Rock Island County Committee of the Whole met Sept. 11.
Here is the minutes provided by the committee:
The Committee of the Whole of the Rock Island County Board met at the above date and time in the Board Chambers on the third floor of the County Building, 1504 Third Ave, Rock Island, IL. Minutes as follows:
1. Call to order and roll call
Members present: M. Mayberry, R. Brunk, B. Vyncke, D. Beck, E. Sowards, D. Mielke, R. Morthland, S. Noyd , K. Swanson, L. Burns, J. Deppe, D. Cremeens, E. Langdon, P. Moreno R. Reagan, B. Westpfahl, A. Normoyle, R. Oelke,
Members absent: R. Simmer
Others Present: C. Przybyla, J. Hall, A. Palmer, L. Ewart, R. Giannini
Lucy Armstrong: I live in Moline. I’ve been in Rock Island County since 1960. I’m here to speak on behalf of not tearing down the courthouse. Those of you who have families, I think it puts out a bad message. Why build something new that won’t last long. Our values are going in so many different ways. I would like to see this whole county and state of IL to be here for your children and great grandchildren.
Bridgett Ehrmann: I live in Rock Island. I will try to be brief. I’m just going to speak about how we have a hard time getting on the agenda for the county board. Several of the community leaders are going to be meeting Wednesday, September 26th and talk about their plans for the building and not giving them a chance to speak. People are contacting us wanting us to put on events like this. It would be great if you could attend. Some people might actually speak longer than 3 mins that way they can give the details that are beneficial for everyone. I hope to see you all there. That’s Weds September 25th. We will speak about it more next week. It will be in the media.
Joe Lemon: Good evening. Moose, you aren’t honoring our deal so I’m back. I’m glad a few of you got the memo for the red shirts. Today is a solemn day of course. For those who are concerned about our community as well. We believe preserving our historic artifacts is part of our democratic duty. We hope that you keep. I heard the zoo failed to get its accreditation. That’s too bad. We believe the county can come together for its constituents. We have a proposal to do that without costing the tax payers a single penny. Our position is not a minority position. We believe that most of the county board members here today support saving the courthouse. The state of IL supports preserving the courthouse. Rock Island city council supports preserving the courthouse. And thousands and thousands of constituents support the preservation of the courthouse. What has happened since I last came here? The state issued 15 million in tax credits for 4 projects for historic preservation. Those who think the demolition of the courthouse is the only way say that those tax credits won’t apply. This has proven untrue. This courthouse could and should have been one of them. We have a number of educators that sit on this board. I think that’s appropriate for our community. One of the reasons we shouldn’t reconsider is because we already made a decision. For those of you who are educators, do you teach these young children and adults that once you make a decision, there’s no way to change your mind when new information becomes available? I hope you teach these children and young adults to make discretion. I hope you take it upon yourselves too. I’ve also heard that some things you can’t discuss because of ongoing litigation. I can tell you as an attorney that is also untrue. Of course if you settled this lawsuit it would go away. How much are we spending of tax payers dollars? I’m told that it’s more than $100,000 already to defend your right to tear down a building that your resident’s want to maintain? Instead of controversy for this county, let’s score a victory and save this courthouse.
Mike Baxter: I’m from Muscatine IA. I’m a farmer across the river and I’m a river man. Thank you to the board of supervisors for looking out for the county over here. We want to have a museum over here in the old courthouse. I’m a 4th generation Iowa farmer. They are like the people of 9/11 all the people who have gone.our predecessors who built that building. Out of respect of our own dead people that lived here before us, they deserve something too. They put in long hard years of work in their lives. That’s how we are here today. Part of why I want this building to stay is that I appreciate what our ancestors did for us. I’ve been reading a lot of economist studies on how keeping historic building causes property values to go up around them. It’s not going to match the economic benefits of keeping the courthouse here to build something new.
