The Public Services Committee of the DeKalb County Board met on Monday, May 5, 2003, @ 6:00p.m. in the Administration Building’s Conference Room East.  Chairman Marlene Allen called the meeting to order.  Members present were Pat LaVigne, Steve Faivre, Julia Fullerton, Richard Osborne, Sue Leifheit, Eileen Dubin and Eric Johnson.  Mr. Rosemier was absent.  Others present were Kenneth Johnson, Margi Gilmour, Margaret Whitwell, Pam Fettes and Jill Olson.

APPROVAL OF THE MINUTES

Moved by Ms. Fullerton, seconded by Mr. Johnson, and it was carried unanimously to approve the April 2003 minutes.

APPROVAL OF THE AGENDA

Chairman Allen said that Sheriff Scott has pulled Ordinance 2003-15 from the agenda.  He said that it was not necessary to act on it at this time.  Moved by Ms. Leifheit, seconded by Ms. LaVigne, and it was carried unanimously to approve the agenda.

PUBLIC DEFENDER’S MONTHLY REPORT

Mr. Kenneth Johnson, Public Defender, said that the numbers are once again consistent.  He is happy to report that as of last month the Circuit Clerk’s office informed him that his office has deposited $10,797.00 in excess of what his office anticipated in their client reimbursement fund.  They are currently at $25,797.00 and is going very well.  In addition, he was able to save another $2,400.00 this month by utilizing the State Appellate Grant for Investigators.  He has three different investigators working right now on a contract basis  for his office.  The contract that they have entered into with the State Appellate Defender’s Office is where he requested an investigator.  He gets their resume and forwards it along to the State Appellate Defender’s Office and then they have to approve him/her.  They directly contract with that person by sending that person a contract, so there is no liability as to the financial responsibility from the county.  They set an hourly rate and maximum in which the individual can be paid.  He is using them on his 3 most serious cases currently.  He anticipates that his office is running out of the $2600.00 grant and will be able to “tap” in to the professional services budget that way.  So far they have saved about $7,000.00 since the beginning of the year.  It looks like the funding will be available through next year as well, said Mr. Johnson. 

His professional service line item has been pretty consistent and have only spent $2,090.00 out of the $15,000.00 balance.  He was well at that point last year around summertime, he continued.  Ms. Dubin asked him that the monies that receives from the client reimbursement fund, do they carryover to next year?  Mr. Johnson said yes, it’s a judicial determination.

COURT SERVICES MONTHLY REPORT

Ms. Margi Gilmour, Court Services Director, briefly reviewed her Adult and Juvenile Court Services Monthly Reports for the committee.

The Adult Court Services Reports is holding steady and remains manageable.  The Community Services Program is progessing along fine.  They are starting to enter the time of the year where they will see more hours completed because the weather is warmer.  They had their first Juvenile Sheriff’s Alternative Program on the second Saturday in April 2003.  They had 25 kids there for 8 hours.  They worked on the new forest preserve in Kirkland.  It was very successful. 

The Juvenile Court Services Report still shows 1 child at the Norman Sleezer Home.  This child has been in the Independent Living Program so the cost there is about ½ of what it was in residential placement.  They had 11 kids detained in the month of March 2003. They had 2 kids that were detained twice that month.  Of the 11 detentions there were 3 for the 1^st time, 1 for the 2^nd time, 2 for the 3^rd time, 1 for the 4^th time, 2 for the 5^th time, and 1 each for the 6^th and 8^th time. 

The Multi-Family Problem Solving Group has ended, Ms. Gilmour said.  She cannot tell the committee exactly why but understands that the judiciary has decided, she believes, to go in a different direction.  She had received a memo from the judiciary last month but was not at our April meeting because of the Senior Services Tax Levy Hearings to tell the committee about it.  She has notified Dr. Chippeta and at this time there is no more Multi-Family Problem Solving Group.  She doesn’t know at this time in what direction the judiciary will be going, but as soon as she does she will let the committee know.  Chairman Allen asked if the group was well attended?  Ms. Gilmour said yes, that they had just had an assessment of the program not to long ago by some students at N.I.U. and the feedback received from this was very positive.  Ms. Dubin asked who made the decision to end the group?  Ms. Gilmour said, “I believe it was a joint decision by Judge Engel and Judge Klein, like I said, I just received a letter from the judiciary.  Chairman Allen asked her if she knew the reason for the ending of the program?  Ms. Gilmour said no, I’m sorry, but I really don’t.  As soon as I get the information I will let the committee know.

