Day is two 21st.

Uh Lord Judiciary.

Budget hand to order at 1050.

Uh action time.

Okay.

In addition being able to attend.

I don't think you need to.

We don't have no one on.

Don't have to be dead.

Okay.

We have a physical call.

We do.

Okay.

Okay.

Can I have a roll call, please?

No, pledge.

Do we have to do it?

We can dispense with the pledge since it was already completed this morning.

Okay.

Okay.

We dismissed the pledge because it's already been done this morning.

No, the two committees.

Okay.

Roll call.

Member Altenberg.

Here.

Chair Cunningham.

Here.

Member Danforth.

Member Kinesick?

Here.

Member Kyle.

Member Peterson.

Vice Chair Roberts.

Okay.

Thank you.

There's a dendritic agenda.

There's not.

Chair Remark.

Chair don't have no remarks.

Unfinished business.

No.

Okay.

We're going on to the regular agenda.

And that would be this is one of the one to go first.

Oh they want to go first.

And uh if that do we can visit.

Yep.

Okay.

Court administration.

Yes, I'd like to point out to finance committee members.

Uh we're dispensing with the pledge and attendance as we're still in session.

But um, there's been requests from a couple of the participants to make some adjustments to the ordering.

And with the consent of L and J Committee Chair Cunningham, we're going to hear from court administration first.

And so that's going to be item numbers.

Eight.

Thank you, Administrator Sutton.

8.L18 through 8.L27.

We're going to hear those items first.

26.

26, not the clerk of the court.

26.

8.26.

Six.

Yes, correct.

Okay, thank you.

Yeah, should be.

Hi, my name is uh Bernisha Lawrence.

So the 19th judicials court budget can be found on page 62.

18 through 26.

Can I have a motion?

Well through 18 through 26 by Shea Robert, second by memorandum.

Finance committee mo I'm sorry.

I'm sorry, guys.

I didn't mean interrupt.

Okay.

Uh motion on these items 8.L18 through 8.L26 by member Bolitzik, second by member Clark.

All right.

Once again is on page 62.

Um, so outside of increased salary reimbursements due to the budgeted county increase in salary and benefits.

19th judicial court revenues have largely remained stable.

There has been an increase in overtime expense to reflect the additional need while the agency seeks to fill vacant positions.

The budget also includes the replacement of courtroom chairs and furniture and fixtures.

Also included in the budget is the recommended NPR for an ICMS project manager.

19th judicial court submitted the following NPRs that were not recommended.

EBP quality assurance and training management manager, SLL SRL, paralegal, staff psychologist, and a strategic plan consulting services.

Good morning.

Good morning.

Uh Chair Frank, Chair Cunningham, uh members of of both committees.

Uh good morning.

Thank you for accommodating our schedule uh for going a little bit out of order.

It's appreciated.

Want to uh introduce you to Desi, our courthouse facility dog.

Uh we're very pleased of the 102 counties in Illinois.

There are only two, Lake being one of them, who has a courthouse facility dog.

Uh she joined us last year.

Um she has a wonderful way about her going into domestic violence courtrooms, petitions for orders of protection, uh, adult guardianship, uh, veterans court, really everywhere around kids' corner.

Uh, she's just got a great way of just um bringing down stress levels and providing comfort.

So knowing about the full agendas that you have all morning and all day today, we thought there was no better place to bring a little comfort.

Uh, but I'd like to uh introduce you to two people you already know, Carl Waldorf, our executive director, Lisa Wolf, our director of finance for the presentation.

Good morning.

If I can, I would like to start with new program requests just to make sure we have adequate time.

We don't want to uh eclipse all of our time.

Page 351 is in the budget book is the new program requests.

There are three.

Uh we initially submitted five, and three are on your table there on page 351, 352.

Um, and I'm going to talk about all three.

The first is program support for our integrated case management system, what we call our uh e-suite, um, which is the primary computer system that supports all four justice partners at the courts.

Um, this is a bit of an unusual NPR.

It's the first one we've ever done that actually comes from uh four different entities.

So all four of the partners have joined together to request these two positions that are in that line item uh on 351.

And we have been working for many years as we started our e-suite system uh with a consulting service, and our contract with them has ended as of August.

Um, one of their last assignments for us was putting together recommendations that the justice, the manpower, the justice depart of partners need to continue e-suite into the future.

And their recommendation thank you, ma'am.

So the recommendation to us was for uh two personnel to support all four of the justice partners uh into the future uh to support e suite, um, a program manager and an analyst.

Um and that's what our original write-up uh presents to you.

Um we've had a good uh six years with this consultant, but they are significantly more expensive per year than these two positions would be.

And quite frankly, I think we both mutually agreed that we're ready to transition into a more operational phase where we have uh in-house personnel supporting the system versus uh our consultant.

Um the recommendation that comes to you is for just the program manager of those two just to fund that position.

Um, but we're very fortunate uh to bring a funding opportunity to support this request in the form of uh additional funds that we received from AOIC this year.

I think all of you know that the administrative office of the Illinois courts either funds directly or reimburses us for many of our salaries in the courts.

And this year they made an offer to us uh for an additional 440,000 in funding.

Um, and we obviously took them up on that offer.

Um it didn't, it wasn't a long discussion.

