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DeKalb County, Illinois |
Minutes of the
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The Public Services Committee of the
DeKalb County Board met on Monday, October 7, 2002, 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. Conway, Ms. Dubin, Mr.
Haines and Robert Pritchard. Mr.
Brown and Mr. Metzger were absent. Others present were Gary Hanson, Ken Johnson,
Margi Gilmour, Robert Rosemeier, Margaret Whitwell, Mary Olson and Greg
Millburg.
There
were no minutes to approve.
Moved by Ms. Allen, seconded by Mr. Haines, and it was carried
unanimously to accept the agenda.
PUBLIC
DEFENDER’S REPORT
Mr. Ken
Johnson, DeKalb County Public Defender, briefly reviewed his report for the
month of September 2002. He said
that his numbers were consistent with last month and that his personal numbers
regarding felony cases have gone down. Since
the last meeting he has learned that there is a grant through the State
Appellate Defender’s Office whereby he will be able to save around $2300.00
this month alone. This grant will
pay for expert fees. This could
save his department this year about $3-$4000.00 this year in expert fees. They will try to utilize this savings next year.
It is supposed to be available for the next three years and they will
continue to apply for it over the next three years.
COURT
SERVICES REPORT
Ms. Margi
Gilmour, Director of Court Services, said that her numbers on the Adult Court
Services Report remains very consistent. She
also said that the Community Service Program in August remains the same.
The
Juvenile Report for the month of July reflects that they had 16 detention
admissions for the month of August. Of
those admissions, one child was detained twice, and out of those 16 detentions
– 8 kids were for the 1st time, 4 for the 3rd, one each for the 4th and 6th time, and
one each for the 9th and 11th time. Those kids with the high numbers could end up on the
Intensive Probation Program, she said. They
also have one female that’s in residential placement in Freeport from the end
of July for some mental health issues. They thought that a six-month stay would be sufficient but
she doesn’t know for sure. Ms.
Gilmour also said that the county has $356,000.00 remaining in the drawdown
account and that she hopes that this amount gets the County through to early
2005.
Ms. Gilmour
then informed the committee that the Intensive Probation Program vehicles have
been purchased and delivered. They
were purchased out of the probation service budget, which is not taxpayer money.
She was able to get an addendum processed with the Administrative Office
so that those were purchased out of her FY2002 budget.
They were able to get them from Miles Chevrolet out of Decatur, Illinois,
which is a vendor on the State list. They
are 2002 Chevy Impalas and both are the exact same color of green.
She also
informed the committee that in this program they now have 16 juveniles that have
been ordered into the program. They
had originally thought of topping out at about 20 juveniles, but they are
quickly getting to 20. They are
going to take a look at that number to see if it will be manageable.
Ms. Gilmour
then informed the committee about the Diversion Program where they review, with
the State, referrals from the police departments.
Those referrals that are appropriate to keep out of court, they are
diverting. Even though these kids
are diverted from court, she continued, they still are reporting to her office
and still have certain conditions that they have to comply with.
One of the things that her office recently did is enter into an agreement
with the Boy Scouts and they are operating part of the diversion program for her
department at no cost to the county. It
costs the family about $50.00, but the Boy Scouts have a structured program that
runs for about nine weeks. They
bring in speakers from all over the community that speak on various topics to
the kids like drugs and alcohol education, pre-employment skills, truancy, etc.
Her office began that program last week and is very happy with it so far.
It has been very successful in DuPage and Kane Counties.
The goal is to keep kids out of the formal court system.
SUPERVISOR
OF ASSESSMENTS:
Annual
Extension of the Board of Review:
Ms. Margaret Whitwell, DeKalb County Supervisor of Assessments,
approached the committee about the annual extension of the board of review
resolution . Moved by Mr.
Haines, seconded by Mrs. Allen, and it was carried unanimously to forward this
resolution onto the full board for approval.
Senior
Citizen Exemption Renewal Resolution:
Ms. Whitwell then presented a resolution to the committee relative to
when a person has been granted a Senior Homestead Exemption under the state
statutes they will not have to reapply for the exemption as long as they own and
occupy the property subject of the original application.
She said that every year she sends the senior citizens who apply for this
exemption a renewal card, which has to be returned to her office. She has sent a
letter and tried to explain the process to them.
Right now they are waiting for 20 people who have not responded to her
correspondence. She has sent two
renewals and now the clerk in her office has sent each of them a note to remind
them. What she would like to do is
simply renew them, by her staff, without having to send out these renewals.
This will save her staff time, money and they can do that by checking
names and address changes and by reading all the death certificates.
She further
stated that if this is adopted by the county board, the first year of
implementation would be 2003 (see materials attached to these minutes).
They will be mailing to all present exemption holders a letter explaining
the new procedure. There will also
be press releases and radio announcements.
The Senior Freeze will still
have to be mailed out however, Ms. Whitwell, reminded the committee.
Moved by Mrs. Allen, seconded by Mr. Haines, and it was carried
unanimously to forward this recommendation onto the full board for approval.
COMMUNITY
SERVICES DEPARTMENT:
3rd
Quarter Report:
Ms. Mary Olson, Director of the DeKalb County Community Services
Department, briefly reviewed her 3rd Quarter Report for the
committee. She said that someone in
the Shabbona area might be applying for the CSBG Loan offered through her
department. She felt that under the
childcare line item the clients would be using up all the money by the end of
the fiscal year. She also said that
currently under the Tenant Advocacy Program that all of the Section 8 Housing is
in use, which is about 500 housing vouchers
However, recently the Federal Government just authorized DeKalb County
about 40 additional vouchers for Section 8 Housing.
Ms. Olson
also said that on page 3 of the report it shows that their clients’ employment
is at 58% for this year. Last year
at this time it was at 80%. This
shows that more and more of our population has no connection to the workplace at
this time.
Ms. Olson
then passed out a graph (attached to these minutes) showing that the families
served for emergency assistance are currently exceeding the 1999 figures (the
far left column in each month vs. the 2002 figure which is the far right column
in each month).
2003
Block Grant Proposal:
She said that her office is currently working under a continuing
resolution. The Block Grant is
still in the budget but it could change. She
is currently writing the grant very conservatively by showing the numbers as the
same as last year.
Moved
by Mr. Pritchard, seconded by Mr. Haines, and it was carried unanimously to
adjourn the meeting.
Respectfully
submitted,
_______________________________
Sue Leifheit, Chairman
___________________________
Mary Supple, Secretary
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