The Public Services Committee of the DeKalb County Board met on Monday, February 5, 2001, at 6:30 p.m. at the Administration Building's Conference Room East. Vice- Chairman Marlene Allen called the meeting to order. Members present were Edward Brown, Dr. Sonya Conway, Eileen Dubin, Michael Haines and Robert Pritchard. Sue Leifheit was absent. Others present were Margi Gilmour, Kenneth Johnson, Greg Millburg, Dennis Miller and Diane Cooper.

Moved by Mr. Brown, seconded by Mr. Pritchard, and it was carried unanimously to approve the minutes from January 8, 2001.

Moved by Dr. Conway, seconded by Mr. Haines, and it was carried unanimously to approve the agenda.

Mr. Ken Johnson, DeKalb County’s Public Defender, briefly reviewed his monthly report for the committee. He stated that the numbers were pretty much the same. He did want to tell the committee, however, that he ran a brief report from the circuit clerk’s department as well. They state that 729 felony cases were opened and 439 of them are in his office. In misdemeanors, there were 1,399 opened, 446 of those are his; in traffic there were 5,210 cases, 326 are in his office; and out of the d.u.i.’s - 573 were opened, 140 are in his office. All in all, he said, about 60% of felonies go through his office and 33% of misdemeanors. He also said that his office does parental terminations for the county. He has 9 of those cases and they are very involved. He again stated that there are increasing numbers of serious crimes in juvenile.

Ms. Margi Gilmour, the Director of Court Services Department, said that there are no changes in her adult report. In her juvenile report there was another kid that was put in placement. This now makes for 4 people that are in placement. She said that out of the 9 kids that were detained, 1 juvenile had been detained there twice. Of those 9 detentions, 5 were for the 1^st time, 1 was for the 2^nd time, 2 were for the fourth time and 1 for the 5^th and 6^th time.

In a brief update on the Multi-Family Group she stated that in the month of December, unfortunately, they had only one group meeting. The group was meeting that evening and that there were five families in the group. The Learning Mentor Program is officially starting on February 17, 2001. They have recruited mentors from NIU and they have six kids that are going to be in this very first group.

Ms. Gilmour then informed the committee that her office is working on the Public Aid Medicaid System to get some reimbursement from the kids on residential placement. They are getting all of them a Medicare Card. Her office is learning some software that was created by DCFS and Public Aid whereby the County will be able to be reimbursed roughly 25% of the per diem costs for the kids in residential placement. For all of the kids that they have in placement now, the county should be able to go back, retro to the day that they were placed, and claim that money due us, she continued. They are waiting for the software and then IMO will install it for them. They will be filing the claims electronically, and she believes that it will be on a quarterly basis with public aid.

Ms. Gilmour finally informed the committee that with regards to the Intergovernmental Agreement with Kane County she was submitting her FY2000 Annual Report. It shows that beginning in FY2001 a little over ½ of the money has been spent. At the rate this is being used up she feels that it may last us up to the year 2004.

Ms. Diane Cooper, Director of Operations, for the Kane County Employment and Education, introduced herself to the committee. She stated that they are the grant recipients for funding for the Workforce Investment Act in the local area for Kane, DeKalb and Kendall Counties. The role that they play in DeKalb is "as the partner" of the Illinois Department of Employment and Training Center. Services currently being used at IDETC are eligibility determination for individuals that are applying for services under the Workforce Investment Act, rapid response (mass layoffs), initial assessment, career goals, individual employment, they track individual training progress, case management, and career resource center. They have 3 full-time staff members and will be adding a part-time staff person to split time between DeKalb and Kendall Counties to service the youth. The youth that they service are mainly the "at risk population" so those would be people that have dropped out of high school or are likely to, or first time offenders in misdemeanors charges. Under adult services the emphasis is on economically disadvantaged individuals as well as dislocated workers.

Over all the number of people that they have seen since July 1^st, 2000, are over 8,400 individuals in the three counties, and out of that 691 people were from DeKalb County. She emphasized that this was only in the career resource center. This does not include people who are applying for unemployment. They assisted 241 people for employment. This is a 100% federally funded program. She said that the money is distributed on a percentage basis and is done by population. They received $2 million dollars and out of that 15% is allocated to DeKalb County. This amount is down from years prior. She said that the RFP that they have sent out states that they are looking for in kind contributions from all the agencies that they are working with. For example, if they are using the community colleges, they would like them to provide the space for training to cut costs.

Mr. Dennis Miller, DeKalb County Coroner, introduced himself to the committee. He stated that last year his office investigated 400 deaths. On page 13 it shows a summary of these cases. He stated that he supports organ donation and tissue donation. He will not sacrifice an autopsy to keep his budget down. He said that accidental deaths were 5; suicides were 4; homicides were 4.

Mr. Dennis Miller is also the ESDA Coordinator for the County of DeKalb. He stated that he has an assistant coordinator who is available quite a lot to the county and is part-time. The Local Emergency Planning Committee (LEPC) deals with, if something should happen in the county with chemicals, this committee is supposed to sit down and explain what to do and not to do for the safety of our citizens in the area. The County Plan has to be rewritten this year and needs to be done by November. He does programs for local schools throughout DeKalb County about what to do in the event of a storm. They use NIU services now for severe weather. Funding for ESDA equals 50% of our expenses reimbursed which consists of one salary, administrative costs, office equipment, etc. It is federal money but the check comes from Springfield explained Mr. Miller. The state says that we need to do one drill a year for emergency drills. If there is an emergency this year, Mr. Miller will get in touch with the Chairman of the Board to file paperwork and then that paperwork would request for state assistance. If the event is large enough the governor would have to request for federal assistance to receive funding for up to 50% of our expenses to get reimbursed, stated Mr. Miller.

The committee thanked everyone for their reports and placed them on file.

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

Respectfully submitted,

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Marlene Allen, Vice-Chairman

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Mary C. Supple, Secretary

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