|
|
DeKalb County, Illinois |
Minutes of the
|
The
Public Services Committee of the DeKalb County Board met on Monday, June 3,
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 and Robert Pritchard. Mr.
Brown, Dr. Conway, Ms. Dubin, Mr. Haines and Mr. Metzger were absent.
Others present were Ken Johnson, Margi Gilmour, Ray Bockman, Greg
Millburg, Joy Gulatto, Sheriff Scott and Lt. Klein.
There was no quorum present.
The
minutes from the May 2002 meeting could not be approved because there was no
quorum present.
The agenda could not be approved because there was no quorum present.
PUBLIC
DEFENDER’S REPORT
Mr. Ken Johnson, DeKalb County Public Defender, briefly reviewed his report for
the month of May 2002. He said that
his numbers seem to be constant with no major fluctuation one-way or the other.
The biggest concern that he sees right now is the amount of time spent on
their abuse and neglect petitions in juvenile court.
He said that it is becoming more than a twenty (20) hour position. He
knows that Ms. Morelli is putting in more than the twenty hours that she was
contracted for. He has discussed this matter with Judge Klein and it seems
that since there are so many conflict cases that are going on right now, the
conflict attorneys are “maxed out.” Therefore,
most of the burden of the heavier responsibility in juvenile court falls on his
staff. Before, the court was able
to split it up and give them the easy cases, where now they are receiving more
of the intense parental termination cases. This is becoming a very great concern
for his office.
Mr. Johnson then informed the committee that he would be moving into his new
office space in the basement of the County Courthouse around June 20, 2002.
He said that the space is very nice.
He said that in terms of the security in his new office space, the
maintenance staff created a back door towards his office so when his clients
come to visit him after hours they can use the washroom going through this door.
There is a new security code installed so that they cannot enter into the
courthouse. Those doors will be
locked. He feels that the design of
the space will work very well.
Mr. Johnson then said that technically, as of July 1, 2002, the County has to
pay him 90% of the State’s Attorney’s salary by statute.
Mr. Johnson further explained that it was not placed in this year’s
Governor’s budget and it is mandated. They
will continue to “plug away” for this and start on it for next year.
COURT
SERVICES REPORT
Ms. Margi Gilmour, Director of Court Services, said that her numbers of the
Adult and Community Services Reports remain very consistent.
They would hope to see the completed community service hours increase as
the weather gets nicer out.
In the juvenile report the one child that is shown in residential placement for
the month of April is no longer there. The child was “kicked out” after 9 or
10 months that the county has been paying for because she was not progressing.
This is another reason that residential placement continues to be a
futile effort because Ms. Gilmour would hope that the placement center would
have told her office this information six months ago.
Currently the child is back home with her family.
They have no one in residential placement at the moment.
The judges are committed to try and keep it that way especially in light
of the fact that intensive probation positions are moving forward.
Her office and the judges have finished up the interviews for these
positions as of last week. The recommendations should begin to be formulated this week.
As far as the detention report for April, Ms. Gilmour continued, they had 17
admissions for that month and one juvenile was detained twice. Of those 17 admissions, 7 of them were for the 1st
time, 3 for the 2nd time, 2 for the 3rd, 4th
and 5th time, and 1 for the 7th time.
Ms. Gilmour wanted the committee to also know that her office has obtained
another intern from N.I.U. to be studying the multi-family problem-solving
group. That program has been up and
running for about four or five years now and they have seen the numbers dwindle
a little bit. She feels that they
have enough data and case files for the intern to look at to begin gathering
some data on that program.
Ms. Gilmour said that with regards to the state budget, they expect the salary
subsidy to be cut around 10% to 15%. They
have 9 positions in her office right now that the state reimburses them @
$1,000.00 per month, for each position. This
would take affect around July 1, 2002.
She also said that there would be no money for the two new positions that
are coming on board. Her
understanding is that Judge Klein is trying to get some kind of agreement with
Kane County where they have a couple of vacancies over there that haven’t been
filled. Therefore, our County might
be able to do some sort of agreement with Kane County where we could take the
salary subsidy for those positions and use it for the two new ones.
She is not sure if the Judge was able to work it out yet.
Chairman Leifheit asked Ms. Gilmour if the County pays for the lost
subsidy? Mr. Bockman said
yes.
EXTENSION OFFICE UPDATE
Ms. Joy Gulatta, Director of the local University of Illinois Extension Office,
updated the committee members on their various programs and what they did last
year. First, however, Ms. Gulatta,
thanked the committee and the board for their support of her office and for the
increased funds for her grant from last year.
She began by stating that their Youth Program, she feels, is the most important
program. It is the best prevention
program around the county. It is
for the county’s youth between the ages of 8 and 18 years of age and it
focuses on hands-on learning. She
also said that they have a very strong 4-H program in the county.
