It is Thursday, September 4th.

I call to order the Lake County Board's Financial and Administrative Committee.

Would you please rise and join me in reciting the Pledge of Allegiance?

Pledge Allegiance to the United States of America.

And to the Republic for which it stands.

One nation under God.

Indivisible Liberty and Justice for All.

Thank you.

Can we have a roll call, please?

Yes.

Member Clark here.

Chair Frank?

Here.

Member Hewitt?

Here.

Member Maine?

Vice Chair Park?

Here.

Member Peterson?

Member Bulitzik.

Thank you.

We are all here.

Do we have any addenda to the agenda?

No, we don't.

And we have any public comment this morning.

None.

Okay.

I have no chairs' remarks.

We have no unfinished business.

We'll proceed to new business consent agenda items.

8.1 to 8.23.

I'm going to pull 8.21 from this action.

So we could discuss that one separately.

Motion on the consent agenda items by member Clark, second by member Hewitt.

Anything else need to be pulled?

Any comments or questions on the items?

All in favor, please say aye.

Any opposed?

Those items are approved.

8.21 is a presentation of the fiscal year 2024 schedule of anything.

Yep.

8.21 is presentation of the fiscal year 2024 schedule of income and expenses for the counties northwest, northeast, central, and southeast sanitary sewer systems.

I'll note that this presentation was uh already presented and discussed in the committee of origin.

And um we normally don't do a duplicate presentation on things like this.

So I would just ask for a motion to postpone this item indefinitely for this committee.

Motion by member Clark.

Second by vice chair, any comments, questions, or discussion.

Member May.

We inadvertently carried it over.

It shouldn't have made it onto the consent agenda, but it was a mistake.

The presentations are normally only made at PWT.

And postpone it.

Indefinitely.

And that's how the it will just never bring it back.

That's how we get the item to.

That's what was unclear to me as to what your end goal was.

Yeah.

The goal is just we we would not normally have this presentation here.

So we're yeah.

Any other questions?

All in favor, please say aye.

Any opposed.

8.21 is postponed it definitely.

On to our regular agenda items.

8.24.

Is committee action approving contract modification number one with Yellowstone Landscape of Wakanda for lawn care and landscape services for Lake County facilities and the amount of 23,250.

Motion on this item by member Volitzik, second by Vice Chair Prague.

Morning.

Morning.

Carl Carrard, Director of Facilities and Construction Services.

So this is a modification to our annual landscaping and grounds maintenance contract.

And this adds annual field mowing and monthly cutting of the perimeter of the Libertyville campus.

Uh has an increase of 23,000 23,250 a year.

And uh this will increase the um anyways for these additional services around that campus there to really control some of the invasive um weeds and so on that are that are growing.

Uh this just improves really the the campus itself, and it is work that we end up doing anyway generally and all once a time uh once a year basis.

Uh but the annual field mowing cuts down the fields uh and then on a regular basis and then the monthly cutting of the perimeter really controls those invasive species from expanding into our neighbors and uh really out other places.

So can I ask you to just elaborate on the difference between the original and and the expansion?

Is there more yardage?

Is there more services?

Like what are we doing here with this?

So these are services that weren't part of the uh annual contract, and so we're adding them to it now.

So the member Clark.

Yeah, I'm really glad to see this.

You know, I we've I feel like I've discussed this many times in the 20 over the years that we do not mow it that often on the late Libertyville campus.

I've had a lot of we've had complaints about giant weeds, and I'd really uh one is I'm really glad to see this because today, because it needs to be mowed more often.

Um, because it just to be in compliance with everything and also for to be a good neighbor.

But I'm hoping I was gonna ask you, do we are looking at a landscape plan for the Libertyville campus, correct?

So that we can get rid of all these weeds.

Is that is that in do you know if that's being like developed?

I believe we said it was being developed, and I'm hoping that it will be, so we don't just have literally just giant amounts of weeds right in the mouth.

I think we already approved the contract for the for the plan.

Yeah, yeah, we have approved it.

We have started that design process now.

Uh Robin uh Grooms is uh leading that effort.

Uh, but yeah, facilities is definitely supporting that and moving forward, but uh it is just starting now, and uh we'll be getting into those details and we'll be coming back to committee to report out what those findings are.

And it uh in general, the focus is that where the old Winchester House lot is, but we'll be able to use some of the some of the information and expand that to other areas to include the rest of the campus there as well as some of the other areas across the county.

Okay, good.

I I would think that this board would want to be best practices on our one of our main campuses, and we uh for you know, weed management and everything, landscaping.

If you any of you would like to just walk around the campus and see, it could use a little something.

So I'm really glad to see we're moving forward with this, and I really hope it happens soon.

Thank you.

Member main.

Yeah, this is fine.

I'm gonna support it.

I just like to point out that sometimes uh environmentally it's it's uh best just to mow things down because when you um as a long-term gardener and garden clubs, once you start doing your landscape, I'm not saying we shouldn't do a landscape plan, then um then it does get difficult to keep out the weeds with sometimes out using chemical.

So I think we'll need to look at a balance of that.

Yeah, thanks.

Uh a little bit tangential, so to remember Clark's landscaping discussion.

We're also looking at maybe including the other campuses, such as the health department's campus, right?

In this conversation.

Uh the health department, I think they have their own contract.

Right.

They're not part of last time to maybe look at a plan that encompassed not just Libertyville, but also other okay.

I I'm sorry, I I misunderstood.

Uh yes, uh the landscaping, so that contract, that landscaping design contract.

Again, it's is focused just on that parcel within the Libertyville campus.

Uh, there's a phase two, which could be expanded to all the other areas of the county to include the health department areas.

Okay.

Thank you.

But just to clarify, that phase two is not something we have bid or approved yet, correct?

Correct.

It has not been budgeted or approved yet.

Okay.

Okay.

We did talk about it, but we didn't haven't done it.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Okay.

Okay.

Other comments or questions.

Okay.

Great.

Thank you.

All in favor, please say aye.

Any opposed?

8.24 is approved.

8.25 is director's report.

Yes.

So today I will be providing the job order contract quarterly report.

And if you could bring that slide deck up.

Uh fairly straightforward as far as the the slides are concerned.

Uh, you have seen these before, but I'll run through them fairly quick here again.

The contract itself.

I'm sorry, went slightly too fast.

As per uh the county policy 3.9, we'll provide quarterly reports as well as an annual report at the end of the fiscal year.

Uh, as a reminder, it's a multiple source contract, collectively competitively solicited and awarded three general contractors.

You see them there.

Contract terms started a first year, started January 1st, 2024.

We are entering our third year uh this January.

Contract values per contract per year is $50,000 guarantee a minimum of $2 million uh maximum.

Uh so with that in mind, uh, the performance uh this is all in in the agenda items.

So if you would like to pull this up and I guess in a readable manner, you could certainly do that, but I'll run through the numbers.

The column really on the far right side is the one in in question.

Uh the value of job orders carried over from last fiscal year to this year is 1.8 million dollars.

Number of job orders this fiscal year has been 20, 20, 14 of those are over 30,000, and four of those have been over 350,000.

So the general average of all of the contracts awarded so far has been 157,000 uh per job order uh with a total value of 3.1 million.

Uh, we also track the local Lake County participation as well as uh minority owned subcontractor participation and women-owned subcontractor participation.

You can see those numbers there.

Uh local Lake County is about 23% minority owned at 15% and women owned at 1.5%.

I would just always note that the staff has reviewed the subcontractors websites.

So the information while it's as good as we can find it it is not as I say officially sanctioned number it's not these aren't state data uh state information or anything else we go and we actually do our own research to find those numbers or find which subcontractors are women owned or minority owned so I'll pause there if there's any yeah I I'm glad you're pausing because I just want to ask you to elaborate a little bit on the the increase big jump in the number and minority owned subcontractor participation like is it just because of uh uh awareness or self-identification or have we made additional efforts in that area uh primarily it's because of uh self-identified subcontractor is a minority owned business and it's I believe there are I I don't have the exact contract in front of me that could tell you but there there are a couple of subcontractors that were minority owned and with them performing work for us that that Prime selected them to do that work.

Yeah it's a significant jump.

Okay.

Member main thank you and just to make sure I'm I'm clear on this so these are all subcontractors that work for those that were subcontracted through those three firms that you had on the previous slide.

Okay just thanks.

Correct and you know and I think that's also how state and other entities also report that because at the end of the day if it's a sub of your of your GC it it counts towards your diversification goals in terms of contract yeah yeah.

So for for more details on all those numbers you can go there's a uh a PDF of the spreadsheet that has all of our subcontractors or all of the work all the job orders all the subcontractors performing that work that are attached to the to the agenda item so you can see that there and that's the end of my report.

Any other questions just check in online I see no hands up great thank you director oh sorry no nothing else okay yeah I was just going to point out that there was that big jump but overall the dollar amount from 24 to 25 is down half a million dollars.

So I I think it just shows that things can can bounce around I'm not being critical of that I'm just saying yes that went up but the overall dollars happened to be down that year.

So that could also explain why there was a greater percentage in terms of like there had been one other big job the time before that's correct.

Yeah that's correct great uh data points for us thank you again okay 8.26 is a resolution amending the finance policy 3.3.1 the video gaming revenue policy motion to approve on this item by member Clark second by member Volitse good morning Dominic morning chair good morning committee dominic streso community development administrator we're proposing a couple changes to the video gaming revenue policy the main change is increasing the top line number from 800 to 825 thousand dollars allocated to community development to pass through as grants if approved all 25 of those 2500 of those would go toward 211 information and referral services that set aside would be increased their annual amount increase from 125 to 1500 the driver behind this request is an increase in software costs um specifically the resource directory module that 211 uses is being sunseted it's only going to be serviced by the provider and the replacement which is an improvement costs a little bit more and there's a one-time implementation fee in year one so all these dollars would go to offset uh those costs the second change is around the amount that gets allocated to community development for VGR program administration the current policy says that amount gets determined on an annual basis through the budget process we propose putting an exact dollar amount to that and we are proposing for 47,500 the methodology behind that is typically we use 10% as kind of a benchmark but in the case of VGR we do have a couple like set asides where applications aren't necessarily scored a little bit less administrative burden on those.