SUPERVISOR OF ASSESSMENTS ANNUAL REPORT

Ms. Margaret Whitwell, Supervisor of Assessments, reviewed her annual report for the committee and highlighted the following pages. Page 3 deals with the Board of Review.  Their complaint numbers have gone down. There could be two reasons for this, which could be that people have become complacent or everyone is under assessed.  On page 4 it shows the number of parcels in DeKalb County being at 34,764.  Each township is broken down on this page by parcel, exemptions, railroad parcels and pollution control.  Ms. Whitwell said that railroad parcels are state assessed.  The pollution-controlled parcels are looking at hog confinements or fertilizer plants and portions of their property that have things on them that are considered to be pollution-controlled.  The state actually does the assessments on these things and they are taken off the local assessments, she continued. 

On page 5 the grant shows how DeKalb County has grown.  We have about a 2½ % increase from last year to this year.  Most of them are increases due to subdivisions.  They added around 800 actual parcels from that and the numbers are bigger.  On page 7 it shows the Equalized Assessed Value has had a steady growth.  The last couple of years the county has been looking at about 5 to 5½ % increase that includes 10% reduction in farmland values that we’ve had.  She just received the certified values for next year and they are down 10% again.  This hurts the smaller jurisdictions that have no municipalities.  By law they can’t go up or down more than 10% at a time.  We will see an exception to that in the year 2005.  We are going to go to a new system called “Bulletin 810.”  This is a project with the University of Illinois and the Department of Revenue. They are looking at modern way management and how that has changed the productivity of the different soil. 

Page 9 shows the total EAV and that residential is the biggest value for parcels, then commercial, farms and then industrial.  On page 10 it shows that farmland has dropped 10%, residential went up about 2%, industrial has remained steady and commercial had a big jump last year and now it’s down.  They also do pro-rated assessments.  Elder-Beerman will be done this way next year.  Page 12 shows new construction figures, which is approximately $36 million.  This is up about $2 million from last year. 

Page 13 shows the median price of acreage, which was $5,275.00.  They do exclude development land from this figure.  Mr. Faivre asked her how many acres sold during the year?  Ms. Whitwell said that she didn’t know, but that would be good to include that information for next year’s report.  Because of a court ruling they had to change the way that they assess subdivisions.  It was a case that went to the appellate court from here.  The appellate court ruled with the property owner here and stated that DeKalb County was doing it incorrectly.  However, the county was doing it as instructed by the Department of Revenue.  Their interpretation went with the law and the property tax appeal board went with us too.  Because of this ruling the whole state had to change the way that they assess subdivisions (please see her letter in the annual report filed in her department).  There were 562 developed parcels that will not be paying taxes because of this law this year. This is because they are under $150.00. 

Ms. Whitwell said that there were approximately 245 acres that were subdivided last year.  They were all residential parcels.  The exemptions were $90 million that came off our assessed value before the tax rates are calculated.  Some of those exemptions included owner occupied exemptions, senior citizens, the Freeze and the home improvement exemptions. 

In the Mapping Department there are splits that they record.  A split is when you have 80 acres and you sell 40 to someone else, Ms. Whitwell said.  Therefore the legal description for that parcel is not correct.  Legally we have two separate parcels now and the old one is removed and never used again. Her department then issues the next two numbers in the legal description and they are issued then.  They generated 1660 sales in maps last year with a total revenue amount of $10,653.00. 

There were some pretty high multipliers last year (page 24) in jurisdictions that don’t always get high multipliers.  The multiplier is put on the township and we compare the sales of the homes to the assessments.  If they are under-assessed something has to be done. 

