Well, let's get started with the Administration Legal Affairs Committee, Wednesday April 8th, 2026 at 5 PM 2.0 prayer.
Would you like to do that or not?
Okay.
Thank you, Steve.
I would probably thank you for the members around this table tonight.
I ask that you bless each one.
We ask that you would give us wisdom and help us to judiciously do the business of our county in Jesus' name.
Amen.
All right, 3.0 approval that's in a few minutes.
I'm first and a second here.
All those in favor say aye.
I have the unanimous.
All right.
4.0 Approval meeting minutes from March 11th, 20.6.
Second.
All right.
5.0 Claims that We've got cash requirements, $88,591.05, maintenance and 60 buys, $0.09, a total of $89,256.34.
That's a pleasure.
I make a move to accept that.
All right, I'll second it.
Okay.
Then I have a question.
You do?
Okay.
H-12 of those claims.
It's got the Stewart Center rents.
I'm just a little confused.
I know it's a different invoice number, but we're, if you look at the dates for the rental, it goes from, in the first payment, it goes from 3-1 to 4-16.
And then you drop down to the next payment, same amounts, but from 4-1 to 4-16.
It seems like we're duplicating.
I just want to take a look at the actual invoice itself versus what was keyed in by the department.
So there are two different invoices.
Yeah.
One says invoice date March 1st, one says invoice date April 1st.
So what are the other two dates I hear there?
Yeah, I think that's a typo.
March 1st.
Well, no, I'm sorry, April 16th is the date.
It's the County Board.
That's the due date.
Right, that's our, that's your County Board meeting date that we registered.
I think that we did not receive the invoice in a timely fashion for March 1, so that's why there's two.
Thank you very much.
That's what I thought I wanted to look at.
When you said the 16th, I was like, why would it say the 16th?
Because we're not even there yet.
Okay, very good.
Thank you.
All right.
We have a first and a second.
Any other questions?
All right, all those in favor say aye.
How about 6.0 public comments?
I don't know if anyone else is here.
So let's jump down to 7.1, County Presenter.
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I'm hoping everybody had a chance to review the March financial report.
I sent that out on Sunday night.
I'm sure you spent your Easter evening worrying over these details.
Another steady month, I guess that's just the best way to describe it, income tax, sales tax, receipts remain steady, as the monthly report indicates that aggregate receipts increased by 33,000 and change over the previous month, you can see the total year to date is 2.3 plus million, that public safety tax, I don't know if you noticed, was 315,000, that's a little higher, up to, you know, between 75 $100,000 higher than it usually is.
There's one time during the year that the Department of Revenue issues a supplemental payment.
And that was in March this year.
So that's not normally $315,000.
So that gave that a little boost.
So as of the end of the month, total county funds were down if you go to if you look at page five, which I think is usually one of the most important pages down 2.81% compared to the end of February, which is 728,000 in change, again, absolutely normal, less than normal if you were to kind of divide it out on a month-by-month basis in a month during which we receive no property taxes.
So all is well for the time being there.
On the investments page, the last month we didn't have any mature, this month in March we had four mature, 22,000, almost 23,000 in interest, so that's always good.
Have 18 investments in place through yesterday.
I placed six more today.
Roughly $2 million.
We'll get about $13,000 in interest in that very short term, less than 60 days.
If you look on the back, again, this gives you the rundown of where we still stand relative to those funds that are due money from the nursing home situation.
So, anybody have any questions about this, I'm kind of shying away from CDs right now, right?
I think today I did T-Bills, I mean, they actually dropped three base points from yesterday.
So it's not thrilled about that, but it's like 3.5 right now.
So competitive.
Yeah.
Okay.
Any other questions about the financial block?
Okay.
So on the collector side, the County Clerk and Assessor and I, we met successfully last last month, we determined some dates and overall schedule to kind of coordinate our office functions for the upcoming season.
I haven't really changed my estimates at this point, um, into late May, tax bill mailing probably closer to maybe just before Memorial Day, still looking to the end of June for that Earth installment, early September 2nd, always subject to change, of course, you never know if there's a wrinkle that gets thrown there, so, but we did, I did determine dates for Distributions, Reminders, Certified Mail, Tax Sale, all of those things are pretty much set at this point.
