[UPDATE: Reactions on the meeting
here.]
[UPDATE X 2: Youtube video of the meeting is up
here. The last 15 minutes has a discussion about voting for the Nursing Home Advisory Board to be dissolved and deal with the new SAK management directly once a month. I missed it when my feed cut out and it was heated. Here's out the N-G described it:
And early Wednesday — in what may have been an illegal vote because it wasn't on the agenda — board members voted 11-7 to put a resolution on the agenda for next week's board meeting to "indefinitely and immediately" suspend the nursing home board of directors that meets monthly and reports to the county board.]
I gave the live streaming option a shot today since I couldn't it make it there in person. Had some issues with it freezing and going off-air at times, but over the course of a nearly six and a half hour meeting. That's right... the 6:30pm County Board Committee of the Whole meeting went to 12:53am technically the next morning.
A lot of public participation tonight due to the Nursing Home issue and the risk of cuts to programs, desire for funding for mental health programs, opposition of expanding jail cells instead of treatment centers and access to care, etc.
Highlights included a social scientist pointing out the absurdity of calling a push poll legitimate, "you get what you pay for with a push poll." First Followers members advocating for transition housing and programs for people transitioning from the criminal justice system to the community and the need for help against homelessness, addiction, and related recidivism. A mother and daughter made a powerful personal appeal for mental health care access, drug treatment and the growing opioid epidemic. They referenced programs that seem to be effective in McLean County modeled after the Memphis model.
Laurel Prussing made some suggestions for alternative revenue options. And one woman who had both parents at the nursing home sang the praises of the new management and discussed her interactions with the directors and her problems with other homes in the county she explored. She raised issues of the limited number that take 100% medicaid versus those that are simply too expensive for many.
There were more including a couple I believe from
Build Programs Not Jails, which you can find more information under this or the issues links.
In the beginning...
The Racial Justice Task Force presented an overview of their
final report to the board. They announced they will be presenting it to the public at the Champaign Public Library on November 30th (
facebook event here).
- Need more cooperation by police with the community to solve racial issues as a community.
- Pretrial services with risk assessment instruments needed... current system primitive and not functioning.
- Fees/court costs: funds to waive/reduce for low income, subsidized car insurance?
- Restorative justice and practices... this meeting is not to the time for a primer, but it is a critical and important issue to address later. Can be integrated throughout the criminal justice system... recommending it throughout.
- housing... fair housing for criminal convictions, repeal Champaign municipal code 17.4-5 for five years after release from prison/jail
- Community voices
- 100% employment for African Americans
- Eliminate SROs... branding kids as pre-criminals
- Need to know each other of different races, backgrounds. Helps with understanding
If it looks like my notes are poorly edited at 1:30 in the morning it's because they are and by the time I finished posting this I decided to tidy it up in the morning. Or morning-er. More morning. Later after sleep! That's it!
Justice & Mental Health Collaboration Program
After that was the Justice & Mental Health Collaboration Program Final Report which was actually rather fascinating and informative, but I doubt I could explain it well. It dealt with mental health in our justice system and there was a great deal of information beforehand that dealt with recidivism tracking for people reentering the community with better access to services and such that may be worth catching their presentation when it's available on the County youtube channel in a few days (waiting for that update). In the mean time the paper report is in the agenda packet from the
COW meeting website or at this link at page 100 of
the PDF document.
Intermission: A 5 minute recess...
...from 9:12pm to 9:22pm. Because it's the government, silly!
Nominations for filling some positions passed pretty quickly. Deb Busey was brought up in a motion to be interim County Administrator after Rick Snider resigns for his new job. It passed, but I wasn't clear on whether that required another vote at the full board meeting next week to make official from the procedural end.
Then came the Nursing Home Report from the new management which sounded like fairly good numbers and included a story of staffing needs being filled including a couple nurses who came back. Apparently some staff left over fears of the Nursing Home being sold and that being unstable or viewed negatively for their employment. After running through their presentation, it got heated by folks disputing their numbers.
Due to the lateness and also a 50/50 laziness, but also a look into the insanity of how I "note" I'm going to do a note dump of the rest (after skimming for general coherency) on what happened next. I'll probably tidy it up in the next few days unless it makes enough sense to leave and (and embrace my lazy desires). The rest was almost all about the Nursing Home, the dire budget situation, and the already shrunken, squeezed, and belt-tightened budgets being defended from further cuts:
Nursing Home report (bumped to the front)
*Some nurses left out of concerns the nursing home might be sold, since
then some have returned
Goss and Rector* appeared very annoyed at their comments to the N-G
sounding hopeful about no sale.
Goss and McGuire* seemed annoyed at the budget information presented.
Goss disagreed with the numbers. McGuire didn't seem satisfied with
what was presented and how.
*Rector/McGuire were off camera so I may have the wrong names here.
McGuire makes arguments about wanting to sell rather than close, but I
didn't follow the budget jargon.
Another board member asked about the two nurses who returned after they
thought it wasn't going to be sold... one of the SAK pointed out that
people were afraid of conditions worsening if sold, and addressed that
they mentioned the positive improvements as a necessary part of
bringing in new customers/patients.
Another admonished them a bit for not having their budget with them and let them know these kind of questions will be asked and to have it for next time.
*********
Back to regular agenda IX Finance A. Tresurer on Agenda...