Uh our hope is that we can use this additional funding to support the second position.

Um so the first position, the project manager comes to you with a recommendation for funding.

We would hope to fund the second position.

And at 440,000, that should support three to four years of that analyst position.

Um that's included.

Um, I wanted to stop and see if there's any requests about this particular NPR just because it's so important to the justice partners, and I know they're all in the room.

Um, so any of us can answer a question.

There's one question over here.

Do you want to do your committee first?

Well, and of course, there's some role in the dish committee.

Okay.

So you were if I'm looking at it's the first line, it says 28250.

Right.

Right.

And you're talking about 440.

So 282 is the first year cost for pay and benefits for the two positions.

Got it.

And the recommendation to you is just to fund one of those two positions from general fund.

I think what what we're saying is our hope is depending on how you look at this as two boards, is we could either fund almost two years of both positions or four years of the position that wasn't recommended from for funding.

Um with the 440,000.

Okay.

Thank you.

Okay.

Thank you.

And so you're you're saying that we is there cost savings from having this outside source to in certainly the consultant at its height was costing us well over 400,000 a year.

So there's a significant step down from using the consultant for the last six years.

I think six years versus going to this in-house format.

But I think aside from the cost savings, I think it's probably the right thing to do because the consultant felt we were mature enough as a system to move ahead with in-house support versus outside support.

Thank you.

So it'd be supportive of whatever the uh the courts uh think is in the best interest of of what they're trying to get accounted, that would look to implement that, whether it's for the uh the full, you know, the four years or whether it's splitting it between the programs.

I think either way, whatever's most effective for you guys, I think is something that we should be very mindful of go forward with.

So we certainly appreciate the comments and and the questions because yesterday I had to have this explained to me in a in an accounting way, like as a semi-intelligent seventh grader, and I think I got it.

But yes, there's 440 extra dollars we were that we were told not to expect from the state that are not county funds that we were able to obtain recently.

So if the committees express support for it, that the county will fund the one position, we'll use that windfall money, if you will, from the state to fund the other one.

Um, but as I learned yesterday, that will have to be an FY25 appropriation, not in your FY26 budget, uh, because we actually have the money now.

So I would just confirm with county administration.

Um as a semi-intelligent seventh grader, am I getting that right?

Yeah, so um the the issue is that the unexpected revenue came in in fiscal year 25.

And the only time that you would be able to appropriate that revenue for an unanticipated expense would be in fiscal year 25.

So if that isn't done, the excess revenue will fall into the general fund fund balance, and it will not be available for this purpose.

So if the committees are willing to entertain that utilization of the unanticipated revenue for that purpose, that will actually have to come back to the next round of committees.

It's not a fiscal year 26 budget action.

It would actually be a fiscal year 25 appropriation and an emergency appropriation of the revenue and the expense for this purpose.

So we'd be back in November.

Great.

So to clarify, there's opportunities, just funding available, but there's different actions.

It's not 26 budget.

It would take a budget amendment and an appropriation action by the board.

I think the reason why this is critical right now is they've said that the money could be utilized for both of the desired people for a shorter amount of time.

Or um, because the one person was actually recommended in the fiscal year 26 budget, they could um just fund the one analyst position um through the fiscal year 25 budget process and allow the manager position to be funded through the 26th budget.

So that would need to be the clarification that we're receiving today.

We appreciate the months of discussions that we've had with county administration and budget team uh and both county administration and the court just need your guidance as to how you want to fund these.

Okay.

I have a question about the management of the position.

I'm sorry, go ahead, Chair.

Go ahead.

So I'm asking you, Paul and Patrice.

So do we need an amendment to the budget that we're gonna approve now?

It depends.

What is funded in page 62 is a manager for ICMS.

So if you want to go with the county administration recommendation, um, there's no need to do any sort of amendment right now.

Instead, what will happen is that at the next round of committees, um, you'll see a fiscal year 25 request for appropriation of the 440,000 dollars of unanticipated revenue along with a use of the funds to create an additional position and to utilize those funds to pay the salary, and then those funds will be carried over into fiscal year 26 along with the head count.

Um, however, if um you'd prefer to utilize the unanticipated revenue to fund both of them, then this budget as recommended would need to be amended.

Okay.

Oh, so I just want to say I think we should leave it alone and appropriate the 440 at our next LNJ meeting.

And I think the budget as it is right now would be great.

I I would support it the way it is.

Minimal question.

He didn't have anything.

Um I mean, I just have a clarification.

Uh is there a way, Chief Judge, maybe uh when you look at this, what is more beneficial to the judiciary to the court administration to utilize the how would you prefer to have it?

And it has that been baked into the you know the discussions that you previously have had.

Yeah, yes, and yes.

So um, what's important for us is these two positions.

That's what the professional consultants who know our system, who've been working with our system to build our system, have said we need as we go from development and deployment to operational.

So they've said we need these two positions in-house.

Whether the county, whether the board, whether these committees want to fund those two positions one in one, so to speak, the way county administration has recommended it is fine, or if you want to lump them into two and zero, so to speak, is fine.

So long as we get to two, that satisfies the court's operational needs.

Animal question.

I just want to say to the court that I think the way to the uh recommend is have been done, that's the way we should keep it.

