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The Public Services Committee of
the DeKalb County Board met on Monday, June 12, 2004, @ 6:30p.m. in the
Administration Building’s Conference Room East. Chairman Marlene Allen
called the meeting to order. Members present were Eileen Dubin, Julia
Fullerton, Pat LaVigne, Sue Leifheit, Richard Osborne and Robert Rosemier.
Members absent were Steve Faivre and Eric Johnson. Others present were
Judge Klein, Ronald Matekaitis, Ken Johnson, Margi Gilmour, Steve Slack and
Joy Gullotta.
APPROVAL OF THE MINUTES
Moved by Ms. Dubin, seconded
by Ms. LaVigne, and it was carried unanimously to approve the amended June
2004 minutes.
APPROVAL OF THE AGENDA
The agenda was amended by
Chairman Allen for Cooperative Extension Update under item #5a.
Moved by Mr. Rosemier, seconded by Ms.
Leifheit, and it was carried unanimously to approve the amended agenda.
PUBLIC DEFENDER’S REPORT
Mr. Ken Johnson, DeKalb County
Public Defender, said that there are more open files then normal at this
time of year. He has one attorney returning to work shortly from maternity
leave. Another one is taking some time off for maternity leave, too.
His professional line item is a
concern, the State is refusing a new contract for investigators or experts
that public defender’s need to hire because of the budget problems that they
are experiencing in Springfield. So he is not getting approvals for any of
his new experts that he needs to hire. Last year alone the state approved
over $34,000 for his office for contract work. If they remove this item
from the state budget, it will be an added expense to his department.
COURT SERVICES REPORT
Ms. Margi Gilmour, Court Services
Director, said that her Adult Court Services Report remains consistent with
the previous month’s numbers. The Community Service Report in May had a
significant jump in hours completed, which is typical for this time of
year.
Mr. Johnson arrived @ 6:35p.m.
In her Juvenile Court Services
Report the one female in Focus House has successfully completed the program
in May and discharged. Her department had 12 juveniles detained in May.
Ms. Gilmour reported that summer
camp is going well and that they just completed the fifth week last week.
The kids have been giving them positive feedback and have some opportunities
for positive interaction at events that they have participated in. SWAP is
going along well and they just had a juvenile SWAP date last Saturday. They
are waiting for the final numbers to come in from the Sheriff’s Department.
The balance for the Intergovernmental Agreement with regards to juvenile
detention numbers shows that they have a little over $207,000.00. If we
continue to go at this rate the money should last to May of 2006, Ms.
Gilmour said.
Mr. Steve Faivre arrived @
6:38p.m.
COOPERATIVE EXTENSION UPDATE
Ms. Joy Gullotta,
Executive Director of the Cooperative Extension Office, presented an update
on her department. She said that her board met recently to review her
budget. Her board is comprised of council members and county board
members.
The handout that she
passed out tells the county what programs they offer throughout the State of
Illinois. Their mission is to bring research-based information to the
people in every county in the State of Illinois. Currently they are doing
that. There are four program areas that vary from county to county, which
are Youth Development, Agriculture, Community Development, Nutrition, Family
and Consumer Education.
The University of
Illinois DeKalb County Extension Office is involved in agriculture a lot and
natural resource education. The Family, Nutrition program is funded by food
stamp monies for them to do nutrition education for low-income families in
DeKalb County. Mr. Rosemier asked is all families are required to attend
these programs? Ms. Gullotta said no, not right now.
Mr. Rosemier asked if
public aid recipients are encouraged to attend? Mr. Gullotta said that they
require them to do certain things, but not the nutrition program, but the
W.I.C. does.
Through the Community
Development Educator from Rockford, there was a training session recently
for teachers. It trained them so that they could use these tools to teach
local government to people and emphasize why it is important get involved in
local government.
Ms. Gullotta then
passed out a sheet that showed what programs are funded by the County’s
monies. The largest program is the Master Gardner program that has been
growing a lot. There were 14 trainees last winter, which was the largest
number they ever had. They have currently 40 ongoing Master Gardeners.
There were 452 help desk calls last year that were answered by Master
Gardeners. This was a 28% increase from the previous year. They
volunteered for 2187 hours and received 607 hours of in-service. That means
that the Master Gardeners donated almost $22,000 of service hours to the
citizens of this county (that is @ $10.00 x 2187 hours of service). She
also said that the Enabling Garden at the Rehab and Nursing Center is
finished. The inside area is done, a raised bed garden is finished and it
is very, very nice, she said.
Ms. Gullotta then spoke
about her budget and the funding that they currently receive. She said that
their funding is changing. The Farm Bureau has been decreasing their amount
over time because they don’t have enough money for everything. They have
committed to $60,000 a year for all Youth Development that is what they
stipulated the money was to be used for. Her department is trying to
generate more funding because of this by fundraising (see sheet attached).
