The Public Services Committee of the DeKalb County Board met on Monday, July 7, 2003, @ 6:30p.m. in the Administration Building’s Conference Room East.  Chairman Marlene Allen called the meeting to order.  Members present were Eileen Dubin, Pat LaVigne, Eric Johnson, Julia Fullerton, Richard Osborne and Robert Rosemier.   Sue Leifheit and Steve Faivre were absent.  Others present were Kenneth Johnson, Margi Gilmour, Gil Morrison and Greg Millburg.

APPROVAL OF THE MINUTES

Moved by Mr. Rosemier, seconded by Mr. Johnson, and it was carried unanimously to approve the June 2003 minutes.

APPROVAL OF THE AGENDA

Mr. Rosemier amended the agenda to reflect item #7a.) Tax Levy Discussion.

Moved by Mr. Rosemier, seconded by Ms. Fullerton, and it was carried unanimously to approve the amended agenda.

PUBLIC DEFENDER’S MONTHLY REPORT

Mr. Kenneth Johnson, Public Defender, said that the numbers increased slightly due to the economy.  Some of his clients are not working due to the economy and are being charged with failure to pay.  The State’s Attorneys office will now have one attorney specifically handling violations of probation cases. 

His fees line item has increased another $5,000.00 last month bringing it to a total of $34,000.00.  This puts the fees line item at $19,000.00 more than projected, which is great. 

Senator Dick Durbin sent a press release last month regarding the establishment of a federal student loan repayment plan for law grads.  They calculated that the average debt of a law school student in student loans is $72,000.00.  Many of his own assistant public defenders are making about $800.00 to $1,000.00 a month in loan payments and he knows that their paychecks don’t cover their student loans sometimes.  If this bill does pass it will pay up to $6,000.00 per year and up to a capped maximum amount of $40,000.00.  This would allow attorneys in his office to buy homes.  This is a very common problem across the state.  Some counties are addressing the problem by raising salaries, he continued.  He said that this repayment plan is introduced as Senate Bill #1091 in the 108^th Congress and House Resolution #2198.  It’s in committee right now. 

One of the requests that he will be making at budget time is a request for an increase in salary of one of his juvenile attorneys.  This attorney is a misdemeanor attorney and the juvenile cases that are coming through his office lately have increased in the number of violent crimes.  Because his assistant is not making enough money to support himself, he currently is working a second job to supplement his income.  Mr. Johnson feels that he is burning him out with the caseload and is afraid that he is going to lose him. Mr. Johnson can’t hire a brand new attorney out of law school because of the types of crimes that he is seeing in his office. He needs an experienced attorney for these types of juvenile cases.

Mr. Rosemier asked Mr. Johnson if the $19,000.00 overage that he has collected in fees could be used for the increase in salary?  Mr. Johnson said that he doesn’t know and he also doesn’t know if there are plans for that money from the county. 

He also said that his reading of the preliminary budget and the downstate investigative grant that he has been using this year is going to be available next year again.  It appeared in the preliminary budget and it seems that it will still be available again next year.  This doesn’t mean, though, that in the veto stage it could still end up on the floor somewhere.  He estimates that he will save about $15,000 to $20,000 by the end of this year because of the downstate grant.

COURT SERVICES MONTHLY AND ANNUAL REPORTS

Ms. Gilmour said that her adult monthly report shows that the numbers are slightly increasing, also, because of the economy.  The CRS hours continue to be completed at a healthy rate.  Her adult court officers have been averaging 100 cases a month, but this month one of the officers has seen the caseload jump up to approximately 120 cases.

Her juvenile report still reflects the one child that is in the independent living situation.  The child’s home life has not improved at all and the child may have to stay in the program until they are 18 years of age.  Mr. Rosemier asked what happens when the child turns 18 years old?  Ms. Gilmour said when the child turns 18 the court may not view the child as a minor any longer.  She believes that Norman Sleezer may set the child up as completely independent and still have access to their services if they are needed.  Ms. Allen asked if the child is working at all now?  Ms. Gilmour said yes, that the child is working currently, part-time. 

Her department had 12 juveniles detained.  Of those 12 detainees, 5 had been detained for the 1^st time.  They also had 3 that were detained for the 2^nd time and 1 each for the 3^rd, 4^th, 8^th and 13^th time. 

NEW REGIONAL SUPERINTENDENT OF SCHOOLS

Mr. Gil Morrison, the new Regional Superintendent of Schools, introduced himself to the committee members.  He said that he has begun his job and is not being paid for it because the Governor has not signed the bill yet.  He said that the legislature brought the item back in with $4 million in reductions.  The Governor cut $22 million and the legislature put it back in at $17 million.  The last he has heard is that some of the services have been cut; that it is down to $11 million; and that there will be salaries included.  This will impact their cola and they will have no raises.  The services that they provide to schools next year will be curtailed somewhat if this is adopted. 

Some of the duties that his office performs are that they run a truancy alternative program in conjunction with Lee and Ogle Counties.  This program runs through his office and he works closely with the juvenile justice department and the circuit clerk’s office.  His office also runs the G.E.D. program and the training of bus drivers.  As he inherited the job he also has inherited the duties of recording secretary, president and member of many committees that Mr. Weber sat on. 

Ms. Fullerton asked how long can substitute teachers teach without a certificate?  Mr. Morrison said that they could teach forever without a certificate. However, they can’t hold the same job for more than 90 days.  After 90 days they have to leave that position and go to another.  Not more than 90 days in one year in the same position, Mr. Morrison further stated.

