The Finance Committee of the DeKalb County Board, met on Wednesday, July 6, 2005, @ 7:00p.m. in the DeKalb County Administration Building’s Conference Room East.  Chairman Jeff Whelan called the meeting to order.  Members present were Jerry Augsburger, Steve Faivre, Dennis Sands, and Ruth Ann Tobias. Members absent were Sue Leifheit and Jeff Metzger.  Others present were Ray Bockman, Gary Hanson, Karen Kahl,  Christine Johnson, Joan Berkes-Hanson and Steve Slack.

APPROVAL OF THE MINUTES

          Moved by Ms. Tobias, seconded by Mr. Sands, and it was carried unanimously to approve the minutes from May 2005.

APPROVAL OF THE AGENDA

Moved by Ms. Tobias, seconded by Mr. Faivre and it was carried unanimously to approve the agenda.

APPROVAL OF THE FY2006 BUDGET CALENDAR:

          Mr. Gary Hanson, DeKalb County Deputy County Administrator, passed out the FY2006 Budget Calendar.  He said that it is the same process that the County has used in other years.  It is proactive if you want to have input, appeal recommendations, study issues, hopefully it allows you to do whatever you want to, but it does have deadlines.

          Chairman Whelan asked if it is state mandated that this process has to be done by a certain time?  Mr. Hanson said before the fiscal year starts. 

          Moved by Mr. Faivre, seconded by Mr. Augsburger, and it was carried unanimously to accept the recommended FY2006 Budget Calendar. 

REVIEW OF REVENUES BY FUNDS

          Ms. Karen Kahl, DeKalb County Accounting Supervisor, reviewed the various revenue funds collected in the County.  She passed out a spreadsheet highlighting only the funds that the County gets revenues from.  In Column C it shows the total amount for each fund.  In Columns D through Y are categories of those funds, like, Sale of Rental of Property, Federal State and Local Grants, Licenses and Permits, etc. 

          Ms. Kahl then went along and explained each column to the committee. She explained where it states “other taxes” includes, sales taxes, local use tax, inheritance tax, replacement taxes, any other taxes that come to the county are placed in this category.

Under the Sale of Rental of Property, about half of this revenue is in the PBC Lease Fund and that is rental for the land.

Federal, State and Local Grant – we do receive some Federal dollars.  Ms. Kahl said, there was an ESDA Grant that we received last year that was very large, that went along with Homeland Security.  Mr. Miller, DeKalb County ESDA Director, was able to purchase a lot of larger equipment and items for towns around the County, for fire departments.  ESDA also received a Federal Grant from Federal Emergency Management Agency that pays for salaries and supplies.  This helped to pay the salary of his administrative assistant in his office.  Last year the Court Services Department received a Federal Grant for the Summer Camp Program for an operating grant, which totaled $10,000.

Some of the State grants that the County has received were for salary reimbursements for the State’s Attorney’s Department, Supervisor of Assessments and Court Services.  Local Grants are typically from the DeKalb County Community Foundation whereby the Probation Department received a local grant for their summer camp and the Forest Preserve District also received a local grant.

Licenses and Permits includes: Building permits, Liquor Licenses, Marriage Licenses, Landfill Licenses, Animal Tags or Licenses.  The Health Department does septic permits and licenses and well permits and inspections.

Fees and Fines from the court and Franchise Fees are included in this fund, like Mediacom.  This effects any homes that lay outside of the municipalities that fall into the jurisdiction of the County that are serviced by Mediacom.  Mediacom, who in turn, needs to pay a franchise fee to the County.  The other fee is the office fee.  Some departments charge a office fee for certain services in their offices. A portion of these are court fines that go to different departments by state statutes.  That is, the circuit clerk’s office collects the fees and then they are passed along, once a month to the appropriate department that is supposed to get them.

Reimbursements – Involves the Sheriff’s special event reimbursement, where the Sandwich Fair is supplied with officers and the monthly Antique fairs also held in Sandwich that are supplied with the Sheriff’s Department Officers.

