All right, let's get started with the meeting of the Ministry of State and Human Affairs Committee, Wednesday, March 11th, 2026, at 5 PM Thank you.
Heavenly Father, we just thank you for another opportunity to come together and handle the county's business work, which you give us the wisdom and the guidance to do that to the best of our abilities.
Jesus, amen.
Thank you.
All right.
All right, 3.0 approval of the agenda.
Move approval.
Second.
All in favor say aye.
All right, so moved.
All right, 4.0 approval of meeting minutes from February 11th, this is.
This is.
Don't you see that?
Move approval.
I can check it now.
Okay, all in favor say aye.
Aye.
See, we got it in the same pattern.
All right, 5.0 approval of claims.
I have a total of $71,737 and 68 cents.
I'll move to the present house.
Second.
Okay.
We'll part you over.
I guess that I do.
All of you in favor say aye.
Thank you.
6.0 Public comments.
Nope.
Okay.
And let's start out with 7.1 common treasurer.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
So I want to just mention my portion of the claims.
It's a larger portion than normally, and that total amount actually is larger than what this committee sees.
Excuse me.
My total $3,520, more than half of that was for the outsourced 1099s, I'm sorry, the rest was to actually reimburse me for conference expenses, zone meeting expenses, and membership dues.
Financial reports, I assume you all had a chance to review this, the link is at March this.
If you notice the flat-page sales and income tax receipts remain steady, thanks to the increased sales taxes from October, November, part of college sales.
Those taxes were made high into March because March receipts are December spending.
So then they should probably drop off.
But after that sales and income tax receipts were up for the first two months of the year by over 224,000 compared to the same time period last year.
So that's encouraging.
Given that some of the things are happening at the state level, happy to have that now, because I don't know if you've heard the governor is looking to raise or distribute your fund by at least $69.
So we don't know how that will affect us yet, but it's not been passed, but that's part of his budget.
So anytime we can see an uptick elsewhere, that's good to have.
Total county funds down only 1.58%, about $460,000 compared to January's month end.
Any questions about those pieces of information so far?
It was a pretty quiet month.
January was a a little larger hit, and that was the, primarily that transfer over to the nursing home for those checks in anticipation.
Dollars.
No investments in short of February, I think I mentioned that in my message to you.
So no paid interest earnings to report, but investments, of course, continue to accrue interest, but no maturities, no were actually paid out.
As of the end of February, there were 18 investments in place across 10 different county funds, maturity days between March and October.
Last week I did place some additional short-term investments that will mature in May, about $2.9 million in maturity value, and $2.7 million actually matured last week.
Any questions about that report?
Okay.
Okay, moving to the collector side because we're about to ramp that part up.
My colleagues, the clerk and the assessor and I, we're meeting tomorrow to kind of plot out the public side planning calendar for the quickly approaching tax season.
At this point, I do still anticipate a mental late May tax bill mailing date.
We are switching companies, so I'm hoping to pick up a couple of days, a faster turnaround time, to get those out and give them what the U. S.
Postal I do anticipate that due dates will probably still be end of June, early September, subject to change, worse, given the November election and the things that the I was going on August, I'm going to probably push our tax sale maybe to the second week of November.
She has the joyful legal responsibility of having to be present at the sales.
She's got a lot going on in early November, so we're going to push that out.
A couple of other things I wanted to mention to you, we did receive notice from the Illinois Gaming Board last week that they are going to to recoup something that they believe was overpaid to us last year, $3,996.08 that they believe you should not have.
They said that it was the results of a state accounting system programming error.
So basically, instead though of them asking me to remit it or refund it or reimburse it, I did attend my third NACO Annual Legislative Conference at the end of February, but I was out quite a bit, so I haven't had a chance to put together a report that I wanted to share with you.
So I will include that with Nexmo, since you're reimbursing some of my costs, I think you should come, you know what I did.
Yeah, I was there, you know, always a productive event, so, and Russ, you have any questions, that's all I have.
Just to clarify, the Gaming Commission, that was about the video gaming processing or what?
It's the, the tax part of it.
So they said, actually, the notice reads, you know, whenever there's a programming error, I question it, but it said the overpayment was resolved in a county system program error related to the implementation of Public Act 103-0592, which increased the state video gaming tax by 1% in July of 2024.
So, I'm thinking it was the very last two, because video game payments are two months behind.
So, I'm thinking something happened at the end of 24 that nobody caught in all 25.
So, luckily, it's not that much.
We typically get between 10 and 13,000 a month.
