The Public Services Committee of the DeKalb County Board met on Monday, January 8 2001, at 6:30 p.m. at the Administration Building's Conference Room East. Chairman Sue Leifheit called the meeting to order. Members present were Marlene Allen, Dr. Sonya Conway, Eileen Dubin, Michael Haines and Robert Pritchard. Mr. Brown was absent. Others present were Margaret Whitwell, Mary Olson, Margi Gilmour, Kenneth Johnson, Greg Millburg and Jill Olson.

Moved by Ms. Allen, seconded by Mr. Haines, and it was carried unanimously to approve the minutes from November 6, 2000.

Chairman Leifheit asked to have Community Service moved to the second item on the agenda and to include CASA’s Introduction. Moved by Ms. Dubin, seconded by Ms. Allen, and it was carried unanimously to approve the agenda.

Moved by Mr. Haines, seconded by Ms. Dubin, to nominate Ms. Allen for Vice-Chairman of the Public Services Committee. Moved by Ms. Dubin , seconded by Mr. Haines, to close the nomination. The motion to elect Ms. Allen as Vice-Chairman was carried unanimously.

The committee members agreed to continue meeting on the first Monday of every month and to keep the time the same as now which is 6:30p.m.

Chairman Leifheit explained to the committee that because there are new board members on our committee that she had sent a memo out to all the department heads that report to our committee asking them to do a brief introduction for the new members. Therefore, she introduced Margaret Whitwell, DeKalb County Supervisor of Assessments as the first one to do her report.

Ms. Whitwell stated that she has worked for the county for over nine years and prior to coming here she was a Township Supervisor for Sycamore, and she was a teacher. She continued by stating that she supervises all of the township supervisors in the county. She also is the Clerk of the Board of Review. She maintains all exemptions for the county.

Owner occupied, seniors, freeze, disabled veterans, etc. She said that we lose approximately $80 million a year in assessed value because of all of these exemptions.

She also stated that her mapping department maintains any document that is filed in the Recorder’s Office that has anything to do with ownership change or legal description changes. The mapping staff also does farm assessments.

She said that she has 6 people in her department, including herself. Three work in the outer office that have most of the public contact and 2 work in the mapping division. She also said that she has an extremely efficient and knowledgeable group of people, all of whom, except one, have their Certified Illinois Assessing Office Designation. The one person that doesn’t have it yet, will be done at the end of this year.

Ms. Whitwell presented a one-page handout which shows the growth in our county regarding assessed values. This year, which we are not completely finished, shows that we are at one billion, three hundred and sixty four, she said. We have also had over $40 million (in assessed value) in new construction which is the biggest amount since she’s been here.

Ms. Whitwell then informed the committee that she has a new property tax program of which her department is a partner in it. It also involves the Treasurer’s Department and Redemption and was a multi-year project. She invited all committee members to come and visit her department and see what they do.

Ms. Mary Olson, Director of the Community Services Department, briefly did an introduction of herself and what her department does. Her department’s mission is to alleviate poverty in our county. She stated that the funds for her department come from State and Federal grants. Her largest grant is the Community Services Block Grant which was about $180,000.00 for this year.

Her department also administers the Senior Tax Levy for the county. That means this committee is involved in making those decisions on the senior tax levy dollars. It is time, once again, to send out the bid request to all agencies that deal with senior services. She sends them to every agency that has applied for it in the past. She also publishes it in the newspapers, she announces it at the Senior Providers Meeting and it also appears in their newsletter. It needs to be approved by the June County Board Meeting so that is why we hold the hearings in April. Ms. Olson also informed the committee members that she will be giving them packets of all the applications at the March meeting. If the committee cannot make a decision the evening of the hearings then you would be able to push that over until the May meeting and still make the June County Board Meeting for approval.

Ms. Olson also handed out a one-page report showing bills paid for senior tax services that occurred in December of 2000. These are bills that will be paid in the January 2001 claims. It shows that half of the year is gone and several of the agencies are close to using fifty percent of their funds.

Ms. Olson pointed out to the committee that we are purchasing services that will prevent premature institutionalization of seniors. If those agencies do not provide that service, we don’t pay their invoices, said Chairman Leifheit. Ms. Olson then asked the committee if the bid request packages were fine with the committee? If so, she would mail them out tomorrow for them to be returned to her department by February 26, 2001. The committee approved the bid request packets and approved her mailing them out tomorrow.