Treasurer has bleak outlooks for next year as requested by Goss:
Projection next year shows an ending cash balance each month 167,000 in
january 2018 behind to 922,000 behind by July 2018 ending cash
balance... after that over a million in the hole. Appears to devolve
into a loan spiral.
Loans to the NH (apparently the states attorney agrees) from the
general fund are inappropriate. Subsidy not a loan.
Dan Welch said goodbyes and thanks. (this may be his last COW before retiring)
Auditor report
Nov 7th incident... SAK told the money would be there... courier 30,000
short... money for payroll. Upset at SAK.
"We are in a dire situation with cash."
"It is absolutely dire."
"Their projections are too rosey."
It is wrong the NH staff feel secure when county staff jobs are not
because of the budget.
******
Diane Michaels acting as chair? Yes
Moving agenda items D1,3,5-6 to full board
Item 2, 4, 7 tonight
2 pass voice
4 pass voice
7 pass voice
Moving E3,6, 7 to full board
Item 1-2, 4
4a) nursing home renewal of loans: roll call
yes
hartke
rosales
tinsley... only yes votes I heard 10-10 fails.
4b) forgiving nursing home loans? recognizing as bad debt without
assuming repayment and budgeting it that way. Without the renewal
(already failed in 4a) or forgiving the loan, it would become due from
NH to general fund Dec 29th.
roll call
yes
hartke
...again can't hear, not using mics.
petrie no... 11-9 no fails (I'm pretty sure)
5) 2018 budget discussion by rick snider
Negative outlook added to bond rating... NH renewal plan would likely
lead to a downgrade by Moody's which has taken an interest in the
county.
NH status... new management has had improvements, but may have gotten
the low hanging fruit of available improvements. Future improvement
options may be more difficult/slower... reality starting to fall short
of their budget projections.
Live feed froze/"off-air"/interrupted/froze/"off-air" at 11:48-11:54pm
Departments argue against cuts:
New sheriff's Radios are needed, old ones need updated for
coverage/safety needs
circuit clerk opposes cutting program that she would is desperately
trying to find more money for her budget due to state issues and venue
no longer being available from unit 4
Brooks Marsh, Max Mitchell made appeals towards not making cuts... on
good government and moral grounds for the community.
Snider I believe referred back to circuit clerk's program saying it was
evidence based and effective for families and community and can't just
get rid of.
Snider on ERP replacement, 40 year old software (holy cow) on a
mainframe run by someone that would like to retire. Once he's gone we
can't use it anymore. Without a programmer it doesn't work. Can't
replace on spur of the moment, years to move over to new system.
Another can that's been kicked down the road.
Snider went over what he's tried to do to keep the county running and
NH running, but it has come at a price and putting off needs. He
recommends RFP, not that they have to sell, but just to see what their
options are.
Max Mitchell points out that the meetings are bulk taken up by NH
issues. Pushes sale per voter referendum.
Stephanie Fortado argues for the better employment options for the
nursing home staff, especially black women workers of the county, a
quarter of asian county workers.
Gordy... only places left to cut would result in cutting polling places
and longer lines because election judges cost money and there would be
less.
circuit clerk has no places to cut... she's her on IT person, PR
person... could cut victims advocates or attorneys, but not secretaries
as there's one secretary for three attorneys. Otherwise would have to
cut services.
Jones? Sheriff's department? Budget seems down to necessities... things
like part time jury coordinator... jury food.
McGuire... everything has already been cut, and services shrunk. Fewer
options than private facilities. Gov't going to private firms because
gov't is not ideal to run nursing homes, not simply to privatize.
Snider: Lost 38 employees since 2009 (10% cut) looking at a potential
another 5%... never recovered from great recession. Can't afford to cut
more services. Sheriff's for 5th largest?(wasn't sure) county is too
much ground... spread too thin already. Not right to stretch it
further.
Petrie wants RFP baffled why others (other Dems it would seem) won't go
for it to find out our options.
Mitchell says he won't support RFP unless board is serious about
selling. Too many people depending on us to sell.
12:38am life stream freeze/"off-air"/glitchy/frozen/"off-air" 12:45am
Popped up in the middle of Patterson asking about whether it is good
governance in the middle of the night with pop-up changes to SAK...
Goss wants to tell him what he thinks, Patterson assures him the
question was rhetorical and that he has the floor.
and then the feed froze again... but this time it was my internet. Back
at 12:50...
Pattsi Petrie: NH board over 10 years didn't follow the bylaws. Didn't
do the job. That's why we're here. (only caught the end of whatever
rant that was)
Goss repeats the motion... NH advisory board be indefinitely suspended.
Roll call but again can't hear most of the votes. 11-7
adjourned at 12:53am... wow and the guy running the equipment
immediately hit it off-air. Can't blame him.
When all was said and done it was mostly the heads pointing out that any further cuts would be brutal. Republicans wanted to make clear the serious reality of the budget. And while it appears that Democrats might have been a bit reserved, some of that was due to the live feed issues I was having cutting out around the time of their remarks, so... it'll be interesting to see what their impressions are tomorrow.
As for me, I'll try to add more, make more sense of this, edit and tidy it up and throw on links to the local press coverage. Tomorrow. I mean today. Holy crap it's 2am. G'night, world!