The committee thanked Ms. Whitwell for her annual report which, once again was very good.

Before the committee discussed the River Valley presentation, Chairman Allen thanked all the committee members for a good job with the senior services tax levy allocation awards last month.

RIVER VALLEY WORKFORCE INVESTMENT BOARD PRESENTATION

Ms. Pam Fettes, Manager to the River Valley Workforce Investment Board, briefly reviewed what her department does (see attached handout) and how it is related to DeKalb County. 

She serves Kane, DeKalb and Kendall Counties as Manager of the River Valley Workforce Investment Board.  Some of the changes that have happened are dynamic.  In 1998 the State of Illinois, under the Workforce Investment Act, said that the implementation would take two years.  One of the changes is the dynamic of the board.  It has over 50% private and business sector members.  These members in addition to the labor, educational, economic development representatives, etc., provide oversight over the workforce system.  They are all selected by the elected officials of the three different counties.  DeKalb County is looking for a couple of representatives to represent the business community. 

They are looking for a system that will enhance the quality of life and promote a healthy economy.  It is very similar to a lot of economic development professionals.  They want to develop policies, planning and provide oversight over the workforce system.  Some of their goals are to establish policies for the workforce investment area, coordinate the workforce investment activities, conduct oversight of programs for youth, adults and dislocated workers, define the mission and goals of the workforce system and the one-stop centers, and oversee the one-stop system.

The One-Stop Centers provides one location where the individual or employer can receive all the information that they possibly can receive in one location. The partners that are working together at the center in DeKalb are the Illinois Department of Employment Security, Illinois Department of Human Services, Community Operations and Office of Rehabilitation Services, Experienced Works that provides services to older individuals, Kishwaukee Community College, Ben Gordon Center, First Institute, Kane County Department of Education and Employment.  The whole idea is to provide education and to emphasize the coordination between the partnerships. 

The committee thanked Ms. Fettes for coming and for her presentation. 

CASA’S ANNUAL REPORT

Ms. Jill Olson, Executive Director of CASA, reviewed for the committee what her department’s duties are.  She said that the formal annual report would not be ready until June so she will do an overview of CASA for the newer board members.  She said that CASA stands for Court Appointed Special Advocates.  It is a child advocacy program consisting of trained local adult volunteers that advocate for children with cases involved in the juvenile court system.  These are usually children that have been abused or neglected by their parents or guardians.  

CASA has been in DeKalb County since 1993 and that this year will be their tenth (10^th) anniversary.  They currently have 49 cases involving 82 children.  They have a ten-member board of directors and three staff members. 

Their budget for 2003 is $79,200.00.  They get the funding for their budget from three categories.  One-third of the funding comes from donations, one-third comes from foundations and grants, and the last one-third comes from fund-raising.  In recent years they have seen the money from the foundations dwindle as much as 50% and that is a huge “hit” on their budget.  They estimate that it takes about $2,000 a year to train the volunteers.  They also have 26 volunteer attorneys that provide pro bono services for CASA.  She said that this is a wonderful testament of people in this county to give up their time for this cause. 

She said that each year they have consistently seen anywhere from 150 to 160 cases for abuse and neglect.  They are appointed by the Juvenile Court Judge.  She has noticed that currently the cases are more complicated and difficult.    It is taking about 18 – 24 months in time to finish each case.  The volunteer CASA person handles one case at a time.  If there are three (3) children in a family, for example, Ms. Olson said, then that is looked at as one (1) case. 

Ms. Olson said that they will be looking and asking for space needs assistance again this year at budget time.  Last year the basement of the jail was the only space available but it was not workable for them then. 

The committee thanked Ms. Olson for her very informative report.

ADJOURNMENT

Moved by Mr. Johnson, seconded by Mr. Faivre, and it was carried unanimously to adjourn the meeting.

                                                                        Respectfully submitted,

                                                                        __________________________________
                                                                        Marlene Allen, Chairman

_____________________________
Mary C. Supple, Secretary