I think I mentioned before, we redesigned the tax bill, they're going to bear color, so we thought it would be a little easier, because here's what we want, DevNet, make it happen.
Well, that takes about four weeks, apparently, because we made some substantial changes.
What we are on target, they expect to have those to be approved by May 1st.
So we have plenty of time to get them to our new printer and can turn those out once we get testing and everything done within two to three days.
So right exactly where we want to be, I think.
And at Jasmine, I just talked about this and I have discussed it with the Assessor that there have been a lot of questions, particularly from full city residents based on the referendum.
We even had a few people who asked if they could be exempted out of that and not understand, and again, that just displays really the depth of the lack of understanding of this process, so I'm kind of reviving the tax cycle presentations that I used to do around here to kind of stop them because nobody came.
So, we're going to bring it back, um, and Jasmine and Ann, you're going to join me, kind of do their part of the cycle, but we think we're probably going to take it on the road, maybe to Mill City as well, specifically, because they're going to, next year is their reassessment year.
So their bills are going to go up, generally speaking, likely go up.
So that referendum is going to hit at the same time that assess values.
So it, it could be in many cases, very painful.
So we want to maybe get in front of that, help people understand ahead of time what they could be able to do next.
So that's where I'm looking at some dates, hopefully maybe very, very late May, early June, depending on what schedules look like for the rest of us.
So that's no more chance to do some outreach and help people understand what's in front of them.
So, right, right, you know, batting down the hatches, I had a couple of calls from the Pearl City area, because of the sale of Pearl Valley eggs and the value of that sale, and they were like, well, if the value of that sale was assessed correctly, Pearl City wouldn't have any issues.
And, you know, we have, I have tried to explain it, we have at least three counties plus other areas of Illinois and California that are all involved with what's going on there has really no bearing whatsoever, but we both see dollars in it.
Right.
And then, you know, in the Pearl City also has TIF District.
So there are so many puzzle pieces and there's really no one answer to what has happened I don't know what's going to happen, but I think it will help if all three of us are there explaining each part of what impacts someone's, you know, tax bill, I think.
It's not going to make the pain any less, but at least I'll understand it.
Thank you for being here..
How are you?
Let's move on to 7.2, go ahead.
Thank you, Chairman.
I'm still wrapping up a few things from the election in March.
People think March election is done, but there's still a lot of work afterwards.
We certify the election results on April 1st, and then there's still some reports to be to the state and results have to be sent to overlapping counties.
So there's still work to be done there, but wrapping up there, there, sort of say March 16th, the day before the election kind of had a snowstorm.
Um, we were open and we actually had 70 hit goers that day.
Um, most of them came in after 11, um, I think maybe two before 11, but we had 70 total that day and we had 22 polling locations throughout the County.
So we also had 22 election judges come in and pick up supplies that day.
So, it was extremely busy the day before, still here.
You might have seen the company that delivers some of the equipment to the funerals, so that bill was a little bit higher than usual, and usually they have one guy.
They had to have two guys due to the conditions.
So, that's why that bill was a little bit higher.
Yeah, so that was the reason there.
Every two years, we have to go out and do a foreign place accessibility survey that has to be to the state.
That survey has to be completed in order to apply for the ADA grant.
With that grant, we've been able to help some foreign locations make improvements.
This past year, we were able to get 40 new voting books.
So it takes time for us to go to every location, and we're not certified in ADA.
You've done a training program before, but the State Board of Elections has contracted with a company, and that company is actually going to the final locations today, tomorrow, and then they'll finish up on Friday.
So I'm looking forward to seeing what kind of results they see at those final locations and what improvements we possibly could make to make the final locations more accessible.
Tax extension, I'm in the middle of the tax extension process, so I have sent out the tax computation reports to all of the tax districts, a little bit over a hundred tax districts, including the TIF districts, and they also, they are over the PTEL limit, they have a choice to choose to agree with the reset, proportionally put them within the and others.