So we pulled those out and took 10% of the remaining balance, and that's how we landed at the 47,500 mark.

And those are the two changes we're proposing.

Great.

Thank you.

I think uh the intent of the policy that we established years ago was to provide meaningful support to 211.

Uh I think we by doing so, the uh Lake County 211 is a statewide leader and has been and helped you really push for the establishment of the program statewide and continues to help people every day.

So I think the adjustment's appropriate.

I'm glad you brought it forward.

Other comments or questions?

All in favor, please say aye.

Any opposed?

8.26 is approved.

8.27 is a resolution accepting and placing on file an estimate of the annual aggregate tax levy in the amount of 188 million six hundred forty-seven thousand two hundred ninety-eight dollars, providing for the apportionment of estimated taxes across the various items for fiscal year 2026 appropriation ordinance, as will be adopted by the county board.

Motion to approve by Vice Chair Parek, second by member clerk.

Good morning, Patrice Sutton, County Administrator.

As we discussed last week, the estimate before you today is using the full amount of the property tax extension limitation law or PTEL allowable CPI, which is 2.9% for this fiscal year.

Um at this time, we are preparing our balanced budget using only half of that, 1.45%.

But in an effort to be fully transparent of the maximum amount, we all uh have historically and are again this year um putting forth an estimate at the full amount with the hope and intention of um passing something less than this, but just in the effort of transparency, this has been put forward at the full amount.

Um in as is required, it has been allocated to the various property tax funds, but we are still going through the budget preparation process, and even those allocations could potentially change before we present the budget.

With that, I'm happy to answer any questions.

Members, member main thank you.

And I support this, and we had a good conversation last week.

Um it just suddenly um occurred to me that I don't know, like I understand saying, hey, there's been this much growth.

That's that's what we that's what we can take.

Have have we ever or someone ever looked at that increased development is increasing our costs as opposed to saying we there's inflation, you know, we get that money because at a certain point you you can add people to a system, and you're not necessarily increasing your costs in a system because you've got room.

I'm just do you do you understand?

I'm not being very articulate here, but do you understand what I'm asking?

Are you referring to the new development portion?

Yeah, of the making the pie bigger.

Yeah, right.

So there's two ways that the c the pie is made bigger.

The first is EAV growth.

Um however, usually your home value increases as well.

So that kind of offsets the the total EAV growth.

So the the one that really can change the needle for us is new growth.

And um I haven't done the type of analysis that you're um suggesting.

Uh, but I will say that it is that new growth that it has allowed the rate to continue to go down for Lake County since 2020.

So it is that new growth that has really helped us out.

But may yeah, but but rate rate is different than than what's paid.

So I I feel like rate, we have to meet the rate, but rate can often kind of be an inside baseball game, right?

Because in the end, somebody cares about how much they pay.

They're not looking at the rate.

I'm just thinking today and um, you know, today's the day to to pay the second installment.

And um, you know, these these um it's a lot, you know.

I was like, oh, I forgot mine was that much.

And I was just thinking, you know, it just kind of falls on the day when we're when we're talking about that, that um it's the dollar amount that people care about.

They they don't care about the rate.

We are governed by a rate.

Correct.

Um, but I guess uh you answer my question.

No, that analysis hasn't been done, but it it is something I think to think about because growth does not always need increased costs.

So I've been thinking about your question since you first asked it.

And I think did I ask it before?

Or you mean just since I asked it two seconds?

Three minutes ago.

Okay, okay.

And I think it's a good it's a good question.

I'm not certain that there is any way to show correlation between growth and costs, but we know that our costs increase.

And this is the main revenue lever that we have.

So I do understand the question, and I think I think it has merit, but I don't know that we would ever find that correlation.

Yeah.

May I respond?

Yeah.

No, I I understand it was really, it just literally kind of popped in my head and thinking that is that growth, it's just allowing like we have increased salaries, other things like that.

That that's what that growth that that dollars we get from that, that's covering an increase in other expenses, not necessarily expanded services because we have had that growth.

Is it did I make sense there?

Yeah.

Oh, okay.

All right, yeah.

It was I was just I don't know.

I've been thinking about that more recently.

Thank you.

Point.

Can I do that?

That's it's an interesting question.

I guess the way I thought about it was, and correct me if I'm wrong, Patrice, that by having the new growth calculated that we allow the amount per homeowner to not increase as much as one would if we didn't have the new growth.

Is that fair to say that the the the new growth offsets some of the costs that a homeowner would have beared if we had not had that that additional because our costs are going up, right?

But new growth will cover some of that cost that would have not been displaced by the new growth.

Yes.

Um I do understand what you're saying, and I understand the question.

I'm only hesitating because we really have a very difficult time of you know correlating the two.

Um I I do agree with you that the new growth um that you know we uh benefit from definitely does reduce the amount of tax burden on taxpayers.

Yes.

On an individual basis, it goes up less had we not calculated the new growth into it.

That is true.

That's how I kind of viewed it.

So everyone benefits by the new growth because everyone's rate is reduced in a way.

Anyway, good discussion, helpful.

Any other comments or questions on the levy estimate?

All in favor, please say aye.

Aye.

Any opposed?

8.27 is approved.

8.23.

Do we have a director's report from Director Chuchek?

Uh good morning, Chair Frank, members of the committee, Gina Tuzak, Chief Financial Officer.

I have one item to report to you today.

Um, the audit of the county's financial statements was completed and reported to you earlier this year.

Uh one last reporting is what we call the single audit, which is required for non-federal entities that have spending of federal awards in excess of a million dollars.

That's the current requirement.

So of course we we meet that requirement.

Our federal award expenditures were actually 77.3 million in the last fiscal year, which compares to 67.2 million um a year ago.

Most of that increase is is part of the uh coronavirus um ARPA spending.

Uh, we received our final report last week.

There were no federal award findings reported, which is excellent news for our finance team.

Um associated with this final single audit report.

Uh we do have to submit a federal filing to the federal audit clearing house, which was completed and submitted by the due date of August 31st.

Uh, we also have a state filing requirement that was uh due and filed by the due date of August 30th.

Um and last, what we call this again, the single audit report is posted on the Lake County website under uh the schedule of expenditures on federal wards.

So that's uh thank you.

Questions for the director.

Thank you very much.

Thank you.

8.29 is a resolution authorizing an emergency appropriation in fund 206 liability insurance and risk fund to fund claims, expenses, and settlement expenses in excess of the fiscal year 2025 budget in the amount of four million dollars from the fund 206 fund balance.

Motion to approve this item by member Hewitt, second by Vice Chair Park.

Good morning, Erica.

Good morning, Eric Osinski risk manager.

Yes, we're requesting emergency appropriation of $4 million from the risk fund for claims expenses that are exceeding our budgeted amount in 2025.

And then as well as larger settlements that were anticipated, um, but not knowing if they would settle in 2025, we reserved for them in the fund balance, but didn't budget for them.

Comments or questions.

Member Clark, then member main.

Yeah, and I'm fine with this, but is this something we need to budget more for going forward?

Do you feel like for the next fiscal year or I requested more, but it was deterred decided that we would leave the money in the reserves and only ask for emergency appropriations on certain outliers that we weren't sure if they were going to settle or not this year.

So this year seems to have like more outliers perhaps than uh Yeah.

There are larger, you know, there were the legacy work comp claims from 2012 and 2013, and then the most recent civil suit that just settled a couple few weeks ago that state's attorney office talked about.

Okay, so you feel pretty confident, hopefully going forward that we, I mean it'd just be good to budget it for thank you.

Yep.

If I may, the um the pros and cons of of budgeting a higher number because Erica does ask for a higher number every single year, is that our reserve policy states that we have to reserve the full amount of the actuarial analysis that includes every single one of those potential settlements, which are very large.

And so if we budget for it, that means that property tax revenue is offsetting that budget, and we also have it in the reserve.

So it is a balancing game that we um we do try to estimate an annual amount that um is reasonable.

But if one of these large settlements that is reserved for in the actuarial analysis comes to fruition during the fiscal year, um, our our practice recently has been to come to you for an emergency appropriation rather than um assuming that all of those settlements potentially could hit during the budget.

Um, because then that means that to balance, we have to cut someplace else.

So happy to change that methodology for fiscal year 26, but I just wanted to explain the thought process there.

Thank you.

Thank you, member May.

Thank you.

That was so helpful.

So this money is coming from the reserve for that fund into that fund.

Okay.

So that's very helpful.

Um what I wonder, and this was my thought before hearing all that, you know, you probably have some lovely Excel spreadsheet, right?

That looks each, you know, has each year, like let's say do a 10-year picture of how many things are outstanding, you know, how many claims did we pay out in this year that were in this range dollar amount in this range dollar amount?

Um, is that something that the committee sees at budget time?

I'm just wondering if that would not I want to keep that policy in mind, but I don't know.

It seems like it would be helpful to have, you know, for the committee to have a sense of those trends, and it kind of fits with some of the things that um we talked about last week about payouts and and things like that.

So do you do you have that?

I mean, I usually present it when I'm doing my budget proposal, but I might not have seen it.

What is uh provided during the budget meetings?

I'm not entirely sure.

Okay.

Oh, so you turn it over, yeah.

And just I'm just wondering, like if we were to take a snapshot back, what what would we what would we see?

And do we as a committee that actually has the determining factor on some of these settlements?

Do we have a good sense?

And you all might, again, I'm new on this committee, have a good sense of how many of these legacy claims are out there, like right?