Likewise, the Natural Resources Program focuses on the youth in our
county. A lot of the programming is
done at our forest preserves and schools. Their
Natural Resources Program is funded by a couple of other governmental agencies,
such as, the DeKalb County Forest Preserve, the Health Department and Soil and
Water.
The County grant money supports The Family Programs area and the Horticulture
area, said Ms. Gulatta. Her handout
summarizes (attached to these minutes) what those programs have done over the
last year. The Master Gardener
Program has been growing and currently there are 37 master gardener volunteers.
These are volunteers that have received 60 hours of training in horticulture. They then volunteer in exchange for that training for at
least 60 hours of service. Last
year the master gardeners volunteered over 1200 hours of service to the
community. Those master gardeners
also participated in 313 hours of continuing education.
Plant a Row for the Hungry is a new project that one of the master gardeners
started this year. They have received some assistance from Wal-Mart for the
project. This is a nationwide
program that encourages people to plant an extra row in their gardens or be
willing to share that extra produce that they can’t use themselves when the
garden starts producing with people less fortunate.
Her department then distributes this produce to people around the county
that need it. They are trying to “hookup” with Salvation Arm, Food Pantry
and a couple of others in the county.
Ms. Gulatta then spoke about the Consumer & Family Economics Program that
they offer. She coordinates the Grandparents Raising Grandchildren
conference. It was held on May 2,
2002 and it is a senior citizen informational and educational component when you
can’t do many of the things that you want to any longer because you are
getting older. There were 15
agencies that set up exhibits to show people various options on what to do.
Mr. Pritchard said that when this committee went through the hearing process for
senior tax levy they learned that there was need for financial counseling for
seniors. He asked if there is any financial counseling assistance that they
offer for the seniors? Ms. Gulatta
said not recently. They
discontinued it a while back. There used to be educators in that area and they
used to do that. They discovered
though that by the time most of the families contacted them it usually was too
late to help them. Ms. Gulatta said
that she would be attending a program-planning meeting tomorrow and that she
would bring this idea up to them for discussion.
The committee thanked Ms. Gulatta for her very informative report.
JAIL
POPULATION REVIEW COMMITTEE UPDATE – SHERIFF SCOTT
Sheriff Scott wanted to update the committee on the latest Jail Population
Review Committee meeting. He said
that one of the purposes he is approaching the committee this evening is to get
direction from this committee and to go before the Administrative Services
Committee this week. He will be
suggesting two recommendations to the committee this evening for their review.
First, however, he would like to give the members some background
information.
The Sheriff passed out a booklet to the committee explaining the current state
of the jail. In page four (4) of
the booklet he highlighted the chart that appears on that page. It explains that in 1980 the capacity was the number of
inmates the jail was built to house. In
the late 1980’s the jail population was climbing to capacity.
At this time all the housing units were double-bunked to the legal
capacity for the space. He also said that it is important to note that even though
they have increased beds they do not have increased space to accommodate the
needs of the prisoners. He
continued by saying that in the mid-‘80’s they expanded the bed capacity to
89 beds, which is the technical bed capacity.
He said that they call it technical capacity because that is the actual
number of beds that they have available to put prisoners in.
However, the functional bed capacity is lower than that.
It can be anywhere between 80 to 85 beds.
Functional capacity is based on the fact that these beds include the 4
isolation cells and beds in the work release area.
Sheriff Scott said that as we begin to look at this issue there are two things
to consider. First, when we
expanded the beds to 89 in the mid-‘80s, it is important to note that we did
not expand anything else, that is, visitation space, attorney meeting rooms or
multi-purpose room. Basically, the
only thing that we did was add more beds. (We
did not account for the added needs of all the things that come from an
additional population.) In 2002,
we’ve been above technical capacity of 89 beds, eleven (11) times. All of 2001 we were only above technical capacity three (3)
times, Sheriff Scott stated. If you
look at functional capacity at 80 beds, we have exceeded that number in 2002, 86
times already. Overall, in 2001, we
only exceeded that number by 72 times. As
you can see we are approaching a problem and we are not in a jail crisis now,
but we are certainly getting there sooner or later, he further stated.
The record of inmates housed in the jail for one day was 97 for this
year. The record for incarceration
in the Jail is 102 and that was back in the 1930’s.
But those people were vagabonds, alcoholics and looking for a home.
As you look through the handout I gave the committee, you don’t find
too many of these people who are vagabonds or looking for homes, he continued.
The record for our jail in the new building is 97 inmates and it happened
this year. The Sheriff stated that
he has called the Sheriff in Ogle County to find out what he could do if the
overcrowding got any worse. That is
why we have brought this issue to this committee this evening, said Sheriff
Scott.
