I'm sorry about that.
I already got these.
I got a phone too.
I got this new phone.
Hi.
My pleasure.
I wanted to give you a call.
Thank you.
Wright, Department of Amnesty, Alright, we're going to get started with the Administration Legal Affairs Committee, Wednesday, February 11th, 2026 at 5 PM 2.0 Prayer, I'll do that.
Dear Heavenly Father, we just thank you for this opportunity to serve the people of Stephenson County.
We just ask you to help us walk through these items on the agenda and make the right decisions for County.
Just want to say thank you for a beautiful day, Lord.
Giving us hope for spring after all.
Thank you and praise you in Jesus' name.
Amen.
All right.
How about 3.0 approval of agenda?
So I move.
I will second.
In the second.
All those in favor say aye.
Aye.
So moved and 4.0 approval meeting minutes from January 7th, 2026.
Move approval.
Second.
In the second.
We got a routine here.
All those in favor say aye.
Aye.
Thank you.
All right, approval of claims.
Before me I have a total of $73,823.17.
And I will make a motion to approve.
I will second.
Okay.
All right.
All those in favor say aye.
Aye.
Thank you.
Just real quick.
All right, moving on.
6.0 Public comment.
Anyone else here?
7.1 Public comment.
She did send Thank you Chairman.
Last month has been busy a little bit in our office.
Last month I discussed we had sent out the list for the statement of economic interest where all of the districts have to certify the list we have as an administrator if there's new people on their board.
That was due February 1st, and now it's the part where we give out the yellow forms with all those individuals, and there's about 650 state and economic interest forms that go out throughout the county.
So there's a lot more than you can imagine.
We have to thank all of the taxing districts, all of the commissions and boards, so there's a lot of individuals.
Those are not due until May 1st, but they should all be out and disbursed by the end of this week.
The levy confirmations have gone out to all the taxing districts last week.
That just includes all the amounts that they have levy, that be certified to our office.
It's a good time where they can look it over before they get their tax comp to see if there was any errors in their levy or the way we have imprinted it into our system.
It also shows all the bonds that they have or any of the new bonds that have been filed with their office.
That also appears on the levy confirmation.
So getting started on the tax extension part online.
And then election, election judges.
We sent out over 140 confirmation letters to our judges.
We've received 15 no's back.
The good thing about a lot of those no's is they are, they want to stay on and they want to be a judge in November for Victor Soutertown.
So that's good news.
We have some very dedicated election judges.
We got 40 new Booth, you can see them if you come down to the early voting room.
They came on four large pallets in boxes.
So someone says there's not any manual work to my job, there's a little bit.
Each one of those they had to be, some of them had to be taken off in order to come through the basement because the pallets were so tall.
We had to take them out of all the boxes and then take Just so you, there's a lot of behind the scenes that I would say the public don't, doesn't always see, so I'm going to kind of talk about some of the behind the scenes that went through on my end.
Everyone's always anxious to get the specimen ballot.
I think I saw maybe one county have a specimen ballot out on January 26th.
That was the earliest I saw a specimen ballot and I could have missed it.
I set up early voting on the 26th downstairs, the machines have all the ballots voted into the system so if someone comes to vote, it's ready to go.
At the end of that week, we had to have the ballots out and then mail it to the military voters.
So it's a tight time frame there.
On January 27th, one day later, the court ordered an updated certification to our office to everyone in the state of Illinois.
So we had to reset the early vote.
My specimen ballot was planning to be posted on that day, so I had to update my specimen ballot to remove a candidate for governor.
So we had that pending that had come from the circuit court.
Well, that governor then went on to the appellate court with the objection, so February 4th comes along.
A lot of clerks and election officials in the state of Illinois are trying to determine whether to start early voting on February 5th, I believe we definitely made the right decision there and then on February 6th the order was granted that that candidate was to be off the ballot and that we proceeded on February 5th because that was the most up-to-date certification that we had.
Now, we proceeded on February 5th because that was the most up-to-date certification that we had from the State Board of Elections.
And I think that follows suit with the majority of the election officials in the state of Illinois.
As of today, we have 191 early voters and we have over 1,400 vote-by-mail ballots out of the mail.
There's five districts throughout the county that have questions on the ballot, so that has also increased a little bit of pickup in questions for our office or participation in the primary.