We have a limit where they can reallocate.
Most of the time, we see that they appreciate the proportions.
So, we do have some new individuals from some of the districts.
So, they've been getting some phone calls of people coming in to explain what P-TEL means and why they didn't get the full 5% that they lobbied for.
So, it's been decent in the office, but mostly all good.
Okay.
I want to relay some requests from a few election judges I was speaking to that wanted more tissues and better sticky notes.
And we actually have a pink sheet that goes with all the election judges where they can put suggestions.
So I'm going to do some things that we have marked.
Pass that right along.
And if you guys know anyone, always look up for more election judges, look in the schedule of the two-year certification right now.
I'm planning for that to take place in August.
So we send any election judges our way.
We're always looking for new ones.
We have some great ones throughout the county that are retiring.
So for some new great ones.
So yeah, I'll flip right.
We did, but I think there are some that are retiring and won't be doing it in November.
Sure.
All right, check.
Very good.
Alright, let's move on to 7.3, she is not here, let me get a report.
I am so sorry, I also forgot to say a huge thank you to Nate.
They did a server upgrade and Nate, I don't think will do his own thorn, but he communicated with us through the entire weekend, holiday weekend, and he continued to provide updates throughout the weekend.
We have not went perfect, but he continued to communicate and did everything he could to, I think, in his will to make it happen.
So, we are really lucky to have Nate and I can't express how much I appreciate his communication and his efforts.
That's good.
Okay, let's move on to 7.4, County Administrator.
Thank you.
This morning I attended an HR roundtable at Greater Freeport Partnership.
They have a series of meetings.
The next one will be June.
But the topics today, they were trying to gather information from a lot of the HR directors in the region of the gaps in the employment of the people staying in the community.
So we have a real good rate of people in the community until about age 24, 25, and then returning at 44 plus.
So that that middle group, which could contribute to a lot of, you know, tax dollars that they were raising families in the community.
So that is kind of what the topics were today where they were adjusting and looking through and trying to gather some information from everyone.
I will try to be attending ones I can on that, but the next one is June to come.
The FOIA requests that I spoke about last month have become a monthly occurrence and thank you to all three of you because all three of these people have had to respond to bits and parts of the requests that have become a monthly occurrence.
In addition to that, I've had a pretty lengthy one that I had to seek an extension on that has been responded to now for nursing home information, as well as a couple others that are pretty, pretty in depth and occupying quite a bit of time just gathering things, but responding to them.
We did get an accelerated payment notification for a nursing home employee that is being done currently Between HR out there and RaeAnn obviously will be the one finalizing all the information to submit it since she is the county's authorized agent.
I will say RaeAnn has done a very good job challenging them and submitting information and she's gotten most of them over the past couple of years.
We haven't had to, you know, you get the notice and it's like you owe X amount of dollars, but she has successfully challenged those and and Godwin.
So don't want to take away from a report that Kristen will be giving for animal control tomorrow, but the RFP for her kennels for the new location, there will be a bid for approval tomorrow.
Still working with her on things throughout the move, she will have her part time person starting I believe tomorrow.
And what most of you probably don't know is that she was in a vehicle I attended the Region 1 Land Bank meeting on March 24th.
All of you have received the updated salary survey and fringe benefit survey from UCCI.
The wellness screenings last Thursday at the courthouse, there was 47 people screened.
We have 27, I think, registered for tomorrow and encouraging walk-ins to get as many people as we can screened.
The walking program, which some of us were talking about before the meeting, registrations are live for that.
Larry, if you're heading up the trend.
I think Chairman Helms has already said he's going to win.
We have teams or are we doing just.
So when you register, it does say a team, but it says you can only put one person on a team.
So just put your name there when you're on the portal registering.
We will be grouping the teams by department or County Board on the back.
So yes, you will have, you will have teams, but when you've registered on the team, So yeah, hopefully hopefully get some motivation with that.
Department head meeting this morning, Mark Bell was there and kind of did his annual updates on risk topics and online, you know, the portal for training materials and things.
