DeKalb County, Illinois

Minutes of the
Finance Committee

September 7, 2005

The Finance Committee of the DeKalb County Board, met on Wednesday, September 7, 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 Sue Leifheit, Steve Faivre, Jerry Augsburger, Dennis Sands, and Ruth Ann Tobias. Jeff Metzger was absent. A quorum was present. Others present were Ray Bockman, Gary Hanson, Ken Campbell, Steve Slack, Greg Millburg, Joan Berkes-Hanson, Christine Johnson, Julia Fullerton, Sharon Holmes, Pat Vary, Bob Rosemier, Margaret Whitwell, Terry Hannan, Liz Carney and Karen Grush.

APPROVAL OF THE MINUTES

Moved by Mr. Faivre, seconded by Mr. Sands, and it was carried unanimously to approve the minutes from August 2005.

APPROVAL OF THE AGENDA

Chairman Whelan amended the agenda to reflect item # 4a.) NACO Drug Card Update.

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

PRESENTATION OF ADMINISTRATIVE RECOMMENDATION FOR FY2006 BUDGET

Mr. Gary Hanson, Deputy County Administrator, explained the Administrative Recommendations (on file in the Finance Office) to the committee. Mr. Hanson said that the department heads have been working on their budgets since late June. In August of this year he and Mr. Bockman, County Administrator, reviewed the budget proposals and are now presenting it this evening to the committee with the Administrative Recommendations. They have not discussed the budget recommendations with the department heads yet.

Mr. Hanson stated that it is a balanced budget at approximately $58 million dollars, which is up $5.3 million over FY2005. The Equalized Assessed Value (EAV) for the County is expected to increase by 9.5% overall, to approximately $1.7 billion dollars. This includes about $70 million dollars (4.6%) in new construction. He continued by stating that the average homeowner in the County will see an increase in assessed value of 4.9%. This would take the market value of a $200,000 home to $209,800. Using those changes in market value, the County property taxes for that property are expected to increase from $578.57 in 2005 to $597.97 in 2006. This is an increase of $19.40 or 3.4%.

Mr. Rosemier asked Mr. Hanson about item #30 and the Home Care Building proposal. He wanted to know if there was any consideration given to possibly purchasing existing buildings for this office space? Mr. Hanson said no, he didn’t think so as there are advantages of keeping county offices together on our two campuses.

Mr. Sands said that he would have liked to have item #38 discussed previously at the committee level. Has it been discussed at a committee level before? Mr. Hanson said that at the Law and Justice Committee space issues have been discussed. He also said that he doesn’t think that this comes as a surprise that there are space issues. Because of this, it does bring the issue to light by placing it in the Administrative Recommendations.

Chairman Whelan asked about item #33 and the funding of the Five Year Special Projects Program. Would this money be going to something like the impounding of vehicles for the Sheriff? Mr. Bockman said that when the Sheriff originally requested $20,000 for the impounding of vehicles off of Barber Green Drive, the City of DeKalb said that we couldn’t do it. Now we are exploring with the City of DeKalb for a joint facility for impounding the vehicles. He also stated that the Sheriff has been losing money by the current way that his office has to impound vehicles.

Mr. Slack explained with the Drug Court proposal that the Department of Justice was not able to approve their request for proposal because they were not able to turn it into them on time. There was too quick of a turn-around time. The Federal government has added matching dollars of 20%, which was not there before and we needed to have $100,000 for a minimum request, which they did not. If we reapply this year, we will have to come up with the money. This is a 3-year grant and the grant amount would be $500,000. However, we would need to come up with $100,000 in match money.

Ms. Vary asked, if you write a grant and apply, would you have to wait until next Spring for it? Mr. Slack said yes, we might have to.

Mr. Slack then asked about the location for the Veteran’s Commission Office, where would it be? Mr. Bockman said that for now it can be housed in the Public Health Department Building as a temporary home. The goal is to have it housed in the Home Health Care Building.

The Administrative Recommendation is now the budget that is on the table for discussion. It will be reviewed by the other standing committees and then come back to the Finance Committee in October.

NACO DRUG CARD PROGRAM UPDATE

Mr. Bockman said that he updated the resolution from last month that was brought to the committee by changing the date on it. He has had the State’s Attorney’s Office review the contract and the resolution and they are

comfortable with them. He has also contacted the nursing home about using the cards and they said that they can use the cards at the moment. The jail said that they could use them as long as the cards are issued to each individual inmate. Mr. Lehan, one of the independent pharmacies, said that he was not interested in the program. Ms. Tobias continued by stating that when she spoke to Mr. Lehan that he told her that he had seen a lot of the cards out there that have come to his pharmacy. They just can’t afford it as an independent pharmacy.

The committee asked Mr. Bockman how the County would distribute the cards? Mr. Bockman said that Ms. Supple, the DeKalb County Coordinator, could do it and that the county board members could also help by giving them out to their constituents and explaining the program to them. Ms. Leifheit said that she didn’t see how we couldn’t offer these cards to the taxpayers, since it wasn’t going to cost them anything and that it was a savings of 12% to 14% for them. Ms. Tobias said that the card can also be used for your pets and medical supplies, especially for diabetics.

Moved by Ms. Leifheit, seconded by Mr. Faivre and it was carried unanimously to forward the resolution with a positive recommendation to the full board for approval.

BOARD MEMBER’S QUESTIONS ON BUDGET ALLOCATIONS – DENNIS SANDS

Mr. Sands said that he wrote a memo to Chairman Whelan of the Finance Committee requesting certain questions to be answered, if possible, by Mr. Hanson and Mr. Bockman regarding the budget. He also said that he didn’t think that the committee would act upon these questions tonight, but to think about them and then discuss them at a later date. His concern is that the County is bringing in a lot of money now and he would like to see a plan decided on how we should spend the money. He would like to see the money designated towards something.

EXECUTIVE SESSION: ANNUAL EVALUATION OF EXEMPT EMPLOYEES

It was moved by Mr. Faivre, seconded by Mr. Augsburger, and it was carried unanimously to move into closed session by a roll call vote to discuss personnel. All members voted yes with the roll call vote.

It was moved by Ms. Leifheit, seconded by Mr. Faivre, and it was carried unanimously to return to open session by a roll call vote with all members voting yes.

It was moved by Ms. Leifheit, seconded by Mr. Faivre, and it was carried to forward the Exceptional Performance nominations of Ken Campbell, Joan Berkes-Hanson and Gary Hanson to the Executive Committee at its October 2005 meeting with a positive recommendation. There were 5 yes votes and 1 no vote from Mr. Sands.

ADJOURNMENT

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

Respectfully submitted,

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Chairman Jeff Whelan

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Mary C. Supple, Secretary