Sometimes people don't participate in the primary because they don't want to choose a party, but we are seeing individuals participate because they want to vote for our question or they just want a nonpartisan ballot.
Any questions?
So those 40 new booths, are those replacements or in addition to what we already have?
In addition to what we have the ones that we currently have, every election some break a little through movement.
They break a little bit.
The new ones we have, so it's 40 voting booths, but one booth is four stations.
And one of those stations is incapaccessible.
In my opinion, they're more sturdy than the old boots.
I ask mainly because I know schools and scout troops and whatnot, they often do like mock elections.
And one thing I've been asked personally about is, oh, can we get some of the boots that you use in actual voting?
I know it's kind of a touchy thing.
And if anyone's going to be decommissioned, I was going to say, I know some people.
Yeah, usually if they have to read the commission, they're not safe for any more than a year, so we don't lend out the account to state presidents.
I totally understand.
Alright, let's go to 7.3, Supervisor of Assessments.
So in my office, it is, I'm done with 25 or into the board review stage.
We did have four complaints.
We had a few commercial complaints.
And with commercial complaints, when you send out the tentative notices, you have to give them 30 days in order to meet them.
In order to meet with the Board of Review if they want a hearing.
So we're in that 30-day period.
So we're just sort of waiting.
But so far, we only have four hearings that are scheduled.
And they're the end of February.
So I checked with Stephanie and Jasmine.
And I have everything entered, everything, whatever.
So as soon as the hearings are, to just take me that afternoon to enter all the data, so my goal is to have everything over in Jasmine's hands by the first part, March, versus some Sunday, Saturday, Sunday, so March 2nd.
So I'm going to be as early as I possibly can for her to get her things done with voting and up and coming wedding and all nine yards so then we can keep things on schedule.
So, I'm just sort of waiting for my time period, so, that's what's going on in my office, I like quiet.
Sounds good.
Let's go to County Administrator.
Thank you.
Still, daily communications with past defenders and prioritizing settlements, speaking with them about payment amounts, that sort of thing.
I had a conference call last week with the new shredding service company that will be servicing the county.
They said they probably will be on site within two months.
They have some procedures take care of on their end.
We discussed the pickup sites, the individual departmental billing.
They were supposed to send me pictures of the receptacles that they use.
News, so I could discuss it this morning at the department head meeting, but I haven't gotten those pictures yet.
We're trying to line up all of that, so more information on that coming.
Last GFP meeting was on the 28th.
There was a new board president appointed because Josh Elliott's term was completed, and two new board members were appointed at that meeting as well.
The annual dinner, which a couple of us at this table were at, was on the 5th.
Meeting for that is the 25th of this month.
Court was today at 1.30 for the Nursing Center.
Got another continuance to March 4th, but they will be entering the summary judgment on that day.
So more work coming up on that.
Seems like we have had an influx of FOIAs lately.
I know Jasmine has spoken to some of her counterparts and there was an influx from the same person in many different counties.
So I had nine last week in my office and farmed Del, many of those two other departments as well.
So we also have part of you, and I don't want to take away from Nate's report, but I've had three emails trying to, you know, fake emails trying to change direct deposits in the last week, so.
January 30th, I attended the ribbon cutting out at Colblena, Percedencia, that the governor was at, very nice event put on, they were pretty excited about the new line starting up, and they're going to be manufacturing brie bites, so picture individual like the baby doe picks up their little individual brie.
They will be the only one in North America making those and distributing it.
And they are sending, I think, 50 employees to France to learn how to do the process, so kind of an exciting thing for everyone out there.
They'll take us on a short tour of where the rebates will be made and stuff out there too, so, and, you know, we'll be expanding with that too, so.
Empower Health, the company that we have a couple things later on in the agenda, but they are the company that does the annual wellness screenings for employees.
I had the conference to set up the dates for the screenings as well as this year we are offering a walking program to get employees moving.
So I had a demonstration conference call about how that will be set up which was distributed to the department heads as well for input.
The two wellness screening dates are April 2nd and 9th for the employees and we're going to do the walking program in the month of April is hopefully the weather will break for us and be good for everyone to get their steps in.
February 4th, Mark Bell from IPMG came and met with me.
He wanted to discuss there's a new portal that their company is moving to.
It's just how we'll be submitting claims and different things through that will be went over county's open claims and discussed the NeoGov portal where there's online trainings and he'll be coming to the department head meeting in April to kind of do a refresher for department heads on that.