He was able to meet our new coroner and made some connections with him to discuss some concerns, you know, that if you want to address those kind of things.
So that went really well.
We did talk about the STEP program and encouraging as much involvement as possible, trying to garner some healthy competition here in the county.
And an update on the shredding services, they will be coming to the county to deliver the new receptacles on the 21st.
Since the company that we had Since the company that we had prior went out of business, they have offered to remove the old receptacles for us, because that was a question we all had, like, what do we do with the other ones, since they want it there.
So they did offer to do that, starting their contract run.
So I also attended the Workforce Connection meeting yesterday, Tuesday, yeah, yesterday, yesterday.
Like what day is it?
I had early meetings every day, so yeah, that is that is all I have.
It's a lot.
Oh, just in detail, what's the number for this?
There's seven of them that have been coming through every month, four records per month.
That's just from the one requester.
I would say four to six in addition to that.
Of the App.
Okay.
I'm just curious how many of them are existing.
They vary.
I'm sure.
They do.
I think if some topics hit agendas, it triggers more, but it's, it's, it's increased from.
Yeah.
Okay.
Questions?
Good.
$2.7. 5 For the key manager.
As you guys already heard, we upgraded the SQL one server this weekend.
I say we just arrived was a huge component of that as well.
I put in probably at least 25 hours this weekend, trying to get that server upgraded and moved over.
The problem we ran into is the server speed and it being so old that we originally were going to start pushing the information out from the old server to the new server and that was kind of choking the system so then we had to regroup, come back, go to the new system and pull from the old and that wasn't much faster.
We had a lot of hiccups in the way of moving data.
I started to panic about Saturday night.
I started contacting the department and I was like, I don't know if we're ready to go for Monday or not.
We did have the old one still in place that we could have went back to, but once you've worked that whole week, that's just more data we got to try to fulfill.
So the goal was to always be ready by Monday morning.
So we had all hands on deck.
I called pre-rec and on Saturday, we got here about 7 AM and we plugged away for about another six hours.
Myself, I've plotted that quite a bit.
Fiddler, I think we've got just about everything figured out now.
There were a few hiccups.
We had DevNet up and going on Monday morning.
Fiddler had to catch up because there was some stuff they had to do on the backend.
DevNet has some stuff they got to do as well.
And right now, I don't know if all their stuff is firing like it's supposed to on their end.
I think they extract data.
But right now, the guy's is not too cooperative in returning my poll.
So hopefully I'll hear something back tomorrow.
I do know we're working, we've pulled reports, we've done queries, all kinds of stuff, and all the data is there, everything's working.
And we think we're good, but I would just like to hear it from them to draw on their end that we're good.
So we do have the old server still in place.
We re-IQ'd it so we can still get to it if we have to do anything.
Just a lot of data that was on that.
We're about a terabyte and a half that we had to go over a lot of small files.
So it just never, never picked up the speed we would have liked this weekend, but long story short, we got there.
So, um, we're up and running, hopefully it alleviates any stress for tax season and whatnot, and, and we can just move forward with that.
Um, outside of that, just been putting out the daily fires, um, still working on the Adobe, uh, licensing.
Um, I sent out another email just to make sure people understood that you I was dealing with some sales reps, but then found out that we can just get it cheaper through the website.
I feel like they were just trying to mark up their own commission a little bit.
So I kind of blew those, get it off, and we'll just go directly to the website when we get to the point of doing that.
So other than that, I've been working on the ADA upgrades, but I've been working on a couple of other things that I've been working on.
So I've been working on a couple of other things that I've been working on.
With Revise, which we'll talk about in a little bit, and the AI policy, our first one got hunted back, but there was a few holes in it that they wanted to see short of, Stephanie shared one with me from another county that they're using, and I don't know if it's been approved liability-wise, but I was like, well, this kind of shows up the areas they were asking for, so I redid it with Stephenson County and sent it back in, and I'm waiting to get We're back on that one.
So, it's still working.
It's a process, but they're not exactly quick.
I'm sure they're reviewing a bunch of them right now.