How big is the iceberg under the water that's out there?

Do we know that?

Does the committee know that?

No.

I mean, to be to be to be honest with you, I could tell you that when we've had uh updates on you know, pending or things that are out there uh when we review those with the state's attorney, there's often not a range associated with each one of those items.

But do we have uh to me, it seems like it would be valuable at some point to have a comprehensive presentation to say, hey, these are how many, we don't know how big that iceberg is, maybe it's small, maybe it's big, but these are how many icebergs out there that you're trying to navigate and just to have an overall sense of what's out there.

Sure.

Thank you.

And I think that's a really good point.

And I can say, and I'm not able to always attend all the executive sessions where uh where those are discussed.

But my recollection is where possible there are ranges that maybe they're not even on the sheet at that time, because you can imagine the states attorney's office is a little hesitant to even in executive session say, well, we're thinking this is going to come in around here.

But in the conversation, there's usually like, well, we think our exposure is X.

There's conversations about insurance and coverage and all of those things.

So I would say when we are having those uh more in-depth conversations in executive session, there is sort of a ballpark, but you can imagine that ballpark is quite large, right?

Uh, there are I I can't, I won't speak to things in Lake County because I would get that wrong, but certainly we read things in the newspaper where it's like, wow, there's this enormous settlement that went through.

But my recollection is when we are going through the entire list that it's not always totaled at the bottom because there are so many unknowns.

That's the I think I think to your point.

We could ask for and start to project, you know, hey, a range.

What does this look like going forward?

And you know, maybe maybe it's a possibility when next time we have the sort of larger review.

Um, but at the same time, I feel like the variances, you know, uh tend to even out over time.

There are years where we have been under budget and there have been a few in recent memory where we've been over where we're having to have to do these balance transfers.

Ms.

Very Sun.

Yeah, if I may, um, we do get the uh actuarial calculation performed by a consultant every single year.

We don't historically have them make a presentation to you.

I think Erica, maybe this time around, after we do that for the fiscal year 25, maybe they could come and explain that report.

The value of the actuarial calculation for our fiscal year 24 audit was 14,152,870.

So we do have a very precise number of what we think the value of those outstanding claims are.

And I think we just need to do a better job of kind of communicating that with you.

And I think a great place to start would be to have our actuarial consultants come and present their report.

Um, we could either do that for fiscal year 24 or for next year's report at the committees.

And that value is within like an undefined time range.

That's just anything outstanding.

We have no idea if those are going to hit in 26, 27, et cetera, right?

Right.

There um and again, this is why it would be awesome to have the consultants explain because this is very complicated, but um, they they do try to kind of you know make a present value judgment of when these things will hit, and they have a multi-year um analysis of kind of when it's most likely to hit and everything.

They do all kinds of um comparisons to other types of similar cases and everything.

It's it's really a precise science.

So I think that you would get a lot more um sense of security that our number and our reserves are sufficient, and that we do have a really good handle of these outstanding claims.

If we could just explain, have our consultant help you understand how we track all of those.

So that's very hair to hear, and I appreciate it.

I just want to make sure that uh my statements are accurate.

Have we been presented that number before?

It is um utilized in our financial statements on an annual basis.

Um, so it is a separate number that is spelled out in our financial statements.

Unfortunately, it sounds like we have not been very good at making sure that you all understand what that number um on the financial statements maybe we have, but uh my awareness of it was not peak.

So thank you.

Other comments?

Yeah, member main, then member of the tick.

I just want to make clear that I was not doubting our overall methodology, you know.

I wasn't doubting staff.

I was just trying to understand things in a bigger picture.

Our awareness got it.

Yep, good point.

Member Volitic.

I was just gonna say, as to the process as you explained it, um, I I think that makes perfect sense.

If we have to match reserves to the budget, doing both, um, you know, and a large amount in the budget, holding taxpayer dollars there while reserves doesn't make sense to me.

So I just I appreciate that appreciate the explanation.

I think it makes sense.

Yeah, I think the approach is sound.

Yep.

Okay, thank you.

Anything else?

Okay, all in favor on this item, please say aye.

Aye.

Any opposed?

8.29 is approved.

Thank you.

Is a presentation on health insurance for fiscal year 2026.

Good morning.

Darcy Edcock, HR director.

With me today, we have a guest, um, Neithi Patel.

She is from she's our benefits consultant, um, our partner from the IPBC.

So we're gonna start today with an overview of um sort of our our experience, our claims experience this last this last year.

Um, we've been with the IPBC since 20 July of 22, and we haven't had an opportunity yet to come back and give you an update on our experience and what's going on in the in the ever-changing insurance market.

And we thought it would be a good opportunity for the expert herself to give a presentation, and then I'll jump in with a brief um presentation specific to Lake County in 2026.

So I'll turn it over to Neathi.

Good morning, everyone.

Um like Darcy said, my name is Nithi Patel.

I'm the senior benefit consultant with IPBC for Lake County.

Uh, thank you so much for allowing me to come here and uh speak today.

Um, so I'll just go over what IPBC is and what we do.

So IPBC is a cooperative of Illinois municipalities that was formed in 1979 for the purpose of risk pooling.

So risk pooling allows IPBC members greater financial stability in a transparent environment.

So instead of Lake County being solely responsible for the risk, it's spread across all the IPBC members.

Currently we have uh over one 170 Illinois municipalities.

We're going on 180 almost at the end of um after Jan 1.

Uh, we have over 20,000 covered lives.

So it's basically the law of large numbers, right?

Instead of a few thousand employees, you're now considered almost like 20,000 employees.

And being part of uh risk pool such as this, it's not a year-over-year investment in a in a way.

It's almost like you're looking at like a five or 10-year um period to see, and especially being part of a pool, you know, there will be times where we'll be pulling other members, and then there'll be times where other members will be pulling our claims, right?

So we just have to look at the overall period versus sort of year after year.

So on the agenda, I'll go over the rate history with IPBC and the renewal calculation, how that's done with an IPBC, the medical expenses, and um just those are just the PPO expenses, uh, the HMO.

Um didn't get as much of an increase as the PPO, so I just felt to put what's most relevant.

Um, the GLP one trend and the utilization and the prescription summary.

So this is a three-year medical rate history with um uh IPBC and Lake County.

So there's three columns.

The IPBC trend is relevant and the market trend is relevant compared to how Lake County has been doing.

So in 2024, the market trend was eight percent.

As you can see, IPBC trend was 3.9, and Lake County was just below it, which means we did well.

Um, as you can see in the 2025 market trend was 7%.

And when I say market trend, it's blue cross blue shields uh market trend that we're using.

I'm sorry to interrupt.

Just to clarify.

You're talking about the rate, the actual cost of the plan, because the the headers list renewal.

And I just want to make sure that we're we're understanding exactly what the data points are here.

So it's a renewal percentage at so when I when Lake County joined IPBC was July 2022, their first renewal was January 1, 2024.

So that was the increase for that 2022.

So this is the actual renewal rate.

Setting the word renewal aside, this is the cost increase year over year for the plan.

Correct.

Yeah, okay, thank you.

Yeah.

Um for 2025 IPBC trend was 4%, and uh we had a negative 1% increase at or decrement at Lake County.

Um, as you can see for 2026, we're expecting something much higher.

Uh the market trend is 9%, IPBC trend is 11.1, and um Lake County is was expected to get a 10.1 increase, however, with a 0.5 decrement of the in-circle RX program, which we'll cover in the later slides.

It'll um take it down a little bit to 9.6.

Um, the average is F4.2 for Lake County for the last three years for the PPO.

Um, and some of the driving cost factors for this market trend and the IPBC trend that we're seeing.

It's mainly uh, well, not mainly, there's quite a few things that are involved, right?

So um there is the high cost claims usage that's going up across the board.

There's also the GLP one usage, there's the chronic conditions that are increasing.

I'm sorry, do you have a question?

No, no.

Oh, okay.

Okay.

So there's chronic conditions that we're seeing an increase in, and of course, there's the cost of you know, overall just the cost of technology that the uh hospitals and the facilities are using, all of that sort of combined and the consolidations of hospitals and all that combined is driving all of this trend, primarily in um IPBC, it's the high cost claimants increase and the GLP one usage.

And I'll go over those slides in the um in the next few slides, but that's what's essentially causing some of that.

Thanks.

And and I it goes back to Chair Frank's question.

I'm I'm a little confused here.

So reading this chart, this means we're part of IPBC.

But what it's saying is that each member has different costs in that.

So I guess I'm trying to understand if like you've got a big pool and you're spreading the costs across that pool, wouldn't that mean that everybody like their rates would be the same for everybody in there, but their rates are not the same?

That is correct.

Their rates are not the same.

So within the pool, there's different tiers in terms of the members.

So if you're if you're a larger um member, such as Lake County, you're tier four, and there's different underwriting um mechanisms applied to different tiers.

So if I start from the very beginning, the way the renewals are the way the renewals are calculated, is you know, you take the market trend first, then you take the IPBC trend, and then you take a look at the individual claims as well.

So with the tier four, 67% of the claim or 607% of the renewal allocation is for claims less than 50,000.

And that's because for tiers three and four tier four members, which are the larger members, the first 50,000 of an individual claim is funded by that municipality.

So this says Lake County, but if we were somebody else with another who's in tier three or tier four, would those would their PPO and HMO their numbers would be the same?

They would be different, even though we're in the same tier.

Um if the municipalities um, or in our case the counties claims specific claims history does play a part in that calculation.

Okay, okay.

Vice Chair.

Yeah, I just uh two questions.

One is why is the PPO and HMO so different in 20?

I guess why are they so different?

And I was looking more at 2025.

It's all based on the claims for it, and again, um, so I'm not an underwriter by trade, but I'll try to explain the best that I can.

And it's it's not just looking at claims for one year.

There is also a look back for a few years that's also applied.

