Peoria Standard

Woodford County Health Care Committee met July 9.

Here is the minutes provided by the committee:

1. Call to Order 

2. Roll Call – Chuck Nagel (chairman), Richard Hill (vch.), Russ Cotton, Bryant Kempf, Josh Davis all present. Also present are board members John Krug, Barry Logan, Blake Parsons and Emily Barker. 

3. Approval of Minutes

a. Approval of June 22, 2019 Regular Meeting Motion to approve June 22, 2019 meeting minutes made by Cotton, seconded by Kempf. Motion passed. Hill and Davis abstain from vote. 

4. Public Input 

5. Approval of Claims Motion to approve July claims made by Cotton, seconded by Hill. Motion passed. 

6. Treasurers Report Ms. Andrews gave the treasurer's report. The two funds that are showing negative balances no longer have a negative balance. The distribution of taxes took care of the negative balances. The sheriff's vehicle fund is also showing a negative balance, but the Circuit Clerk's monthly fees cover that account.

Justcore paid off their revolving loan. Ms. Andrews received a letter stating that Zimmerman Power Wash anticipates paying off their loan. She has not heard from Chip Energy regarding their loan,

She provided the semi-annual revolving loan report sent to the state. 

7. Budget 

The rules were suspended to allow the departinent heads and board members present to participate. It was explained that the process is to go through the budget and explain any anomalies and give the rational for such. Budgets do not need to be gone through line item by line item. After the budget has been presented, questions will be asked. Those questions will be put into a list and given to the board. In September the Finance committee will take all concerns, look at budget and make recommendations. On the extraordinary list there are several options that can be taken - 1) not fund anything, 2) split the cost of the items over several years. The list will be prioritized and a 5 year plan will be created. With this process all questions and concerns should be worked out before the budget is approved.

2. EMA - General Fund #050 

Mr. McCanless started out with his extraordinary items. One item is an encoder to activate sirens. The current one is old and wearing out. He has been approached by other communities to active their sirens in bad weather. This system would be computerized and could be activated through dispatch. His second item is a new vehicle. He uses his personal vehicle most of the time. He would want an SUV of some type to haul equipment. He has increased his salary to what he believes it needs to be at. He is a department head and the lowest paid department head. He provided a list of all the duties and activities he perforins in his job. Because he has made the county an accredited county, half of his salary is paid for through EMPG. Half of the supplies, repairs, utilities, etc. are paid for also. Since we have become an edited county he has brought in $102,593.47, which has been deposited into the general fund. It was stated that EMA is not critical until it is critical. If not done well or right, then we are hurt. His salary is currently inappropriate for the job he is doing. Questioned if he has a job description. When he was hired he was told to do three things – 1) have an EMA Operation Plan, 2) make Woodford County an accredited county, and 3) get the spending under control. He has done all those things. It was asked if he has been evaluated. He stated that he had an evaluation last year with Mr. Jording. It was stated that raises have to be based on performance not like or dislike of individual. It is hard to base on performance when there is no job description to determine if the employee is doing their job. Some of EMA responsibilities are outlined in state and federal guidelines. If there is a disaster, and no one is in charge, then you get chaos. The county needs someone in charge that knows what they are doing. The budget for EMA for the past 10 years was looked at. Mr. McCanless has received a 5% raise overall since he took over the job in 2014. He has brought spending down. Several board members made statements regarding the wonderful job that Mr. McCanless is doing.

b. Treasurer's Budget - General Fund Departments: #030, #200, part of #210, Funds: #053, #054, #058, #059, #062, #069, #070, #076, #083, #084, #088, #107, Page 1 & 2 

