|
The Executive Committee of the DeKalb County Board met on Tuesday, August,
12, 2003 @ 7:00 p.m. at the Legislative Center’s Freedom Conference Room.
Chairman Robert Pritchard called the meeting to order. Members present were
Marlene Allen, Sue Leifheit, Julia Fauci, Clifford Simonson, Ruth Anne
Tobias and John Wilson. Jeff Metzger and Roger Steimel were absent. Others
present were Gary Hanson, Diane Strand, Robert Rosemier and Greg Millburg.
APPROVAL
OF MINUTES
Moved by Ms. Tobias, seconded by Mr. Wilson, and it was carried
unanimously to accept the minutes of the July 8, 2003 meeting.
APPROVAL
OF AGENDA
Moved by Ms. Leifheit, seconded
by Ms. Tobias, and it was carried unanimously to approve the agenda.
APPOINTMENTS
Chairman Pritchard recommended the following appointments:
Administrative Service
Sub-Committee:
Earl Jursich
Mark Thate
Brian Ali
Bill Mullins
Stephen M. Faivre, Chairman
Dennis Sands
Joseph Wiegand
Robert Rosemier
All appointments for a term of 1 year, until
09/01/2004.
Board of
Review:
Douglas Johnson, appointment for a term of
2 years, until 09/01/2005.
Normal Drainage District:
Milton Lambert, reappointment for a
term of
3 years, until 09/01/2006.
Squaw Grove Drainage
District No. 1:
Robert Schoeger, reappointment for a
term of 3 years, until 09/01/2006.
Clinton-Shabbona Drainage
District #1:
Robert Buchholz, reappointment for a
term of 3 years, until 09/01/2006.
Coon Creek
Drainage District:
John Emerson, reappointment for a
term of 3 years, until 09/01/20036.
Union
Drainage District #1:
William Mullins, reappointment for a
term of 3 years, until 09/01/2006.
Regional Planning Commission:
The Planning & Regulations Committee
Chairman, appointment as an alternate
member, for a term of 1 year,
until 09/01/2004.
Moved by
Ms. Tobias, seconded by Mr. Wilson, and it was
carried
unanimously to approve the appointments as presented by Chairman Pritchard,
and to forward them to the full board for approval.
EXEMPT
EMPLOYEE EVALUATIONS DISCUSSION
Chairman
Pritchard asked if the committee wanted to modify its exempt employee
evaluation plan, encourage committee’s to follow it more consistently or to
make any other changes? He said the County has had a process in place for
evaluating exempt employees. Each committee has had the discression of how
they want to apply it and each committee has been applying it, but applying
slightly differently. Mr. Bockman had supplied some information to the
Administrative Services Sub-Committee, which states that the county has 15
department heads. Of those six are elected, nine are appointed by the board
and therefore considered exempt employees. It is those nine that we are
evaluating. We are not only considering annual performances but also,
exemplary employment and leadership. The other opportunity was have us, as
employers or these department heads, is to offer feedback to them? What
kind of information do we want from them? A lot of people are talking about
goals that department heads should have and then something measurable of how
they’ve progressed towards those goals.
The
instrument that was developed five years ago has been shared with each
department head and all of you have seen it. It contains five areas to
explore with the department heads and use a rating system of 1 – 5 of poor
to excellent. You consider where each department head fits in each of these
five components. Then you put them all together and you come up with an
overall rating. That information then comes to this committee for
discussion and eventual feedback to the department heads.
Since we are
ending the year, Mr. Pritchard said he believes that it is inappropriate to
drastically change the way we are going to evaluate people and only fine
tuning might be appropriate. If we are going to make major changes in the
next two months, it would be a good time to talk about those changes and
solidify as a board how we want to evaluate exempt employees going forward
into the year 2004. This is something that Mr. Faivre’s sub-committee will
be discussing and will make a recommendation to Administrative Services
Committee and to this committee. Based upon past discussion, he suggested
that the committee add a component to the evaluation that invites Mr.