So what's happened in the last couple of years, what they're projecting or what they're seeing in terms of the claims that are going to be coming.

So all of that takes into account and the PPO, and to answer your question, the PPO and the HMO, um, they're separate funds, they're separate claims funds.

That's why there's a different um increase or decrease applied because HMOs are um based on capitalism.

So there's fees that are going to the providers, and then there's the hospital fees and facilities, those are the claims that come in outside of those physician fees.

Whereas in a PPO, it's all being put into a claims fund, and then the claims are being paid off of out of that.

So I guess thank you.

So my question ultimately is for the county.

Does the cost per employee for the county?

I understand that the the employee has their own associated costs, but does the county pay more per, does it cost more for us to have an employee in a PPO versus an HMO?

Um ultimately, I suppose yes, because the the premium is higher.

And so does the the employees they have they also have a pay and premium, right?

A monthly premium.

Correct.

Does that not offset the cost?

Because it is higher, much higher than the HMO.

Does that not offset the costs then?

So we so any employee who chooses the PPO for us versus the HMO costs us more money.

It also costs them more money.

It costs, yes, exactly.

Costs them more money, but it costs us more money as a county.

Correct.

Right.

And I guess the question ultimately is that are we okay with that?

Well that's and I'm uh really glad you brought that up, but I'll say that that's not for today.

That's not this discussion.

Nothing today, but I you do have that discussion every couple of years.

Okay.

About about plans and options.

Okay, right.

And when we talk about the cost to have the insurance, so that premium that the county pays and the employee pays per pay check is one piece.

And then there's this claims piece on top of it.

So I actually have a slide later on that talks about that employee employer split, which is what you're referring to, but this specifically is about claims.

Okay, okay.

I know we'll have more questions, but we can get back here.

Okay.

So uh the good thing about IPBC is there's a capitation in terms of what the increase will be.

So as I mentioned, the trend was 11.1 for IPBC.

Um, no matter what your claims are and how the pool is that the one 11.1 is based off of the pool.

However, um, you're never gonna see a increase plus or minus or plus five or minus five or decrements.

So you're sort of capped at that, which is great.

So a little bit of history on me.

I come from the private sector, and I've never seen a negative renewal or negative increase uh decrement in um the private sector.

It's always like, okay, we'll give you a flat, but you never kind of see that negatives that I'm seeing in IPBC.

So there's that safety net there as well.

So you're not expected to see the 30 or 40 percent renewals that I've also delivered in the past.

So the highest that an IPBC member can get based on the claims and their tier is a 16.1 for 2026.

Sorry, too fast.

Okay.

I kind of went over that.

Yeah, we covered that already.

Yeah, so as I mentioned, there's different tiers.

One in uh one, two, three, four, and lake county's tier four because of the numbers um enrolled.

So claims under 50,000, as I mentioned, is the Lake County's responsibility, and 67% of the renewal number is allocated towards those claims dollars.

And then anything that's above 50,000 is shared by all the IPVC members on a per employee per month basis.

And so you can see the allocation there for the PPO 17.6 is from 50 to 150.

And then of course we have the stop loss component as well, which is much higher than what you typically have if Lake County was a self-insured employer themselves, because we're part of a pool of 20,000.

And so there is that stop loss component as well.

And then you can see in the P HMO, majority of that is the physician service fees, and then some of the other um carrier admin fees, stop loss fees, wellness program, all that is um how that renewal comes about.

Pharmacy claims account for 19% of the PPO claim costs and 30% of the HMO claim costs.

So this says us, these are your claims from 7.1 2024 to 630, 2025.

I should have mentioned this IPBC's fiscal year is um starts in July.

Um this is just for the PPO, by the way.

And so as we can see in the less than 50,000, 97.7% of your claims are less than 50,000.

So according to the previous slide, 67% of your renewal is determined by that.

And then you have about 7.682 million in above 50,000 in claims.

So this is the financial summary of uh uh Lake County until June 30, 2025.

That's when the fiscal year ends.

However, um the final numbers won't come out until November when the full audit is done and everything's rec reconciled, the claims and the rebates and all that.

So this is an important slide because it shows you how Lake County is doing in terms of claims and funding and expenses.

So we put in 23.5 million in funding, however, we've taken out 25.3 million in yes.

Oh no, you can look at 35.

And so the loss ratio is 107.9 before pooling.

And as we can see being part of the pool is helping you bring that loss ratio down.

I expect it to come down a little bit more, not drastically, but I do expect that to come down for the PPO after the audit is done, and that'll be in November.

So if you were on your own as a self-insured employer, you would be expecting that 107.9 loss ratio.

Um, you would have to budget for that increase and the whatever's forecasted for the next year as well.

So Marine.

Thank you.

So your fiscal year is July one.

Our fiscal year January one, right?

December one.

December one.

Sorry.

Um that's right, because we do that then.

Um does that does that make our stuff difficult, or is your fiscal year just for your accounting, right?

Like when you're saying, hey, you said something about so these claims, I guess I'm I'm not asking very well.

When you roll over your calendar year, that's not impacting any of our accounting on our end.

Is that correct?

No, so this yeah, this is just for the I just for the accounting.

Yes.

Okay, thanks.

Okay.

So as I mentioned earlier, the GLP one usage is increasing not only in IPBC, but across the market trend as well.

So on the top, you'll see the increase for Z bound from June 2024 to May 2025.

It's a 321.4% increase.

Now, this is for IPBC, all of IPBC members.

I do have a slide for um Lake County.

Yeah.

So Agobi's going up one 187.8%.

And we are seeing a continuous rise in this um in the increased usage of GLP one drugs.

So Ozempic is about 200% increase, and Monjaro is about 215% increase.

These numbers for all are for all of IP.

Correct.

Correct.

So this is for Lake County um, and this includes PPO and the HMO.

The report period is June 2024, 7, 2025.

And then it's comparing the previous years.

So as you can see, number one into our weight loss drugs that Bound and Wagovi.

And the last year you had 203 prescriptions versus 1850 this year, and that's a 757% increase in the usage.

Thanks.

I don't know if it's um too soon to be able to tell this, or if you're able to track this or someone that um looking at um health claims, overall health claims of people who've been on the GLP one, like over time, are their overall health claims decreasing, which right?

Right.

That's the theory for all there's their mental well-being, which you can't really calculate, but decrease in use of insulin and all sorts of other things like that.

I'm I'm I would imagine somebody, maybe you maybe not, is hopefully tracking that somewhere.

Yeah, yes.

And to your point, yeah, to clarify, I mean you know, from a fiscal perspective, the theory of investing in preventative care is obviously um, you know, the cost of treating a serious illness, you cancer, heart disease, diabetes, hospital multiple hospitalizations far outweighs the cost of investing in preventative, you know, medicines that can reduce the risk for those occurrences.

Right.

I would argue that these are not preventative, they're after the fact, but but your point is the same.

Like you've reached a point where this is necessary, and are you decreasing future costs?

Yeah.

That's that's the theory.

I'm I'm not certain we have enough longitudinal data to prove it.

Does anybody or not yet?

Not yet.

What what do you expect the timeline would be for that?

It's five years, ten years.

What do we think?

We're just trials demonstrated some of that though, right?

Because they had large pools in their trials.

So the assumption would be that you would see reduction in mortality mortality morbidity.

No, not necessarily.

Depends should I respond or not?

Okay.

Let's yeah, we could do that.

That offline, yes.

We can do that offline.

Yeah, yeah.

Oh, that was it.

Yeah.

Oh, we're already at questions.

Okay, we jumped again.

Okay.

All right.

For the IPBC part.

Yeah.

I have a brief presentation as well.

Got it.

Okay.

So anything for Nithy is specifically on that.

Okay.

I think no other questions.

Thank you.

This is really informative.

Okay.

So I'm just gonna briefly um jump into some Lake County specific stuff regarding our health benefits for 2026.

We'll really start with a um overview of what we have now, our current 2025 benefits, and then go into some changes for 2026.

So just as a reminder, we currently offer three, I'm sorry, four medical plans to um our employees and our retirees and their dependents.

Um two of those are PPO plans and two are HMO.

The first one is a traditional PPO, second is a high deductible PPO, um, referred to as a CDHP, which includes an HSA or a health savings account.

And then we two we do offer two HMO plans, HMO of Illinois and Blue Advantage of Blue Advantage HMO.

The difference between those two HMO plans is really just the network of physicians that participate with that they they participate with and contract with the plan designs are the same.

In 2026, there is no plan to change any plan design associated with any of these four plans uh with Blue Cross Blue Shield.

The only thing that we'll be changing is, of course, those rates, as Nathy had explained.

Um, and then a slight prescription change, which I'll go over in just a second.

Um, dental is through Delta Dental.

We offer one plan.

Um, nothing is changing with that plan in 2026.

Vision is through VSP.

There are no changes there.

We do offer two plans through VSP.

One is an enhanced plan that has just slightly richer benefits.

Actually, a good thing about vision is that there's no um rate increase at all with the vision plan this year.

Um, so our FSA and HSA plans are through um health equity.

This is our second year with health equity.

Um reminder, we do offer a medical FSA, a commuter transit FSA, park which includes parking and a dependent care FSA.

The IRS typically announces the medical and commuter new limits for the next year, sometime in October.

So we don't know what those new limits are going to look like from an IRS perspective.

However, we do know that for the dependent care FSA, the IRS is increasing that annual limit from 5,000 to 7500 in 2020 26.

Our HSA is a little bit different.

So in order to be eligible for the HSA, you do need to be enrolled in that high deductible um CDHP PPO plan that I had just talked about.

Um, with this HSA, the county does contribute to it annually, and that is typically referred to as seed money.

Um this year, we are contributing 1,000 to employee only plans and then 2,000 to employee plus one or um family plans.

In addition to what the county contributes, the employee also has the opportunity or the ability to contribute more up into the IRS max if they wish to do so, however, not required.