The way to administrator uh recommend administrator recommended and uh uh is fair, and we we only can do what we can do.

So I think this is what we need to keep it in the other commission ones that I heard spoke of the uh what would administrator uh uh recommend it to the courts.

So uh we have some questions here.

Yes, that's my that's my uh take on and uh and I hope the rest of my committee look at this and think this is fair.

I agree with you, Chair Cunningham.

I think there's some clarity around that process.

My question for you is on the management of the position or positions uh to be, I guess.

Um I think it's great that the justice partners are all in agreement that this you know position would support uh everyone here, but it eventually has to be staffed and managed by one of the partners, which would be your department.

Right, that's correct.

We've been talking about this since the initial recommendation from uh the consultant, which came early summer, probably.

So we've met about it quite a few times, and the structure that we have in mind that we've agreed on is that I will supervise the uh the program manager on a daily basis, but the program manager would report at every meeting of our ICMS partners about the state of the system, uh, brief them on what uh had been accomplished since the last meeting, uh formulate goals with them for the system over the next you know X months and years, um, and then the analyst when hired would report directly to the program manager, but it would be housed under the courts.

Great.

Thanks for the clarity.

Member Maine.

Thank you.

I have a couple questions.

So if I'm looking at page 62, um FY26 budget is increasing one person full time, going from 162 to 163.

Is that person the person that's recommended to be funded at the top line of page 351?

So some uh I was going back to so some new project requests are baked in here.

Yes.

So ones that are recommended in the county administrators recommended budget are were moved into the departmental budgets.

Yes.

Okay.

And that was keeping.

With taking half of the people that is correct.

Yes.

All right.

So my next question is, and maybe I'm confused, which it could be likely, and it relates you folks who aren't here.

I asked in the beginning with new project requests that a department could look at their budget and they could be getting rid of something and putting something in new.

What I'm hearing, what I'm understanding, is that you're getting rid of consultant and you're adding this in.

So why is it a new program request then?

Because they're lining out that consultant budget, right?

Aren't you getting rid of the consultant?

I'm gonna I'm gonna give an answer and then Patrice can jump in and rescue me.

I think uh the the money for the consultant has traditionally been outside the court's budget.

Um and so this would be a relatively uh permanent part of the court's budget, and that's why it would be a new program request.

So, where was that before in the budget?

Special revenue funds, the court automation and/or doc storage funds.

And so what's happening with that?

Or we're gonna get to that on another page.

So then that should show a drop.

So we're not taking money from that now.

I'll let the department respond.

It's on the agenda, so yes.

Well, so how's that money that came from that?

If I may, because you are paying from it from here.

Now you're not going to be paying for that.

I understand what you're saying.

I need to be an octopus.

And now you're bringing in this person here for this budget.

So what's happening over here under this walnut here with that budget?

We continue to uh budget out of court automation based on what we think our needs are, and as well as projected revenue.

So we'll continue to budget for other needs out of generally.

We use a lot for computers.

Traditionally, we have not funded any computer costs, at least in recent memory, um, from another fund.

It's always been out of uh court automation.

Um we're also paying uh many of you remember we came before you for a new software paid for by the state called eSupervision a few months ago.

We're paying uh the annual maintenance fee on that out of court automation.

So court automation is really for us the sort of use for any technical need not otherwise funded.

Um we continue to budget.

It's six.

If I'm understanding this, you've just eliminated 600,000 that you were taking out of that fund.

Didn't you say that that's what the the consultant has been costing you?

Or is I wrong?

It's been closer to 400 on a normal year, but you're correct.

That's and not all of it has been paid by the courts, other was paid by the other partners, and there was a pre-established breakdown of those funds.

Um, so it hasn't 100% been paid for out of court automation, but the vast majority has been paid out of court automation.

We're at a point today that was projected in 2017, 18, uh, back then when you know, I mean, the board was here and the courts were here.

Some of us have changed, but some of us were here too.

Um, where it was there was a a funding formula that was projected at that time for how this would all be paid for for the development and the deployment of the system.

Uh that relied largely on well, included some special funds as we've talked about.

Um why is it an NPR and not some other vehicle?

That's the process by which the board operates.

Um, but we're at a point now that was anticipated back in the day when the county approved ICMS.

Okay, but so what or we can get to that, I guess.

What specifically are you going to spend that essentially 400,000 on that you didn't spend it on last year?

That's pretty right.

Uh we're for sure we're not going to spend the whole 400,000 out of court automation in fiscal year 26.

We have some concerns about the long-term health of the fund.

Um, it's a special revenue fund, so we really can't control the inflow to the fund.

Um, and it is really our rainy day fund for when things break and we have no no longer have the ability to pay for them any other way, particularly anything in the technological sphere.

So lately, what we've been doing most with it is paying for other software, other programming services.

For example, we have a consultant who supports this software, uh, who is a programmer and he helps do small programming jobs to support the e-suite.

Um, but traditionally, we've been spending mostly uh computer equipment out of the fund.

Now we will not budget that whole 400 for next year.

Member Clark.

That sort of seemed that follow up because you we had kind of similar questions that if the money was being spent in consultants, and I'm glad I think it should be in-house.