So, it's not vacant, but it's next time if you see, if you follow that with Adrian's report, you'll see that it'll probably be at least, it's supposed to be present.
Very good, let's move on to 7.2, County Clerk.
Thank you, Chairman.
Yep.
Facing election time with the election taking place on Tuesday, we are seeing an uptake in early voting.
We had 80 early voters today.
That puts us at a total of 985 early voters and 783 vote by mail.
And then cost success with just over 6% voter turnout so far.
Tomorrow we will be prepping the equipment that will be going out to the polling locations with a moving company to deliver that.
On Saturday, we will be open for early voting from 9 until noon, Monday, 8.30 to 4.30 and then election day, 6 AM to 7 PM Stewart Center is a polling location on election day, so if you know someone that needs to register to vote Hope, or if they have complications because the registration is not updated, they can do that by Steward Center 6 AM and 7 AM on the election night.
We will canvass the results on April 1st at 8 AM March 31st is the last day that we can receive the vote by mail ballots back to our office by statute.
So the next morning we will certify the results of our canvass.
On the tax side, we had great news today.
We received the final multiplier of one.
Haven't had one for the last two years.
And last year we got the final multiplier on April 15th.
So once the assessor rolls over the numbers to me next week, I can continue moving forward with tax extension.
This will allow the taxing districts going to have a little bit more time to review their tax computation reports, and it will allow me to roll to the treasurer and literature.
So the next month will be quite busy in my office, but well, greater reaching, it just might be a little bit of a delay compared to usual.
Any questions?
Thank you.
All right, 7.3, Supervisor of Assessments.
Like Jasmine said, but thank goodness today that I was two weeks early, So I was very happy because the sooner I can get it off my desk, the sooner the rest I can do.
So next Wednesday is when I can get it off my desk.
Next Wednesday is when I'm going to roll the systems so then we can start the process all over again.
And this year will be a little different.
So, C. J. Davis was doing some of the townships for, yeah, doing data and things like that.
A few weeks ago she contacted me and she is having some health Issues, so she cannot continue to do it for the townships that she had for this year.
So our office now has seven of them this year.
So about 15,000 notices will go out within those seven townships.
So I needed the extra time to get 2026 started.
So that is what I will be doing busy and stuff like that.
Because like I said, the last time we did this rotation, Sandy had four of the seven touch-ups.
So now we have, we'll have all seven of them.
So we'll go do the data, value, send notices from A to Z. So.
Next question, you will know the answer.
How often does the city reassess?
I just ran into a property that was sold in 2012.
They wish they could keep paying those taxes when I sell that property.
They're supposed to be done every four years.
So their last five Director, Daniel, and Vier was 23.
And this was way before that, but it's just interesting because, oh, almost $400,000 house.
I would love to pay any taxes there.
Sometimes it takes us a little bit of time to catch up some things, but it'll get better.
They are trying to, I don't know, speaking of that, there is a statute that is out there just so everybody is aware that somebody is trying to push to redo the assessing part of it.
So what the proposal is, is if you would sell it, okay, then like in California, they go directly to their sale price, okay?
So that's what they'll do is go directly to your sale price.
And then as long as you own it, if you're a senior, your assessment can only go up 1%.
And if you're not a senior, that your assessment can go only 3% in one year.
So it's a proposal that's out there.
We'll see.
I'm glad, I just, it's going to mess up the uniformity of things that season, but I just, I learned of it a couple of weeks ago and I just wanted to pass it along.
All right, thank you.
Let's move on to County Administrator.
It's going to be brief because I don't have a lawyer as a voice, but my next creative partnership meeting is March 25th, since the last time we met that Williams and I sat down with the trends of the PEC and went over their agreement that was getting close to expiring and that was presented Monday night and approved , okay good, I thought it had, so that'll be good.
Heading down to the Board for people there.
It was a good meeting.
I think they're definitely trying to do some recruiting and get some new people in there and help, but it was nice to sit down with them and make sure they understood the liability concerns we had and the property fixes and stuff like that.
Assessor.
We continue to see the FOIA rate bus coming through, which, you know, we're involved in the compiling of and stuff, but I feel like that's going to be a great thing.
I've been working with Animal Control, helped with the RFQs that will be put forward to get you tomorrow night, and her contract, the move in the building, that's right.
This morning at the apartment head meeting, we discussed, you know, the wellness screenings that are scheduled for April 2nd, midnight.
Start pushing out the reminders again and more frequently to get as many people involved inside that as possible.