Bockman to give additional feedback to each committee on the employee that
is reporting to that committee. He further stated, As we have discussed,
there would be that element of someone who is here everyday monitoring and
observing, and then sharing insight to each committee’s evaluation process.
Ms. Tobias
asked what do the department heads think about the evaluation process?
Chairman Pritchard asked the committee chairs if they have received any
feedback from the department heads that they evaluate? Ms. Leifheit said
that Public Services generally asked for the department heads goals from the
previous year and future goals. Ms. Allen said that the committee discussed
if the department head had reached their goals or not.
Ms. Fauci
said that at the Public Infrastructure and Development Committee meeting
there was an evaluation already done. There was one member on the committee
who disagreed with the current evaluation rating system. Chairman Pritchard
said that would mean that someone (a county board member) hasn’t read the
responsibilities of this board. It states very clearly that we hire these
people, therefore we evaluate these people. If you don’t think that you are
up to evaluating, if you don’t know anything about that department head,
then you haven’t done your job as a board member.
Mr. Wilson
said that since being on the board for the past few years, he felt that one
of the most difficult things is the tendency to try to compare this
evaluation process to the business world. We have some department heads
that are elected and some that are appointed, you have 24 board members and
an administrator, and this is like a hybrid, it is difficult but not
impossible to come up with a procedure that is fair and as clear as we would
like it to be. If you look at this five criteria, none of them are going to
be perfect.
Ms. Leifheit
said that most of the department heads today are doing a great job. In some
cases we did have to tell some people that they were not doing their job ell
and they either improved or not and then we had to take steps to let them
go.
Mr. Rosemier
said that the five criteria are pretty good and agrees with Ms. Leifheit. He
is concerned about the feedback. He feels that they need feedback and that
Chairman Pritchard has good people skills and would do well with contacting
the department heads as to the committee’s decisions that are made regarding
their evaluations. Chairman Pritchard said that we have had in the past is
to ask chairs of those various committees to meet with the department heads
to discuss with them the outcome of their evaluation. He feels that if the
committee thinks that any department head’s goals are off-track then they
should tell them that. He encouraged the committees to have a dialogue with
the department heads rather than just accepting what they are presenting to
them. This is partnership and when you come into the evaluation stage, you
say, that you bought into the goal at the beginning of the year, so now you
can accurately help evaluate whether or not they were met.
Ms. Leifheit
said that she would like to see Mr. Bockman’s input on each department head,
but doesn’t want it to be a burden to his current work. She would like his
feedback though.
After
further discussion, Chairman Pritchard summarized the discussion by stating
that the County Administrator would be asked to give the committees
information about their exempt employees based upon observations,
responsiveness to requests, department’s operation efficiencies and
contributions to county goals, as well as, feedback on the five areas listed
in the evaluation. He reminded the members that the evaluation should be
on-going, not just once a year so that the department head can get timely
feedback. He asked the committee chairs to work with their committees to
look at these five areas of discussion and also to look at the person’s
goals from last year. Ask the department head to give you feedback on those
goals as well as setting goals for the year ahead.
APPROVAL OF
THE COUNTY BOARD AGENDA
Mr. Hanson,
Deputy Administrator, reviewed the county board agenda for the board meeting
to be held on August 20, 2003.
Moved by
Ms. Leifheit, seconded by Ms. Tobias, and it was carried unanimously to
accept the county board agenda as presented.
GENERAL
DISCUSSION
Ms. Allen,
said that Mr. Dennis Miller, ESDA Director for DeKalb County, updated the
Public Services Committee on the clean-up progress that has been made in
Sandwich after the tornado winds damaged many areas about two weeks ago. He
helped organize a clean-up group involving IEMA and the City of Sandwich,
the township, and the county highway department to help with the clean up by
supplying trucks. Mr. Miller also got prisoners to come and help with the
clean up too. Chairman Pritchard read a thank you letter from the Mayor of
Sandwich for all of the county staff’s hard work and help in this matter.
