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DeKalb County, Illinois |
Minutes of the
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The Finance Committee of the DeKalb County Board, met on Wednesday, November 7, 2007 @ 7:00p.m. in the Administration Building’s Conference Room East. Chairman Michael Haines called the meeting to order. Members present were Vince Faivre, John Hulseberg, Jerry Augsburger, Julia Fullerton, Roger Steimel and Ruth Anne Tobias. Others present were Ray Bockman, Gary Hanson, Ron Matekaitis, Sheriff Scott, Kevin Hickey, Diane Strand, Liz Carney, Sally DeFauw, Kate Schott, Joan Hanson, Karen Grush and Pat Vary.
APPROVAL OF THE MINUTESMoved by Mr. Augsburger, seconded by Ms. Tobias, and it was carried unanimously to approve the minutes from October 2007.
APPROVAL OF THE AGENDAMoved by Mr. Steimel, seconded by Mr. Hulseberg, and it was carried unanimously to approve the agenda.
PUBLIC HEARING ON PROPERTY TAX LEVY Chairman Haines opened the floor for anyone to speak on the Public Hearing for the Property Tax Levy. No one spoke.
Chairman Haines closed the hearing since no one spoke on the item.
PUBLIC HEARING ON PROPOSED FY2008 BUDGET Chairman Haines opened the floor for anyone to speak on the Proposed 2008 Budget. No one spoke.
Chairman Haines closed the hearing since no one spoke on the item.
FINAL FY2008 BUDGET RECOMMENDATION Mr. Gary Hanson, Deputy County Administrator, passed out a list highlighting changes to the FY2008 budget recommendations. Some of the items included are: Item #4 – Close –out of Debt Service Fund. The recommendation is that the fund be closed in 2007 to remove it from the financial books, but the timing for the use of the funds remains the same. This will be paid off in December or one month early.
Item #5 deals with extending the Replacement Cycle for Cars and Computers. The recommendation is to maintain the 7-year cycle for replacement of cars, but that computers begin to move to a 5-year cycle where appropriate. This would begin as a “recommended practice” in 2008 and formulate a plan to identify when, where and how it can be fully implemented. Finance Committee Minutes November 7, 2007 Page 2 of 5 pages
Item #6 is the Space Needs and Jail Savings Account. It is recommended that both item #41 and #42 be eliminated in favor of a new Item #41 with the following paragraph: “To address the space needs on the Sycamore Campus for the Criminal Justice System, Attachment #E is accepted as an “Action Plan” to begin a formal process of reaching a long-term solution. The various savings accounts described in Attachment #E are reflected in the line-item budgets of the County for FY2008.” (See attachments to these minutes.)
Ms. Fullerton asked how much would we be paying consultants for items #7 - #12 on the Action Plan?
Mr. Bockman said he feels that we would pay between $10,000 to $15,000. He continued by stating that the more we limit the scope the less it will cost us.
Mr. Steimel asked Mr. Hanson if he took into consideration the 300-inmate figure. He hasn’t gone back to look at the latest Jail Study Report, did you correlate it to what we have here?
Mr. Hanson said that what he was trying to say is that we need to look at least at a 20-year solution, which is how long it would take to pay off a bond issue.
Mr. Haines said that when the consultants projected the number they threw out the highest and lowest projections and came up with an average of remaining projections. As it has turned out the average daily population projections is the one figure that is most similar to what we are seeing currently.
Sheriff Scott said that the consultants projected that the Jail’s daily population average was 109 for 2007 and we are currently at 101 inmates. So they are very close to that number, he said. The ADP in 2025 is 181-inmates, which is the projection of the consultants.
Mr. Bockman said that one of his concerns is an architectural matter, which is, how can a facility be configured so that the smallest number of beds could be built and opened at any given time. If it could be built in increments, that might make more sense. Part of the problem is the escalating costs of the construction for this facility.
Mr. Matekaitis, DeKalb County State’s Attorney, said that we should be looking at alternatives too. Most practical one may be weekend type of sentences, he said.
Finance Committee Minutes November 7, 2007 Page 3 of 5 pages
Mr. Faivre asked that when you stated that we would stay in Sycamore for the next 50 years, what do you mean? The entire campus or just the Criminal Justice System offices?