Life insurance is with Securion, no changes to this this year, um, or I'm sorry, in 2026, and there are no rate changes either.

Employees have um a menu of options to choose from for whatever works best for their families when it comes to a life insurance, in addition to that basic term life that is county funded, and that plan um is one times the employee's salary.

So as we did here from Nithy, we are experiencing a higher renewal than we have in years past.

Um, as a reminder that PPO is looking at 9.6% increase and the HMO at 4.2.

Dental is at 1.8% for 2026.

And as I mentioned, vision has 0% increase and life insurance, there's no changes.

This is really small.

I'm sorry, but um, this is that rate that split that I was talking about earlier with the what the county pays versus what the um employee pays.

That's typically referred to as employee employer uh premium split.

So um there are no changes being recommended in 2026 in to change these these rate splits.

We actually just cleaned these up this last year to make them um just more administratively pleasing and make more sense for the employee as well.

So as you can see here, depending on the plan, there is a slight variance as to how much the county is covering versus how much the employee is covering.

Again, this is how much they're covering on their biweekly paycheck deduction for their premium.

Okay, so we are planning to make some some adjustments in 2026.

The first is to part-time employee eligibility.

Um, currently we have two part-time tiers, 12 to 24.9 hours a week, and then another one from 25 to 37.49 hours a week.

According and then full-time would be anything above that.

According to the ACA or the Affordable Care Act, a full-time employee is one that works 30 hours or more.

In order to be compliant with the ACA and align with our requirements that we need to meet for 1095 C reporting, we are looking to change the part-time eligibility, part-time eligibility to just one tier.

So that would be a 12 to 29.99 hour part-time employee tier.

Anything over that, so 30 and up would be considered full-time.

Um, some other reasons for that change is if an employee jumps between tiers, which happens often, you think about those those hours.

Um, you can you can jump in between that schedule very easily, and it's really difficult to stay on top of that compliance piece to flip them over to the appropriate um premium and and change them around.

Because that could change actually biweekly sometimes.

So it's really burdensome and hard to manage and stay compliant with.

Um, as I mentioned, there are different premium split percentages for both of those current tiers as well, which is really complicated.

Um, so this change would align all part-time employees to have the same um split, which would be 5050.

Um, this is this change would be a benefit to employees.

It would keep us in compliance with the ACA and avoid administrative burdens.

Um, we have a very small group of part-time employees that participate in our plans right now.

There are 14 um part-time employees that participate um in one of our one of our plans.

Also, as mentioned before, the county does contribute seed money to the HSA or the health savings account.

Currently, these funds are distributed around January 1 for existing employees in a lump sum of either 1,000 or 2,000, depending on the tier of the plan they're enrolled in.

And then new hires throughout the throughout the year receive a prorated one twelfth of this amount as a lump sum.

Once distributed, these funds belong to the employee.

So in the event that the employee leaves on January 2nd or any time throughout the year, those funds now belong permanently with that ex-employee.

Um, and as a result of this, in 2024, the county did pay out over $91,000 in HSA funds to employees who terminated in the same year of receiving that funding.

In what we have so far in 2025, Gian to June of 2025 were um just over 36,000 in payouts to employees who left shortly after receiving that lump sum payment.

So with the implementation of workday, we now have the technology available to distribute these funds per paycheck.

So the employee can receive the 1,000 or 2,000, depending on their plan on a bi-weekly basis.

So they would receive 41.67 cents if they're on the 1,000 schedule or 833 if they're on the $2,000 schedule.

Um that's it there.

The last update I want to provide is piggybacking on what Neithi just explained about the significant increase of the GLP one drug usage.

And this is specific to weight loss usage.

Um it is not in reference to um individuals who utilize this drug for purposes of diabetes.

So, in an effort to be proactive for future renewals, we will be implementing the Encircle RX program for GLL GLP1 drugs again for weight loss specifically.

This will require that members who receive a new or renewed authorization of the drug will need to meet certain BMI criteria and demonstrate patient engagement behaviors.

So this means that members who currently have an active prescription will be grandfathered into the way it's handled now until they renew their authorization, and then at which point they will need to adhere to the Encircle RX guidelines.

Um, I do need to point out that right now these this type of criteria, the BMI criteria on that um and that engagement behavior tracking is not is not um required.

So they these drugs can be prescribed without much of anything.

Um next steps, as usual, opening yes.

Sorry, yes, I have yeah, sorry.

Um in the new program, can I sorry, can we go back one slide?

In the new program, participants that are taking GOP1s will have to have demonstrated an increase in their BMI.

You want to talk about that?

So the current users that are using the drugs currently, they do not have to meet the BMI requirements.

They have to meet the lifestyle engagement programs of um certain things that they need to interact with.

So they would have to enroll in the OMADA program, and then they would receive a digital scale, and through that, the weight would be tracked and they would be sent, they would have to sign up for the app for the OMADA, and then through that, they would get some engagements that they would have to respond to.

And then through that, they would get some engagements that they would have to respond to.

So who does the increased BMI relate to then?

For new users.

So new users would have to demonstrate that their BMI.

I'm I guess I'm confused because you want the BMI to go down.

You want correct.

Yeah, you want the BMI to go down.

And that is the intent of the drug usage, right?

So what this is saying is in order to qualify for this prescription, you need to meet a BMI of above 30.

And if and once you get below that, which is the intent, you are no longer eligible.

No, the the BMI requirement is only at the first time.

I'm sorry, I'm your best.

So if a user is on it has a 32 BMI, they qualify, and after a couple of years, if they're at 30 BMI, they still are eligible to stay on that drug as long as they do those lifestyle engagements.

I just wanted to clarify we're not cutting people off whose BMI goes down because that's the intent.

Correct.

Okay, thank you.

Member Clark.

Go ahead.

I just wanted to clarify the increased BMI criteria.

So the criteria is what's increasing.

I don't think we're looking for people's BMI to increase.

So it's increased criteria.

Thank you for that clarification.

That's correct.

Yes.

Thank you.

Yeah.

Oh, I am a little concerned about this.

I know when I read this last night too.

Um, you know, I hear from people how hard it is to get these drugs.

I know they're expensive, but I also hear from so many people how life-changing it is, like their diabetes numbers, you know, go all the way down, you know, their joint issue, you know, problems, you know, get better.

And so I even you said it's really easy to get them.

I have never heard anyone say they are very easy to get them, even on our insurance.

You know, people have multiple issues and they're like, oh, you can't get a pre-authorization.

I think it's very difficult or ready for people to get it.

And I'm really concerned when I read this thing that literally we're just we are literally trying to make people have these less to save money.

And that's what we're doing here is to make it harder and harder to get them.

And so I would I I mean, you say it's gonna save us 0.5% on our uh I think that's what you said, right?

It's 0.5% savings.

I am really think we need to think about this.

I mean, we like these drugs have seemed to make people, and is remembering point out, I think long term, I mean, we're gonna see savings, but also life changing for people.

So why should we be?

I mean, for us to sit here and say, I think we should as a policy make it harder for people to access medications that can really make their lives better.

And even this whole thing about privacy, like, you know, I I I know someone um who the unloaded to this was getting like a CPAP machine, and their insurance, which is not Lee County Insurance, was like, you know, you have to show us every single night.

And he was on vacation and they were like, he couldn't bring it, and then they canceled it because it was so intrusive.

So is this intrusive?

Like the scale requirement, people have to get on the scale every day, or they're gonna get cut off.

I think we need to know more about this, whatever the circle program is.

And I think we really need to think about it.

Do we really want to do decide?

I or should doctors and their patients decide?

Because I would like to know more what already is the requirements, because again, I have not heard that these are easy drugs to get on our insurance.

So if it's already like, so I'm fine with there being some kind of like limits, but I I don't want us to go ahead with this unless we know what these what this program is, what we already have.

And really, I think we should think about it.

Is it worth saving 0.5% if this is going to make people sicker?

Because at the end of the day, having healthy employees is really good for Lake County.

That's why we invested health insurance and also we're employer of choice.

And if we have people who are like, I can't even access these drugs, then you know, they might not stay, they might have to find other things, and they're not being able to access drugs that could help them avoid diabetes, joint problems, and things.

So I I am I I'm not ready to go ahead with this without more information and to really be us be thoughtful about this.

Oh, if you wanted to respond or you want to wait for other questions.

Um go ahead.

Okay, nevermind.

Um, I will get to clinical trials.

I think it was approved.

Sorry, it goes to the clinical trial related to diabetes, right?

So the weight loss use of it for people who are not diabetic, I believe that's an off-label use.

Isn't it?

No.

Okay, well, I just I'm sorry, I was just asking for clarification.

Is that because you need to do separate clinical studies to show that?

So I'm asking, it's not, it's not the weight loss is not off label.

It's not off late.

There is that criteria for weight loss drugs for to be prescribed.

So it's not no, but drugs can be prescribed off label.

Okay.

Off label, most drugs are used off label.

Off label simply means is that it's been approved by the FDA, but it's now being used for things that weren't in the original clinical study.

So that's all I'm at.

So I'm just clarification.

Absolutely true.

And I think member Clark's point is do we want to be in the position of instituting a policy that gets in the way of a physician's prescribing decision off label or not?

Okay, but so do we know?

So you're saying it's been that there's been clinical style specifically for weight loss.

I'm just trying to understand, not yeah.

Yes.

Go ahead.

That is correct.

Okay.

All right.

So there's there's four drugs, two or two are approved for diabetes.

Yeah.

They're the same drugs, exactly, same formulas, but they're also approved for weight loss at different doses.

Okay.

So those are clinically proven weight loss drugs that have also will ultimately show differences in morbidity and mortality related to the weight loss associated with it.

Okay.

But they are approved specifically for weight loss.

I think BMI of like 30%.

So there's been a clinical specifically for that.

