The Executive Committee of the DeKalb County Board met on Tuesday, July 8, 2003 @ 7:00 p.m. at the Legislative Center’s Freedom Conference Room. Chairman Robert Pritchard called the meeting to order.  Members present were Marlene Allen, John Wilson, Ruth Anne Tobias and Dennis Sands.  Jeff Metzger, Sue Leifheit and Roger Steimel were absent.  Others present were Ray Bockman, Gary Hanson, Diane Strand, Eileen Dubin, Julia Fauci, Steve Slack, Julia Fullerton, Margaret Whitwell and Greg Millburg.

APPROVAL OF MINUTES

            Moved by Mr. Wilson, seconded by Ms. Allen, and it was carried unanimously to accept the
minutes of the June 10, 2003 meeting. 

APPROVAL OF AGENDA

Chairman Pritchard asked to add item # 5B. Evaluation of Exempt Employee to the agenda.  Mr. Bockman asked to add another item for an executive session under item #4B. Acquisition of Real Estate.  Moved by Ms. Tobias, seconded by Ms. Allen, and it was carried unanimously to approve the amended agenda.

APPOINTMENTS

            Chairman Pritchard recommended the following appointments:

Somonauk Cemetery Association:     Karl Lundeen
                                                             JackMorsch
                                                             JaneSchuh Thompson
                                                             StanMagnuson
                                                             Roy Walgren
                                                             All reappointments for a term of 6 years,
                                                             until 07/01/2009.

Fairdale Street Light District:

                                                            Arthur Mellor, reappointment for a term of 3
   years, until 07/01/2006.

Moved by Ms. Tobias, seconded by Ms. Allen, and it was carried unanimously to
approve the appointments as presented by Chairman Pritchard, and to forward them onto
 the full board for approval.

Mr. Sands asked Chairman Pritchard how the names for appointments are submitted to his office, who recommends these people?   Chairman Pritchard said that there are statutes that state which districts we must appoint people to.  The process that we use is that we send letters to the various boards and committees and ask them to make recommendations.  Those recommendations then are brought before the executive committee and the county board for approval.  Chairman Pritchard encouraged the board members to bring names forward to him for suggested appointments to the various boards if they know of anyone that may want to serve.  He also said that he will try to let the board members know 30-days in advance of what committees and boards will have appointments expiring in the next month or so. 

Supervisor of Assessments:                      Margaret Whitwell, reappointment for a term of 4 years, until 08/01/2007.

Moved by Ms. Allen, seconded by Mr. Wilson, and it was carried unanimously to approve the appointment of Ms. Whitwell as presented by Chairman Pritchard, and to forward it to the full board for approval.

Chairman Pritchard asked Ms. Allen to summarized for the committee what her committee’s decision was last evening on this appointment.  Ms. Allen said that she felt that her committee treated an appointed official badly last evening.  They sent a recommendation of an appointment to the executive committee without a name.  To her that was unfair.  Ms. Whitwell has been with us for 12 years and performed her duties well.  Anyone that wants to know what her department’s duties are, Ms. Whitwell will explain the duties to them in detail.  She works well with all the assessors in the county.  For her committee to question if Ms. Whitwell should be appointed again is bad. 

Chairman Pritchard explained to the committee members that with this appointment we need to certify to the Department of Revenue who our  Supervisor of Assessments is so that she can get some compensation through the state.  We have this window to do that and the fact that this window occurs at a different time than our normal exempt employee evaluation is a process that has been ongoing.  So it’s not something that is new or different, it’s just something that is out of sync every fourth year. Therefore, from the action of the public services committee’s non-recommendation of anyone, he brings to the executive committee this evening is the name of Margaret Whitwell for reappointment of Supervisor of Assessments. 

Moved by Ms. Allen, seconded by Mr. Wilson, and it was carried unanimously to recommend this appointment to the full board for approval. 

Ms. Dubin discussed the fact that the question that came up last evening at public services is that there really should be a performance evaluation and the board has not really done some sort of process of evaluation yet.  It was nothing personal at all, she continued.  She said that the only process that she has seen at the committee level since she has been on the board is that the department heads come into their respective committee meetings for evaluation and discuss what they have done and what their goals are for the future.  Chairman Pritchard said that that is not true, we have had a process in place for at least five years, with an instrument that the committee is free to use and we are going to talk about that a little later in this meeting.  Mr. Sands said that the appointment is different than Ms. Whitwell’s evaluation, the appointment has nothing to do with her evaluation and that it is not fair to her to tie the two together.  He said that he feels that Ms. Whitwell is very competent in her capacity as Supervisor of Assessments.

