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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, March 4,
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 and Eileen
Dubin. Edward Brown, Michael
Haines, Jeff Metzger and Robert Pritchard were absent.
Others present were Presiding Judge Kurt Klein, Ronald Matekaitis,
Margaret Whitwell, Kenneth Johnson, Margi Gilmour, Mary Olson, Thomas Weber,
Sheriff Roger Scott and Chief Deputy Kevin Hickey.
Moved
by Ms. Allen, seconded by Dr. Conway, and it was carried unanimously to approve
the minutes from the February 2002 meeting.
Chairman
Leifheit asked if the agenda could be amended to include Supervisor of
Assessments Appointment Request?
Moved
by Ms. Allen, seconded by Dr. Conway, and it was carried unanimously to approve
the amended agenda.
SUPERVISOR
OF ASSESSMENTS APPOINTMENT REQUEST
Ms.
Margaret Whitwell, Supervisor of Assessments, recommended the reappointment of
Mr. Nick Moore to the Farmland Assessment Review Committee.
She said that Mr. Moore has been serving on the committee prior to her
hiring by the county, which would be before 1991.
Moved
by Ms. Allen, seconded by Ms. Dubin, and it was carried unanimously to accept
the recommendation for the reappointment of Nick Moore to the Farmland
Assessment Review Committee and to forward it on to the Executive Committee for
approval.
JUDICIAL
UPDATE:
Presiding
Judge Kurt Klein, Circuit Clerk Maureen Josh, and State’s Attorney Ronald
Matekaitis, reviewed their various departments for the committee.
Ms. Josh explained to the committee that she is the official keeper of
the court records for County. She
said that the new “buzz word” that people will start to hear is
“Integrated Justice” which combines all facets of information systems
throughout the State of Illinois so that we will be able to obtain information
from Cook County, etc. to properly administer justice.
This will help when someone comes up for arraignment, bond, etc.
The entire state is undertaking it and to that end the State will be
receiving millions of federal dollars to try and
do
this. DeKalb County will be a major
participant in this. We also were
very significant players in the Victim Identification Notification Program, that
is, the Sheriff, State’s Attorney and myself, are one of the only counties in
the State that all three agencies signed on.
That is speaks well for DeKalb County because besides the fact that we
are three independent elected offices, but are not of the same party.
She also said that all the judicial offices in the County do work well
together.
Mr.
Matekaitis, DeKalb County State’s Attorney, also said that the levels of
cooperation between offices in this county are great.
He reviewed for the committee the cases that were filed in the year 2001.
He stated that 692 cases were filed for felonies, 637 for DUI’s, 2,125
filed for misdemeanors, and that there were in excess of 22,000 cases filed. To
date for the year 2002 we have filed 115 felony cases and have disposed of 129
cases. So if you push those figures
out in a 12-month basis that means that we will file about the same amount of
cases (690) but we will dispose of about 774 at the current rate, he continued.
Which in this year, if you add things up, we will have less cases in the
felony system than we started the year with, which is positive and that’s what
we want to see.
DeKalb
County did authorize his office to hire another felony prosecutor and thank you
for that. That was effective
January 2, 2002 but they have nowhere to put that person until they move into
the new Legislative Center. When
that happens they are looking at starting someone around the first week of May
2002. With the new attorney disposition of some of these felony
cases will increase in terms of rate. From
the period of 1996 through 2000 the combined number of first-degree murder,
reckless homicide, involuntary manslaughter, totaled one, which was the Hopkins
retrial. From the period of January
1, 2001 through February 2002, there were 7 such cases that have gone to trial.
Seven such cases for any State’s Attorney’s office to dispose of this
many cases in that short of time, he is very proud of this record.
Staffing- wise they have hired 3rd year law students and 2nd
year law students for free.
The
Community Mediation Panel, Mr. Matekaitis, has started up and they are this
panel as a way to keep some of the juveniles in DeKalb County out of the court
system, which frees up court time for the more serious juvenile cases. The Juvenile Justice Counsel has begun meeting to look at
long-range issues to see if we are reasonably allocating our judicial resources
and others to juvenile delinquency. When
the Justice Plan is in place, hopefully in 12 to 18 months, he will have a much
better idea of where the County stands on this issue.
They are continuously working on the numbers with regard to the jail
population. Most of the people that
are in jail are awaiting trial and they should be in there.
These are people who are charged with Class X or Class 1 felonies, are
serious offenders and should be there. Counting
numbers today, 23 out of the 76 inmates in the jail population today are
sentenced cases, which means they are serving sentences.
Historically, this is a high number over the last 5 years, roughly a
third, and we will see how that continues, he further stated.