Like I definitely think that's more effective, more efficient, you know, after going through this saga, it'd be nice to have people that can do it in-house.

But I guess that's what some of that savings you think would have gone to pay for this, these people.

And that's where I guess I'm wondering is because it seems like we would save money hiring with in-house because in looking at it from 400,000 versus this.

And so I guess then there it seems like there's almost like why does it have to be a new program request?

Why wouldn't it just be covered by that?

I guess you're saying that you're saving that money for a rainy day.

Well, okay, saving it for a rainy day doesn't sound like so great.

You said rainy days, my words.

My guy said that.

I'll own it.

It's fine.

Yeah.

Um, yes.

And I don't have the fund in front of me, so I can't speak in a granular level to it, but I'm hoping that we we maybe can or certainly get back to you on it.

Um, but the county, I think wisely over the last several years has also prioritized moving headcount out of special funds, not just for the court, but for everybody.

So that's appropriate.

Now, I I do look at this not as an accountant, but as a semi-intelligent seventh grader.

And I I remember me and I I completely understand your point of well, you're freeing up money here and you want to spend more money here.

What do you do with that money?

That's how I understand your question.

Right.

Um, so I I would let budget or finance people speak to it, but I I know just enough finance to be dangerous.

And that is that those funds historically have gone up and down in the last several few years, they have gone down more than historically they have.

Reasonable minds can differ as to what an appropriate level should be.

I am sensitive to the fact that every dollar this board allocates is Lake County taxpayer dollars as a taxpayer.

I am sensitive to that.

Uh, and that special funds are largely user fees for those who use the criminal justice system.

And leaders in our community and the county and in the state can have vigorous and spirited debate over whether user fees should be higher or lower.

And the county sets some of those by ordinance, and the state sets other of those by statute.

Uh, and we've seen over the years some of those go down too.

So there's so there's as Carl said, an un unpredictability, inpredictability of what those revenues will be, but I don't disagree with your premise of you're not gonna be using the money that you you you were using before.

What are you gonna be using it for?

Uh, but I I think that the county's approach for these many years of moving head count out from special funds is meritorious.

So, do we have those that data here today that we can speak in a granular level as to court auto?

No, I don't I know that we have reduced the expenditures on that fund.

Could you speak up, please?

So we can all hear you.

Yeah, well, for court automation, one of our main concerns in approaching the budget this year was sustainability.

Um, as the chief has mentioned, the the revenues have fluctuated.

However, expenditures have not.

Um, with in prior years um personnel being paid from there as well as other emergency items um and the ICMS project, expenditures outweighed revenues.

So this um request really helps to correct that.

And we've gone and instead, if we're not spending that 400,000 somewhere else, we're not spending it at all.

We are looking at the long-term sustainability of that fund.

Uh, if we were to continue on our current expenditures, you're looking to a two to three year viability of that fund.

Okay.

We're looking for a long-term solution that will enable not only us but the court's office to maintain operations.

Um, we're also factoring in items such as you know, projectors and such um at the court tower that are hitting their lifespan and and are needing to be replaced.

So that's where we're looking at uh drawing some of those funds from I have a have a question to follow up on on what you just said there, which is um Judge Shane, State Attorney Reiner, Clerk of the Court have taken great effort to explain to myself and others.

Hey, this is where we came from, this is where we're going.

We had to make these investments.

We were so far behind on these systems.

One of the questions that we to discuss was what's the long-term plan?

How do we plan for the next time we're decades behind, right?

Like we're playing catch-up here in terms of systems.

And so I'm not trying to put words in your mouth, but are you are you indicating here that part of this fund eventually, if there is a balance, will be used to make investments in the next system or planning for adaptation in the future?

Is that what you're saying?

Or am I misinterpreting it?

I think it would be reasonable to say it would be taken into consideration.

Um, I don't want to uh assume what we would do two years down the road.

Um, you know, I may not be here in two years, so um, you know, to speak for anyone who would replace me, but um just to say that is a it's a possibility that that would be an option.

We want to make sure that it's an option, but by not making these changes, we would be eliminating those options.

Member Clark.

I think you that's so is the extra money in this budget, like is it budgeted in this budget, the extra money in this, the these other funds?

Like, is it accounted for here or is it like in its own special world?

The the money that you're like the 400,000, like these uh the 440,000 is not.

So is so that would take uh special action in November.

Uh oh, I'm sorry, no, no, no, I'm so sorry.

The the money that yeah, I know they are both the money that's that that's in the other automation fund is that that is in here, right?

We've got we present a budget every year.

That's what I thought we know something that flirt.

The detailed budget that they've put forward on page 207.

That's awful.

And my other question is that's helpful.

So I'll look at that.

Is um the these this these people, are they going to be working with county IT?

They're gonna work with everybody.

So they'll work with the subject matter experts with all four partners as well as EIT and JIT.

Okay, so they'll be part of like they're gonna be like collaborating with our county IT and like all working together on like AI policies and things like that.

Right.

Excellent.

Thank you.

Remember me.

Thank you.

And yes, I can see it there, page page 207.

So um uh I was many, many years ago on the uh law and judicial committee.

I haven't been for a long time, so I'm not as up to speed on some of those intricate details.

And it just happens that you are the first uh group to come forward that has an increase in personnel that's not funded overall by grants.