EXECUTIVE SESSION:  ACQUISITION OF REAL ESTATE

Moved by Ms. Allen, seconded by Mr. Sands, and it was carried unanimously to move into closed session for the purpose of discussing acquisition of real estate @ 7:20p.m.

Moved by Ms. Allen, seconded by Mr. Wilson, and it was carried unanimously to return to open session @ 7:40p.m.  No action was taken. 

APPROVAL OF THE COUNTY BOARD AGENDA

Mr. Ray Bockman, County Administrator, reviewed the county board agenda for the board meeting to be held on July 16, 2003.  Chairman Pritchard said that there is another item under the Executive Committee/Labor Relations Committee for Collective Bargaining that is on the agenda. 

Moved by Mr. Wilson, seconded by Ms. Tobias, and it was carried unanimously to accept the county board agenda as presented.

EVALUATION OF EXEMPT EMPLOYEES

Chairman Pritchard said that the process starts before the budget each year, he asks all the committees to evaluate exempt employees that report to them in a two-phased approach.  One is to evaluate their performance and the second one is that the executive committee will discuss the compensation for that individual employee.  That means that this committee will need to review all exempt employee evaluations in September.  This means that starting with the Planning and Regulations Committee evaluations would start in August.  So you will have opportunities to look at this instrument and if you choose to make changes, we could make those and discuss them at our next meeting in August.  If it is approved at the committee level, we could bring it before the full board, if need be, in August and then we could implement the changes in August. 

Chairman Pritchard continued by explaining the process further with the committee.  He said that he asks the committees to consider the employee based on their past performance and their goals.  That’s why at all of your meetings the employees come in and share this information with you.  The board came up with this instrument a number of years ago by looking at how that individual employee affects change, how they lead people, how they develop results, do they have a sense of operations and business administration and then how they communicate with the board, customers and their employees.  We are always free to modify this instrument if the board chooses to. 

After further discussion it was agreed that Mr. Bockman should be involved in the evaluation process for his input on each department heads performance.  Mr. Bockman suggested that Mr. Hanson should also be included to get his input too. 

Chairman Pritchard further explained to the committee that Mr. Faivre’s sub-committee is discussing rewards for exemplary performance.  He also said that when you are reviewing this process to try and ask yourself, “how is this person leading a department?”  Think about all of this and we will discuss it next month.  If there are any changes we will use the revised instrument with all committees.

GENERAL DISCUSSION

Ms. Allen, Chairman of the Public Services Committee, said that her committee also had Mr. Gil Morrison come and introduce himself to the committee members.  He said he has started his job and that with the budget crunch in the State budget and that he hopes that they will be able to “iron it out.”

Mr. Wilson, of the Public Infrastructure and Development Committee, said that they had no meeting for the past month.

Ms. Tobias, Chairman of the Public Policy Committee, said they did not have a meeting in July.  They are working on the Great American Smoke-out and are trying to get 3,000 signatures by the end of July 2003. 

Mr. Dennis Sands, Vice-Chairman of the Planning & Regulations Committee, said that his committee held a second hearing on Our Savior’s Lutheran Church and felt that it went very well. 

Chairman Pritchard stated that he wanted to inform the committee about two issues that deal with Transportation and Infrastructure.  The Regional Planning Commission, as it is developing its comprehensive plan for the county and the roles for all the municipalities, are looking at transportation corridors.  They are trying to raise awareness that if we have a good corridor then we need to keep it and limit access so that we can keep traffic moving on these particular roads. 

The other responsibilities of the Public Infrastructure and Development Committee deals with economic development.  The Mayor of DeKalb has called a meeting of all the taxing bodies to discuss tax abatement for new industries.  The County has participated in such an abatement with the City of Sycamore in the past.  When all the communities in the Regional Planning Commission have talked about their community of the future they mentioned that they want more commercial and industrial development.  Mr. Van Buer’s sub-committee is discussing this issue currently. 

Ms. Fauci asked if Mr. Hopkins could come before their committee and make a presentation?  Chairman Pritchard said that he just gave a presentation to the sub-committee and he also has given an update to the full county board.  Mr. Wilson said that he usually comes in September of each year to give a presentation to the Public Infrastructure and Development Committee.

Chairman Pritchard also informed the committee that all the communities involved in the Regional Planning Commission were asked if they could share the cost of $5,000.00 for the next year of operations for the commission?  They responded that they would all like to continue the Regional Planning Commission for another year and share the costs, which are about $500.00 a year, per community.

ADJOURNMENT

            Moved by Ms. Allen, seconded by Ms. Wilson, and it was voted unanimously to adjourn the meeting.

                                                                        Respectfully submitted,

                                                                        _________________________________
                                                                        Robert W. Pritchard, Chairman

_______________________________
Mary C. Supple, Secretary