Quincy Reporter

Adams County Board Executive Committee met Nov. 1.

Here are the minutes provided by the committee:

PRESENT: Kent Snider, Mark Peter (arrived at 5:43 pm), Dave Bellis, Barb Fletcher, Bret Austin

ABSENT: None

OTHER: Gary Farha, Ryan Niekamp, John Simon, Jessica Frese, Casey and her husband Kevin Browmer, Todd Eyler, Drew Zimmerman

5:30 pm meeting was convened

Bills

Approval of Prior Meeting Minutes

Motion to approve made by Dave Bellis and seconded by Bret Austin. The minutes are approved as written.

Speaker

None

Reports

Bret Austin makes a motion to deny grievance and allow termination to stand for Catherine Mercurio for the reasons previously discussed. This motion is seconded by Dave Bellis and carries with the remainder of the committee.

Resolutions

None

Old Business

Union Negotiations Update

Bret Austin states that the county is currently active with 5 bargaining units in the sheriff’s office and 1 in the Circuit Clerk’s office. The Circuit Clerk is not one that the County Board has control over directly, however, for the last three years they have included the Board in on their contract negotiations. Without someone from

the County Board in the room, it became a contract without similar language to others and would cause internal issues between departments about who was getting what lacking consistency. It wasn’t anyone’s fault it was just an isolated meeting where the county board was not involved because they aren’t the employer, so the circuit judge sets the terms as the employer. Bret Austin believes they have reached some pretty good common terms and cleaned up some language with them to match other departments. All of these will be three year contracts which they were two-year contracts before but they are trying to phase them differently. Next year there will be some groups and then there are a couple like Ambulance and Highway that were four years that will come up in a couple years. Negotiations are going okay it’s been mostly about pay and some of the benefit stuff. The county has released some of the health insurance increases they are facing to the union. The health insurance premiums are going up 31.6%. It’s getting to the point that what is felt to be an advantage of a health insurance plan isn’t so much an advantage anymore. If you’re single, the health insurance plan can collapse a little or get really big which is an option being explored by combining with other counties towns or municipalities. There’s no time to figure that out so the county will have to absorb it and move forward. Out of that is coming confusion and frustration about the fact that employee’s rates are going up. The deal was made originally, to keep the original insurance plans the employees were responsible to pay 10% for the employee and 25% for their dependents/spouse of the premium no matter what that premium costs. All the groups are finding ways to count that change, but that’s the agreement and the board will not go backwards on that agreement. The county has done some shopping around comparing and looking at what other companies are paying/charging their employees and the county employees benefits are still among the highest on what the employer covers. It’s just a general frustration among everyone. Where an individual was paying $68 a month this past year it will be around $86 for that individual this year, but the county is still covering about 90% of the premium.

Ryan Niekamp says there was a phone call earlier in the day with a lower cost, but Mr. Austin states it did come down a little bit, but it will still be a big increase. The good part about it is with all the union contracts in the last round is everyone’s on the same side. The county is looking to pay lower premiums and that gets them a lower share. Before it was always it can’t be over this amount and there were caps put on costs. With both sides having investments in both sides want those costs to come down.

