilson. Also present were Ms. Joan Berkes, Mr. Ken Campbell, Mr. Gary Hanson, and Mr. Greg Millburg.

APPROVAL OF MINUTES

Mr. Hutcheson moved, seconded by Ms. Leifheit to accept the minutes of the Administrative Services Committee meeting of February 7, 2001. Motion carried unanimously by a voice vote.

Mr. Hoffman moved, seconded by Mr. Wilson to approve the evening’s agenda. The motion then carried unanimously by a voice vote. Mr. Morreale wanted to raise the possibility of discussing the pay scale for election judges. Mr. Hanson said that he would gather background information and would add the topic to a future agenda.

Ms. Berkes, Director of the Information Management Office presented an outline which will be placed on file with these minutes in the Finance Office. She highlighted and briefly went over the department’s first quarter of the fiscal year’s activities.

Completed Connectivity with the Public Defender’s Office

Completed the final parcel level data (a joint project with NIU)

Secured some of the open positions in the office. A few still open

Set-up new computers at the Nursing Home

Completed Map Guides

Installed and configured a new LAN (Local Area Network) for the Highway Department

Completed Planning data layer for GIS

Revision of an Environmental Health Database, Upgraded server to Windows 2000, Installed software to various departments and investigated cabling companies for the Circuit Clerk networking project.

Ms. Berkes, communicated the frustration of working with AT&T and Verizon’s failure to provide a timely manner for service requests. She has tried numerous times to get the issues resolved but is shifted around many times with new promises and unbinding due dates. She reported feeling she has wasted a great deal of time without making progress. Mr. Hanson stated it was the identical situation for the Health Facility in which months were taken to make the final connection to our network.

Upcoming Activities she reported on included connectivity of the Highway Department, increase bandwidth to every remote site, debuting the Intranet, ongoing internal training, and complete staffing. Mr. Steimel thanked Joan and stated that the committee would look forward to quarterly reports from her department.

Mr. Campbell, Facilities Manager passed out information which will be placed on file these minutes in the Finance Office and includes the Print Shop’s statistics which he stated were impressive. He reported the month of February (a slow month) had over 72,000 sheets of paper. A graph he created illustrated the break down by department usage. The Health Facility was the major supplier of print orders which inform the public about community health issues, he said. He announced that he would be tracking this every month to familiarize himself and the committee of paper usage. Mail tracking will be done next month, he stated. Every piece of mail that goes out of the Sycamore Campus goes through his office and if it is not pre-stamped they prepare, stamp, and deliver to the post office which takes approximately one half hour to process after the mail is delivered to their office. Mr. Pritchard asked about using postal software such as PostalSoft. He described some cost saving features such as using bar codes, a label maker, and cheaper ways of sorting the mail which could help if there was enough volume to make that profitable. Mr. Morreale said that if the County had more volume than 110 pieces per zip code a bulk rate could be given. Mr. Campbell stated he was not familiar with the PostalSoft but would investigate methods to reduce the expense and would get the phone number of PostalSoft after the meeting.

When Mr. Campbell interviewed for Facilities Manager, he said he had envisioned starting a "Preventative Maintenance Program." Included as part of his handout he illustrated sample checklist pages of the telephone room and water-softener room. He created a place for notes, part numbers and a procedure list to follow as part of a preventative measure which is done daily by staff he said. He reported that each month he would review the findings and make recommendations based on the findings to keep the County in the highest standards. Other projects he mentioned working on included touch up painting, maintenance on the Courthouse elevator’s interior, relocating the telephone room in the Public Safety to the first floor, and after researching, has eliminated the high hot temperature in Courtroom100. He said the department is very busy at this time of the year.

DISCUSSION ON HOLDING "FINANCIAL COLLOQUIUMS"

Mr. Hanson had passed out to the committee a handout with the heading "Finance Colloquiums", and is attached with these minutes as Appendage 1. Mr. Steimel admitted to becoming intrigued and quoted the definition from Webster’s Dictionary as, "An academic meeting at which specialists deliver information on a topic and answer questions related to it." Mr. Hanson stated that at last month’s meeting the committee talked about items they wanted to accomplish. He stated, increasing knowledge regarding the County Budget and County Finances in general, was one item that was mentioned. He proposed hosting 4 sessions, once a month, starting in April, 2001, for a ½ hour to provide in-depth financial information to all interested County Board members. He proposed to meet after the Administrative Service.

meetings however, he wanted to open the topic up for discussion. After much deliberation regarding day, time, location, the committee agreed on the Wednesday before the County Board meeting at 6:30 p.m.

Mr. Wilson moved, seconded by Ms. Tobias to adjourn the meeting at 7:46 p.m. Motion carried unanimously be a voice vote.

_______________________
Roger Steimel, Chairman

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Lisa K. Sanderson, Secretary

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