Okay.

So I think that um, but I would I would say I understand member Clark's concerns, and I think they're really valid and we should look into it.

But I think one of the other things is that there are consequences for most drugs being on these.

And and the reason it has to be grandfathered in is for many people, if you go off the drugs, if there hasn't been essentially behavior modification, you gained the weight back.

And I think an overall goal is to be able to have both a behavior modification as well.

They're supposed to be coupled.

And that's really what preventive care is, not just to have a drug, but to couple it with behavioral changes so that the person does have lower MM and all that stuff.

And there are, because I know people in this too, there are very unpleasant side effects to being on these drugs.

So ideally, if someone can use the drug to get to a certain place and then maybe have a lower maintenance drug and have those behavioral changes, that's that's what preventative care becomes.

And and that's what we keep saying that we want physicians to do.

We're like, they need to, they don't get paid if they're just educating their parents, right?

Their patients, right?

They don't get paid for that.

Um, but we say, hey, we want preventative care.

We want you to talk about healthy lifestyle choices and encourage people to do that.

So I do want that information, but I understand why we want this other part because it's supposed to be a complete program without having someone be running to a physician all the time.

It's trying to use the technology.

And thanks for letting me know.

I didn't know that there had been a separate clinical study specifically for those approval because most drugs that are used are used off label.

That means there just hasn't been a clinical study, and we've all used them and and they're fine, but that wasn't their original purpose.

I I really appreciate this conversation.

I feel like we're probably uh focusing more on real science than they are in the Senate Finance Committee today.

But I I want to know related to this policy that that we're talking about here, is this a policy that we're initiating, or is this something that's coming from the plans that's being mandated on us?

So it's not a mandate.

We do have some choices when it comes to this.

Frankly, um, there are many entities that are just removing the weight loss drugs entirely from their plans because of the extreme cost.

Um, it's just becoming unaffordable.

Um, so that that was an option.

We chose not to go that way.

This was um a route that we took to yes, receive that 0.5% decrement, which is really pretty minor in the big picture, but really more so to help for future renewals, because if we continue at the pace we're going, we're gonna be looking at very significant renewals in years to come, and that's going to impact our entire employee population.

So while we do need to make sure that we are an employer of choice and that we are, you know, protecting our employees and our retirees and their dependents, you know, for sure, we do need to make our plans affordable as well, as much as possible.

I think whenever a new um limiter, which is essentially what some of these things are, are implemented, the really important piece of that is the education for the member for the enrollee, so that they have a clear understanding of the things they need to do to maintain compliance with the policy.

And so if this is something we're gonna do, I would just request that your department work really hard to make sure that participants uh oh or enrollees who are you know seeking authorization fully understand and that they're it's not fine print.

It's like you know, absolutely big print and and and that your team is available to help folks understand.

Did you have another comment?

Yeah, I just I just had one more comment.

Sorry, is uh I really glad that member Clark said something about this because I think you articulated concerns that I had, and I just did not say them.

And I think you did a great job.

And I I worry that we're going to be putting in, unless there's clear scientific reason for why we have an increased BMI versus what's in the label of these products, versus us just saying, hey, we this is going to be cost saver for us in the short term.

I think that's a not fair to employees who now need it and are like, well, I have a BMI of 30 and I no longer did it, but the people who started a year ago had a BMI of 30 and can be in the program.

And there's clinical benefit at BMI of 30, you know, what why why why am I no longer eligible?

And I don't think these drugs are willy-nilly provided that you need prior authorizations.

Um, so I I just worry that we're limiting these really phenomenal products to patients who need them that in the long term will benefit.

We know that wait, wait or you know, we are obese, right?

That is the number one issue that we have for chronic disease.

And us saying that we're gonna save a little bit of money and maybe a little bit money in the in the future without knowing the long-term benefits of this massive weight reduction.

I think to member Clark's point concerns me.

I'm fully in agreement with what you said and what what you said, Member Clark.

Um, I think it's a concern we don't want to be a barrier to an access to a treatment that is really successful and helpful.

Member Casmin.

I have to agree.

Just sitting back, um as I see this in circle Rx, it it the point of it is to turn to deter the use of the drugs.

And why would we want to put that hurdle in front of people?

Um, I don't think I don't think that's the place that we want to be in.

Um, and I don't think that's the message we want to be giving our employees.

Thank you.

Member Clark.

Yeah.

And I I'd hope, you know, and I I understand what the cost on like an economist.

I get that, you know, I understand this will cost a lot of money.

So are there other things we could look at?

Because I know, you know, anecdotally talking to people, I think people are willing to pay more for these, you know.

And I know we have, you know, it's a and maybe it's a drug category, it could be a different drug category.

Are there other options like, well, this drug category, people have to pay, you know, even if you've, you know, there's no you could you've met you know, out of pocket is now $300 a month, where it's like maybe you've already, you know, and you never can reach an employee max.

I mean, are there ways to do it?

So that because I do I the what I hear, the frustration I hear from people is that they're just like to get a prior authorization is so difficult for me, even for people I've heard with diabetes.

This is not I know myself I have not experienced this, but I've talked to so many people that it's so difficult to get a prior authorization for these anyway, even if you meet the criteria.

And then um, and it'd be interesting to do a like a survey with our employees, say, you know, are you having problems you know, like or what's your experience with this?

But if we could look at things besides this program, it's to make sure, you know, I think people, you know, could be willing to pay more and say, you know what, I'd be willing, you know, if I'm you need to have this weight loss drug, but could we could we then cost share it?

We could say, you know, we know it's expensive, but we, you know, could could we then put more costs on this classification of drugs and say that people do have to pay more of the share for these drugs so that it would be because at least people could still have it might cost them more, but it's not saying, you know, because right now it's like you just don't get it.

And then, you know, they're they're frantically trying to find, you know, I mean, you know, from like people who make them themselves or whatever.

And so, or they're paying, you know, thousands of dollars, because I believe we get a cheaper price as a buying bulk than people do if they just have to pay cash at you know, Walgreens.

And so, could we then just have them pay a larger share of this um as like a different tier potentially?

And that is an option.

Um, and we did discuss that.

You know, we could, I think correct me if I'm wrong, but we could make that a different um class of drug.

We have to weigh that out too, because then we could be making it very unaffordable for for people who really do need it.

And so now it's not about this, but now it's about the cost.

So anyway you look any kind of any way you slice it, you're still potentially putting a barrier in front of them.

This was an option that we thought could allow them the drug when they need it, right?

And so it the BMI requirement is 32 or greater um or 27 with two core core morbid conditions.

Um and then the weigh-ins are four every 30 days.

For we end of the and I just have to say again, from talking to people that meet qualifications, still struggle to get a prior authorization, where they're like, I do have, let's say, sleep apnea, and they're like, it's not severe enough.

And they're like, it's not severe enough.

You know, we want you to prove it again.

So if I felt that these barriers were like actually like, okay, check, you know, your doctor says you meet this, you get it, but that is not what I'm hearing from so many people.

And I mean, from that.

So if maybe if we can just make the because it is very frustrating for people who are like, I meet your qualifications and I still can't get the prior authorization because now suddenly it seems like to be changing.

So, you know, I would be much more on board with this if I felt that it was easier.

But also, you know, so people have to gain weight now to like lose weight.

Now it was 30, now we're gonna make it 32.

You know, I where is the doctor and the patient in this?

Yeah.

So I think it's a great.

I would like to look at more alternatives.

And I think we would love to see a little bit deeper analysis in terms of what the decision point is in terms of, hey, if we're gonna have an increase copay cost versus some of these other uh, you know, barriers to access or or requirements for access.

I think I think we're interested in learning a little bit more.

We want to make sure that we're supporting the right direction on this.

So if we could maybe, you know, get some more input.

And also, I guess my question is do we have any insights in terms of if this criteria was in place previously, how many people that are currently on the meds in our pool would not have qualified?

Like I think that's that would be useful for us to understand.

Uh I can get that in the member of Litzik and Member Maine, and then we're gonna move on.

Yeah, uh, that's essentially I was just gonna say, I think we just need more information.

I don't know enough about any of these drugs to have an opinion on anything that I've heard, and it all sounds like it makes sense.

I think patient education and behavior is a huge um should be a qualifying um uh metric for sure.

I also I have not I have several family members um and an extended family members um who are on it and they seem to have no problem.

So, like anything, it probably depends on the doctor.

It's hard to get Xanax for most people.

It's not hard at all for some people, depending on what doctor you have.

So I just don't feel like we know enough uh and and know enough about how many employees use this and need it.

I understand that it is um it is preventative, and I think that's important and we shouldn't make it more difficult for people to access um what they need for a healthier life.

But I also I don't know enough about like maybe we're borrowing trouble in a in a different way that we just don't know yet that will increase our costs in 15 years.

So um, yeah, I think another meeting perhaps.

Thank you, member Maine.

Yeah, go ahead.

Yeah, I I want to put a pin in because I'm gonna say some of those.

I did want to comment, I was gonna wait till the end about the part-time eligibility separate topic.

Um, yeah, related to that, and as a member of Litzik said, uh, I was thinking that I think it would be helpful if we knew how many, you know, what's what's our trend line?

You showed the um IPBC, our trend line, um, our cost.

I don't know if you have it broken down with PPO and HMO, because earlier member Perek was saying, hey, PPO is costing the county more than HMO.

So there's kind of a balance there, right?

So there are programs that, you know, we said, hey, that's another conversation, but that might be where our, you know, where are these employees getting this?

A lot of times that that rejection, and uh and maybe that's what we need to do, it's at the insurance company, right?

So if people are being turned down, that's in their insurance company.

So if we knew it's not the doctor.

So if we knew that, hey, if you meet these criteria, you know, we're not gonna say, hey, that's not sleep apnea.

You know, I think that would be helpful to member Clark's point of is this.