Yesterday we had Caitlin on site.
She was contracted through IPMG to do reappraisals on all of the county owned buildings and the monument and different things.
So she was on site, reached out a couple times with questions and touched base with all of the departments.
So that is what I have.
Any questions?
I have a question.
Sure.
Can the County Board do the logging program?
You know, I will look into that.
Maybe we could have, we decided to do teams by department.
So maybe the county, a County Board get, get to be one of the teams.
Yeah.
I just want to point out, I tried to get you all off to the half marathon.
We could log an April that we might be doing half Marist time.
And we did talk with the department heads to try and get some ideas and brainstorming around motivation for engagement and of course ran those through our younger and she thought it I wouldn't want to lose to the County Board.
I don't like the idea.
That might actually be a good motivation.
Question on the cold cheese thing.
Did they say that was due to the tear thing at all or just a new business?
I think they just, they said the technology behind the process is an older technology that they finally caught up with the equipment and there's been kind of the demand, a need now, and the stability, the shelf life for them I believe is a year, where most free is like 90 days, so it's a good alternative.
She talked about how they would be doing it, production of that throughout the months where Director, Dean, Dean, Dean, Dean, Dean, Dean, Department, with the courthouse being closed, it was just the easiest way to swap out a lot of phones or not cause disruption that will have us with everything done except for the health department.
They will be our last site to get fully installed, which will probably happen in the next week or two.
Working on some grant projects, Chanel got, the grant wasn't as much as what it's been in the past.
A lot smaller, so I'm doing some laptop projects and new workstations for a few people.
Um, and then on top of that, uh, that notification last night that there was a vulnerability, uh, the new firewalls we have in place, let's everybody know when they have an issue somewhere else, uh, required an upgrade and in that upgrade, it broke our current VPN configuration.
So I've got four offices to reconfigure VPNs on.
It took me most of the day today to figure out how to work around and recreate the wheel to have a more secure VPN because the technology we were using was phased out.
Out.
So I expected to hear from more people on that.
I really didn't.
But that'll be my next.
I worked on it from home the other night.
Hopefully by the end of the week, have them all back up and going.
Once you get one, which we got the one today, I'm trying to figure out how I can export the configuration.
So most of the work is done.
But other than that, that's pretty much my life right now between the phones and the routers and such.
I will be scheduling a recycle day as well, because all the old phones are creating havoc everywhere that they are.
So I really don't have a place for 300 phones.
Have a place for 300 phones.
So I've kind of got each department hanging on to them until I can get that scheduled.
And then I might see if they can come early and just kind of give us one of those boxes that they set up on a pallet and then we can just start throwing stuff in there and really come back.
So that's on, I'll probably have that next month at some point, just want the weather to be a little nicer.
So people might have enough us around and although it hasn't really snowed in a while.
So with that, that's Pretty much it for now, I know EMA has some projects for me, they're waiting for my slate to clean up a little bit, so.
That's plenty for Adam.
Thank you.
Any questions before we move on?
Okay.
Alright, let's move on here.
I was told the AI policy for 8.1 is not quite ready, so we'll just.
No, Mark Bell, we referred it to him for an opinion and he referred us to someone else that we supposedly have an account for.
We've been blocked in every avenue of trying to get that opinion.
So he went to bat for us and he's having trouble.
So as soon as we hear back or we get some clarification, I will be ready to move forward on that.
But unfortunately, it's stuck in another liability.
Just leave it on there until we have a way to deal with it.
Okay, let's go 9.1, Approval of Agreement with Demnet and CAMA, with Edge, License, Make Incentive Support.
So, George just gave you guys a copy of the contract, it's just a continuation of the that we've had for the last, I think Ron set it up in 2011 to 2012.
My office uses it for the drawing program and DevNet, and then Stephanie's office and Jasmine's office uses it for text inquiry.
So it needed to be approved in January.
It came into my email a little later than I thought it would.
They do a percentage or whatever, but roughly.
All right, but you got it covered in the budget, that's good, good job.
Okay, all right, any other questions?
Church wants over there or something?
Well, I know.
Okay, well, it sounds like we need it, so we've got it budgeted.
I'll make a motion that we accept the contract.
We'll have a conversation, otherwise we'll vote.
