Jasper County Board
June 11, 2020
The County Board met in regular session on Thursday, June 11, 2020. Members present were Bollman, Leffler, Fehrenbacher, Hall, Heltsley, Hickox, Kerner, Pickens, Warfel, Michl, Swick and Weddell. The meeting was called to order at 7:00 pm by proclamation according to law by Sheriff Francis.
Sheriff Francis led a moment in silence and the Pledge of Allegiance.
Public comments
Mitch Bierman addressed the board on the blessing for protect on courthouse lawn. Already has blessing from mayor and city police. Also would like to be able to use the county building parking lot. The protest will be beneficial to everyone. Ron has checked with insurance company and no insurance is required so as long as there is no destruction to courthouse lawn, it will be ok.
Swick made a motion to approve the agenda. Bollman seconded the motion. Motion carried on a voice vote.
Committee Reports:
The Road and Bridge Committee met on June 8th. Bridge Aid Petition with North Muddy Township located 1.25 mile NW of Wheeler was presented. Swick made a motion to approve Petition and Hickox seconded the motion. Motion carried on a voice vote. Bridge Aid Petition with Wade Township located 4 miles NW of Newton was presented. Hickox made a motion to approve Petition and Swick seconded the motion. Motion carried on a voice vote. The 2019 Compliance Reviews of the County MFT, Township, MFT, and Township Bridge Program was completed by IDOT. Hickox made a motion to present these Reviews to the County Board and then will be files as a permanent record in the Highway Office. Kerner seconded the motion. Motion carried on a voice vote. Foreman’s mileage for May was 1,495 miles.
Solid Waste Committee did not meet.
The Sheriff’s Committee met on May 27th. Dispatching has been short staffed since March due to COVID 19 concerns. Beginning June 10th all full-time dispatchers are scheduled to be working. In an effort to accommodate everyone’s health concerns and needs the Sheriff’s Office will continue to dispatch from the firehouse part of the time. Some dispatchers will also be dispatching from the Sheriff’s office part of the time. We will continue to isolate our dispatchers when possible. Dispatcher Janet Chapman has been training the last couple of months. Chapman has been working part-time during her training. Chapman is scheduled to complete her training at the end of May. Chapman is scheduled to be dispatching full-time in June. Bids have been received from Pennington Ford / Chevrolet and McClane Motors for an SUV. McClane Motors has the lowest bid of $32,465 for a 2020 Dodge Durango Pursuit. The vehicle has been ordered but not sure when it will arrive. Equipment has been ordered for the new patrol unit from CJ accessories. Chris Hankins will be installing the equipment when the new patrol unit arrives. A grant has been submitted for new tasers, will know if receive this grant in June. Illinois Department of Corrections are currently refusing prisoners that have been sentenced to IDOC and have been since March 26th. This has caused inmate housing problems and added housing expense for counties across the state. Jasper County currently has 4 subjects sentenced to the Illinois Department of Corrections. It is unclear at this time when IDOC will begin accepting their prisoners.
The Finance Committee met on June 8th. Clinton gave the May report of income and expenses. The county is expenses are more than income. Clinton presented the Revenue and Expense Report. The 6 month report showed expenses are about the same as last year but the income is $160,000 less. In the General Fund the majority of the difference in the income is income tax and sales tax from the state. Clinton handed out 2019/2020 income and expenses monthly sheet. The Health Department has requested to apply for a separate tax ID number. The auditor say they cannot do this as long as they are part of the county. The state deposits money and will not separate them from the ambulance department, have to internally move the money and does require more work. Tarr explained the hard drive to replace the server. 1 TB equals 1,024 GB and currently the county office building is using less than 25 GB of space. The NAS should be able to support the building before ever needing a bigger hard drive. As far as security goes, the NAs will be encrypted with its own username/password and it will be behind the SonicWall as well. Hall made a motion to purchase the hard drive for $792. Bollman seconded the motion. The motion carried on a voice vote. The single audit is needed because federal funds for expenses were over $750,000. The audit funds levied will be close to budget but may need to look at increasing the audit funds because a single audit may be needed in the coming years also. Bollman made a motion to approve Kemper CPA Single Audit Expense of $5,000. Hall seconded the motion. The motion carried on a voice vote. The Firewall was damaged from the water damage from the emergency doors installation also. SDS offers a Firewall Service Contract of 1 year $1,225, 2 year $1,774 and 3 year $2,100 which offers new hardware and support. Bollman made a motion for a 3 year contract with SDS for a firewall for $2,100. Hall seconded the motion. The motion carried on a voice vote. FY2021 budget preparation worksheets will be given to department heads and have them back to Clinton by July 31 and department head meetings with committee would be in August. The 6 month reports will be due in July.