George Barajas: I’ve lived here my whole life. Sold pizza for 55 years in Rock Island, I’m here trying to put a there.there’s no more homeless people around or people hanging around causing trouble. We’ve seen improvements in our neighborhood. And I want to keep improving our district. I’ve spoken to some folks who would like to strengthen the movie industry here in the Quad Cities. Wouldn’t it be nice if we could use the RI courthouse as a background for a lot of the filming that’s going to be going on here in the next few years. Please listen to the investors about bringing that building up to code. We are going to get a screenwriters guild going on downtown. Hopefully we can get the county back on the map. We want to show people what’s been going on here in RI County.
James Blue: I’m from Rock Island. I know some of you already. Hopefully I don’t have to make it down here for many more meetings. So yeah, the courthouse. It seemed like a fiasco from the very beginning. I’ve heard from both sides pretty thoroughly. I don’t agree with how the county board has agreed to go forward with many issues. I’m pretty lefty, so selling public land to a private entity isn’t my favorite idea, but at the same time, I would rather it to be put to use to create revenue for resources that can go to the public. There’s a debate to be made for that. I don’t care for how this board has gone forward with that and I wanted to voice my displeasure as a resident of the county.
Alfred Bradley: I moved here in ‘75 when the Vietnam War wrapped up. I was in Korea at the time. I came back to work with the army as a civilian. Taxes here in Rock Island County have been strangling me. I retired as maintenance engineer. We raised 4 kids here. We have grandkids in college right now. We need to do something about taxes. My papa always told me that if you are in a hole, don’t dig and we’re digging. I would love to see that building with doctors, lawyers, engineers, and other government facilities that might want to come here and use that building. The US army arment command chose to develop.that would give us better contact with our soldiers in the field. They brought me back from St. Louis. I couldn’t believe what I walked into. One of the nicest offices I’ve ever been. It had been bare for many, many years. They fixed it all up put some beautiful furniture in. I was there today with first army to get everyone in there, all the offices, they partitioned it off with panels. Within a year they were able to do all that. That building can offer those opportunities. There’s always federal facilities that want to come to a building like this. We need to get it off the tax roll and make it bring in money instead.
Approval of the minutes from the August 2019 meeting
Motion to approve: K. Maranda
2nd: D Beck
Motion Carried
Condition of Funds:
A Palmer: I would like to first of all answer some questions that came out of committee this week. Out of payroll came out the tax agreement for the states attorney position pursuant to a letter that came through the states attorney’s office. We were instructed to increase the state’s attorney payroll position salary 2.1% as per the state of IL approval. That went into effect July 1, 2019. It is required that the board approve that increase. The dollar increase equated to $3573.59. We have to fill out the form that was presented to you earlier this week. That shows you are aware of that increase and that was put into effect as of 7/1/19. Also pursuant to the salary requirements the state puts forth, the public defender position is supposed to maintain 90% of states attorney’s salary basis. That went into effect into the same time. Please remember most of the salary is state reimbursed. Go to my schedule H that I bring forth to the board each month. You can see under public defender salary reimbursement. Each month that is reimbursed at $8566 each month. That position is paid up through July. The state’s attorney office salary reimbursements. Half of what the state pays us due to the other half being in the liability fund. So monthly, from the state of IL reimbursed $12,660. Just to make you aware of how that all intertwines and works. You can see another month went by with no probation officer salary reimbursements unfortunately. However, they are behind on that particular one, staying current on the state’s attorney, public defender, and assessor’s reimbursements, but not the probation officers unfortunately. They are staying two months behind for the tax reimbursements however. We will go back one page to the COW summary if you will. I want to do that because I want to touch lightly on the GF position here. This would be what is owed to the GF from other funds, departments, and outside agencies and then if you figure in what is due to the fund from the state, the general fund would be $2.7 mil cash richer. And the $1.2 million that the state owes us. We would be $3.9 million cash richer if we were paid all up to date. Talk into some detail about Hope Creek due to a huge decision that you all are