All in favor say aye.
Aye.
Thank you.
Alright, let's go to 9.2, approval of in-power health services for employee wellness screenings.
Yes, so this is, I think, year four now with the wellness screenings.
We do an annual agreement with them.
There's a slight change in what the Blue Shield plans cover, so there's a minimal increase per participant that the county would be covering.
We planned a cushion in the budget for an increase.
We also narrowed it down to two locations as opposed to the three that we did last year.
The year before we did four locations.
We were trying to get one at remote buildings and things, but I think having the two locations and starting at the courthouse an hour before the courthouse opens, we'll be able to hit our minimums at two locations which will decrease the cost of having the three sites, should offset pretty well.
I told them once we have the approval of the board, then they'll send out the advertisement information for our dates.
Alright, I was hoping it was going to be a wrap, but we've got it covered in the budget, so alright, I guess I'll make a motion to approve it as presented.
I and I will second.
Yes, Chairman.
Opinion similar to the employees we've done previously?
We had budgeted for similar to what we had done last year at the department head meeting.
I think pretty much everyone said that cash in hand is what will motivate their people to take place.
So unless the board feels differently, that was our intent was to proceed as we had planned.
My other question is, non-insured individuals such as County Board members, can they participate as long as they pay the full cost?
Yes, they can and once we get the informational flyers, it will have the costs listed.
Okay, thanks.
Let's send that out.
They won't release those until I send back the contracts.
I have another question.
Last, whenever, we approved on the board for that screening for people who had cancer or chronic diseases.
The RxMapper?
Yeah.
Has that been rolled out yet?
Yes, yes.
And I know Carrie will be presenting information on that Friday at Finance.
It has been rolled out.
I think I can get an updated count and let you know.
I've been screened.
I got the kit to submit my DNA, so I have not sent it yet.
But I believe that there was a pretty good, I want to say seven or eight people that had already been screened to the point where they would be sent the kits.
So I can remind Ron that off.
I'll ask for an update, because we're going to have to pay more if there's a lot of people.
I do it.
Yeah, I mean, it's just, it is what it is, but we got rid of it.
It heads off to future costs, the higher future costs.
Right.
I mean, the goal of all of these things are to try to keep the annual renewals, yeah, contained, so.
This was just discussion, sorry.
Okay, need more discussion.
Hi.
All those in favor say hi.
Hi.
So moved.
All right.
Let's do the last one here.
9.3 Approval Agreement with Empower Health Services for a walking program.
Yes.
So the walking program was something that through discussions last year between our insurance broker and the wellness screenings, we discussed movement and getting people moving.
Empower Health offers this program.
I thought the cost was very reasonable.
Ms. McWright thought it was a good idea, what it will be is we'll come up with a theme, they will create a virtual map that as you log your steps, you can track where you're at, compared to where your team is, compared to others, it is an app you put on your phone, so you don't have to have a tracking device or anything like that, and and as long as you carry your phone with you, it will automatically upload your information into the app and into the walking program.
So the little demonstration video looked really cool.
There was a lot of discussion about incentives for involvement with that.
Obviously, we talked about one in two people departments, how they compete against departments of the Highway Department that has how many people out there.
So they talked about how you do averages.
And we talked about some people that may feel beaten before they actually start the program, maybe doing an individual prize and then a team prize, but also doing all participants that didn't win either the team or the individual, I would think for a prize for that, like a hundred dollar gift card to Brown Shoes to buy new tennis shoes.
She was asking for ideas.
You know, because of course, our office, we came up with, you know, different things and we were talking about how, you know, if you already feel discouraged, how can we get you to buy in?
And it's like, well, as long as you did it and met your goals, then randomly drop her like a big prize or bigger or something.
That's a great idea for everyone loves new shoes.
But the consensus there was cash or gift cards is probably the most motivator.
I like the showing.
We're at local.
So it's 700 bucks for the plan to do everybody.
So that's reasonable, right?
Anybody want to make a motion?
And I'm going to say hi.
Hi.
All right.
Okay.
About 10.0.
Any comments from the committee members?
Good to go.
How about 11.1 German?
I make a motion.
You do?
Yeah.
Oh, you can second it.
Adam seconds it.
All those in favor say hi.
Hi.
All right.
Thank you.
Thank you, everybody.
Larry, I will not be here next month.
So we have to make sure.