The Building Committee met on June 4th. 5/11 Tore out section of concrete by flag pole and re poured it. There is a 15 foot section that needs replaced but would like help. 5/12 Helped move new desks in the circuit clerk office. 5/15 Emergency exit doors started around noon had a big mess. Randy asked for help framing doors. Friday, Saturday, Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday worked on doors. 15 hours of overtime was created from the doors. The doors still need finishing of trimming. Tom said he could do it on his own time or on the clock. Committee said just keep track of time at home and do as have time. It was a bigger job than anticipated. 5/26 Found water damage in basement from the installation of the doors, electronic equipment was destroyed. 5/28 Talked to Terry Smithenry about dirt around the sidewalk at county building and will do when finds time. City Park delivered 24 picnic tables to the court house yard and they did come and help move them when he mowed. The extra trash cans have been emptied. Greg Parrott has volunteered to put a big tent over the tables. Hopefully in a couple of weeks the tables can be removed. Benches on the court house lawn are in terrible shape. NAHC sells composite. Possibly rearrange and remove a few. Hire to do concrete and need to look at how to mount them. Tom will get a bid on eight benches. Saturday Schackmann’s is having last paper drive. There is a bunch in the court house. Tom will haul it off. Old furniture is gone from the basement and down to two air conditioners. There is a steel door in the courthouse that houses the elevator mechanics. Currently the door does not pass inspection. The door must close and be locked. Tom will try to work on the door to get it to close. The amount of rust on the door and hinges has made the door to not be able to close. The door is located in a pit that holds water and a new door would at some point have the same problem of rusting, so going to try and make the current door work. Projects at courthouse leak around Probation office window, looks like calking may be missing and needs to be re-calked. Ronnie Diel will be completing a wall in the court room and in the assessor office. Emergency exits have been covered in Tom’s report. The carpet is scheduled to be cleaned in the other county offices in the office building. It was impressive to see the board members come in and help clean the Treasurer’s office after the mess the installation of the emergency door caused in his office. The firewall for the computers has also been damaged by the water and dirt coming into the basement onto the electronic equipment, the cost will be around $1,500 to replace it. Martinsville Roofing Company has looked at roof but have not heard back from them. Tom will try to contact them. Nothing to report on the sheriff department project. Talked about five-year plan, it is flexible in moving items to different years. Ask if half of the picnic table on the court yard can be moved off. Work on the cannon has not started. Tom has been using his personal lawnmower. The county has a newer mower. The mower needs to be sold or trade in for something Tom would like and use. The liability of using his personal lawnmower is a concern. Tom said it takes him 5 hours to mow with his lawnmower and if would use county lawn mower it would take 10 hours. Tom can look into trading it in at Midwest Tractor for an X-Mark. County would also look at snow removal on sidewalks at the court house if the lawn mower would be sold or traded. Also talk to Chad Miller about possibly leasing the mower from Tom and selling the mower. The committed discussed record protection in the county clerk’s office. Ideas brought up possibly new room or possibly create a room in existing space.
