DeKalb County, Illinois

Minutes of the
Finance Committee

March 2, 2011

DRAFT

Finance Committee

Minutes

March 2, 2011

            The DeKalb County Finance Committee met on Wednesday, March 2, 2011 @ 7:00p.m., in the Administration Building’s Conference Room East.  Chairman Scott Newport called the meeting to order.  Members present were Larry Anderson, Charles Foster, John Hulseberg, Stephen Reid, Paul Stoddard, and Ruth Anne Tobias. Ms. Fullerton was absent.  A quorum was present.  Others present were Mr. Gary Hanson, Mr. Jim Scheffer, Mr. Greg Milberg and Ms. Joan Hanson.

APPROVAL OF THE MINUTES

            Chairman Newport noted that the secretary for the committee minutes said that the location needed to be changed to state that the February 16^th meeting was held in the Freedom Room not the Gathertorium.

            Moved by Ms. Tobias, seconded by Mr. Hulseberg, and it was carried unanimously to approve the minutes from February 16, 2010.

APPROVAL OF THE AGENDA

            Chairman Newport stated that the agenda needed to be amended to add Mr. Scheffers as item #3A – the Parking Lot Issue and to add Mr. Foster budget process question under item #6B.

            Moved by Mr. Anderson, seconded by Mr. Stoddard, and it was carried unanimously to approve the amended agenda.

PARKING LOT ISSUE – MR. JIM SCHEFFERS

Mr. Jim Scheffers, DeKalb County Facilities Management Director, approached the committee about a problem with the Administrative Building and Legislative Center’s parking lot where several sections of it are breaking lose because of cracks and a brutal winter.  The last time it was seal coated was back in 2009.  Mr. Scheffers said that he had a few options that he wanted to bring to the committee on ways to fix the problem.

Ms. Fullerton arrived at 7:07p.m.

Option #1 would be to hire a company to cut 7 sections and repair them for about $5,000 for 1,050 square feet.  He has the money in his budget to be able to do this option.

Option#2 would be to grind it all down, level it out and put another inch and a half of seal coating on top of it, which would amount to $22,000.

Option #3 would be to take the entire parking lot down, compact the gravel that we have, refinish it with an inch and a half of binder and an inch and a half of finish and this would cost us about $40,000.

Mr. Scheffers was recommending either Option #3 or Option #1.

Mr. Stoddard asked Mr. Scheffers if he had given any thought of a fourth option, that being permeable pavement?  Do you have any familiarity with this?

Mr. Scheffers said no he did not.

Mr. Foster said that the Highway Department did have a paving machine that was older that could be used, he thought.

Mr. Stoddard suggested that we should go with the Option #1 for $5,000 now and see what we want to do with the lot.

Mr. Hulsberg asked Mr. Scheffers how long would the parking lot be shut down for?

Mr. Scheffers said about a week.

After a brief discussion the committee decided to postpone the decisions until Mr. Scheffers checked with the Highway Department about the patch and permeable pavement paving option and other long term issues.  He will come back to the committee with his findings.

FISCAL 2010 YEAR-END BUDGET TRANSFERS

Mr. Hanson highlighted, on his handouts, line item numbers A5 through A8 that he felt were a concern and wanted to bring them to the attention of the committee.  He said that line item #A5 – Sheriff’s Corrections -he knew would be over budget and we may go over our 2011 budget too.  Item #A-6 – Court Services for Residential Care- exceeded their budget by $114,000.  Item #A-7 – Tort & Liability – Workers Compensation – he explained that we budgeted for $200,000 and we are over budget by $148,000.  There have been some judgments, legal work lately in which we need to defend ourselves.  No other line items were a concern to him. 

Another two line items that he wanted to point out were items #A-25 – Building Fund and #A-26 – Working Cash that state that they are close-out funds. This means that these funds were closed out and moved to the General Fund. 

Moved by Ms. Tobias, seconded by Mr. Stoddard, and it was carried unanimously to forward this recommendation to the full board for approval.

DISCUSSION ON CREDIT CARD DETAIL FOR MONTHLY CLAIM LIST

Chairman Newport pointed out to the committee that Mr. Oncken had brought the issue of more information to be placed on the claims list for county board members to see regarding credit card purchases.

The committee briefly discussed this issue and the committee encouraged all board members, if they have any questions about a claim that appears on the monthly claims list, to contact the Finance Department to review them and that they are available to them daily to view.

INFORMATION MANAGEMENT OFFICE – MS. JOAN HANSON

Ms. Joan Hanson, Director of the DeKalb County Information Management Office, presented an update on her department to the committee.

Ms. Hanson explained the G.I.S. Department’s history to date.  She said that when they began G.I.S. in the’90’s that there were 40 users and currently  there are 450 users.  She then explained some duties that her staff has performed.  She said that Ms. Sheila Santos wrote the database that the State Attorney’s Office currently uses.  One of the challenges that her department deals with is that they work only 40 hours a week but they need to stretch the schedules to work out for some offices that use our system 24/7.  She also stated that her staff is why her department is a success and she is proud of the work that they do.

Ms. Tobias asked if any departments did any cloud computing?

Ms. Hanson said not really but that she thought that the nursing home does some sort of cloud computing.

BUDGET PROCESS – MR. CHARLES FOSTER

Mr. Foster approached the committee about possibly beginning the budget process earlier this year to plan ahead. He suggested about maybe taking a look at zero based budgeting. 

Mr. Hanson suggested that we could begin talking about it in April or May if the committee wanted to.

Mr. Foster asked if Mr. Hanson could put it on the April agenda to discuss it further.

Mr. Hanson said yes.

ADJOURNMENT

It was moved by moved by Mr. Anderson, seconded by Mr. Foster to adjourn.  Motion carried by unanimous voice vote.

                                                                        Respectfully submitted,

                                                                        ____________________________________

                                                                        Scott Newport, Chairman

gh:mcs

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