Ms. Dubin said that as a citizen what her major concern is, is the type
of cases that we have been seeing in DeKalb that we haven’t heard of before.
Judge
Kurt Klein said that there are three promising things that are coming forward.
The first being that about 1-½ years ago we were in a real bind in this
County when it came to foster parenting. We
only had 1 family in the County that was willing to accept older children, which
was totally unacceptable. So he,
the State’s Attorney and DCFS, started to go out throughout the County to
recruit foster parents through service clubs in the county.
They have persuaded six families to become foster parents for older
children and hope to get 3 to 4 more families to sign up.
The
second thing that he is excited about is that when the State’s Attorney moves
out of the courthouse, it will free up space for a 5th courtroom. Our calls are getting out of hand and it is not uncommon now
for one of our judges who predominately does the traffic call in DeKalb on
Mondays, to have 400 – 500 calls on Monday morning and 150 cases set in the
afternoon call, he said. A couple
more straws on this camel’s back are going to be broken.
He has been talking to the Chief Judge about the fact that we need help.
The problem is, is that he needs help, Kendall County needs help and the State
is not in the mood right now with the monetary crunch to employ more judges.
He believes that he has convinced Chief
Judge Wagner, that when the new courtroom is built, that he will send us
a judge two days a week. If Judge
Klein can increase our availability two days a week to handle that traffic call
and some divorce cases it will greatly ease the burden.
The
third thing is that the county is spending too much money on placements for
juveniles. Judge Engle came up with
a suggestion to use NIU to study the success rate on in house placements. They have gotten the statistical report so far and it shows
that placement just isn’t working. We
can put a juvenile in placement for a certain amount of months and they seem to
do good there, but as soon as they bring them back home within a few months they
are right back where they started. We
are not turning these kids around. Because
of this, the County has come up with the Juvenile Intensive Probation.
We will try to hire two (2) probation officers that are dedicated to
juvenile probation and that instead of sending all of these juveniles to
placement we will monitor these children several times a day by visiting their
schools, talking to their teachers, their counselors and classmates, etc.
He would like to start them around a starting salary of $30,000 each and
this should be significantly cheaper than the amount of money the county has
spent on placements. They have
started it in Kane County and it is going well.
He thinks that the County could do this for no more than $100,000.00 a
year versus the $210,000.00 that the County has spent in placement last year.
Judge
Klein further explained that the federal government no longer will incarcerate
runaways and truants, and this causes us great concern because we cannot put any
great fear in these kids anymore. Also,
the Governor’s new budget does away with the truancy advisors, which adds fuel
to the fire. Ms. Allen asked how
many truancy cases do you hear a week now?
Judge Klein said a lot and asked Tom Weber, Regional Superintendent of
Schools what his figures show? Mr.
Weber said that the County now hears truancy cases and juvenile cases on
Wednesday and Friday in the courthouse. Judge
Klein said that we open about 4 to 5 truancy cases a week in DeKalb County. Ms. Josh said that not long ago juvenile court was held ½
day every other week. However, now
we spend two (2) days a week for juvenile court.
On
a happier note, Judge Klein informed the committee that he has formed a
Community Celebration Committee to celebrate the 100th Anniversary of
the DeKalb County Courthouse in 2004.
PUBLIC
DEFENDER’S REPORT
Mr. Kenneth Johnson, DeKalb County Public Defender, briefly reviewed his report for the committee (on file in the Public Defender’s Office). He stated that his part-time attorney is already maxing out her work hours beyond the 20 hours assigned to her. However, the good thing is that there is continuity in his office for a change. Mr. Johnson also updated the committee about the fact that the Governor did not include the Public Defender’s salary in the latest legislation. The Public Defender’s Association did, however, hirer a lobbyist to try and change it. He also said that in the House there is a bill for a stipend to help pay student loans for any assistant public defender and assistant state’s attorney that is hired. He said that this will help his office and others across the state to hire good, qualified people who are just graduated from law school and cannot afford to pay rent and utilities and food on the salary that they are making because they also are paying about $600.00 in student loans a month and can’t make ends meet. This $3500.00 stipend will help offset that problem and the effective date on the table now is for 2003.
COURT SERVICES REPORT
Ms. Gilmour briefly reviewed her monthly statement for the committee. She said that her Adult Court Services Report was once again, consistent with the last few months. The Juvenile Report shows that her office is down to 1 person in placement, which is good news. She also said that out of the 4 kids detained that 1 was for the 3rd time, 1 was for the 4th time, 2 were for the 8th time and 1 was for the 9th time. She also informed the committee that she had applied for a Illinois Criminal Justice Authority Grant and was awarded one that was valued at $23,000.00. With that money she bought 6 new computers and 1 laptop for her department.