Interfund Contributions and Transfers involves IMO who receives money from the nursing home for IMO’s services with the nursing home’s equipment.  The Sheriff receives money for court security because he provides officers for court security in the courthouse.  Departmental chargebacks, in the past, has been where Finance and other offices perform accounting services for various departments.

Charges for Services – Ms. Kahl explained that this charge is where the Sheriff has contract policing like in Shabbona.  Police Partnerships are where the Sheriff’s Department provides police officers at Kishwaukee Hospital and Kishwaukee College on a regular basis. Along with those, other departments charge for document copy costs, micrographics, recording fees, tower rental fee from the Sheriff’s Department, Public Defender’s Private Pay, communication contracts with 911 and the nursing home has a private pay and immunizations.    

She also took a percentage of the total fund and put it next to each of the categories.  She felt that it would be a good place for the board members to see when looking at the budget items and to see how important that revenue is in relation to total revenues.

She also mentioned that in 2001 they created the Revenue Manual that includes every fund, every line item with explanations.  They will be updating this manual and will be sending them out to all county board members when they are ready.  She is anticipating that they will be ready around September. 

Chairman Whelan asked Ms. Kahl if under Column J – Federal State and Local Grants, that you show a percentage of 6%, can this figure fluctuate from year to year?  Ms. Kahl said yes, with regards to the Federal Grants, it depends on if there are grants out there that we can apply for.  She said that the State grants are pretty stable because they deal mainly with salaries.

Mr. Bockman, County Administrator, asked if under the nursing home column, under column J, that figure must include federal grants transfers like Medicare and Medicaid, which would be the same for the Health Department?  Yes, said Ms. Kahl, that’s true. 

Ms. Tobias asked if the property tax portion of the general fund would stay at that figure?  Mr. Hanson said that that percentage is constant, overall the grand total is about 25%.

Mr. Sands asked if the county operates on $52 million a year?  Mr. Hanson said yes, and that $4 million of that comes from the Interfund Transfers. 

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

UPDATE FROM THE INFORMATION MANAGEMENT OFFICE - IMO

          Ms. Joan Berkes-Hanson, Director of the IMO, gave a brief update for the committee.  She said that she works with fantastic, talented people.  She has been with the County for 19 years, beginning her employment in the Recorders Office and then as the Tax Extension Clerk.  In 1995 the County created a G.I.S. department and she became the G.I.S. Coordinator.  They employed temporary part-time employees who created G.I.S. or digital maps. 

Her current office staff consists of herself, 2 staff positions, 4 technician positions, and 1 part-time database technician. 

          Ms. Berkes-Hanson explained that our County has a fully developed enterprise G.I.S.  This means that this data is available to every County user and all citizens via the Internet and it is up-to-date and live. 

          They produce ready to print maps on the Internet. In 2004 they had 2000 users a month “hit” our G.I.S. website or around 25,000 users a year.  They update the maps every time a street is added or a new address is added.  They also offer an inter-active G.I.S. site, which is a powerful, complex database.  This site was approved by the County Board through a resolution that made this available on the Internet.

          Their time has also been dominated by public safety, that is the Phase 2 Portion of E911, Wireless Calls.  They have had to shift priority of date, that is, address points and new roads have taken priority over other parcel information.  They have had to work with departments who are having a hard time with balancing the demands of “I want it all” to the “quick and easy.”  An example that they are working on currently, is a request from the Treasurer’s Office whereby a person could easily see if their taxes have been paid online. 

          Ms. Berkes-Hanson, said that when they first started the Network Services portion of the Information Management Office, the ad in the newspapers stated that they were looking for a network person to work on a 40-user network, which is likely to expand - and now they have a 400-user network!  They have consolidated the network for the State’s Attorney’s Office, the Public Defender’s Office, the Circuit Clerk’s and Court Services Department, which have all been replaced.

