DeKalb Times

DeKalb County Finance Committee met March 4.

Here is the minutes provided by the committee:

The Finance Committee of the DeKalb County Board met on Wednesday, March 4, 2020, in the Administration Building’s Conference Room East. Chairman Bagby called the meeting to order at 7:00 p.m. Those Members present were Mr. Scott Campbell, Mr. John Frieders, Ms. Dianne Leifheit, Mr. Jerry Osland, and Chairman Tim Bagby. Mr. Steve Faivre and Ms. Sandra Polanco were absent. A quorum was established with five Members present and two absent.

Others present included Gary Hanson, Pete Stefan, Mark Pietrowski, Sheila Santos, Roger Scott, Jim Burgh, Ashley Carlson, and Matthew Wells.

APPROVAL OF THE AGENDA

It was moved by Ms. Leifheit, seconded by Mr. Frieders and it was carried unanimously by voice vote to approve the agenda as presented.

APPROVAL OF THE MINUTES

It was moved by Mr. Campbell, seconded by Mr. Osland and it was carried unanimously to approve the minutes of the February 5, 2020 Finance Committee Meeting.

PUBLIC COMMENTS

There were no public comments.

BODY CAMERA FUNDING

County Administrator Gary Hanson reviewed that the Sheriff has conducted his research, supports the concept, and believes that the technology of body cameras would be a valuable asset to his Office if proper staffing and equipment is provided, which he delineated in his proposal to the County's Law & Justice Committee last week. The proposal outlined specific operational issues, staffing needs, equipment needs and the costs for each area. The proposal also included a recommendation that said body cameras be made available to the Corrections Officers, as well as to the Patrol Officers and to the Detectives. The implementation of this program is estimated to be about $85,000 for start-up equipment and about $52,000 in initial additional annual staffing costs. The Law & Justice Committee approved the operational plan outlined by the County Sheriff and forwarded the proposal to the Finance Committee to identify the appropriate funding.

Mr. Hanson reviewed the proposed budget plan for the Body Camera Project with the Finance Committee, which was broken down between the initial start-up capital costs and the annual operating costs from year 1 through year 4.

It was explained that there were some items tweaked since the Law & Justice Committee last week. This allowed some items that the Committee wasn’t sure they were able to incorporate. Now, the initial start-up capital costs of $85,000 would be provided by the Opportunity Fund and while the on-going annual costs of staffing and equipment replacement of $69,000 will need to be incorporated into the County's General Fund operating budget, Mr. Hanson explained that it would be best to phase-in those annual operating costs through the 2022 fiscal year with the Opportunity Fund providing the interim, nonpermanent funding.

It was warned that there are some potential future unknown staffing needs associated with this program as well. At Law & Justice the State’s Attorney noted that with more video could come longer trial preparations and time associated with cases which could result in future requests from his office and the Public Defender’s Office for additional attorneys. IMO Director Sheila Santos also explained how her staff can be called upon to redact videos for the State’s Attorney’s Office for trials which takes a large amount of time and takes away from that person performing their other IMO-related duties.

Mr. Hanson continued to review the proposed Resolution with the Committee which outlined the following, if approved: the DeKalb County Board hereby (a) accepts the Sheriffs Body Camera program proposal as presented to the Law & Justice Committee and adjusted by the Finance Committee, (b) appropriates $128,000 from the Opportunity Fund for the balance of the 2020 fiscal year, (c) approves two staffing changes in the Sheriff’s Office to upgrade one Secretary B position to an Administrative Secretary position and to increase one part-time Secretary B position to that of a full-time 40 hour per week Secretary B position at an initial annual cost of $52,000, and (d) further requests that when the Finance Committee compiles the 2021 and 2022 budgets that 67% and 33%, respectively, of the annual operating costs of the Body Camera project be subsidized by the Opportunity Fund with the balance from the General Fund. The County Board would also concur with the Sheriff that operational efficiencies and financial savings would be realized if the equipment for Body Camera Project was through the same vendor, Kustom Signals Inc., who is already providing for the Vehicle Video System and, therefore, waives bidding requirements and authorizes the Sheriff to negotiate directly with Kustom Signals Inc. for the best value available to make this project a reality.