facing next Tuesday, currently the long term debt on the bonds is due to two issues on the bond series the total due $12,205,000. That only changes when we make a principal payment each year in November. The interest gets paid in May, due June 1st and in November, due December 1st of each year. We will be making a payment on the bond principal and interest, this coming November in a couple months $583,273 is what’s due. That in turn will decrease that $12 million I quoted you in principal only by $1,170,000. Our tax participation warrants that are due that come from Ms. Ewert’s office, currently the bank tax prinicipal is $1,082,000. That is due to the bank allowing us to pay off principal before interest to save interest costs. We did make a $300,000 on the principal. For internal loans from liability insurance only at this time equates to $1,969,000. Accounts payable to vendors $1,785,644 for expense for Jan 2018 through Aug 2019. Those are to GF for cost administration dollars owed and owed to liability insurance for our property insurance and unemployment costs and owed to employee health benefits for retirees insurance and to the General Fund for copy machine, fund, cell phone, printing, supplies, and postage. Essentially, the GF is helping with those ongoing costs. Other expense such as food and care for residents come first. We do not pay ourselves first. We are getting further and further behind with those costs. The amount due to the liability fund you can see here; that is included in that million dollar figure that I gave you. The additional amount due for unemployment is estimated at another $50,000 added to that 1.785. The employee health benefits for retirees is current today. The amount of $753000 does not include the additional amount for admin costs for $520,000 for 9 months of 2019. We are going to bill them and get that input into the system so that we have a good number to keep track of going forward. Even though we know we are behind until January 2018, these are not going to get paid, but If you guys do approve in the future the GF is included as a debtor to be able to recoup some of the costs we are assisting the home with at this time. Please keep in mind, that FICA and IMRF annually, the tax levies are supplementing all the employees FICA and IMRF to the tune of $1.5 million a year. The liability fund just for the risk management salary supplement is $700,000 that does not include injuries, workers comp, liability, or tort liability settlements. Because that’s a fluctuating number that we can’t quantify because it all depends on who sues, who settles, who doesn’t. So total short term debt not including bond principal, if everything is included today $5,820,520. Not the sub 0.9 mil because that doesn’t include the bond. That’s current today, despites our efforts to pay down our interest. I want to do something a little unusual as well again. I want to concentrate on cash balances. Report E and F. I feel like after I’ve talked to a, b, c, and d, I’ve been up here for hours and I don’t focus enough on cash. It’s important to pay attention to cash balances just as much a fund balances. You have a policy on 3 months of fund balance. Because some funds are super heavy dependent on property tax dollars, IMRF, FICA, mental health is a big one that we kind of overlook the cash shortages and causes movement of funds and we kind of have to do last minute movement of money. Sometimes just to make sure we have enough cash reserves, that we put forth a budget that is realistic. I’ve talked a bit about GF already and Hope Creek. I’d like to focus on some of the other funds. Right now Highway tax and motor fuel funds are healthy, but keep in mind there is still a lot of work out there to be done. The Public Works Department needs to maintain the funds to keep our roads safe especially in the rural areas, and to do the work in a timely manner on the bridges, culverts, the things that are out there. We don’t focus because they build and build their money until big projects come out. The Highway Department and Bridge Department are both property tax dollars, try not to short them so we can maintain an overall healthy county levy. We need to make sure they have the dollars there for the work that is needed as well. Then I’d like to go down to FICA; that is fund 111. We didn’t have any problems prior to collecting taxes in June. We did predict to use some reserves to keep tax levies down last year of almost $150,000. If we were to do that again, we would run out of cash. So keep that in mind, if we use reserves one year, we have to build up again the next year. Like highway funds, we need to build and build until we need to spend. I will talk in some detail about animal control. It is a dependent fund on general fund. If you have any questions about it I will answer those. It is still looking like it is running short. There’s only $65,000 left as of Aug 1. You will notice 3 months of reserves for animal control shelter is $200,000. They aren’t even at a month that they can function. Luckily, they