County Board COW Write Up 4/10

The County Board had its Committee of the Whole this week. I caught it on the County Clerk's YouTube page today. The agenda packet is available here, with addendums and supporting material available on this page. It included a presentation (video here, PowerPoint here) that had a break down of the 5 year forecast. Which overall shows revenue failing to keep up with expenses at an increasingly alarming rate even without the Nursing Home Operation / Disposition that is not part of this forecast other than the impact of loan forgiveness (click to enlarge):

The Racial Justice Task Force recommendations for community engagement (page 17 of the RJTF Final Report) were discussed. McGuire pointed out his opposition based on the fact that many of the ideas will require money and it's not known when in the foreseeable future the County would have funds for this or anything else in the current budget crisis. He voiced general support for the recommendations, noting "a lot of good things in here." He said there may be some overlap with some current community organizations such as the Reentry Council and Champaign Community Coalition, but another issue may be that the board simply doesn't have any place to tell local police departments what to do.

Chair Weibel and others highlighted that at this point the motion is only to facilitate and collaborate towards the goals, not any spending at this point, and not leading other government entities in any actions. Member Hartke suggested a leadership role would be good. Member Esry noted some concerns about ADA compliance with some of the recommendations, but Weibel again pointed out that this motion isn't for implementation yet, merely a call to action to look into facilitating and cooperating with these recommendations. Member Price said it is good for the Board to get its feet in the water on this and that it will take a coalition within the community to pull it off.

It passed by voice vote with what sounded like only a few nays.

Other reports were submitted and filed by voice vote. Nominations passed by voice vote for several appointments. Sheriff proclamations designating the Week of May 6th as National Correctional Officer Week and another designating the Week of May 13th as National Police Week passed by voice vote as well.

One of the finance budget items was rather large and the handful of questions took some explanation from the Highway Department. An Ameren project that required heavy transportation on Staley Road was expected to cause some damage and an agreement was reached beforehand for Ameren to pay the cost of restoring the road to its previous condition after the project. This utilized a before and after survey and a measuring guide known as the "Pavement Condition Index." This motion is to be made available to the Highway Department for that work: $900,000 out of the $1,043,000 paid to the County by Ameren. The funding passed by voice vote.

There was a closed session about some pending litigation. When the board returned to open session they agreed that the addendum item on the Nursing Home shortfall would no longer need to be addressed due to the contents of that closed session.

The Board of Review annual report was submitted and the Treasurer's reports were presented. Several items about a positive set of resolutions involving mobile homes and taxes that apparently is helpful to the County from what little I could understand all passed by voice vote.

The Deputy County Administrator Tami Ogden went through the Five Year Forecast report presentation available here (PowerPoint here). Aa2 Negative Outlook from Moody's Rating, July 2017 was probably a somber, but concise, summary from the report:

The negative outlook reflects the expectation that without material changes to operating revenues or expenditures continued support of the county nursing home will likely continue to weaken the county's reserve position, placing downward pressure on the rating. 

The Question and Answers are after Ms. Ogden's presentation and start here. A bit of obligatory stating the obvious on the dire situation along with some answers that involved how needed upgrades to the server systems really need to know how the Nursing Home situation is being resolved or not in order to plan replacements and/or upgrades. Chair Weibel had a question about possible increased income from solar farms. Apparently the assessment will probably be higher than the previous farmland, but upon further questions it appears that nothing specific is certain yet.

After that the rest of the agenda was run through with no new business and a quick addition to the consent agenda of a couple items and then an immediate adjournment.