REAPPOINTMENT OF THE SUPERVISOR OF ASSESSMENTS

Chairman Allen said that every four years we appointment Margaret Whitwell as Supervisor of Assessments.  Chairman Allen said that Ms. Whitwell is part of the exempt employees that are evaluated each year.  She said that there are nine of them. The county board appoints her to her position every four years. Chairman Allen further explained that we would forward this recommendation to the Executive Committee for the appointments.  The difference between Ms. Whitwell and the rest of the exempt employees is that part of her compensation is reimbursed by the Department of Revenue and therefore we need to get the appointment paperwork into the Department of Revenue by August of this year per the statute, said Chairman Allen.

Ms. Dubin said that over the last several years some people that have sat on the board have said that the board does not really have a process for evaluations for all of these people.  Ms. LaVigne said that this position is the same as a lot of the others, but yet it is different because of the state schedule.  Their timeline is totally different than all the rest of the exempt employees.  Ms. Dubin said that she is talking generally, that we need to have a formal process established before we begin evaluating these employees.  It was suggested to Ms. Dubin that since this committee would be forwarding this recommendation to the Executive Committee for tomorrow evening that her concerns could be heard and addressed there.  Mr. Rosemier said that his concern is that we could recommend her for reappointment and the executive committee could appoint her this month and then during the evaluation process someone could say that she could be fired.  He felt that this was backwards.  Ms. LaVigne said that right now we need to recommend her reappointment for the Department of Revenue.  This is a good place for us to begin to discuss the evaluation process at the executive committee tomorrow evening.  She suggested that, per a friendly motion, to approve the recommendation of the reappointment of the position (with no name) of the Supervisor of Assessments and forward this recommendation to the executive committee.

          Moved by Ms. LaVigne, seconded by Mr. Rosemier, and it was carried unanimously to recommend the position of the supervisor of assessments be reappointed and to forward it to the executive committee for consideration.

TAX LEVY DISCUSSION

Chairman Allen said that she was told earlier about the fact that if you sit on this committee and the senior tax levy comes up, our committee members cannot be serving on an agency’s board and be on our committee also.  Today she spoke with the Jack Slingerland, Assistant State’s Attorney, and was told that a member doesn’t have to break away from this committee or that board, but that the member cannot vote when it comes to what should be awarded to each agency. Really you shouldn’t lobby either, Chairman Allen further stated.  Mr. Rosemier said that he spoke with Mr. Matekaitis, DeKalb County State’s Attorney, and he said that he could be on both committees and that he could vote and participate in the deliberations. 

Mr. Johnson made a formal request to have a State’s Attorney’s Opinion written on this topic and sent to this committee for review.  It was agreed that it would be sent to Ms. Supple and that she would mail it out to the committee members so that they could review it prior to their August meeting in case they had any other questions. 

Mr. Rosemier said that his question on the senior tax levy is not intended to work against or in favor of any group. It is simply to reflect what he felt was an interest on the part of this group when the allocations came up.  He recalls that someone said let’s visit that and take it up in the general budget process.  Therefore, he is asking for this review.  He spoke with the people who he thought were involved in the initial referendum who were Tony Stahl, Marshall Hayes and Tom Zucker.  He could not get in touch with Tony Stahl and Mr. Hayes said that he didn’t really get that involved in the promotion of the issue, but Mr. Zucker did.  He then spoke with Mr. Zucker and said that the phrasing of the state law allowed for the issue to be placed on the ballot.  Mr. Gary Hanson provided the actual wording.  Mr. Hanson told him that the state law allowed a broad interpretation and the county board did not want to narrow it.  It was Mr. Hanson’s recollection and Mr. Zucker’s that the board chose not to narrow it, that is, to specific agencies or to governmental agencies.  Mr. Rosemier is asking that this issue be revisited.  Chairman Allen said that it was brought up at the workshop.  Mr. Rosemier said that he was told by Chairman Pritchard that it was a non-binding vote.  Mr. Rosemier said that he is asking to revisit the criteria of who we receive the applications from, for the senior tax levy monies.  Do we want to leave it broad yet or narrow it? 

Chairman Allen said that when the vote was taken, that the voters knew that the senior tax levy was going to go to the seniors.  Then afterwards, when the discussion came up that maybe they would narrow it to only a couple of agencies, many senior citizens were upset because they thought that they had voted to have all this money go to seniors to prevent the premature institutionalization of senior citizens. 

After further discussion it was agreed that the committee would invite Ms. Olson to attend the August meeting to answer the committee’s questions on the process taken for the senior services tax levy hearings.  It was also agreed to have Ms. Olson mail out the application forms to the committee members to review and to see if there are any additional questions that the committee would like to see added to the form.  It was also agreed that the committee would like to have two meetings during the public hearing process.  One meeting would be to hear the agencies presentations and the second meeting, about two weeks later, would be to award the monies to the various agencies.  During the two weeks between the two meetings committee members could question the agencies further about their individual presentations if needed.

ADJOURNMENT

Moved by Ms. LaVigne, seconded by Ms. Fullerton, and it was carried unanimously to adjourn the meeting.

                                                          Respectfully submitted,

                                                          __________________________________
                                                          Marlene Allen, Chairman

_____________________________
Mary C. Supple, Secretary