So my comments are not actually what I'm gonna say specific to you, it's more of a philosophy.

And and that is if we go back over the past couple years, the head count at Lake County, I I did the number somewhere, is gone up five percent or something like that, about five percent, 120 employees, and the rate of increase has is leveled off this year.

It's it's fewer.

Um but it concerns me.

If we look at our budget, you know, 42%, I think was personnel.

Was that was that right?

Okay, 42% is personnel.

That's the largest percent.

And so as we add um, as we add employees, as worthy as the cause may be, as we add employees, we are adding costs into the future.

All right, because there's a there's salary, there's benefits, there's all there's all those things.

And um we all know that the the myth of technology that it's gonna cut personnel and save paper and everything like that, is just that.

It may do good things, but you need a lot of people to maintain it, you need to buy, keep buying updated equipment and things like that.

So you we all are get on that that little hamster wheel.

Um, but if we look at the increase in Lake County population, and this is something I brought up a couple months ago at FNA, you know, it's de minimis the increase in our population, right?

It's so in terms of our services.

So I just think that that we do need to look at do we keep adding, and this just happens to be the first, do we keep adding programs every single year?

And we're not taking anything away because all we're doing is creating a bigger budget, a bigger head count that goes on almost in perpetuity, uh, as far as I can see.

And that's our biggest cost, our personnel.

So we want to pay people well, we want to give them salary increases the next year.

So even if we had flat number of employees, our budget's gonna go up because we're gonna give raises and things like that.

So it's it's just philosophically, it's it's concerning to me that it's I'm just always seeing here are the increases that we're taking that we're not saying, hey, let's overall look at this.

And are there some programs wherever they might be that aren't working so well that we're like, you know what?

It's good, but it's not great.

Let's prioritize and keep our number of employees flat.

So um, so that's and that's why I asked, because that's baked in with these sorts of things.

So I'm concerned about that overall, about increase in employees because it's up, it's up, it's up, it's up.

And that means that our budget and people's property taxes when they are not grant funded are always going up.

Um I want to take the opportunity to say I fully understand what you're saying, and I'm hearing you, I'm remaining.

And um I I wish we could fully apply that uh question holistically at this moment in time, but I promise you we will incorporate that question and that thought about prioritization into our budget um policy discussions in March for 207.

I I'm glad you've heard me.

I I feel I have maybe not as strongly, which I know is surprising for me.

I feel I've made those comments before and perhaps not been heard.

I I did bring up earlier.

Why do we keep increasing services?

We're like, oh, we've had some group growth in the county, and I specifically ask that.

I said, but that does not mean our need for services are necessarily going up.

Okay.

If you add a little bit of population, you could just spread the cost of the same services.

And yet I said that.

Should I be stronger?

So it, but at this point.

Thank you, Chair Hart.

Thank you.

Uh, I just might suggest that our um CFO, her staff, county administration team is always really carefully analyzing the number of people that we have.

There are some departments that are countywide elected, in which we do not have authority over the number of people who work in those departments.

What we do have authority over is the personnel budget, right?

So I I just don't want it to appear as though we've been adding people, and I'm sorry, I I must have missed that.

I did not hear like, oh, there's, you know, 6,000 more people in all of Lake County, and therefore we need to increase the number of staff.

That I I am not familiar with that.

I've never heard that conversation here.

I think what happens is that our budget team is working carefully with the departments to make a determination on what is needed to fulfill the needs of Lake County.

I don't think it's like some sort of calculation, you know, population of X divided by whatever is gonna equal this number, right?

It is it is closely analyzed.

So I just really want to make sure that that's really clear.

And I do know over the years we've made a commitment to those departments who have special funds to say, hey, we're going to pull um uh personnel out of those funds because they can be utilized that way.

But I think that was uh a conversation that's occurred with our county administrator.

And then I did have a question, but I can wait.

Yeah, but I just want to follow up on that, which is you know, we're we're responsive to the economic climate and to the societal climate of what the county's needs are and what the but the policy goals are of the board.

And yes, personnel have gone up over time to accommodate investments and needs, and we had several budgets in a row where we held the levy flat and we held our headcount flat or reduced headcount.

And you know, that that does fluctuate over time.

Thank you.

And may I ask so I'll wait on that?

My hand is up for a question.

Go ahead.

Go ahead, Jen.

Oh, okay.

Well, actually, it's really about so this we're really talking about the court automation fund.

And uh, I want to thank um Jennifer Rathmund, if I'm pronouncing her name Rathundi, thank you, who sent over uh their audit, and there was something in here, and it's inherent limitations.

This was the audit that was done by Baker and Tilly, and it says inherent limitations of the e court system.

And it says um, and this is uh I understand limitations that existed in the prior software that we had, and it was not my understanding when we funded this that this limitation would continue, but it's just saying that um the e-court financial accounting system has financial reporting limitations.

It says it appears to be contributing to discrepancies between bank deposit receipts and e-court daily collection reports.

That's a huge problem.

So uh it does not appear to be accounting for the collection of a two-dollar probationary fee required by state statute.

There's a number of things, and I appreciate the clerk of the circuit court had responded to those things, and they're continuing to work with the vendor, but I it seems to me that an appropriate use of this court automation fund is fixing some of these major financial reporting limitations.