So, that's pretty much where we're at.
Any questions?
So, we want to read out that?
They used the files.
We can start again, but yeah, we'll not be able to do this.
Me?
No.
Okay.
Well, guess we just talked about it.
Just go to the end.
I'll see you there.
Well, and what liabilities looking at it, you said?
Yes, not our liability, the company that they referred us to.
Okay.
We finally got access to that website.
Now I've got people there that I'm I'm talking with.
The first one probably needed about 25% redone.
The other one had a lot of what they were asking for.
So I was like, well, this just makes sense.
It had everything I had plus that.
So I just went ahead and submitted that to them for review.
And then if once I get back to that, hopefully that'll be good.
Yeah, on the policies specifically, I was looking through the new one or the updated one.
I just had two things I wanted to get clarification on.
When it's talking about exceptions in writing from the Administrator, is there any, this might be countywide, is there any specific definition of what in writing means?
Because I know, is that would a quick text work?
Or, you know, and I think the more clarity we can get.
Yeah, I would say I'm probably going to make it when this does get finalized I think it'd be a good idea for us to have it on the books to review it in a year and that might even be a bit much just to absolutely and you'll see down at the bottom of the one it has like a revisions history so you yeah you can keep track of every time we revise it and what we've changed so yeah we approve this one we should plan on yeah My question is then are you going to become the auditor of the AI use or do you have.
I mean there's really no way for me to co-lease it.
What's going to happen is if someone violates it and we end up in something then we're going to be able to, you know, there'll be consequences to violating it per se.
But there's no way, like if Santa is using a co-pilot or something, Yeah, but we will know obviously if someone breaks it and, you know, they did something we're supposed to do and it comes up, that's what this policy is for, then it will be up to us to decide, administration-wise, what that, the consequences of that is going to look like.
We have to incorporate that into the employee policy.
I have a liability to review it.
I think the biggest thing that we're going to have to get across, and it'll be in the policy, is you don't put anything Social Security members, any personal county information, like this should be very generic in use, you know, because once it's out there, it's out there because they'll tell you in the fine print anything that you ask or whatever is, you know, like case studies and things that they can use.
So once it's out there, it's out there.
So they're not supposed to use co-pilot?
Is that what that is?
Is that what that means?
They're not supposed to use co-pilot?
I mean, they're all the same.
So, I mean, you should have the same protocols for all of them.
To be driving certain ones for advocate music.
I mean, we can come up with a list of do not use, but that list is going to be growing, you know.
Okay.
Yeah.
Makes sense.
There's a new one that pops up.
It seems like every couple of weeks.
Makes sense.
All right.
Tires on that one.
Let's zoom down to 9.1 approval revised ADA upgrades for the website.
So I've been meeting with Revise, who currently manages our website, are the ones that constructed it.
The only way to come up with a secure ADA website was to go to the vendor that we're currently getting it through.
There's nothing that we can do third party or anything to integrate with their copyrights or whatever.
And they do have everything that I'm requesting in this bid here will cover us ADA wise.
He did say that it's like 97%.
He said there's always going to be that 3% that, you know, somebody may overlook, but he said that it will never be anything that you'll be looking for.
He goes, if they come up with a question that we don't cover, he goes, then we have have time to rectify that, he goes, but what's in the act, um, we'll have like an AI bot that will be on the website when we move forward, any questions that they have, it'll change the text for those that we can't see, it'll read to those that, you know, it, it covers everything and it'll even, uh, the, the second part of this, the clear docs also takes our documents and we'll read it to people and kind of help them fill out documents if they need to, or, uh, so this does cover us completely.
With anything there's a cost.
So that cost will be a yearly thing going forward.
It's the maintenance agreement, keeping that on the website and keeping it up to date.
There are two questions, I guess.
So is the maintenance agreement going to be less than what the startup is?
No, it's going to be the same going forward.
And what I'm going to say is that everything, obviously, year to year, you know, once they have a demand, they could.
Right.
So just that, just keep that in mind.
But this is, and I had him check our numbers.