And then we're also doing the step program, the County Board will also get them information on that.
We decided this morning, thanks to a brainstorming session and a little help that Step Up Stephenson County is what it's going to be called now.
So, there'll be a little virtual map of your stops around the county.
So, we talked about audit things that governments should be working on, making sure they're getting their cataplysis updates updated, checking for emails and the portal and keeping up to date with that, getting their year end totals to our office.
We had a really good conversation, I felt, about the Cross Blue Shield app.
And reaching out to Carrie McRae for more support guidance on that to hopefully get more interaction for users on the app to fully utilize the benefits, which will hopefully then in turn help with the renewal of some things as well.
Well, the new shredding service has received all of our information and we're going to be setting up their start dates shortly.
They sent it back to the Department of Health meeting today and they said they would touch.
So we also talked at the department meeting about our ex-mapper reaching out to get new totals to see how many people have been screened.
And we had a conversation about if there was a smaller video than what was said to everyone because it was pretty much being frisked by this.
Maybe they could show at their intern department meetings or something to try to open up the employees' interest a little more and help them better see it.
That is all I have to say, just give you a good feel for it.
Thank you.
All right, so point five, IT Manager.
So I guess I have it all set up for most of the service.
Got a lot going on.
Finished up the jail today with the phone installation.
I do believe we're at like 98% done in the county.
There might be a few areas that I need to check in on that I hope I didn't overlook.
We got some phones down in the election room that I am not touching.
They didn't operate and they need phones during this time.
So I just left them be until early voting is done and then I'll go finish those up.
So the phones are rolled out.
They're in every office across the county.
So we're completely over to the new, not only do we get new phones, we got a new phone system.
So everything switched over.
I'll have more control of that internally.
So that'll help call our ID changes and routing.
And I think I've redone a few call trees already.
So that that's just helpful for us and we don't have to wait on the other company to get things done when we get them done.
So tomorrow is the county recycling event for all the Stephenson County locations.
We have four drop sites.
We have the highway departments, the courthouse, the Steward Center and the health department.
I feel like I bring in this type of weather every time I schedule it because it was nice.
And I am not looking forward to being outside tomorrow or getting all this stuff collected, but that'll be tomorrow.
So I'll be starting out at the Highway Department meeting now.
We start off south of town and then head north because they're out of a block or somewhere in that area.
So they try to make it easier for them that they're not backtracking.
Currently working with Revice, who is our website vendor, to do checks on our website to make sure that we are ADA compliant for the June 2027 federal deadline.
So we're working towards that.
This will progress includes reviewing current content and accessibility features and finding for updates to ensure the website remains accessible for all users.
So we've been running some audits.
I got to go through some reports and see where we're at.
I do know that they have like an ADA bot that we can add to the website.
That kind of helps when they ask questions or different things that kind of help ease that.
So I have to look into that as well with my free time.
So, well, I'll figure out if you have something.
The nice thing is, is that we do have some time.
I am not leaving it till the last minute, but we do have a little bit of time there.
So, lastly, we have SD COIL 1.
We have a new server up and ready to go for the offices here at the Stewart Center.
We are waiting.
For the Stewart Center, we are waiting.
I actually, I don't know when is a good time now because I think we go right from the primary right into taxes.
So I really don't want to.
What taxes?
Definitely.
The problem that I'm going to have with that is that there's four terabytes of data that has to be moved and we can do a weekend.
I just don't know that I can guarantee that it will be done by Monday's opening of business.
So we may have to schedule that and know that there may be some downtime on a Monday.
I was trying to pick a three-day weekend that would give us a little extra of a buffer because there's a lot of information to move and to get on that new server and to verify and make sure everything's up and working.
So- So your final specifying of that review on the job?
Yeah.
So we're trying to figure out when we can get that schedule for what we can do and taxes are a win.
We need to have.
Yeah, I don't know if we can get a proper extension, but DevNet is incredibly painfully slow and we cannot have that.
I think we both experienced and I can report that we should receive most comments within a couple minutes.
I understand.
It's been a pain for a while.
It's just trying to fit it in.
And now with the amount of data that's on it, we just have to make sure I didn't want business to be affected.
So we may have to sit down and talk when we come up with a plan.
I'm going to meet with Mike in the next week or so, you know, because we have to see what all the vendors need here as far as the moving goes.
So that is on the horizon.
And we do have the new one up and ready.
We just got to, obviously we have to take all the data from a certain point, move it over and then make sure everything works.
It's just that data transition.