So if we are not able to uh if we have discrepancies between bank deposit receipts and daily collection reports, where's that money?

How do we know that those monies are being deposited correctly?

So that's just my thought on the usage of the court automation fund.

Thank you.

I I just had one other NPR that I wanted to talk about.

And um, I did want to say before I talk about it because it's personnel, uh, member Maine's point is something I think every manager in the county uh takes to heart.

Um many of us when we're formulating these NPR requests that come to you automatically uh sort of pause whenever it involves head count because we understand that's a huge driver of cost for every government and he spends more on personnel than almost everything else combined.

And so one of the things that we try to do is to bring some funding to the table.

I know you'll have several presenters over the course of these days uh who've uh secured grants for different positions.

Um about halfway down on page 351 is an NPR.

It comes to you with a recommendation for no funding.

Um it's a request for a psychologist for our psychological services division.

When we presented uh to L and J over the summer, we talked quite a bit about um mental health evaluations and treatment, uh, particularly for defendants in custody of the jail, where we get those defend uh those mental health evaluations done, and we want to get them done as quickly as possible.

Um of sort of the limitations to that that we talked about at L and J over the summer was uh the number of staff we have available to do it.

At one point, uh psychological services had five in-house um psychologists.

We currently have three, um, and we supplement them with outside psychologists that work for us under contract.

One of the things that always concerns us about that is the pool of psychologists in Lake County willing to do this work is not large.

And we're very susceptible to just one vendor deciding to get out of this business or to move from Lake County.

Um, and we could really get behind in these psychological evaluations, aside from the fact that with only three psychologists, we struggle with them being able to turn a lot of their attention to treatment, which is really part of their job, and they do spend uh disproportionate amount of time on these psychological evaluations.

Um this year we were fortunate to have an agreement with uh Illinois Department of Human Services in which they agreed to pay the courts 224,000 with the earmark that it needs to be used for mental health services for our clients.

So uh along that theme, um we had asked for an additional uh psychologist and with the intent of spending that money to offset their approximately first year and a half with the county.

Any questions on that at all?

Yeah, you have one more you wanted to highlight.

No, I think that's it.

Okay.

It's an NPR with a zero item.

It probably looks funny.

This is why she had animal member Clark.

I had a question about the NPR request for the self-represented litigant position.

I noticed it's in the potential funding if we increase the levy the full amount.

And how many um self-represented litigants do you know on average do we have?

Because currently we have one person, correct, to help people.

I got it.

So uh it's difficult to track by case.

So what we tend to go off of is the number of self-represented litigants who come to the law library and ask for help.

Yeah.

And 2024, that number was over 17,000.

2025, 25,000 uh last year.

Um and we're trending upward continue.

And that's I uh yes, 18, almost 19,000 through uh the end of September.

So I'm sure that's not a surprise to you.

We've talked about that at the last two years of presentations to L and J that number continues to increase.

And so the idea behind uh that paralegal uh would be that they would be right in the courts um helping uh litigants their real need is to fill out paperwork because many of them just don't have the training.

There are also sometimes language barriers or even literacy barriers.

So that would give us a full-time person.

We can move from court to court depending on caseload that day, and they could directly help litigants with their paperwork.

Yeah.

And I and I know we're not gonna talk about these till tomorrow.

But um I I do urge our board to really look at this.

I mean, 25,000 people who really just need help filling out, I mean, the paperwork.

It's I feel like as the core services we provide as a county is to make sure people can access the courts and have a fair fair treatment.

And I know I've been there, I've talked to some you know, interns that have done that, and they said it's just you know, people are just wandering around trying to be like, help me fill this out.

Can someone explain it?

And just to have somebody that could spend 15 minutes with you and say, here's what you need to do, can is life changing for people, and it's really access to justice.

So I'm really hoping that when we look at these new program requests tomorrow, that we really look at funding that one.

I I think for 25,000 people, we probably could use more than one person.

Um, but I think it's a start, and I think it's really really important for people seeking justice for us to provide that.

I think most courts do that, and um, they maybe they can help with more volunteers and stuff too.

But I really want to support that position.

Thank you.

So thank you for bringing it forward.

Thank you.

Thank you for those remarks.

This might be a question for tomorrow.

So let me know if it is.

Um the increase in the self-represented um litigants.

Is that due to something specific?

And is that specific thing projected to continue happening?

So, yeah, I mean, courts across the country and in Illinois and as chief judge, I sit on the Illinois conference of chief judges.

So we we talk about this sort of thing of how to run a court system with in the current environment.

Um, why are there more self-represented litigants is really the question, right?

And the answer depends upon the kind of courtroom and case that we have.

Uh, and it also is dependent on the economy, and it's also dependent upon the population.

So the kind of case it is, it could be I'll contrast just family simple divorce from criminal, right?

So people come in and they may not be able to hire an attorney to represent them for their divorce.

Um, one or both of them may not have money.

I mean, that kind of thing.

Uh, we're we've seen a tremendous upswing in that.

Uh I'll give you a concrete example of that.

Um, 10 years ago, we had X number of divorce courtrooms, and they just did all the divorces.