Mr. Faivre asked Ms. Gullotta if
she has spoken to the cities of DeKalb and Sycamore, where the parks are
being updated, for any donations? Maybe if you offer to have Master
Gardener’s donate their help with the park districts, they might possibly
help with funding, the committee suggested.
Ms. Gullotta further explained
that their net income is $6700.00 for this
upcoming year, which doesn’t
cover all the expenses. They carry-over about $21,000 out of a budgeted
$80,000 on their programs for this upcoming year. Her total budget amount
for her department is $382,000. They will continue to work on their
donations from the various people and fundraising campaigns.
JUDICIAL UPDATE
Judge Klein said that Maureen
Josh sends regrets because of a family issue.
Judge Klein said that next month
the probation report would show another juvenile going to Focus House for
placement. The Intensive Probation Program has been a great success and he
is pleased with the program. It has drastically reduced the amount of
placements that the judges have done. However, from time to time in the
future we may have to put a juvenile in private placement instead of the
Department of Corrections.
Judge Klein also said
that summer camp is doing great because it gives kids a chance over the
summer to focus on a specific need. Her department should be congratulated
on that summer camp.
Some things that
concern him is that the judiciary is experiencing hard times. They do not
have enough judges for the courtrooms here in the county. He said that our
county is in the top 4 circuits in the State with a population for a smaller
amount of judges on staff. A county should have a judge for every 13,000
people in their county. We have a judge for every 21,000 people in our
county. Judge DiMarzio in Kane County is asking the Supreme Court for
another judge. We have had 4 judges in our county for the last 20 years.
The population has increased, civil litigation has increased, the Public
Defender’s Office and the State’s Attorney’s office has increased, and we
still have only 4 judges. Cases under divorce court are not moving through
fast enough because of this. The 16th Circuit desperately needs
more judges. Kendall County needs another judge besides our County and Kane
County.
STATE’S ATTORNEY’S OFFICE
Mr. Ron Matekaitis,
DeKalb County State’s Attorney, updated the committee on his department’s
duties. He said that his office has 1 full-time juvenile prosecutor, 1
full-time civil assistant, 3 ½ attorneys on misdemeanor cases, 3 ½ attorneys
on felony cases, plus the state’s attorney. Since he has been State’s
Attorney, there have been 2 additional attorneys hired. DeKalb is a fast
growing county and the number of pieces that they are dealing with have
increased.
Mr. Matekaitis then
compared his office and their duties to other offices in the county. If you
take all the cases that the public defender’s office needs to deal with, his
office deals with all of those cases, in addition to private attorney’s
cases, prose cases and traffic cases. The traffic cases are between 15,000
and 17,000 cases a year. They have more witnesses that testify and, of
course, this leads to more time to prep the witness for the court cases. A
lot of the investigations deal with various police agencies, public aid
cases, sexual assault cases, warrant processing, etc. Most of the cases now
are indicted by the grand jury. This saves the defense time because there
are less preliminary trials to do. Because of this, the State’s Attorney’s
office spends a lot of time with the victims. Orders of Protection and
ordinance enforcement are also handled by his office. The volume of cases
has been increasing in this county. So far, 770 felony cases have been
handled this year versus 638 cases filed last year. They had 795 DUI cases
filed last year and this year they will exceed that. That number has
doubled since 1996 and our population hasn’t doubled, he also pointed out.
Currently (July 1,
2004) the pre-disposition caseload per felony attorney is: 120 cases for
one; 160 for another; 189 for another and 62 cases for his ½ time attorney.
The cases have changed – there are many more serious offenses filed now.
Before he came into office there was one murder case in a 4-year timeframe.
There have been 18 such cases since he has taken office and fears that at
the end of the year it will be 22 cases.
He should be expecting
external assistance from the State with a Domestic Violence Grant that has
only been considered for two counties to receive by the Attorney General’s
Office. If the grant comes through it would allow for a full-time attorney
and a full-time investigator that would be funded for 2 years.
Mr. Matekaitis also
pointed out to the committee that the civil attorney in his office not only
handles the county’s civil cases, but also IDPA’s (Illinois Department of
Public Aid) child support cases, which amounts to two-thirds of his
caseload.
The turnover in his
office reflects an attorney that has been there for 5 years now and 2
attorneys will be leaving soon. One is able to spend 3 months at home
full-time and the other attorney is taking a civil position closer to his
home, which will save him about an hour a day in commuting time.
ADJOURNMENT
Moved by Mr. Faivre, seconded
by Mr. Johnson, and it was carried unanimously to adjourn the meeting.
Respectfully submitted,
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Marlene Allen, Chairman
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Mary C. Supple, Secretary |
