DRAFT

FINANCE COMMITTEE

MINUTES

OCTOBER 3, 2012

The DeKalb County Finance Committee met on Wednesday, October 3, 2012 @ 7:00p.m. in the Administrative Building’s Conference Room East. Chairman Scott Newport called the meeting to order and let the record reflect the following members present were Larry Anderson, Charles Forster, Julia Fullerton, John Gudmunson, John Hulseberg, Stephen Reid, Paul Stoddard and Ruth Anne Tobias. Others present were Gary Hanson, Jim Scheffers, Joan Hanson, Greg Millburg, Mark Todd, Robin Brunschon and Sarah Lief.

APPROVAL OF THE MINUTES
It was moved by Mr. Anderson, seconded by Mr. Foster, and it was carried unanimously to approve the minutes from September 5, 2012.

APPROVAL OF THE AGENDA
It was moved by Mr. Hulseberg, seconded by Mr. Stoddard, and it was carried unanimously to approve the agenda as presented.

APPROVAL OF 2 TAX DEED RESOLUTIONS – MARK TODD, TREASURER
Mr. Mark Todd, DeKalb County Treasurer, approached the committee about two delinquent tax deed resolutions. These are parcels that went through our seal bid auction that we hold every year, he said. These are properties that the trustee has purchased through the tax sale. The City of Genoa was one bidder and the other was an individual who made the minimum bid required. We now want to get these parcels back on the tax rolls, he further stated.
It was moved by Mr. Foster, seconded by Mr. Gudmunson, and it was carried unanimously to forward these two resolutions to the full board for approval.

HEALTH INSURANCE UPDATE
Mr. Gary Hanson, DeKalb County Deputy County Administrator, said that he placed this item on the agenda in case anything arose on the high deductible plan that he needed to have answered. He had no issues that have come up.

Chairman Newport said now that we have at least semi firm numbers for the renewal rate, any inclination as to what the participation numbers we might see for the high deductible plans?
Mr. Hanson said not in numbers, but he did see more interest then he thought there would be by the employees.

The one question that surprised him was that if a person is receiving Veteran’s assistance you can’t be in the high savings account.

Chairman Newport said that he also knew that if you are on Medicare a person could not get in the high savings account. Do we have any employees on Medicare?

Mr. Hanson said that if they qualify for health insurance then the County would need to be the primary coverage.

IMRF RESOLUTON FOR TAXABLE ALLOWANCES
Chairman Newport said that the IMRF resolution on the tables tonight was discussed at the committee meeting last month and we were going to find out some more information regarding costs and discuss it further.

Mr. Hanson said that in the email he sent out to the committee he tried to outline the costs of what it would be, roughly $2800.00. He did propose an alternate if you would like to get that number down to 0. It would be to adopt a resolution and then sunset it right away, he explained. You would have the retroactive part of it, which would bring everything into compliance and then sunset it right away. He said that he sent that resolution to the committee.

Chairman Newport said then it would not have any further cost beyond this year’s one-time cost.
Mr. Hanson said, and likely you won’t have any costs from the prior years. because that money goes into our pool, that we only use.

Mr. Foster asked, then the one-time cost is the $2800.00?

Mr. Hanson said yes, for this year.

Mr. Foster then asked, do we have to do this for the other ten years?

Mr. Hanson said, we have already done it and we have already done it for this year, too.
Chairman Newport said then passing this resolution would put the County in compliance with the sunset on it.

Ms. Tobias asked if it would make any difference to the employees?

Mr. Hanson said that it will make very little difference to them, they will initially save their contribution to IMRF. So, his feelings are that most people would not like this to be made part of their pension system, they would rather have the cash now. I guess in the long run, he said, that it might help to inch up your pension a little bit but it would be $5, $6 or $7, not very much.

After a brief discussion, it was moved by Mr. Foster, seconded by Mr. Anderson, and it was carried unanimously to recommend this resolution with the sunset clause, and to forward it to the full board for approval.

FY’13 BUDGET APPEALS
Chairman Newport said that the committee would not be taking any formal action on the appeals before them this evening. There was one appeal for this committee to discuss regarding the reduction of general fund expenses by $125,000 through reductions in out-sourced services and capital purchases and if not enough savings are identified in the first suggestion then review department personnel for consolidations.

Mr. Hanson said what he would like is more time to review how we would implement this appeal. He asked to bring this back to the November meeting.

Mr. Reid asked what kind of out-sourcing?

Mr. Hanson said that one of the things that we did as part of the budget was that this committee asked for an inventory of all of the contracts that we have with outside vendors. He planned on looking through those and see which ones are up for renewal and look to see if they have been bid recently or not. If they have not, is there an opportunity to save money, he further stated.

Mr. Foster said that when he wrote the appeal those are the things that he was looking at, like when we look at the maintenance contract with three of four different companies that total $160,000. I don’t know if they have been bid out at all. So there might be an opportunity there to save some money.

Same thing with copiers. Some of those contracts are 4, 5, or 6 years old, he said. We hardly used any salt last year, maybe we won’t have to spend any money on certain items this year, as an example, said Mr. Foster. Are there any opportunities to consolidate within departments? There are various departments looking for part-time help, maybe there’s a way to utilize staff from one department to help the others out. It just adds value to the staff that we already have and it helps us to control our costs, he said.

Ms. Fullerton asked Mr. Hanson if he had any feeling as to how many part-time people we employed?

Mr. Hanson said that the number is growing over the last few years because we don’t have to pay benefits in some cases.

GENERAL BUDGET DISCUSSION
Mr. Hanson explained the process to the committee again as to their duties regarding the budget process over the next few weeks. The public hearing will be for next month’s Finance meeting. You will receive all of the appeals again and you will have to put through the final budget recommendation to send to the full board in November for approval.

Ms. Fullerton asked how close was the County in identifying a new public defender?

Mr. Hanson said that he thought it could go into the new year before someone would be appointed for that position.

The committee discussed others ways of receiving materials on the budget earlier than they do now.
Mr. Hanson said that he did not know what more that he could give the members. The board has had all the budget materials since early September.

Mr. Reid said that he was concerned about the appeals.

Mr. Stoddard said that those appeals go to various committees to discuss and we are all invited to attend those meetings if we want to.

Mr. Foster asked if we could pursue a resolution regarding a bid out for contracts. How do we go about doing that?

Mr. Hanson said that to draft a policy, you would first define the scope of what you want to accomplish, you can talk to the staff to find any concerns, and then we could draft a resolution and bring it to a committee for discussion.

Mr. Stoddard said that maybe we could improve the communication for next year, too.

ADJOURNMENT

It was moved by Mr. Stoddard, seconded by Mr. Foster, and it was carried unanimously to adjourn the meeting.

Respectfully submitted,

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Scott Newport, Chairman

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Mary C. Supple, Secretary