Uh five, six, seven years ago, we created our first courtroom that has that has a judge dedicated to self-represented litigant divorces, no lawyers, both sides, right?

Um, last year I created a second courtroom to deal with in family only to deal with self-represented litigants, uh, where there are those that are involved uh in their divorce.

And there's criteria whether they have children, not children, you know, money, no money, that kind of stuff.

Uh, so we're seeing more and more of it, and it it causes a reaction uh to how we provide access to justice, as member Clark called it, uh, for those cases because they're different.

So we're seeing more and more.

Uh contrast that's a criminal.

Um you're going to hear from our public defender uh who is doing an outstanding job in my opinion.

Uh, and I think one of the things he'll tell you is how his appointments have increased uh in the last year.

So a criminal defendant has a constitutional right to counsel.

They are indigent, like a self-represented litigant in civil cases, except they have a right to attorney.

So that's why we have a public defender's office.

Uh we have a public defender's office again, one guy's opinion is doing a great terrific job.

Um, their appointments have skyrocketed because of the indigency there as well.

But if someone does not qualify for the public defender, but they are in that middle ground of not being able to afford to hire private counsel, we're dealing with more self-represented litigants in um criminal court as well.

So we see some there.

Another area where we see a tremendous upswing is in that hybrid of family and criminal order of protection court.

A tremendous number of self-represent orders of protection where there are self-represented litigants.

Um one of my priority areas is domestic violence in order of protection court.

We may see some changes coming in those areas in the next several months.

If we are able to have more assistance, have this position with a paralegal, we we would see them in family and order protection, domestic violence a lot.

But it's in other areas too.

Our small claims uh courtroom has thousands of self-represented litigants who come through every year, and we have no resources to help them.

In an ideal world, maybe we would, but we're also mindful of the significant stewardship that this board has of taxpayer dollars.

And not only does the board prioritize county needs, but the courts have prioritized our needs and wants as we've made these budget proposals to you too.

Um there are SRLs all over.

And so those are some of the reasons, right?

Then we look at our demographic, we have an ever-aging population that increases adult guardianships in our probate docket.

Um if I could read the economy better, I'd probably do better in my stock portfolio.

I don't have one, but if I could do it better, I probably would.

Uh but you know, there's there are economic issues that that people have as well.

So it's a combination of all those factors, ma'am, that affect why there are self-representative litigants.

But the bottom line is the projections are nationwide and in Illinois, no reason to think Lake County is different.

It'll only continue to increase.

Thank you.

We have no more questions.

No more question.

I'm sorry.

Ms.

Very Sudden, go ahead.

I do want to point out before you start taking a vote on this massive list of funds.

Um, we do have a minor change amendment for the Holse detention center.

Um the courts did make an a salary change on one of their employees, and that was done after we created the budget.

So we would just like to amend the fiscal year 26 budget to reflect that change as well.

So staff is gonna send that around just so that you have it, because we will look to have um item eight dot L19 approved as amended.

Thank you.

And just while it's um going around.

Um, everybody knows I talk a lot about centralizing resources, uh, particularly sort of those back office items, finance, HR, IT.

Um, I didn't really think about it.

I see you've got therapists here.

We have an excellent Lake County Health Department.

Uh, I would just encourage our um court partners to see if there's any opportunities to partner with um some of the people who have dedicated their life or around behavioral health needs.

Um maybe that's an intergovernmental agreement.

I don't know, but it sounds like you said it's a little bit difficult finding people to work with a certain population.

Um, but I would just offer that up.

And then um thank you for providing these this performance information.

Um I I've brought this up before, and I would really love to see um court cases uh time to completion.

So you've got the clearance rate, but that's not really if it's the number of cases disposed divided by the number of new cases filed and reinstated, it doesn't really tell us, I think a story.

I think what would be interesting, and I know there's another county in the collars that does it.

I'm I apologize, I don't know which one, perhaps Chief Judge, you do, but it's essentially like, hey, here's these types of felony cases.

There's these types of civil cases, misdemeanors, whatever they are, right?

And then you can figure out how long is it taking for a case to be filed and then reach completion.

Because if I'm a member of the public, that's the clearance that I'm most interested in.

So I I would I would love to um to see that, and then that can really, you know, more it's your office, but allow you to see, hey, where are those areas where courses, excuse me, cases are taking a long time to get to completion.

So there's that one thing.

And then again, I recognize you have your own needs in terms of IT and things like that, but we have a robust uh IT department.

And um, I know they work closely, but it feels to me from a layperson's perspective, why it that it would be logical that you would have an IT department, and then you would have sort of a group of people who would support um the courts, and that way, let's say you ever have an issue, it's very easy to kind of move your staff back and forward as you see fit, and there might even be an opportunity for a savings and head count.

So thank you.

Thank you.

Okay.

I mean, there's that's that's that's a three hour discussion.

True.

Yeah.

No, I and we've had some of it before.

Um, and you know there's not a lot of disagreement uh with us on some of these issues.

Um thank you.

I'm not sure it's really what for today we can talk about it at J Team, maybe.

Thank you.

I'm just it's in the budget book, yeah, the performance information and the staffing levels.

And so that's why I thought um, I mean, I mean, quick hits, we have a terrific relationship with behavioral health.

We do a lot of overlap with them.