Building committee is very pleased with Tom’s work. There was discussion of Tom and the lawn mower during board meeting. There is not a liability issue.
GIS committee did not meet.
The Ambulance Committee met on June 3rd. Equipment update: Normal Services have been completed, the new ambulance has been delayed without a projection date, due to the COVID-l9 pandemic. The Ambulance service received $14,691.90 from the Care Act, and Daniel will continue to look for other available funds that they are eligible for. Daniel did say there was some confusion on how the funds were to be divided due to having the same Tax ID number as the Health Department, this has been an ongoing problem with payments from other payers. Anthony Bennett has left due to back problems, Jeremy Gracey has been appointed the Blue shift, shift leader and Jacob Bays has moved from part time to full time. Jacob is in the Paramedic program at Sarah Bush and should become a Paramedic in about a year.
The Insurance Committee did not meet.
EMA did not meet.
The Animal Control did not meet, but did have interviews and had 5 very good applicants.
JEDI met on June 2nd. Amber Wakefield, Amber Volk, Mark Bolander, Ron Heltsley, Andy Johnson, Sarah Kinkade gave monthly reports.
Personnel Committee did not meet.
Health Department report is in the board packet. Health Department received $800,000 grant for COVID.
Law Enforcement Committee did not meet. Turned over plans to the subs, it will be a 50 to 70 page document.
Weddell moved to approve the County Clerk’s report. Hickox seconded the motion. Motion carried on a voice vote.
No old business.
New Business:
Kerner made a motion to approve Bridge Aid Petition with North Muddy Township. Hall seconded the motion. Motion carried on a voice vote.
Hickox made a motion to approve Bridge Aid Petition with Wade Township. Kerner seconded the motion. Motion carried on a voice vote.
2019 Compliance Reviews of County MFT, Township MFT, Township Bridge Program is available for review.
Weddell made a motion to approve of server storage quote in County Office building. Bollman seconded the motion. Motion carried on a voice vote.
Swick made a motion to approve of Kemper CPA Single Audit Expense. Bollman seconded the motion. The motion passed on a roll call vote with Bollman, Leffler, Fehrenbacher, Hall, Heltsley, Kerner, Michl, Warfel, Hickox, Pickens, Swick and Weddell voting yes.
Carry over to after closed session to approve appointment of the administer of Jasper County Animal Control, appointment of the Jasper County Animal Control Warden, and back pay on county contract.
Warfel moved to approve the minutes. Kerner seconded the motion. The motion carried on a voice vote.
County Board Comments:
Hickox asked why we have to meet like this. Chad Miller said grant certain powers to the health department. Wanted to make sure everyone comfortable. Hickox commented would like the governor to quit pushing us around.
Chairman’s Comments:
Thank you note from Ron Swick for gift from the county board for the passing of his mother. Letter from Ameren vegetation activities will be taking place in the county. United Counties Council of Illinois annual conference cancelled for this year, next year conference planned for July 26-27 2021.
Hall made a motion to go into closed session at 7:45 pm. Kerner seconded the motion. The motion passed on a roll call vote with Bollman, Leffler, Fehrenbacher, Hall, Heltsley, Kerner, Michl, Warfel, Hickox, Swick, Pickens and Weddell voting yes.
9:22 pm came out of closed session.
Hickox made a motion to approve appointment Dr. Chad Ely, DVM as the administer of Jasper County Animal Control. Bollman seconded the motion. Motion carried on a voice vote.
No action was made to the appointment of the Jasper County Animal Control Warden.
Leffler made a motion to approve of $2,500 back pay on county contract. Kerner seconded the motion. Motion carried on a voice vote.
Warfel moved to allow the claims. Weddell seconded the motion. The motion carried on a voice vote.
The next board meeting is July 9th, 2020 at 7:00 pm.
Leffler moved to adjourn at 9:24 pm. Kerner seconded the motion. The motion carried on a voice vote.
Amy Tarr, Jasper County Clerk