Melissa Andrews stated her salary was set by resolution last year. She gave her deputies a salary increase of 3%. Her overall budget has increased less than 1%. She increased the fund #200 because of increase in employees. She anticipates a 3% increase in insurance, but will have more definite figures later this year. Budget #210 - she has left the contingent fund at $150,000. County Extension program and Hearthouse appropriations have remained the same. MIP, Devnet, and We Care have a slight increase. Discussion on why we continue to pay such a high price to County Extension when they continue to cut programs in the county. It was suggested that Bobby Jo Sibley be asked to address the committee and explain how funds are being allocated. Fund #059 - Animal Control -- there may need to be new citations purchased because of the new fees. Fund #062 - We anticipate receiving $1,250,000, which will be transferred into the general fund. Over the years that fund has been built up. Once we transfer the $1,250,000 there is still a balance of $928,867. The committee can opt to transfer more than the $1,250,000 to general fund, drawing the $928,867 down. This same scenario also applies to Fund #076. At this time she has not addressed fund #084, This is the revolving loan fund and she needs to meet with Sally Hanley to discuss before she can plug numbers in. It was asked how much money passes through her office. She handles around $75 million dollars a year. It was asked if she considers herself and employees excellent employees and she responded that she does. It was stated that the County has a lot of excellent employees and questioned why some excellent employees receive a 3% raise and some get a higher raise.

c. Coroner - General Fund #040 Fund #103 

Coroner salary increased by 1.5%

d. Zoning - General Fund Departments: #060, #080, #085, part of #210 Mrs. Jording gave an overview of what her office does. Fund #085 has an increase. With the wind farms coming she anticipates an increase in meetings. That means more spent in mileage and court reporters. It was asked about the increase in the zoning specialist salary. This was a new hire in 2018, so she was hired at a lower salary. The increase is based on the union contract. It was asked if she has a job description. She does not have one from the board but the zoning ordinances lay out what her duties are.

e. Public Defender - General Fund #140 

Overall budget increase is less than 1%.

f. Probation - General Fund Department #230 Funds: #073, 110 Overall the budget has increased 3.8%. His salary is set by the Chief Judge and is 100% reimbursed through the state. The officer's salaries are per union contract. The biggest change in his budget is the increase in line items. The state now requires him to break out each item separate instead of lumping it all into one category. So the line items have increased but the overall fund has not increased. It was asked if he budgeted for upgrading the current boardroom should he move into this space. That budget falls under the sheriff and will be presented next month.

g. Region Office of Education General Fund #070 

This fund is the same amount as last year,

h. Circuit Clerk - General Fund #020 Fund #063, #066, #072, #086,

The Circuit Clerk's overall budget increased less than 1%. She is trying to go paperless, but the judges are not on board with that yet. Discussion on using the document storage fund to scan all files in storage and do away the monthly storage fee. She is working toward this but has had to address other things first. Once documents are scanned, can the document storage fund be used for cloud fees or additional memory that will be needed? The automation and document storage fees could be taking a hit a waivers that can give 100% reduction of fees.

i. Veteran's -General Fund #090 

This fund is the same except for salaries. There was an error made in the salaries. The salary increase was changed to a 3% increase for both employees.

j. Update of Revolving Loan Projects 

Sally Hanley and Jim Cummings addressed the committee regarding the revolving loan program. The funds have to be split into different applications. The first application has to do with buildings and the second application has to do with access to those buildings. We are only to have two projects, but were told that we could have a third if needed. Josh Davis is looking at the matrix provided by Dave Fever. The committee wants to hold a special meeting on July 22, at 5:30 to discuss the revolving loan process since regular meeting time is being used for budget purposes at this time.

8. New Business

a. Motion for Release of mortgage – Justcore Properties 

Motion to approve the release of mortgage for Justcore Properties made by Davis, seconded by Hill. Motion passed.

9. Unfinished Business

10. Other

The board passed the new MOU for Tri-County last month. The townships/municipalities that participate in Tri-County need to approve the new MOU. It was asked that Ms. Breyman draft a letter to send to all participating mayors informing them of the changes and request they take the MOU to their board for approval.

11. Executive Session

12. Any Action Coming Out of Executive Session

13. Adjournment

Motion to adjourn made by Hill, seconded by Kempf. Motion passed.

https://www.woodford-county.org/AgendaCenter/ViewFile/Minutes/_07092019-950