Rock Island County Budget Committee met Oct. 2.
Here is the minutes provided by the committee:
The Budget Committee of the Rock Island County Board will meet at the above date and time in Conference Room 210 on the second floor of the County Building, 1504 Third Ave, Rock Island, IL. Minutes as follows:
1) Call to order and roll call 5:30 PM
Members present: M. Mayberry, J. Deppe, L Burns, K. Swanson, L. Burns, L. Moreno Members absent: R. Simmer
Others present: A. Palmer, A. Vandaele, G. Bustos, L. Ewert, K. Davis, L. Ewert
S. Noyd on phone
2) Approval of minutes from August 8th, August 28, September 18 Budget meetings Motion: M. Mayberry
2nd: K. Swanson
Voice Vote; Motion Carried
3) County Administrator Memo Report
J. Snider: Everyone received this afternoon’s memo. We’ve made significant progress since last month. If you remember, the sheriff shared with us last month that he is cutting down the amount of vehicles he’s requesting, cutting open positions, etc. in total cutting the shortfall by about $500,000. I also provided a paragraph about the cannabis sales tax. There has been much confusion across the state about how much counties can levy. I spoke to a gentleman at the Department of Revenue, and he said that we can levy 3% sales tax across county municipalities. I will have an ordinance for Finance Committee to review on Tuesday, and we will move it along through the process. We would also be receiving 8% of sales tax with anything containing cannabis in it. Our local distribution of proceeds will be thrown in there as well. Estimated budget of $200,000 is good, even though it will likely be more than that. The sheriff is expecting unbudgeted revenue. That about $343,000. I recommend we adjust our risk management plans as well for our sheriffs and deputies and that comes to about $183,000. Any changes that may come with deliberations now or at COW; I know you are considering some wages tonight. Whatever happens with that will have to be factored into the budget. Again, when you are talking about a $26 million general fund budget, the changes you are making are miniscule. I also wanted to mention that last night we did communicate with the PBC; Sheriff Bustos assisted me that we recommend some major expense maintenance items breakdown of what we are requesting. Breaks down to 1.4 million. Security costs, Waterproofing of the Justice Center, HVAC replacement in the jail, LED lighting replacement project. I can answer any questions anyone has.
J. Deppe: Has this budget factored in the internet sales tax that takes effect January 1?
J. Snider: We do have sales tax revenue; candidly, that is just going to be part of local government distribution. We haven’t seen an impact yet, so we haven’t budgeted for that. Sales tax numbers are pretty flat compared to last year. It will be like cannabis and be a distribution of funds.
G. Bustos: That 343 number is wrong. It’s 243. I know Captain Hart spoke to April about it. Last meeting I mentioned I thought it was going to be about $200,000. We met with Securis’ counsel and they gave us a number of $243,000 and then I instructed my counsel today that I want it by November 30th.
4) Review proposed amendment to Risk Management Plan Exhibit A (Salary wage percentages charged to Tort Liability Fund)
This is shown on Exhibit A; that will be included if it’s moved forward. You’ll see we have 5 lieutenant deputies we are recommending we go from 35 to 50 percent. Captain and chief deputy we are recommending 50 to 100 percent. That represents about $186,000 from the general fund to liability.
K. Swanson: I understand why this is very helpful; but going forward to the committees what is our rationale for legitimizing this?
J. Snider: Well the justification is that it was set forth a few years ago; these positions, these salaries have a degree of risk management with it and candidly, it’s basically it’s a way to relieve the general fund pressure. The budget has to IMRF increase; step increases it’s a mechanism to get by and balance the budget.
K. Swanson: I know it’s rare to put someone to 100%.
J. Snider: We put the Sheriff to 100% last year. The thought process is they are management.
G. Bustos: Truly, nearly every conversation I have with my administrative staff there is a degree of risk management; how we are getting sued, why we are getting sued, our risk management on how our deputies do things, take action, body cameras certainly being part of that, their testimonies, and their daily duties. We felt that it was ok to increase that as our day is consumed by trying not to be sued.
K. Swanson: I’m just trying to make sure in doing my due diligence is can this be challenged and defended. If your response is it can, that’s all I need.