There are insurance firms, I'm not gonna name names, um, that are known.

They are known in the medical community for always rejecting it.

So it's not necessarily that the doctor is saying they don't get it to chair Frank's point.

But if we are have a system, an insurance company that works with us, then I think that could alleviate some of the concerns, valid concerns that member Clark brought up.

Yeah, and I think it's a pharmacy benefit managers, the people that that are the sometimes the barrier.

I'm yeah of a family member who had an existing prescription, a renewal that was denied by PBM.

Yeah.

And was like, hey, yeah, I'm already on this drug.

Yeah.

Yes, it's it's uh frustrating.

Okay, did you want to go ahead with your point on the part time, please?

Go ahead.

I just wanted to um question and comment.

So I'm glad to see this change.

I actually for decades have been advocating for our part-time employees back when IMRF was available for board members 20 hours a week was considered full time and allowed board members to get health insurance as a full-time employee.

And it really bothered me that we had long-term part-time employees who are working 30 hours at that time and could not access that.

So um but so were we not in compliance with the ACA?

You're only not in compliance if we're not offering insurance that and we were.

And we were it was just at a very confusing.

Well, anyway, and honestly, it's still very expensive because I have had employees reach out to me, some who've worked here at the county for decades, and they were kept.

And hey, I worked at a place that did the same.

We're keeping you right here because if we add an hour, if we add a course, then you're a full-time employee, and then we have to give you benefits.

I think the reason we only have 14 part-time employees because it's not really a very good deal for our part-time employees check.

Right.

So I I think we shouldn't kid our.

I'm glad we've made this, but I think that's something that it's always bothered me, and we should realize we only have 14 part-time employees who take part of this because it's prohibitively expensive.

And think about that.

You have people working 29 hours a week that could be here for decades, and they really can't get health care.

So when we've talked about this before, when we were talking about all these things, we systematically have continued that.

And I and I've said this for years.

It's wrong.

And I'd like to see, I'd like to see a change for that.

Darcy, does the classification of part-time full-time is it standard across the board?

Is that only does this change only apply for insurance qualifications?

Okay.

So it's the same standard definition across the organization.

And we were and the reason for that extreme cost too was anyone under that that lower threshold, the 12 to whatever that was, 24.

Um, the county was covering 25% and the employee was covering 75.

So that's a gigantic burden on the part-time employee, right?

So now it'll be 5050 across the board.

Member Clark.

Because I also with Member Maine have been something this is I've been advocating for also.

So I'm really glad to see it.

And if it would even could be more.

So right now, then it is an in so now the it's a decrease in how much the part-time employees have to pay, also correct.

Because yeah, I mean, I'm all for giving uh people health insurance.

I think we had discussion, we've had discussion many times, and I know there's been reasons we couldn't do it in the past, apparently.

I guess I yeah, it's very expensive.

But so this will be so this will be better and um will affect.

So is it 14 people that just take the insurance, or are there only 14 part-time people?

That was like a 14 people that take the insurance.

Okay, so this could lead to more availability.

So I am, yeah, let's see too.

My other question was for the retirees, can retirees, I know they pay 100% of the cost there.

Can they pick any plan?

Or did because I plan okay, good.

Well, I shouldn't have said it like that.

They have to once they retire, the plan that they retire with is the plan they need to stay with.

Okay.

Because I know I've had had retirees complain that they're stuck, they're like stuck on a really expensive plan and they'd like to switch and they can't.

So they just have to think the year before.

Well, and I really just most misspoke again.

So I apologize.

Once they retire, the whoever's on their plan is who they need to stay with.

They can't add new dependents to that plan.

Okay.

Um, but you can make a plan design change during open enrollment.

Sorry.

The HMO if they wanted to.

Correct, correct.

I think that's that's good.

So I don't think we still do that.

But yes, any of the four plans they have yes.

Thank you.

You have one more slide.

Oh.

Um thing on that though, the CDHP plan isn't really that um beneficial for them because they're not getting that contribution of that seed money.

So the high deductible plan isn't the best bet for retirees.

So when they're going into their last open enrollment before retirement, they really need to probably think about getting out of that plan.

Because they can only change during open enrollment moving forward.

Um, okay.

So next, speaking of open enrollment will be this fall.

Um, we will do a ton of communication and education with our employees as usual.

Um, regard, you know, regardless of where we end up with with all of these decisions.

Um, different this year is the the balancing of priorities with the with the workday ERP project.

So um we're working on that in coordination with open enrollment, and that's why we don't have those exact dates just yet, but we will have them soon.

And then um also we'll need to implement those benefits um and those new rates into work day because right now workday is built with the 2025 rates and 2025 information.

So that's just some of the stuff that's remaining for this year when it comes to health insurance.

So um that was all I had.

If there's anything else that I can answer.

Thank you.

I want to say, Nini, thank you for being here.

We hope you'll come back.

Uh it was really helpful for us to hear directly from you today.

So thank you very much.

Thank you for having us.

Thank you.

Uh Darcy, do you have a director's report?

I do not, thank you.

Right.

Thank you.

8.32 is a resolution authorizing a line item transfer in the amount of two million dollars for the purpose of using a portion of the Montana settlement funds for incorporated or unincorporated super fund site environmental cleanup and/or site preparation activities related to proposed economic development opportunities in Lake County.

Motion on this item by member Hewitt, second by Member Belitzik.

Good morning, Matt Myers, Deputy County Administrator.

This is an item we've talked about at this point, probably now over the last two months, number of meetings starting with uh economic development opportunity that that came in last month.

Um last week I I talked about potential options that we had with respect to the Monsanto and settlement funds, and um we talked about taking two million of that aside and setting it for a specific purpose, which I've identified in the resolution that's in front of you this morning.

All this is doing is taking that money and putting it to the side for that specific purpose.

I've tried to identify um in my last bullet what potential next step would be, and that staff is ultimately going to wait for and work with Lake County partners on any potential proposals or requests that come in for this funding and anything that happens with respect to that or anything that we receive, we will uh vet it and evaluate and bring that back here for um discussion and potential action to this committee.

So this is not any kind of final step in giving any kind of money out.

Everything is gonna come back to this committee for discussion and action.

What we envision is an agreement with some kind of organization that would be interested in using the funds and putting certain protections and compliance requirements on the funds to ensure that it's aligning with the the uh what I've outlined here in this resolution as it relates to its allowed use.

And it would be potentially reimbursement basis, just as we've done with all of our ARPA funds.

And that is what we would ultimately bring back as a concept and proposal to this committee for discussion and future action.

I have vetted the entire process thoughts, um, method in which I'm doing this and uh the potential use and the county providing funds to either another governmental agency or an outside corporation with the state's attorney's office, and they have opined that everything meets statute.

Thank you.

Um I know the committee had a long discussion about it last week when I was not here.

Um I think this is a really appropriate step to indicate our interest in supporting uh potential investment in the county.

Um as I said uh earlier in August, I was um skeptical uh when I first heard about uh this investment, but after they came here and we we heard from them directly and we've had uh conversations with the city of Waukegan, and we know that there's potential partnership and investment from the state of Illinois as well.

Um I think us setting aside these funds internally is a very uh important signal uh of our seriousness and supporting this partnership and uh an appropriate step for us to take that doesn't overcommit us at this time.

So thank you for the work.

Members, other comments or questions.

There was one last thing, Chair.

I'm sorry.

Um, one question I received last week was uh have we talked to these other communities about what they've potentially used the funds for?

I have those feelers out and I've had those emails out to those communities and they recognize that I'm I'm expecting that information.

I just don't have it yet, but I would share that with the committee once I receive that information.

Appreciate it.

Chair Hart.

Thank you.

And I'm sorry if I just missed it while I was concentrating on this.

Did you I think you did tell me last week that you did have the amount that those other communities were given?

Yeah.

Um it's gonna be offhand at this time.

I'm so sorry.

Yeah.

I just thought it might be pardon me.

I just thought it might be helpful, even though we don't know how it was spent.

I do recollect that we received about seven million.

We received seven and a half exactly that was the maximum that was allowed for the settlement.

Uh, I I it just gives me what the the calculation was based on for some of the other communities, but a community like North Chicago, I believe received approximately 400,000.

I think Waukeegan received 1.4 million.

I can't remember there wasn't the Zion or something, was another one, but it was all roughly in that 400,000 range.

Waukeegan did receive the most out of those communities.

Okay, thank you.

I just think that that's helpful because we really didn't have a basis.

Right.

Member Mayon is just saying that's not very much.

And I think that that is yeah, yeah.

So um, I think that's really helpful.

And I'll leave it to the committee to decide if you still want to know the details on how those dollars were spent.

But I was surprised to hear it was not that much.

Thank you.

Member Clark.

We're at 1.4 million dollars is a lot of money.

So, but that's the point.

So I know we had the discussion last week.

So for these this money, um, so right now today we are just setting it aside.

So we're not going through like exactly how it'll be done.

Because I, you know, so I because Lake County, I don't think it needs to be the project manager on this.

Like correct.

Like we wouldn't be actually the ones ordering up the dirt and building the roads and or would we, like with this, what we're saying here with site.

This is just an internal set aside.

We are transferring it from a fund to a to a fundamental.

Okay.

So all that is to be determined at a later date.

But I think it's a strong positive signal to our external partners.

Yes.

And I get that.

And I do want to just put out there for the I know there's a $5.5 million left.

And I know we had discussed a little bit about last week, and we're not talking about, you know, today, I do want to put out there again, I'd like to urge our committee and our board to think about using those project that money for this water this this is about water contamination and about looking to projects we are doing at late here in Lake County to help clean up the water.

Yesterday at PWT, we had a long discussion about PFAS in the water.

And it was um it was really interesting to see the potential contamination.

Actually, I think Member Hunter brought it up really well.

He said, you know, PFAS is our generation's, he said, like asbestos.