Another item that is mentioned in his handout is the Electronic Home Monitoring
list of people who are on it. They
have up to 17 on the home monitoring program. They have expanded it, thanks to
the county board, by adding one new officer in March of this year.
They have gone from 12 inmates to 17 and an additional 6 more will be
added to the E.H.M. Program very soon. From
the recommendation of the Jail Population Review Committee, over the last year,
the County has tried various things in the criminal justice system to try and
expedite the movement of inmates through the jail. There was staff added in the E.H.M. Program, the Public
Defender’s Office, and other areas, to try and move it through the court
system better. If they hadn’t
done this, he said that he didn’t know what the committee and he would be
discussing with regards to jail population today.
He knows that it would be worse than it is now.
All of these things have come from the Jail Population Review Committee
and some previous studies that have been conducted by the County through the
National Institute of Corrections, Sheriff Scott stated.
All of the recommendations that were made by two different studies in
1990, 1996 as well as the Jail Population Review Committee, have either been
implemented or were found not practical. However,
the vast majority have been implemented over the years, continued Sheriff Scott.
Sheriff Scott said that this is what led him to these recommendations that he is
going to make this evening. The
short-term recommendation would be Recommendation #1. This recommendation is to
help alleviate extended overcrowding in the jail.
This recommendation would authorize the Sheriff up to $7,500.00 to house
DeKalb County inmates in another facility.
In addition, it would authorize the Sheriff up to $1,000.00 to cover
overtime for transports of such inmates between the facilities. This money is to
come from contingency funds so that if he needed the money, he would be able to
use it for this purpose. The reason
that he asks for this now is because there are 30 days between committee and
board meetings and if something should happen where they would see an increased
population that is going to last a few days.
He is asking for some trust, so that he could make that call to Ogle
County to house some people for a certain amount of extended days.
The formula is based on 5 inmates being housed for up to 30 days, based
on a rate of $50.00 per day. He said that this figure is based on Ogle County Jail and
that we have a good working relationship with them.
The Sheriff of Ogle County would be willing to open up the jail to us if
he has those beds available at the time of our request.
Chairman Leifheit asked Sheriff Scott, what would happen if you have 105 inmates
and there is no room for you to house all of them.
If the committee says no, you can’t have the money, what would you do?
Sheriff said that the money is in the hands of the county board.
He would just have to present his case and if they said no, then he would
ask for suggestions on what they think he should do.
Mr. Bockman said that alternatives would be that he would have to give
him more money or to release certain inmates.
Mr. Pritchard asked if he could take money from another part of his
budget to cover these costs? Sheriff
Scott said that he could look at this, but then all you are doing is abating
other services within his department like law enforcement or civil process, etc.
Mr. Bockman, County Administrator, said that he suggested to the Sheriff
that he should come to the Public Services Committee and the Administrative
Services Committee to notify them of the problems that his department is
experiencing currently and to ask for this authorization.
Recommendation #2 from the Sheriff would be the expansion of the current jail.
Sheriff Scott said that based on the recommendation of the Jail
Population Review Committee 2001 and 2002, and two previous N.I.C. studies, that
they should begin planning for expanding the bed capacity.
He said that they would approach the expansion in three key areas.
The first area would be the Action Group. This group would be seeking free information from various
architects who are experienced in jail construction and expansion.
He could get a paid consultant to help develop a solid plan to deal with
jail expansion bed space. He could
also get a free consultant through the National Institute of Corrections to
develop a plan for their needs and become involved with Planning of New
Institution Programs out of Boulder, Colorado, Phase I and Phase II.
The second group would be the Financial Group.
This group would develop the best means to arrive at determining
financial resources, for whatever plan is developed.
The third group would be the Expansion Alternatives Action Group. This group would look at alternatives or supplements to the
jail expansion. This group could
look at a wide range of options including but not limited to, expansion of
Electronic Home Monitoring, Day Jail and a minimum-security facility, etc.
Sheriff said that this group could also suggest something that we as a
county have not done before.
After further discussion it was the consensus of the committee for the Sheriff
to go before the Administrative Services Committee and request the authorization
to request a contingency fund of $7,500.00 for the housing of inmates and
$1,000,00 for the transport of inmates to another jail in case of extreme
overcrowding problems. He would
also like to go before the Administrative Services Committee and request that
his office would be able to speak to various architects and seek their input
about the expansion of the current jail and other ideas that they may have.
The committee agreed that he should inform the Administrative Services
Committee about this issue too.
JULY
MEETING DATE
Chairman Leifheit informed the committee that she would be canceling the July
meeting date because of no business.
Because
of no quorum, there was no adjournment.
Respectfully
submitted,
_______________________________
Sue Leifheit, Chairman
___________________________
Mary Supple, Secretary
| Home | Return
to top | A-Z Index | Return
to minutes |