The County uses a fiber backboned network. IMO has implemented the standardization of data backups and they have equipment in every building now.  Their office also accepts responsibility for all anti-virus protection  for those departments on the network. 

Ms. Berkes-Hanson explained how IMO works with the use of their one Task List.  They use the Outlook Task List, which they share.  It is easy to incorporate email requests and becomes a valuable reference for reoccurring task requests.  This is a free module within outlook and saves the expense of buying and maintaining expensive tracking software.

Finally, Ms. Berkes-Hanson said that they have noticed since their department has been created that the County is willingly expanding their reliance on electronic communication.

          She invited all county board members to come to her office to visit with them and see what their duties are. 

          Chairman Whelan asked Ms. Berkes-Hanson, with the Target Distribution Center Property, how soon does it get into the system for taxes?  Ms. Berkes-Hanson, said that it will go through the taxing system faster than it is mapped.  She believes that the mappers may be a couple of months behind, except for new roads and emergency addresses updated daily by G.I.S.

          Mr. Faivre asked if her department coordinates any of their work with the City of DeKalb since they have a G.I.S. Department too?  That is so we don’t duplicate data entries.  He further asked if we have looked at trying to consolidate any of this?  Ms. Berkes-Hanson said that they had originally talked about sharing data.  It makes more sense for the developer to submit the subdivision data digitally, and then the City and County both get the data digitally.  She feels that this would solve the problem of duplicating entries.  They gave the City the County’s boundaries and the City adjusted their map to it.  The City also maintains the 911 points for the City, we do the rest of the County.  

          Mr. Faivre said that he noticed that the County Clerk’s Office was not mentioned in her update and asked if they were integrated in the network system?  Ms. Berkes-Hanson said that her office supports some servers and they are connected to the overall network for email and Internet. However, the County Clerk buys their own PCs because they want to buy locally, she believes.

          Mr. Faivre then asked about the voter data, sometimes the address doesn’t match with the district that they are actually sitting in?  Are we trying

to automate the registration of voters?  Ms. Berkes-Hanson said yes, it is an open offer to integrate that.  Mr. Hanson said that the County Board did pass the policy saying that we wanted users to use a standard Master Street Table and we don’t have that yet by Elections.  Ms. Berkes-Hanson said that everyone else uses that Street Table database, but the Elections Department does not.

          Mr. Faivre then asked if the aerial images are available?  Ms. Berkes-Hanson said yes, on the Internet.  How often are those done? About every 5 years with the last ones being done in 2001, said Ms. Berkes-Hanson. 

Chairman Whelan said, with regards to the Budget for 2006, do we rent the  software and equipment?  Ms. Berkes-Hanson said that we do not rent either, it is very expensive to do that. 

          Ms. Tobias asked if the G.I.S. Fee is enough money collected to support the IMO Department?  Mr. Berkes-Hanson said that she thought the recording documents are down this year so we are about at 47% for the end of June of the anticipated revenue.  Therefore it is below the anticipated revenue currently, she explained.  She feels that it may increase in the summer, which is usually what happens.  Mr. Hanson said, if that revenue is down this year, then we hope that another revenue may do better or increase. That’s why when you see one revenue going higher, he hates to see some people wanting to grab and spend that extra money because we might have some other revenue that year that tends to be down. 

          Mr. Sands asked if the wireless calls, is that going to be a big cost for the County in the future?  Ms. Berkes-Hanson said that the tools are in place, the software, she believes has been purchased by the 911 Board already.  She doesn’t anticipate a major issue out of her budget.

          The Committee thanked Ms. Berkes-Hanson for a very good update.

ADJOURNMENT

          Moved by Ms. Tobias, seconded by Mr. Sands, and it was carried unanimously to adjourn the meeting.

                                                          Respectfully submitted,

                                                          ___________________________

                                                 Chairman Jeff Whelan

____________________________

Mary C. Supple, Secretary

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