2022 Fiscal Budget

Bret Austin states that the budget for 2022 is on final draft. He had meeting with Sheriff this afternoon to clean up some of theirs and there’s been a letter received that the ARPA funds are being opened up to include more areas. Like with other COVID related funds it’s started out strict on what could be done with the funds and then became more relaxed as to what it would allow coverage of. It can now allow for ballistic vests, radios, tabulators, etc. not just the big infrastructure items such as HVAC. It can work not only for the ARPA conversations in the future to cover some things it wasn’t able to cover before, but also in talks about the budget because there were things in capital expenditures that can now be covered by ARPA. Mr. Austin asks Ryan Niekamp for a deadline on ordering tabulators and Mr. Niekamp states early January would be the latest he could order. There are a lot more options open now to ARPA funding. It’s open to a lot more programs now. The one Bret is working with currently is the non for profit one. There are surveys out and United Way has gotten the applications out a lot of information has gone out about it already. There’s a big list from the Community Foundation from every registered non profit organization that has touched base with the Community Foundation hundreds of emails have been sent out. Mark Peter asks if there’s a timeline on when the ARPA funds have to be used by and Bret Austin states there’s no timeline. He continues that he’d like to have the non-profit thing to have a number on what to seek from these organizations before the end of the actual year. Most businesses run their fiscal years from January to December so he’s hoping for a number before the end of the year so it’s not completely dependent on ARPA funding. Kent Snider states he would like to see the numbers come in before they make any decisions on that as well. Bret Austin says that with the fiscal year ending the focus on Covid type funds can be made available in the new year for other projects so organizations will be more likely to help. There have been some other ARPA requests that were directed previously to capital expenses that can be reviewed to possibly coming out of the ARPA funds. Projects like the sheriff’s projects. Ryan Niekamp brings up the jail transport van. Bret Austin states that it has not been approved by the board yet. It was previously not accepted by the consulting company. Bret Austin is asking for a recommendation now from the executive committee to direct it to ARPA funds since it wasn’t able to be pulled from the regular budget and now that it is in writing from the consultant firm that it is eligible expense and it is a one time expense of $45,000. It will separate those being transported better and what they currently have is falling apart and needing a lot of maintenance. Bret Austin motions to approve use of ARPA funds to purchase a new jail transport van. Barbara Fletcher seconds the motion. Motion carries. Bret Austin and Kent Snider asks Ryan Niekamp to get a resolution made for the ARPA funds to be applied to that.

Bret Austin wants to look into money that Anthony had in one of his funds that they need to look more into to see if they have money to match on the vehicles he requested. It is intended to gather the information needed on this before the December meeting.

Bret Austin continues that the budget is still at a deficit in the general fund, but there’s no way around that. Essentially, they will tax the maximum allowed rate from the general fund still be short and cut other rates to keep the tax rates flat.

Other fund rates are fine. There are buffers and reserves there that won’t be eaten. Health Department is doing good, Ambulance is doing better, and Highway is doing good. All those other tax lines that are in there can go down a little bit to keep that rate flat, but there will need to be a discussion about what the county general tax rate cap is and where it’s headed over the coming years. There are special moneys that are placed to the side that can’t be used for what it is needed to be used for and it’s limited on what can be used here which are two things that are causing problems here. It’s been coming for a while now and there are no more ways around it and the structure of the tax rates are going to have to be fundamentally changed. Mr. Austin states it’s a County Board allowed function to raise the debt ceiling of the county general fund and what that tax rate looks like. There are $13-14 million dollars in special use funds that just can’t be applied where it needs to be because of how restrictive they are. In previous years the board has looked into applying some of these special use funds, but there are statutes in place stating that some of the money has to be kept for this or for that and there’s just not enough that they would be able to take out of the special funds for the general fund to be paid out of it. Payroll could be covered partially by it in a round about way if the board wants to complicate things, but it’s easier to keep it simple and try to go at it in the latter part of next year. Mr. Austin is asked if this is something the finance committee could work on in the off season like in the early summer? The answer is with the election of the board members coming up in early November 3-4 months of preparing that before an election is not a good option. The reality of it is it should be out before the election, so it’s understood what is in front of the candidates prior to running for offices. There is no extra tax burden on the constituent’s behalf it’s just the one area that is constrained the most is the general fund which is not getting as much funding as these special use areas. This year will come out balanced or just short of it. If it’s not flat, it will be because of rounding error due to protests. This is a big issue for the county and city currently there are approximately 20 currently that are over $100,000. Some are millions of dollars and it will be dependent on what kind of tax is applied to that.

New Business

ATM

Kent Snider states that the judicial side is requesting an ATM. Judge Larson has stated it makes sense to have it. People come in without enough cash to pay their fine they are needing to pay or the time to find an ATM or bank to get more out so it’s a matter of convenience for the public. It’s not a money maker it’s a vendor service that would be provided like a soda machine. Bret Austin states there could be discussions later on who would receive the transaction fees. Kent Snider states if everyone is okay with that he’d have them come over and speak with Terry about finding an appropriate location for that with the hard line and electrical needed to run it. There might be a small fee like $10 every month or so.