Mr. Frieders inquired as to why they don’t take all of the money out of the General Fund in the beginning or do a year-end transfer at the end instead of going with the phase-in plan that Mr. Hanson is suggesting. Mr. Hanson explained that when you work to get a balanced budget in the General Fund, it would be easier to transition a little bit slower than taking a large hit at one time.

It was moved by Mr. Campbell, seconded by Ms. Leifheit and approved unanimously to forward the proposed Resolution to the full County Board recommending its approval.

ANNUAL IMO UPDATE

DeKalb County Information Management Director Sheila Santos presented her Annual Report to the Finance Committee. Ms. Santos reviewed who her staff is in the IMO Department and the GIS Department. She described the diverse workload they face each day as well as the daily tasks they tackle.

IT Project highlights Ms. Santos shared included, AV & Video Conferencing, Redaction, Public Safety Projects, Onboarding, Asset Replacement, Cyber Security, Voting, and FOIA.

GIS and Special Projects that were reviewed were Census and Community Work, Public Safety, Next Generation 911, Sales Analysis for Board of Review, Database Upgrades, DATA, and Aerial Refight that took place last year.

Ms. Santos reviewed what websites IMO has built along with what they have on the horizon for IT in 2020. For IT, Storage Expansion, File Sharing, Changes to County Email, Up fitting Squads, Expansion Projects, A/V Upgrades, and Asset Replacement. For GIS, Online Maps, Next Gen 911, Assist Communities with 911 and Census, CEDs Project, Database Upgrades, and Digital Timecards for County Employees.

FY 2019 YEAR-END BUDGET TRANSFERS

Mr. Stefan shared that this is an annual housekeeping item to transfer appropriations between line items or approves supplemental appropriations for unanticipated expenditures that were incurred during FY 2019.

Before Mr. Stefan reviewed the additional appropriations and transfers with the Committee he announced that Administration had budgeted $29,171,500 in revenues and $29,171,500 in expenditures for the FY 2019 General Fund Budget. The actual numbers that have come in are $30,284,054 in revenues and $28,420,395 in expenditures. This means that at the end of the FY 2019 Budget they were able to add $1,863,659 to the General Fund Fund Balance.

Mr. Stefan highlighted the larger appropriations and transfers for the Committee in case they had any additional questions.

It was moved by Mr. Osland, seconded by Mr. Frieders and approved unanimously to forward the resolution for the FY 2019 Year-End Budget Transfers and Appropriations to the full County Board recommending its approval.

HISTORIC VS. ACTUAL EXPENDITURE REVIEW

Mr. Stefan passed out several packets of spreadsheets showing budgets reporting to the Finance Committee (a total of 32) for FY 17, 18, 19. Mr. Stefan explained how he laid out the data for the Committee to review possibly for homework and not during the meeting.

Ms. Leifheit inquired what they were looking of and what the point of this exercise was. Chairman Bagby reviewed that one of the things that he has noticed in the past budget books is that there is an awful amount of line items that have the exact same amount from year to year to year. He questioned if there has been any analysis over a three-year period, or any, to see what percentage of some of those line items were actually really being used and whether there aren’t some way that they can gain some additional room in the budget by taking a look at those areas.

He wondered if an analysis could be done in order to possibly reset some of those line item amounts and realize some savings in doing so. He thought they could start with the Departments that report to the Finance Committee, which is what Mr. Stefan had provided for them.

Mr. Stefan commented that one thing to keep mind is when the Committee went over the budget transfers, they were $700,000 under budget and $1.1 million over on revenues and that is because of some of the numbers that are in the spreadsheets. Being over budget in some areas allows you to absorb some unexpected items in others. The point being, the tighter you make the original budget, the more you are going to shift from that transfer page to the additional appropriation page.

Chairman Bagby noted that he understood and appreciated Mr. Stefan’s comments but having a little extra revenue make it possible to do things like purchase body cameras for the Sheriff’s Office.

CLAIMS REVIEW

Mr. Stefan highlighted the significant expenditures included in the February Claims List including any items that were unusual from either a dollar amount perspective or due to the nature of the expenditure.

ADJOURNMENT

It was moved by Mr. Osland, seconded by Mr. Campbell, and it was carried unanimously to adjourn the meeting at 8:31 p.m.

https://dekalbcounty.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/min20-finmar.pdf