COMMUNITY SERVICES UPDATE – Distribution of Senior Services Tax Levy Packets:
Ms. Olson, Director of Community Services Department, passed out the Senior Services Tax Levy Packets for the committee to review for their April meeting and hearings.
She said that there were no new bidders and that all of the bids were from the same people that were funded last year. She explained that they all looked very complete and that is set to schedule site visits with them prior to our April meeting. She also passed out the 3rd Quarter Report on the Distribution of Funds for last year’s recipients of the Senior Service Tax Levy. It shows that every agency is spending their money allotted to them. She further explained that the Health Department is once again lagging behind so far this year because their billings come in so much later.
DATE AND TIME OF APRIL MEETING:
It was decided that the next Public Services Committee Meeting will be held on Monday, April 8, 2002 @6:00p.m. in Conference Room East.
REGIONAL SUPERINTENDENT OF SCHOOLS ANNUAL REPORT
Mr. Tom Weber, Regional Superintendent of Schools, said that the Governor’s budget calls for all education grants to be cut, which would cut the truancy alternative program grant. He feels that since this would hurt Cook County and the collar counties a lot there will be a lot of resistance to do this. People that he has spoken about this with have said that the Governor will not be able to cut the grants but the grant amounts would be reduced. Our assistant Dick Stipher would have to take over the overload if it is cut.
He then highlighted the various pages for the committee members to review. He said that on page 1 it covers what his duties are and his staff’s. On page 3 it explains how the funds flow through his office to the various schools. Some of the schools are not included on this page because they are already receiving their funds electronically. On page 4 it covers the amount of students within the school system in DeKalb County. He said that there has been an increase of 255 students with a total of 16,410 students, both public and private, in the County. The Prairie School is new, it is also known as Camelot, and they work with kids that need separate placement and are more severe discipline cases. With home schooling the parents do not have to report it but he feels that somewhere around 1% - 3% or 300 – 500 kids are being home schooled right now. He also mentioned that there are more substitute teachers right now because of the economy. His assistant Dick Stipher is one of the outstanding bus driver trainers in the State and other regional offices recognize him for that. When they meet about 4 to 6 times a year, he gives a report and people look to him for advice.
He then mentioned that he is not using the money budgeted for the NIU student because right now the student that they have working and trained does a good job. She is only coming in two ½ days a week, but with her training and expertise he would like to keep her. She has been working for him about 11 months now. He would like to keep her and not go over the allotted $2,400.00 you gave me. When she can’t do this anymore, he would like to add the $2400.00 into the $8400.00 or 70% that NIU would pay. The three people that he has talked to about it said that it would be a good idea as long as it didn’t go over the $2400.00.
SHERIFF’S ANNUAL REPORT
Sheriff Roger Scott reviewed his annual report for the committee. He highlighted the following pages of interest. Page 3 covers the mandates for his department; page 4 mentions the revenues; page 5 show the organizational chart for his department; page 6 cover the secretaries and staff; page 9 mentions the jail population, which states that in 2001 the average daily inmate population was 77 inmates and the capacity for the jail to hold is 89 inmates daily. Ninety (90%) percent of the population is made up of felony offenders which means they are violent. On page 24 it mentions the costs to feed the inmates, pages 25 and 26 informs you about electronic monitoring; page 28 mentions S.W.A.P; page 30 talks about the communications division. On page 32 it reviews the calls breakdown; page 34 covers the patrol division; page 38 mentions the DUI arrests which has been the same over the last 4 years; and page 39 talks about the response times for the patrol division. On page 47 it mentions the traffic crashes in the county and once again the single primary cause of accidents is because of animals (page 49). Alcohol is the primary cause in about 4% of accidents overall. Intersection Accidents is highlighted on page 40 and shows that the number 1 intersection with 4 or more accidents is Route 64 and Peace Road which had 17 accidents last year. On page 51 it states that 40% of fatalities are due to Alcohol/Drug influence. Page 53 highlights the fatal accidents statistics. On page 57 it explains the Criminal Investigation Division. The total number of detective cases was up 24% in 2001. The reason for this is that there has been an increase in the area of property crimes. Ms. Dubin asked Chief Deputy Kevin Hickey if there has been an increase in elderly abuse? Chief Deputy Hickey stated that he has not seen any increase.
The committee thanked everyone for their excellent reports and asked the Sheriff to place his file in the local libraries for students to use for research. He agreed to.
Moved by Ms. Allen, seconded by Dr. Conway, and it was carried unanimously to place all the reports on file.
Moved
by Ms. Allen, seconded by Dr. Conway, and it was carried unanimously to adjourn
the meeting.
Respectfully
submitted,
_______________________________
Sue Leifheit,
Chairman
__________________________
Mary Supple, Secretary
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