We went through every webpage that you can click on because it goes by the amount of web pages you have and the amount of documents you have on the website.
So we did an audit together.
We went through and we're actually not at the top tiers of this.
We're right in the middle because we're a middle sized website, per se.
So good news is it didn't cost us as much as what I thought, but it will cost us, you know, going forward.
But again, and I like to stress this to the Board and I will use access as a reminder that sometimes you have to pay upfront to save you in the long run and I will say whatever this cost is, it's going to be cheaper than any fine we would get if we were missing something.
So I'm confident, I sat through webinars, I looked at everything and again, I'm not an ADA who group but everything that they're asking us to do, and we will have trouble by doing this.
And as soon as we vote on it, if I had County Board, I could have it implemented probably within a week and we're way ahead of the deadline and we're stopping going.
So.
So my second question was, I don't know if you saw my email because I know you're busy man, but this provides us doing the Tipton County, Tennessee's website.
Did I sign out late for that?
Is that kind of- I was going to say I opened it up and I got to the home page and that was as far as I got.
Yeah, I don't know that I made it that far.
I didn't see your email.
Last few days, but it sounds like you got the AI thing in there.
I will say there's nothing that they're offering that we're not purchasing.
So I would say that we're probably at least what they have, but I'm going to try to looking what's here but you know it looks great.
I mean it's like wow that's fabulous you see but I was digging through those Advice88 website and they got that these they were using that same system and it went wow it's fantastic so um for some reason if I leave I was going to be let's see when did I send it p31 last night yeah it's not my inbox I'm Well, be mindful this doesn't change our website.
It just gives us the ability to the ADA accessible information.
Yeah.
Changing the website.
This is just for ADA compliance to help people get where they're trying to go.
If they're having trouble reading, it'll take it and I forget what they call it.
Invert the colors to where it's a black background.
You know, things to help people with vision issues, hearing issues, things of that nature.
So it does not change the old website at all.
So four years ago or so I got contacted by a law firm in New York City that was just randomly looking up websites to see if they were ADA compliant or not and they would offer a settlement to avoid litigation, so I got hooked up with a company called Audio, I'm completely independent of who manages my bank's website, and they were able to put it on there, I think I paid eight or 900 bucks for it annually, when I went to Byron Bank, same situation, they did not have ADA compliance, a much bigger bank, I think it's only like 11 dollars a month, Also, I know you said something about you have to do it with this, I'm sorry, a year.
Okay.
You had said something about it having to be this company because of our website.
Well, it's with the clear docs and everything, I would just have to make sure that it's going to read the documents that we have loaded into our website, you know, because every department puts in PDFs and things of that nature.
We might be able to get something that can do a search for us, but we have to make sure that whatever we get is going to be able to read the documents as we're required.
That's why there are other agencies that are out there.
But what they want is our whole website business.
So I can definitely look into that and see what they can do.
I mean, we have we have plenty of time.
We're ahead of this because I think it's April 20, 2027.
I think is what we have until.
So if you want me to look at that company, I'd gladly contact them and just see what they can do.
So yeah, I just did a, they offer a tool.
You can scan your website and it tells you your issues with it right away.
But I'll send it to you.
I'm not, I mean, I'm not skinning the game on this, but a thousand bucks, you're at 13,000.
Yeah, that's a big number.
So that's workable.
Yep.
Makes sense to lay it over for a long time.
Yeah, absolutely.
I mean, I just want to make sure we're up and running later.
We have plenty of time.
That's why we started now yeah um yeah my biggest concern will be the documents I mean I'm sure there's people I can do the search or I guess I question how they alter the website provision but that I'll find out by scheduling if I know so do it or not yeah so absolutely fine so Well, I think I'll make a motion to leave this over.
I'll second.
Okay.
Any other conversation?
All those in favor say aye.
Aye.
Thank you.
Aye.
All right.
Let's go to 10.0 comments from your committee members.
Anything?
Seeing none.
Make a motion to adjourn.
I'll second.
All those in favor say aye.
Aye.
All right.
Thanks, everyone.
See you next time.
Bye.
Thank you very much for your time.