Draft

FINANCE COMMITTEE MINUTES

March 5, 2008

          The Finance Committee of the DeKalb County Board, met on Wednesday, March 5, 2008 @ 7:00p.m. in the Administration Building’s Conference Room East.  Chairman Michael Haines called the meeting to order.  Members present were John Hulseberg, Jerry Augsburger, Julia Fullerton, and Roger Steimel. Ms. Tobias and Mr. Faivre were absent.  Others present were Gary Hanson, Ken Campbell and Benji Feldheim.

APPROVAL OF THE MINUTES

          Moved by Ms. Fullerton, seconded by Mr. Augsburger, and it was carried unanimously to approve the minutes from February 13 and February 20, 2008.

APPROVAL OF THE AGENDA

            Moved by Mr. Hulseberg, seconded by Mr. Steimel, and it was carried unanimously to approve the agenda.

BOARD OF REVIEW COMPENSATION PLAN

          Mr. Gary Hanson, Deputy County Administrator, said that the resolution before the committee this evening deals with compensation for the members of the Board of Review.  His department tries to periodically write procedures and look for gaps.  One of the things that they saw could be a potential gap that involved the Board of Review who currently gets paid once a year.  The question comes up as to what would happen if one of them quits during the year?  The normal thing would be to pro-rate it to the number of days.  The problem with the board of review is that they have very little work to do at the beginning of the year, a huge amount of work for the next few months with the hearings and then they taper off at the end of the year with little work again.  So pro-rating them is not really fair and the resolution is trying to address that issue.  He worked with the Supervisor of Assessments and the Board of Review to make it fair and the resolution reflects their results.

          Mr. Steimel asked how many hours do they work?

          Mr. Hanson said that they would have heard a little over 300 cases this year because of the quadrennial year.  They are a three-member board that serves two-year terms. 

          Moved by Mr. Steimel, seconded by Mr. Hulseberg, and it was carried unanimously to forward this resolution to the full board for approval. 

JAIL ACTION PLAN-UPDATE PREVIOUS CONSULTANT STUDIES    

          Mr. Hanson said that the Criminal Justice Action Plan approved in the FY2008 Budget calls for an update to the various consultant studies so that we can be ready to go for a referendum if we decide to do that.  We thought the earliest time that we would go for a referendum would be 2010. 

          Mr. Hanson said that on page 2 he outlined some of the sequence of events that are needed to get ready for that.  The first thing that we need to do is project the bed count. Once we know that - we can decide how big the building needs to be, how we need to staff it, etc. 

          The reason that the year 2035 is used is so that we can use the new jail for at least 20 years with a projected opening in 2013 or 2014, that is, whether we find the funding source or we do a referendum, Mr. Hanson continued.

          He hopes that we would only need to hire the consultants to update the study and that his hopes would be that the County staff would continue to  update it.

          On page 3 it shows 6 different scenarios for the jail population. One of the questions that he raises is that we have six areas - but do you want seven or eight of them?

          The committee asked who the consultant is?  Mr. Hanson said that it would be Mark Goldman who did the original study.

          Ms. Fullerton asked if we know the average amount of days that people are housed in the jail? 

          Mr. Hanson and other committee members did not know.

          The committee asked Mr. Hanson what year was the study done in? 

          Mr. Hanson said it was released in early 2004, but most of it happened in 2003 and was based on 2002 data.

          Mr. Steimel said that when the report first came out he was concerned about the numbers escalating too rapidly.  The county population is low, we are over 100,000 people now.

Mr. Hanson said that this is not the county population on this page, it is the population of the jail based on the percentage of our county’s population growth.

          After further discussion, it was the consensus of the committee to direct Mr. Hanson to contact Mr. Mark Goldman to update the jail population study.  They asked Mr. Hanson if they needed a resolution?

          Mr. Hanson said no they did not.  He did say that when he receives the updated study that he will bring it back to the committee and then this committee can decide which column it wants to use (found on page 3).

          Mr. Hanson then stated that on page 4 it shows how to prepare for a referendum and form a Citizen’s Committee to get things started.

RESOLUTION TO MAINTAIN COUNTY SERVICES IN SYCAMORE UNTIL 2060

          Mr. Hanson said that the resolution to maintain county services in Sycamore until 2060 does commit the board to stay here in Sycamore and helps staff to plan for the future on this campus.  It doesn’t mean that future boards could make other decisions, but it is a basis as to why we do what we do.  This resolution would address the needs for the Judicial, Public Safety and Administrative purposes and any new construction projects that include these offices to remain here on the Sycamore Campus until at least 2060.  

          Moved by Mr. Hulseberg, seconded by Mr. Augsburger, and it was carried unanimously to forward this resolution to the full board for approval.

COMMUNITY OUTREACH BUILDING – CHEMICAL FIRE SUPPRESSION FOR STORAGE.

          Mr. Hanson said that Dr. Baker with the Public Building Commission (PBC) had questioned the commission as to what is the PBC’s responsibility for protecting county records?  The State’s Attorney’s Office said that each individual office holders are responsible for their own records.

The other question deals with the space where we keep the records.  The

PBC discussed that we have several major storage facilities around the county.  All buildings have sprinkler systems, in accordance with NFPA 13, in place to protect against fires in the assigned storage spaces throughout the County Buildings.

With the Outreach Building being a new construction project for the County, that will have storage space in it for county offices, Dr. Baker suggested it may be an appropriate time to consider a chemical-based system.  The estimated cost is $110,000.

          Mr. Hanson said that this amount of $110,000 is not in the building budget and he is not advocating the proposed change, but wanted to give the County Board an opportunity to consider this change.

          The committee asked Mr. Hanson how are the records stored now? 

          Mr. Hanson said they are kept in banker boxes.

          Mr. Augsburger suggested to inquiry at other counties to see what they are doing with their records.  Historical documents would have some concerns.  Are libraries doing chemical suppression systems?  Any place that has paper documents of historical value, and have similar concerns would be places to ask. 

          The committee also discussed that chemical-suppression system still does not protect the records from flooding.

          After a brief discussion it was the consensus of the committee to keep the water suppression system that is already in place. 

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