She also
informed the committee that CASA approached the committee regarding money
that they will be requesting from the county during the budget process. It
was not a budget hearing, but the committee did let Ms. Jill Olson make her
request.
The
committee is also reviewing the Senior Tax Levy application to see if there
are any changes that they may want to incorporate to it. She said that Ms.
Olson explained to the committee that they are purchasing services from
these agencies and that the providers are to turn in their invoices and then
they are to get paid. If they do not use up all of their allotted monies,
then it is not spent and not rolled over either.
Ms. Tobias,
Chairman of the Public Policy Committee, passed out a summary of her trip (
see attached to these minutes) to the NACO Annual Conference in Milwaukee.
She said that it was great. She attended 6 sessions and learned about is a
newly formed umbrella organizations that envelops the current three state
organizations for Illinois counties. She also attended a session on
diverting the mentally ill from jail. They are trying not to treat them as
criminals right away. They have pre-trial diversions so that they stay in
the human services system and not the jail system. She also attended a
session on growth wars, which was a very good session.
Mr. Wilson,
of the Public Infrastructure and Development Committee, said that the
property tax abatement program was announced at the Administrative Services
Committee and then sent to his committee for discussion. It was tabled in
August and will be going back to his committee in September.
Mr. Clifford
Simonson, member of the Planning & Regulations Committee, said that there
was disagreement on Ordinance #2003-22 about giving the the planning
director the authority to add or waive requirements for zoning action.
Ms. Fauci,
member of the Forest Preserve Committee, said that Mr. Rosemier presented
information on a Conservation Buffer Zone that is being developed on a farm
just outside of DeKalb County. They began examining the budget and received
initial paperwork on that. There was discussion about a partnership with
the DeKalb Park District to build a Veteran’s Memorial that will honor all
the veterans’ who have served in all the wars. There was also talk about
looking into fundraising programs by Chairman Metzger.
Ms.
Leifheit, Chairman of the Administrative Services Committee, said that they
discussed the tax abatement issue and forwarded it to the Public
Infrastructure and Development Committee. Mr. Hanson presented the details
that his department will have to do with the Capitalization Policy for Fixed
Assets. They also had a tour of the 3rd floor courtroom. She
also mentioned that the G.I.S. Maps are on the Website now and that Mr.
Hanson and Mr. Bockman will hand out the budget books with a recommendation
at their next meeting.
Chairman
Pritchard stated that he wanted to inform the committee that the DeKalb
County Economic Development Corporation sent a thank you letter for the
County’s contribution. This is a partnership of government, private
individuals and corporations to look at economic development and to try to
grow our area so that we are not so dependent upon residential properties
for all of our services. He reminded the members that the Jail Crowding
workshop is on August 20, 2003 from 4:00p.m. to 6:30pm. with a dinner served
just before our county board meeting @ 7:30p.m. He encouraged members to
read their materials and come prepared to the meeting with any questions.
Also, consider how are we going to fund the jail issue?
Mr. Rosemier
mentioned that a group of board member met on July 31st to
discuss the budget and develop a number of questions for department heads
about their budgets. In the ensuing discussion, concern was expressed that
the questions of each function of each department could not be answered in a
timely manner. It would take more than one evening to answer all of them.
It was also mentioned that Mr. Hanson and Mr. Bockman cover all budget
questions and budget cuts with each department head and then compile their
budget recommendation and present it to the county board at the September
Administrative Services Committee.
Ms. Leifheit
said that this should go before the Administrative Services Committee to be
discussed and that there is just no way we can go function by function.
Chairman Pritchard said that the board should be focusing on the policy
issues not micro-managing. He feels that Mr. Hanson and Mr. Bockman already
ask most of these questions in developing their budget recommendations. Ms.
Tobias said that she feels that we have very good managers working for the
county.
ADJOURNMENT
Moved by Ms. Leifheit, seconded by Ms. Allen, and it was carried unanimously
to adjourn the meeting.
Respectfully submitted,
_________________________________
Robert W. Pritchard, Chairman
_______________________________
Mary C. Supple, Secretary
|