J. Snider: As an administrative thing we need to address, we need to institute a safety committee and spend time working on cases, workman’s comp issues. I know the sheriff does it. As a practice we don’t do it in other areas; that’s something I need to put on the top of my list after the nursing home sale. That needs to be addressed in the next 30-60 days before we actually pass the budget I think. That’s an administrative document and I’ll reach out to different department heads, the nursing home, the highway department, etc. to start at least a quarterly meeting where we can sit down and review incidents and time together where we can discuss how we can prevent certain things if we think about it moving forward. There needs to be some safety training which I know happens in some areas, as well as sexual harassment which I know hasn’t happened yet. There’s a lot of things we can raise the bar on administratively and that will protect us.
5) Review of Salary Survey of Non-Union Department Heads and Administrator
6) Review FY20 Budget Worksheets and Schedules D, E, & F, & FY20 tax levy.
J. Snider: I’ll defer to April and Amanda on the schedules. This is their heavy lifting today to bring this to you.
A. Palmer: If you refer to the budget worksheet, page 59 at you received from Jim yesterday; the Hope Creek revenue numbers. For some reason, on that schedule, in the budget worksheet report, the number coming from the nursing home tax levy is correct. When she pulled that number to give schedule D, of that schedule it does not match. The correct number is the budget; not on that schedule. That changes total revenue to $13,259,153, as is on that budget worksheet, page 59. That carries forward unfortunately to schedule F; and I don’t know if it shows more clearly, but if you go 2/3 of the way down you’ll see nursing home tax levy fund 138 and you can see the number of expenses; that reads up to the nursing home 108 for a budgeted fund balance grand total of -4,364,841.
J. Snider: How does that impact the nursing home budget?
A. Palmer: It took $13,700 new revenue, so decrease the deficit of that balance. We did not go through the rest of the packet; we did not have time for these numbers to be produced in this format for the report. They are not audited by me; this just jumped out at me because I’ve been working on the property tax dollars and levy amounts for some time now in coordination with Mr. Snider. That’s why that on appeared to me; I have not checked the document.
J. Snider: We will correct that before COW. I want to discuss the tax levy. We touched upon this last month; I want to thank April, Amanda, Larry for all they did on the Exelon issue. Like we said, when they made that deal on the taxes they pay they did not account for growth EAV. We discovered that this year; that impacted the GF by $313,000. Going forward, we want to reflect on it and discuss it publically so that it’s full disclosure. And you’ll see that in the right two columns. The Exelon abatement is back out of the levy; the end column is the Exelon abatement $545,578. That’s the property tax we are losing. That’s all the taxing bodies that are here. We have tried to make whole, in discussion with April, the child advocacy, mental health; they share a portion of it as well. It’s not as big of a dollar amount but still. Let’s go to the third to the right column which is 2019 percentage of increase. These are the increases that are reflected in the proposed budget. The two talking points that I’ll really hit on at the COW meeting are: yes, we are looking at an 8.9% increase. The biggest share is IMRF at 11%. FICA is at 20% because I guess we were underfunded back a year or two so we are trying to catch back up and get our reserves up, and third is of course the liability fund. Those are the main tax levy increase. We have the issue with potential lawsuits being settled in relation to Hope Creek; we raised that by $1,000,000. The talking points are there; they are clear of why you are looking at this increase. One thing I would like to point out; I’ve gone over this with Larry and he doesn’t really understand it so if he doesn’t I’m not sure anyone else will. You can see EAV growth, year after year. It says 1.2777% growth. What that means there has been new development, improvements, new housing growth that has increased that EAV. There was a small town I was in that the population grew from 5,000 to about 6,500 in a year because of 3 subdivisions that were finished about the same time. With the tax levy, their truth in taxation showed it was 30%. You’re not going to pay any more next year because the 30% is the growth. It equates to this as well. Yes it’s an 8.9% increase; but the net increase is 7.18%. On an owner occupied home worth $100,000 taxes increase $19.60/year and $1.63/month. Obviously that will be at my presentation at the COW meeting.