ACE Program

Kent Snider states there’s been a couple meetings it’s every other week. Teen Reach had a tour of some kind. But the only people Titan Wheel has gotten are two people, but those were from a different program not from the ACE Program. Mr. Snider is asking for an update on where the bottleneck is that’s keeping the people on probation from being vetted to be added to this program. Anthony foster asked to give the committee an update on the program. To date there have been approximately 20 referrals and on the 29th of September Bella Ease came to the probation department and at that time only 3-4 applications were submitted. So it’s moving but it just kind of got started.

Intergovernmental Agreement

Kent Snider states that David Hochgraber is there to explain a phone call he had received this week and that there will be no action required on this item, but just to update the committee. Mr. Hochgraber was contacted first by Natalie Roseberry (the county clerk in Pike County, Illinois) and shortly after by Shawn Sowers from the cyber security division over the state of Illinois. Basically, they have a lack of an IT department in Pike County and they are having some pretty serious IT issues and they had come up with a proposal that Adams County’s IT department could take over their IT for their entire county. They have some grant funds and this week David has scheduled an on site visit to make a list of the equipment that they would need to start from scratch. The Illinois grant fund will pay for the funds needed to purchase the equipment and then they would match the county’s funds for managed services once that equipment is in place. This would essentially be similar to what Adams County IT department is doing for 9-1-1 only it would be for Pike County. Initially it would be for the clerk, treasurer and assessor’s offices, but after speaking with Natalie and her board, eventually it would extend to other offices as well as the rest of the county offices have experienced similar technology issues. Apparently, they were without phones for 6 weeks and internet for 12 weeks due to a power outage. The state is behind this idea. Mr. Hochgraber believes with the help desk people that are in place now it wouldn’t cause a big impact and it would help with bringing in revenue to the department. Bret Austin asks if this would be a temporary assist or permanent. David Hochgraber says that he doesn’t intend to go in to fix the problem and leave he has requested a more long-term multi-year contract to be signed with a minimum of ten years that could be adjusted in the language year to year due to inflation or other thing that change annually. Mark Peter asks if this is something where Pike County will require having someone from the Adams County department to be down there or if it’s something that can be done remotely once it’s set up. David Hochgraber responds that about 98% of it should be able to be taken care of remotely and maybe at first someone will have to go in weekly to check in but as time goes on maybe twice a month someone could go in and handle the bigger issues that require someone to be there physically. Like when help tickets get up to 10-12 that can’t be fixed remotely someone would be sent in. A lot of the systems and software they are currently using are exactly the same as what is being used in Adams County. Mark Peter goes on to ask if this is putting too many different things going on at once for David Hochgraber and his department. Mr. Hockgraber states that he’s taken into consideration what the department has been able to handle with the two new help desk people and the fact that currently Adams County IT is operating with around 1600 devices currently and Pike County would only add an additional 50 devices initially with the three departments. In the future if it goes beyond those three departments there would need to be a new contract and discussion. Mr. Peter brings up that the Health Department did something like this with Jerrod Welch and Brown County to provide service for them and it’s about to be terminated, but with Covid it’s understandable it’s been chaotic. David states there’s a lot of different technological mandates that are currently coming down from the State of Illinois and a lot of the smaller communities are going to have troubles navigating that is what it comes down to. Kent Snider states that he thinks this would be an easier decision with another employee added to the IT department. Not another help desk person but a back up for the more difficult IT issues. David Hochgraber says the onsite visit is on Wednesday and he will have more information after that.

Rescheduling

Barbara Fletcher asks if her meeting for Public Health and Safety Committee could be moved to the following Tuesday. Ryan Niekamp said that would be okay but they would have to meet in the ROE conference room instead.

Executive Session

Executive committee went into Executive Session at 5:32PM and came out of it at 5:58PM.

Dave Bellis motions to adjourn the meeting and Bret Austin seconds the motion. Motion carries.

Meeting was adjourned at approximately 6:28 pm.

https://www.co.adams.il.us/home/showpublisheddocument/6252/637745615587970000