do bring in revenue through tags and all they provide. They are doing the best they can. When people don’t want to spend, the last thing they want to do is buy an animal from the shelter. It’s a situation we are stuck with and doesn’t always work out well. However, please keep in mind it is spent and derived by court order, so it’s never a concern of mine. Same thing with 141. Totally dependent on money they collect from fees. Just so you know what these funds are and why they are in existence. Court automation, they are growing. They use a lot of their money to move to the new annex for e-filing expenses. They are starting to bring money back in. This is important to note that whatever money is spent there doesn’t get spent out of the general fund. We always have to keep those relationships in mind as well and focus on those sometimes to so those funds that aren’t property taxes or GF deplete themselves so much that we have to use those funds because funds such as court automation and court documents don’t exist anymore. The recorder’s office; that is due to the digital project. That has grown $40,000 in the last 3 months, so things are turning around there as well. And as Ms. Fisher has pointed out, when she asked for funds for that project, she said that was the last big project she had for that office. That fund will continue to build. Mental health is highly property taxed. This has the separate 708 board. They are only $87,000 in 2018 as of Aug 1. We had some backwards movement in this particular fund last year. When we decided the property tax levy, we approved a decrease in this fund. But then the board approved an increase in all the agencies. We need to know what their actions are going to be for the July 2020 for the tax levy. Documents and storage.they are outside services but they are also provided for by property tax dollars. Fuel tax is a really high dollar amount in tax. But as you can see, $146,000 was spent just this month. We need to try and build before we spend.
Staff reports:
L. Ewert: Unless anyone has questions for me, I will say none.
M. Mayberry: I know Jim doesn’t have more to add to his written report.
Finance and personnel committee report given by Chairman Kai Swanson. Governance, Health, and Administration report given by Chairman Brian Vyncke.
J. Snider: I wanted to amplify April’s report. WE have a reoccurring borrowing of our tax of 2.2 million. It’s a debt that keeps on giving every year. That contributes to the $8 million. April does a great job for us. Louisa does too. We received one response to looking for someone to help us sell Hope Creek. We looked at the blind bid process and also reviewed this process and it was my recommendation that we consider this as an option. Our one response was from Marcus and Millichap. If you have done any research on them you will know that they are the #1 seller of healthcare facilities in the country. Appreciative of this opportunity from Mr. Ray Giannini. His updated report is here, it’s in front of you online. I’m going to turn it over to him for a presentation. Thank you to the GHA committee for moving this forward to this committee. I think it’s healthy to have as much public discussion about it as we can.
R. Giannini: It’s a pleasure to be here. We submitted the request for information, and that’s a pretty detailed document, I’m prepared to talk about that. Let’s go through a quick presentation on Marcus and Millichap and who we are. This is a very beautiful facility. Most skilled nursing facilities were built based as a result of programs that Linden B Johnson put in place Title XIII and Title IX qualified elderly folks for Medicare and Medicaid coverage. Those two programs are the primary payers in skilled nursing facilities. I was told this opened in 2009. It is a state of the art facility. We will have no trouble selling it and it’s a pleasure to work on it. We have 1,977 independent contractors like myself and we exclusively represent sellers. We focus on what the sellers want us to do. We take the same type of listing like a residential realtor would take, we go into the marketplace, we find buyers, and if we are successful, we draw commission from that. I am very focused on pricing facilities correctly, on presenting them transparently to buyers because there is a long due diligence process that goes into buying a facility. We are the #1 seller of skilled nursing facilities in the country. In the 22 years I have been with Marcus and Millichap, that’s all I do is focus solely of senior housing. We developed an MLS program for commercial brokerage. When we enter a property into our system, we develop a listing any agent can look at, they can bring their buyers to the table. What they have perfected is listing a property in say IL, have a buyer in CA look at it and put a contract together to get the highest dollar. It doesn’t exclude an out of state buyer. WE go through a thorough process for choosing the right buyer for your facility. We want to have a good legacy after the sale closes; we want a