That's going to be the most difficult.
And it doesn't matter starting it after hours, you know, on a Friday, we still may not done by Monday.
So there's really no good schedule at this point.
So we may just have to, I don't know what we do.
We'll discuss that and go from there.
It's worth the sacrifice of being down even if it's very So we will work together to figure out when that is going to be, and then obviously that'll be a full weekend of making sure we get that.
I mean, you know, a lot of this stuff is, uh, can probably be done remotely and just watch it.
But the problem is, is that we just have to make sure that it stays going and that everything goes like it should.
And then we have to verify, you know, and that'll require probably you guys, because I won't know what I'm looking at.
So we'll get that figured out and get that Recycling of County Offices and County Equipment only correct and not open to the public.
Correct.
All right, let's go to 8.1.
Probably not ready for that one yet.
I actually checked in.
This is not a delay on ORN.
IPMG and Mark Bell, there's some agency we're supposed to go through that is coordinated with them.
It's still not figured out.
So he asked if we could expedite it and go around the process, and we still haven't heard back from that.
So we just have to table it until we get some clarification.
That's the AI news policy that was online.
So is it online somewhere?
OK, I don't know.
We either was a copy.
Yeah, there was a copy that we had.
I would send it back out.
It's just been tabled for a few months, so nothing's been altered on it since then.
We're just been waiting for a review to see what changes we need to make.
If any.
So, um, yeah, Mark both apologize profusely, but he's like, uh, I'm going to try to get this in because it has to go through somebody else.
So, um, at this point, hopefully, I mean, I, my last correspondence with him was probably Monday-ish.
So hopefully we'll hear something by the end of the week, maybe.
And if not, I'll ping him again and see what we need to do.
So that's what we said last month.
I think it's better to do this slowly and correctly.
I agree.
Absolutely.
Have you gotten any guidance from some other counties?
I know the talks and everyone's kind of just stepping up.
Yeah, I think we're probably a little bit further ahead than what some have been.
But yeah, that's, we'll definitely do that.
You know, usually you share, you know, secrets between, you know, what works and what doesn't.
So, I apologize, I didn't have any updated to attach it to Lincoln, but this was helping me out when I was in here, so that's fine, but it was on February, so that's good, thank you.
Okay, let's move to new business, 9.1, approval of ordinance, amending check 29 of the Steveson County Clerk.
You all had a chance to take a look at that.
So, our Canada email was the Wonders, our sponsor, almost after they review all of us.
So I guess I'm going to make a motion to approve it and then we can talk about it maybe in a second.
I can second it for discussion.
Okay.
All right.
So this would be limited, see I gotta get to page two.
This would close out at the end of our first meeting, first regular meeting of the County Board in December, 2026.
This would revert back to old policy.
As we heard, I was talking, Chairman was talking to me about it and kind of discussing it since Tim was leaving off the board and he's current Finance Chair.
Trying to understand who the best person or who would be the best qualified to be the Finance Chair.
And being South Scott, I've been Finance Chair for four years previously and probably currently had the most experience in that position, this made sense to change this policy and allow him to do that.
Otherwise, we're gonna have to move a bunch of committee people and chairs around.
Probably got pretty messy, I think, by the time we move the people around, it's only indirect things, so.
We've had to completely realign the entire committee organization, I guess, for lack of a better term, to make this work.
And again, this is not something I'm looking to have put in place permanently.
The reorganization meeting for the County will be in December at this year.
There is possibility of new board members coming on.
There'll be a new vote or another vote for chairman and vice chairman of the board.
Um, at that point, whoever the chairman is in realigned communities, to however they see fit.
This is the path of least resistance, in my opinion, to get us through the 2027 budget process.
Do we have a Vice Chair?
Vice Chair of the Board of Finance?
Of Finance, or the Board of.
Well, we have.
Your Vice Chair of Finance.
Currently the Vice Chair of Finance.
Chair is still Vice Chair of the Board.
His resignation is not effective until the end of March at which point we will declare a vacancy for his seat.
And at that point we'll have a new election for Vice Chair in April.
So we'll open it up to nominations.
Any Board members that have the opportunity to make nominations and vote for Vice Chair and Board?
So it doesn't change the current structure of the finance committee, the finance chair would still only have one vote on that committee.
I understand trying to streamline that.
Grant to streamline things.
I understand the, this gets messy if we don't.
That's the, you've got a lot of people to balance, a lot of issues to balance.
However temporary, the consolidation of this kind of responsibility makes me nervous.