This is something that has been contaminated and it is our job to clean it up.

And looking at those numbers, um, you know, one of the most important things we can do, and we should do it with we need to monitor and also do public outreach because stopping the contamination from happening is the best way we can do going forward because these are forever chemicals.

And so that's going to take a lot of outreach.

We talked about yesterday.

Also looking at the how we do the, they said like there's carbon filters and different things to filter our water.

And so I would request that we really look at maybe the rest of this money could be used for looking at PFAS and how, because right away looking at at the monitoring costs, at the public outreach costs, and the cost for cleaning these chemicals up, these forever chemicals up out of our well systems and also helping the whole county.

I think public outreach, we want to be a national leader.

Why don't we be a national leader on making sure people understand what PFAS is and how we can prevent the contamination?

So I thought it was a really excellent discussion yesterday.

I want to thank you know, Director McFarland and everyone, you know, for putting that together and for our committee.

So when we look at water contamination, I know I mean, I'm fine, you know, this is going to move forward with this, but I this would be the right amount of money to get us really to show that we are a leader and committed on making sure that we try to treat and get rid of these forever chemicals and stop for future contamination.

So I'd like just like the board to can consider having um the money go to that.

Okay.

I like the idea.

I have a comment on that.

Member Villetting.

Um, I think I just quick question the 750 or 7.5 million.

You said that was the max.

That's the max for any of the um lot recipients across the country, not just counties or whatever.

Okay, thank you.

Yeah.

And so I'll say I feel like um we have historically done a really good job of looking at um settlement funds from various actions and making sure that they're used appropriately and that we get input from stakeholders and from our board.

And I think that uh we'll be talking about a process on what some what some options are coming forward for the remainder of the funds.

But I think uh I'm I'm really aligned with what you're saying there, Member Clark.

I think it makes a lot of sense, but we'll have a discussion about it.

Um, and in the meantime, uh when we first uh were given this award, I I'm gonna say it was last year, maybe administrator.

I think we had a conversation about bringing it to the committee and just saying, hey, we don't have a purpose just yet.

We're gonna set it aside for now.

And that's what we did last year, right?

23, I think it was, but we've carried it over.

So yep, we did have the conversation again last year.

Yep.

And so we will be having a conversation about planning so that we're intentional and transparent about how we're gonna use the funds.

Member Caspin.

So um so to the to the legal question, just for my edification, not because it's important to the, but I would love to see the statute reference that if you don't mind.

I mean, I just cause I couldn't find it, not because I'm questioning you, but because I just want to know for my own reading.

Sure.

Yeah.

You were asked whether the the general purpose um would be um acceptable under the county's power and under the county's power statute.

That's 55 ILCS five-five dash one zero zero five section 21.

I'm sorry, can you do that?

Just one one more time.

Sorry, I was just want to read it.

Uh 55.

I L C S five backsplash backslash five dash one zero zero five.

Section 21.

Okay.

Gives the county the power to appropriate and expend funds from the county treasury for economic development purposes, including the making of grants to any other governmental entity or commercial enterprise deemed necessary or desirable for promotion of economic development in the county.

Um and that's what's proposed here.

We did look at the references you sent from um Googling, uh, and none of those actually bore out in actual legal research when we looked at what's off.

Thank you so much.

I really appreciate it.

I just wanted to just because I like to know.

Um the other thing is um this we're just saying with this that we'll we're prepared to put in up to two million dollars, not that we're automatically putting in two million because I know we're waiting to see what the governor's fund is gonna do.

And um I think this city I spoke to someone from uh the city of Waukegan last night, and they said that they're willing to to put up more, they're kind of waiting to see what the you know the governor's gonna do as well.

Um can I just yeah, so you're talking about this specific site.

I've generally you know put forth this line item transfer because there's there's obviously no certainty that uh any one organization will pick that specific site.

This this could be any potential developments that meets this criteria in Lake County, and it's it is just a two million dollar fund.

It's not saying it's going to automatically be two million dollars.

Okay.

Just as long as you know, we're not putting in this much, and then the other entities are.

Does that make sense?

Because other people be are seem to be in a wait and see mode.

And I just want to make sure that we don't like we don't put in all of this and then other entities don't put in as much.

Does that make sense?

It does make sense.

I hear you.

Yeah.

Member Bain.

Matt this allocation of the two million, wasn't that or the idea?

Wasn't that done a while ago?

Like this idea or not.

The allocation of the two.

I mean, the this idea of taking two of the seven million dollars, when was that idea first floated?

I don't know if I mean the idea of using some of these funds for this purpose, it's it's been a while.

Right.

Two million dollars was basically decided, you know, put forth as a concept last week.

Okay, okay.

I was just trying to I I thought from our conversation last week that there had been previous conversations when we got the seven million to say, hey, let's put just trying to understand.

Thank you.

And I appreciate this conversation.

And um, I think I mentioned this last time, only a few of us were on the board at the time.

Member Peterson, member Maine, member Hewitt, uh, when we had uh last done an economic development piece.

And I just want to make sure people know there's not a correlation between, hey, here's the seven million dollars, and that there's gonna be some sort of bidding from companies or we're gonna do these things, and it's it's different.

When we had we have a policy in place in which there may or may not be economic development opportunities, and and we reviewed that policy, I think at the August um FA meeting, right?

So about when we might want to uh participate in um from our own general fund or from wherever, uh, to help uh with economic development.

So I just wanted to make sure that because I I do think maybe there's some confusion because they've kind of come together, right?

There's like, oh, there's some 7.5 million dollars, let's give two million here.

It really is more of we've had an economic development policy.

It just so happens that we do have 7.5 million dollars that we receive because of the PCB contaminants in Lake Michigan.

Uh, and at the same time, Lake County Partners and the state of Illinois have been working with this company, and they have identified a site in Waukegan that I think is a former current super fund site.

I can't remember what I found last week about that.

I think it's a current super fund site and it's been capped.

So I guess I just want to be clear.

Even if we didn't have that uh that money, right?

I it it would probably occur the same way that Lake County partners would say, hey, there's this opportunity for this economic development, there's a gap.

We're not entirely certain because to member Kasmin's point, you know, there's a lot of things still getting figured out.

So I I just I just I don't know if I'm if I'm mudding the waters more or less, but we've had these conversations before.

It just the last one was whatever it was, 12 years ago or something.

I can't remember the year.

So anyway, thank you.

Yeah, and your point about the county partners is a good one.

I've had you know conversations with Kevin about um, I will say politely non-credible potential developments over the years.

And he, you know, he's professional experience and and the entire organization uh is a really good um, I would say ombudsman on behalf of the county, but also, you know, they they understand what's legitimate, what's realistic, and uh hearing from him about hey, there's a need for us to engage in this conversation.

But the fact that the uh the solar company came here themselves and talked to us just like we heard from IBPC today, it makes such a difference for us to understand and and to hear from them directly.

So I think yes, LCP's invaluable in this process.

Thank you.

And and really, if I may, they act as our economic development arm, just as happens in other counties and municipalities within Lake County.

Gurney has an economic development person.

I'm certain Highland Park does too, right?

So they have that.

Lake County Partners is our economic development arm, just like DuPage has one, Will has one, Kane has one.

And that's what they do.

Right.

It's not an internal function that we have here.

Correct.

It it was a long time ago an internal function.

And so we paid for all of it.

So by having it a public-private partnership, we actually are able to spend less public dollars because we have private dollars that come in that see the benefit of economic development.

Um, here in Lake County, and then we can choose to give additional monies or whatever, making sure that things align with our strategic plan.

So thank you.

Thank you.

Member Cass.

Sorry, I forgot to add that I would also like to agree with Member Clark in that if we could please look at um some of the things we need to do in the counties, um, whether it's PFAS or um, I know we had a storm sewer like fail because the infrastructure was 60 years old.

So I think we there's a lot that we can do here in the county as well.

Thanks.

Looking forward to future discussion.

Thank you for all the work on this.

Administrator Matt.

All in favor, please say aye.

Uh any opposed?

8.32 is approved.

Do you have a county mismanage report first?

I do just very briefly, I wanted, I'm very pleased to introduce Turk Bias Gallon.

Um, he is a skill bridge intern that's going to be working with both the county administrator's office as well as facilities over the next six months.

And he comes to us from the Air Force.

So uh brings a lot of skills that we are just um really looking forward to utilizing.

So welcome and and thanks very much for being here.

Welcome.

That's it.

Thank you.

We do have items for executive session.

Can we please have a motion and a second to enter into an executive session for the purpose of periodic review of closed session minutes pursuant to five LCS 120 slash 2C 21?

Motion by Member Clark, second by member Hewitt.

Well call, please.

Member Clark.

Chair Crank.

Aye.

Member Hewitt.

Is that me?

Yeah, that was you.

Sorry.

Yeah.

Okay.

Member Maine.

Aye.

Member Peterson.

Member Belitzik.

Motion is approved.

We'll head into executive session.

Great.

We are back in regular session.

Item 11.1 is committee action regarding periodic review of closed session minutes.

Is there a motion?

Motion by member Hewitt.

Is that motion to not release any of the closed session minutes that we were reviewed?

Great.

Thank you.

Second by member Clark.

Any further conversation?

Okay.

All in favor, please say aye.

Any opposed?

That motion carries.

11.2 committee action reviewing the closed session minutes from August 7, 2025.

Motion to approve those minutes by member Maine, second by member Hewitt.

Comments, questions.

All in favor, please say aye.

Any opposed, that motion carries.

I think that the committee is interested in having a further discussion about what's our standard process for reviewing uh recordings of executive sessions and when they can be uh destroyed and or reviewed on a periodic basis.

And I think we'll look for some further guidance on that.

We'll do.

Great.

Thank you.

Other comments or questions?

Any other member remarks or requests?

Seeing none, we're adjourned.

We'll be back here on October 9th.

Thank you, everyone.