successful outcome for both the buyers and seller. We have about 80 offices. We have 26 agents that do solely senior housing. We are recruiting people for the industry, like I was, that have a great deal of knowledge about skilled nursing and then would teach them the sales techniques in order to do proper business. I want to go into a couple schedules here.one of the reasons the facility was state of the art is because it’s a very modern design; we don’t see that normal. I think it will be attractive to a buyer. This is a facility, even though it loses $2 million annually, over a course of 18 months it will make the facility profitable. They will pay property taxes, will use local vendors. This should be the premier facility of the community. One of the things I find when I sell standalone facility is that the Medicare and Medicaid has become so complicated and then all the other concerns. When it’s sold it’s usually a buyer who has multiple facilities that can be more efficient. It’s doing everything it can to deliver quality care. In comparison to other facilities in the marketplace. The profile it has is similar to most other facilities. The facility itself the fact is county facilities have gotten out of specific specialty programs. Delivering primarily care to elderly folks. When a buyer comes in then they can say they already do this. I can see your reports and have study that and your competitors. If someone said we are going to sell this facility and give it to someone else who does this as a specialty, it is more successful. You fall in line with comparables. When I look at the facility I see no major concerns. I see it as very sellable, and could be done in 6 months. From the time they sign the agreement to when the funds are transferred. The facility is similar with household incomes, when we are looking demographically we want to see how many are 70 and beyond. The layer before that shows the incoming pop, and the over 70 shows the current market. A couple addl things before questions, I can refer to some things on the IRF if you have questions on the facility itself. I open up for questions.
B. Vyncke: just on some brief points. The total property and the total land is not going to be sold.
R. Giannini: We are selling the property, equipment, and the bond settlement. You have additional land could be valuable. Could that land be used for someone wanting to do assisted living or independent? Maybe. The development usually goes beyond senior housing and it could be very valuable.
You said 20% is private pay, does that go up when it sells?
R. Giannini: If the facility was 100% Medicaid no facility would survive. They are blind with respect to ownership. This was a fun business back in 70s/80s that’s why you see them right next to a trailer park or water tower. Overtime as regulation occurred they began to cut those rates and cap those rates. There are ways they compress those rates, and they short you. For $136 you are expected to give them skilled nursing care, CNAs, activities and no one can afford that at $136/day. The trend is to go to all private rooms so they don’t have to pay for that. You have a high number of baby boomers who don’t have money and need these facilities. I would hope that they do try to increase the private pay. Yours is a state of the art facility compared to your competitors. I think we can make this a win-win for everybody. I’m looking at all your competitors based on all factors.
Another question from a guy who’s in the business. Where does those people who are needing that care?
R. Giannini: What is happening is those people would go to a group home and have increased the cost 4/5 hold to possibly give them a better life experience. Counties don’t do that anymore. Mental illness is the primary dx is for those other facilities. It’s not a decision it’s more a general trend that they are pushed to other areas.
R. Morthland: thank you for your positive presentation.
R. Giannini: I want to say one last thing about facilities in general. What’s being favored right now is assisted living and independent because it’s cheaper. You have some pressure on you that someone with greater resources could better handle.
Public Works and Facilities Committee report given by Chairman Larry Burns.
Clarification on item #10.
Motion: R Brunk
2nd: B. Vyncke
Committee Member Opportunity for Brief comment:
R. Brunk. I would like to bring forward and item from Bi State about the long term land use in RICO. I did learn a lot.
B. Vyncke. There was a discrepancy for the COW for October. The committee schedule should be for GHA.
R. Brunk: It appears the calendar for this year was based on last years, we will likely move the committee up to where it should be and the board as well. We will keep all members
A Normoyle: What prompted us to do this?
R. Brunk: It was approved by Bi-State two or three months ago. I would encourage the county board members to attend.
Adjourn 6:51
http://www.rockislandcounty.org/CountyBoard.aspx?id=42237#CAW
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