Mr. Ken Johnson, DeKalb County’s Public Defender, introduced himself to the committee and briefly described what he and his department does. He stated that anyone charged with a crime that is facing a possibility of any type of jail, per the State Constitution and the Federal Constitution mandates that counsel be provided. Any county with a population of over 35,000 must have a public defender. There is pending legislation where 2/3rds of the public defender’s budget may be paid by the State. The only problem is a population problem. Right now, he believes, that the population qualification is 100,000 and we are not there yet, that he knows of.

He continued by stating that he has one felony assistant, two misdemeanor assistants, one administrative assistant, one receptionist/secretary and one investigator in his office. He goes to court everyday and handles half of the felony caseload. He will do murder cases down to traffic violations, as well as, Capital cases. Each attorney in his office handles 640 cases a year for misdemeanors over the recommenced amount which is 430 cases a year. His assistant attorneys also do the full-time juvenile call, as well as, DUI cases, driving while license suspended, batteries, domestic batteries. He also stated that Sexually Violent Cases are now assigned to his department which can cost a lot of money.

Ms. Margi Gilmour, the Director of Court Services Department, introduced her Juvenile Court Supervisor, Deanna Cada to the members. She explained that their department is an extension of the judiciary as sworn officers of the court. They are part of the 16^th Judicial Circuit out of Kane County. Her immediate supervisor is Jim Mueller, Executive Director of Court Services and his office is in Kane County. They work closely not only with the judiciary but also the public defender and the state’s attorney, but they do work for the judges. Their main job is to work with individuals, juvenile and adults, who have been placed under the jurisdiction of the court. In the adult arena they do have individuals who are ordered to a term of probation anywhere from one year to four years. They have individuals who are on probation for some misdemeanors and dui’s. The adult court probation officers meet with these offenders on a regular basis and monitor their conditions of the court order. On an average they have about 500 active cases a month. That ranges from month to month. In Illinois, anyone 17 years or older is considered an adult, she continued.

Regarding the juvenile officers, said Ms. Gilmour, that Ms. Cada is their immediate supervisor. She has three regular juvenile officers who have regular caseloads consisting of children 16 and under. They average about 40 different cases a month which is significantly less than the adult. However, dealing with juveniles is a lot more complex and involved and the officers work regularly with school officials, truancy officer, parents, etc.

The fourth juvenile officer oversees a brand new program called the Learning Mentor Program. It came about as a change in the juvenile statutes that occurred. As a result they put together a proposal to get this program fully funded by the Administrative Offices of Juvenile Court and the salary is picked up for full time as long the position is filled.

Ms. Gilmour also informed the committee about the Kane County Juvenile Justice Center that this county entered into an intergovernmental agreement with Kane County Board and we gave them $1 million to build the Kane County Juvenile Justice Center. This is where we house our kids that need to be detained. From that $1 million we have developed a draw-down account from the opening of the center in 1997. At that time our per diem was $85.00 a day and we were able to purchase 7 beds. Prior to that our kids were going all over the state, literally and our Sheriff was transporting them. So the center has been a win/win situation for everyone involved. Since 1997 we have used roughly half of the monies from that original $1 million. Recently we have renegotiated the agreement with Kane County and they have agreed to reduce our per diem to $80.00 a day. Any time we go over 7 beds our per diem used to be $125.00 and that too was reduced to $100.00. In the November report alone we were able to save $870.00 in our agreement and $250.00 out of our line item for board and care in the budget, she further explained.

There are two juvenile programs that she and Deanna will be sharing information with the committee on a monthly basis from here on in and one of those being the Multi-Family Group.

Ms. Jill Olson is the new Director of the CASA Program here in DeKalb County. She said that CASA stands from Court Appointed Special Advocates. That means that it is a person who is appointed by the juvenile court judge to represent the best interests of the child in the court proceedings. They do not represent kids who have committed crimes. Their volunteers are trained and the training lasts about 5 weeks or 35 hours. In 1977 a Judge from Seattle started the program and was started in 1986 here in the State of Illinois. It began here in DeKalb County 1993 with the support of Judge Countryman. CASA relies on donations and currently has 39 advocates and serves 75 children.

Before adjourning it was moved by Ms. Allen, seconded by Ms. Dubin, and it was carried unanimously to place these reports on file and make them a part of these minutes.

Moved by Mr. Pritchard, seconded by Ms. Allen, and it was carried unanimously to adjourn the meeting.

Respectfully submitted,

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Sue Leifheit, Chairman