Mr. Bockman said that it would include everyone. If we need to move off of this campus because of space needs, it would be for a temporary basis only and then try to move those offices back to the Sycamore campus in 3 to 5 years.
Ms. Fullerton stated that future county boards could change their minds?
Mr. Bockman said yes, absolutely they can.
Chairman Haines said that he liked this plan because it is considerably more detailed. He said that under #2c.) creating an Operating Fund Savings Account, where does that money come from in the budget?
Mr. Hanson said that on the next page of his handout (4th page) it shows the three different savings accounts that address this issue. A. is the Land Acquisition and it will have two years going into the budget with the third year (2008) going in so that at the end of next year it should have $850,000 in that fund.
Item #B. Future Building Savings Account. This revenue comes from two different funds. Five hundred thousand dollars ($500,000) comes from the Opportunity Fund and $100,000 would come from the General Fund.
Item #C. Build-Up of Operating Expenses. First, the money would come from what we spend housing prisoners at other counties, which is $300,000 for FY2008. Second, is to try to build up money out of our operating fund, which is permanent money, which next year would be $100,000. The $100,000 revenue consists of two things, which he did not put in the budget because they weren’t sure things. One is the Public Defender’s state reimbursement in the amount of $90,000 that is now going to be funded, and the second one is from Court Services reimbursement from the state for some of their salaries. They gave us 4% more then we were anticipating, he continued. That $100,000 plus the $300,000 would give us $400,000 if we open up the Jail today.
Chairman Haines asked if we sold our property that we still own, would this money be assigned to these accounts?
Mr. Hanson said that historically this money is used for Health Services. It’s the board’s discretion. Finance Committee Minutes November 7, 2007 Page 4 of 5 pages
Ms. Vary thanked everyone involved who looked at this issue without making cuts.
Chairman Haines then asked what about the extra money collected from the referendums that were passed for the Forest Preserve and Veteran’s Commission. They are both bringing in more money then we have anticipated, what happens to all the excess income that goes to the Veteran’s Commission?
Mr. Hanson said that part of the vision when the referendum was proposed was that the Veteran’s Commission became a partner in the Community Outreach Building and that they would contribute over five years, $850,000 to that project. The other money goes back to the General Fund for the money that they borrowed from the County for the first year of their operations prior to the referendum passing.
Mr. Steimel said that he was very pleased with this Action Plan and thought that it was very positive.
Chairman Haines said that we need to commend everyone involved with this Action Plan because it allows not only some details as to where we are going to go, but it allows for the creation of an operating savings account without cutting services or programs.
Mr. Hanson said that this is not all of the answers; we may be looking at a referendum too. However, it is a start.
Item #9 deals with the Mental Health Levy. The Community Mental Health Board has chosen to enact a provision of the State Statute that requires the County Clerk to treat the Mental Health property tax levy separately when applying the provisions of the tax cap law. The tax levy ordinance is modified to reflect that change and to maintain the maximum levy under the tax cap for the mingled capped funds.
One last item that the committee discussed was the Pilot Program for the Spay and Neutering Program through the Health Department. It was agreed that the money for this program would stay in the budget until the Board of Health proposes an acceptable plan and is conditional with a December 31, 2008 sunset to it.
After a brief discussion it was moved by Mr. Augsburger, seconded by Mr. Steimel, and it was carried unanimously to forward the recommended FY2008 budget and tax levy to the full county board for approval.
Finance Committee Minutes November 7, 2007 Page 5 of 5 pages
Before adjourning, Mr. Hanson informed the committee that the County’s Auditor, Mr. Fred Lantz will be speaking to the Board at the November County Board Meeting on “Changes in Auditing Practices.”
Ms. Carney said that she just wanted to let the committee know and the County Board that item # 9. on the Budget changes dealing with the separation of the Mental Health Levy funds - the Mental Health Board is very concerned with the Jail issue. She also said that they have a good relationship with the County and the Sheriff.
ADJOURNMENTMoved by Mr. Steimel, seconded by Ms. Tobias, and it was carried unanimously to adjourn the meeting.
Respectfully submitted,
____________________________________ Chairman Michael Haines |
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