I don't, just on go, I don't like having that much responsibility with one person, however much of an emergency as it is.
And Part of me always resists a move to make us do less work.
As tempting as that is, that's part of our job.
That's part of our job is representation.
And just because it would make less work for us, I don't know that that inherently makes it the right decision.
I understand the temptation.
Again, I get the temporary nature of it and all that.
I just, this makes me twitchy.
Yeah.
I'm not sure I understand the last work of the phrase, but- So that's to the point of, to avoid the restructuring.
Oh, this is all I'm getting at.
Okay.
Well, if I can, I can hear a brief example.
Planning and Development, Mr. Perkins, Chair of that committee.
So I put Steve into finance.
And I didn't ask you because you get corn and beans during the budget process most of the time.
Your Vice Chair is Nicole, who's also Chair of Nursing.
You have Brian Brandt, who is Chair of Public Works.
And you have Dale Diddens, who is Chair of Court Services.
Can't just plug in the Vice Chair into Chair P&D without them revamping nursing home.
His Vice Chair right now is Nicole Baker.
And again, if I put Brian Brandt, which he can, because he also picks corn and fall during the budget process.
If I did that, then I have to have a new Chair for Public Works and move somebody else onto that committee.
So it's been.
Same with this committee.
It's not secure, too.
It is, you know, and I had a long conversation with Adrienne because I want to make sure she was comfortable more than anyone else with the process.
She gave her blessing.
She had no issues.
I've worked very extensively on it.
And as far as, I guess, consolidating or changing the power of it, nothing comes out of finance that doesn't ultimately end up as board mother to be approved.
And I also have final say on all agenda items as it is right now.
And believe me, I understand the appearance of it, but that's why there's 15 other board members.
And I am not looking for more to do.
Well, and that's why I do pick the word responsibility We can all have the utmost respect for you and your experience in trying to take the personality out of it and just think of it as a structural thing, again, even if it's temporary, that's where I scroll.
Oh, that is why there's a sunset to it.
Sure, it's not a crime, I believe.
And I'm not as eloquent as Adam, but I'm struggling with it, too, on the parameters that it looks, how it looks to the people we represent.
What are we saying for them, are we saying, okay, I understand what Chairman Helms is saying, too, about putting people in positions that have other responsibilities.
Well, there's 16 Board Members.
I'm just struggling with that part of it.
The number of polls I got today.
I didn't have any that were very positive Oh, on that, on that, so- On this?
On this.
What are the calls did you get?
Six, I get calls on nothing else.
That's impressive, but at least six people are looking at the agenda.
But to me, that's a lot when you look at anything else we do.
I'm impressed with six.
We'll set up a still answering calls on my drive here, so.
Well, going back to, I guess, my previous comments, I think, not that Scott needs more to do, but looking around the room and who's doing what, then he's already done the job, I think he's the most qualified, so it makes sense to get the, I'm going to say the best person in that position for temporary.
That's the way I'm going to decide the thing.
Yeah, that's definitely, everything's, if we approve this tonight, it still has to get approved by the Board on Thursday.
And again, the structure at the Finance Committee doesn't change.
We still have the same number of votes.
He's only got one vote.
And like I said, we had a review by Carl, we had a review by the Auditors, and we didn't have any issues with it.
I think we have elected people as well as appointed people that are more than capable That's the intent, we don't want to be like Dixon all the way, right, when you have an issue.
So that's why we have this oversight.
So then let's not have change.
I don't have anything for them, but it's a men vote, two on one, a little sold or pick out, there's only two, all right, all those in favor say aye, aye, suppose, we'll get two opposed, okay, yes, yes, we're still in business, okay, let's come up with another I guess.
All right.
Okay.
Let's move on.
10.0 Comments from committee members.
So it's a little early, but I did bring this up.
I brought this up at various committees.
But as we're getting towards nicer weather, as we're getting towards parade season, I'd like to to re-voice my opinion.
I think the County should have a more diverse and celebratory presence at parades.
The Sheriff's Department always gets out and that's great, but if we can get some of the Highway Department trucks down the road or whatever else we got, I think the more positive case we can put on the County and our presence in the community, the better.
So again, this seems like a logical place to start that push.
Yeah, I think everyone would want to get out there and throw some candy.
I think they are taking things for the mobile, aren't they?
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
So again, everyone is everyone.
Okay, hold on, 11.0, adjournment.
Make a motion?
Move to adjourn in a second.
All those in favor say aye.
Aye.
Okay, thanks everybody.
Thank you.