7) Committee vote to recommend proposed FY20 Tax Levy & Budget be forwarded to the Board for consideration
Amend the budget according to prior action 2nd J. Deppe
Voice vote; motion carried
8) Committee member opportunity for brief comments (no action can or will be taken based on any comments from committee members but the matter might be placed on a future agenda for consideration)
9) The Committee may vote to enter Closed Session for the following:
• 5 ILCS 120/2(c) (1) – The appointment, employment, compensation, discipline, performance, or dismissal of specific employees of the public body or legal counsel for the public body, including hearing testimony on a complaint lodged against an employee of the public body or against legal counsel for the public body to determine its validity.
We are back in open session at 6:20
K. Swanson: We are just trying to get Mr. Noyd back on the line. He can’t vote, but he asked to be brought back in.
L. Moreno: Earlier we tabled item 5, Review of Salary Survey of Non-Union Department Heads and Administrator. Kai, would like to go over that?
K. Swanson: I move that we adjust the compensation for the six employees in reference to the discussion in closed session.
L. Moreno: Is there a second?
2nd by L. Burns.
Voice vote taken; motion carried
K. Swanson: We will have to adjust the numbers when we do the levy.
J. Snider: What are the numbers?
K. Swanson: We’ll tell you in a minute. (laughter) At this time I move that we amend the levy commensurate with the prior action.
J. Snider: The levy is already set. It wouldn’t affect the levy.
K. Swanson:.we amend the schedule and the budget commensurate to the prior action. 2nd: J. Deppe
Voice Vote: Motion carried
8) Committee member opportunity for brief comments (no action can or will be taken based on any comments from committee members but the matter might be placed on a future agenda for consideration)
M. Mayberry: I do have one question: what will be the format for presenting the budget at the Committee of the Whole?
J. Snider: I think I’ll just walk through.we’ll send the updated budget out, we’ll send the updated schedules, and hopefully everyone will take the time to look at it. I think I need to just hit the high points like I shared here. Unless you would add to or take away or suggest anything else.
M. Mayberry: No that sounds good; so you’ll be presenting to the whole board at COW?
J. Snider: We have discussed getting up to speed with how you’ve done it in the past, we have our procedural manual, which is hard to keep a straight face when reading because there’s no mention of a budget committee. So if that’s ok, if you have any other thoughts or questions I’d be more than happy to include them into the presentation. The first reading of the budget will be October 15th. The reading of the levy, the budget ordinance, the truth in taxation notice, will be set up prior to the board meeting. It will be like we did last year; we will have a budget ordinance and a public hearing with the tax levy. All those things.
10) Adjourn
The committee was adjourned with a motion from M. Mayberry and seconded by L. Burns at 6:28 PM Voice vote; motion carried
Motion to go back into open session by J. Deppe
2nd L. Burns
Voice vote; motion carried
J. Snider: I just think for transparency purposes and for the record. Just mention the position and dollar amount.
L. Moreno: For the record, I’d like to have Kai explain how we got to that number so it doesn’t sound like it’s arbitrary.
K. Swanson: The rational was take the deviation from average from each of the 5 positions.I’m going to need help with what the position titles are; so take the percentage of deviation in half. So basically what we are proposing is having the compensation brought up to comparable counties and cut the gap in half. For example, say someone is at 30% below the average, 15 % increase, which brings them within 15% of the average. That was the rationale. I move that the zoning director’s compensation increased by 9 percent to a new level of $75,111.4313. The GIS director would see an increase of 5%, which would be an increase in salary to $78,254.0325. For the director of information technology services, that would be an increase of 15%, with a new salary of $95,376.9250. For the supervisor of assessments, an increase of 6%, so $82,523.2366. For the director of animal control, an increase of 2%, to a new figure of $70,272.6960. For the position of county administrator, we suggest an increase of 15%, to a new salary of $132,500.0000. And, let the record state that a different rationale was used for the county administrator. The rationale mentioned earlier was for the first 5 positions. That would be my motion
2nd: J. Deppe
Voice vote; motion carries
The committee was adjourned at 6:35 PM with a motion from J. Deppe and seconded by L. Burns
http://www.rockislandcounty.org/CountyBoard.aspx?id=42237#BUD
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