There's some things they can do, some things they can't do, and we're we're very proud of the relationship we have with the county health department.

Uh no knocks on them.

Kudos uh for uh IT and why would we put the ICMS under court's umbrella, not state's attorney, not public defender, not clerk.

That's because the unique relationship of the four of us and the you know, the state's attorney can't have the public defender in their business, the public defender can't have the state's training in their business, uh, you know, that kind of stuff.

So the the partners, the four justice partners agreed that the most benign place to put them would be under the court's umbrella, with the understanding that they'll report to all four uh of us.

Um and we have a terrific relationship with EIT, uh, who are from all the emails I see from EIT every day about uh the internet's up, the internet's down, the communications up, the communication communications down.

They're always working to make sure the county uh is running and um we're pleased with the partnership we have with them.

Not sure how much more you want me to say about it.

No, that's just that performance information, that metric would be helpful for next year.

Yes, thank you.

Thank you.

Beautiful.

Thank you, member Volitzing.

Yeah, no, I I really appreciate that.

I I came into this um discussion with a question, but then I saw the clearance rate, and I thought, oh, well, that's that's a that's a good number.

So maybe maybe my um sort of assumption or my uh my opinion going into this was incorrect.

But that's the question that I should have the way I should have been thinking of it is how long are these cases taking?

And it because not to pick on you, but that's that's what we're here for, right?

Um both professionally, I have heard several times and experienced it, not myself, but through just the some of the work we have to do.

And then personally, I have a close family member who has very intimately experienced going through the court system um in Lake County, the civil division.

Neither time uh in or in any of those instances was the experience um positive in terms of the length of time and the frustration and the state, the I don't know what the legal terms are, but just the waiting and the appointments and the cancellations and the pushing it forward three months and pushing it forward three months.

Um so is whether or not it's published here, is the is that data available to you?

Do you guys have that data internally?

And will we see it in the future?

What is your reaction?

I mean, I I would like to hear more on your because I'm not on LNJ on your position in terms of not having that data readily available.

So so two things on that respectful of the time because you're gonna be here all day and you have people sitting behind us.

I'm gonna give you a short answer.

But it is, I do I do want to be clear.

It is in my mind related because it is a budgetary matter.

Yeah, so so I'm gonna I have a short answer I'll share with everybody now.

And then my second part is call me, let's get together, let's talk about this because and the offer is open to everybody, but so I don't use committee time to do it.

Um I appreciate those individual members who I've had lunch with and and gone around with and have breakfast with and all that kind of stuff.

I am available.

I I nerd out on this stuff.

I'd love to talk about it.

Um my heart goes out to almost everybody who comes through the justice system because almost everybody, and I'll name the exception in a second.

Almost all of them are here, and they do not want to be here.

They're here because they are at something really bad has happened in their life.

They're here because they're at what might be the worst part in their life, their family may be coming apart.

Someone did something really bad to them.

They're accused of doing something bad to somebody else.

Uh they are uh at the extremes of life, our most vulnerable members, our children and our geriatrics who need protection uh from family from courts from others, um, sometimes from family.

So it is not unusual that those people have an are are um frustrated when they're here because they're here at a bad time.

They'd like the bad time to be over and they'd like to get out.

The only exceptions are wedding and adoptions.

Those are happy times, and those are a pleasure to do.

Uh, but otherwise, for the everybody else, they're here for a bad reason, they don't want to be here anymore.

So we do look at length of stay.

We lost some of that data when we early transitioned from the old system to the new system.

We're getting it back, you know, there's the black hole for a little bit.

Um, but as an administrator, chief judge, right?

As an administrator, I look at that, and my fellow judges um grit their teeth when they see me walk through their door, because I like to pop in on people and check in and see what's going on, and I start talking about some of this.

Um, why do some cases take longer than other?

Because their nature.

A traffic ticket can be one and done, a medical malpractice, which is a horrible thing for a plaintiff and a medical malpractice who thinks that they receive substandard care and now they're you know disfigured for life or whatever it is, uh, is going to take more than a couple months.

It's going to take several years.

Um a focus has always been with our conversations, particularly with uh my friend the chair, is on criminal cases with incarceration with length of stay, which is different than age to disposition.

Uh and I think as you look at the data, we've seen improvements in that over the last few years.

Uh but I would love it personally, if everyone could get their justice as quickly as possible, but as possible is where the mischief is.

And it just depends on the case, it depends on the individuals.

And that's more than everybody else wants to hear.

But I I'd really enjoy lunch and talking about the intricacies of how the court works.

Yeah, I I would like to learn more.

I I I truly would, and I will take you up on that.

And I but I do think it's worthy of a public discussion too.

I mean, just to hear Oh, if you tell me now's the time, I'm I'm in.

Well, I'm sure it's not sure now we're not uh well, I'm not sure.

But if you don't have the information readily available on the whys and the what's where it is taking longer, perhaps years on this than what is what is being done.

I have lots of information on the whys and and some on the where's the numbers, no, I don't have those in front of me.

But on the whys, absolutely, but you got to give me a couple hours.

And we don't have the explanation on the variances amongst the different types of cases, but I think one of the things we'd be interested in understanding is again, another point in time.

Does the technology that we've invested in here, ICMS, yeah, allow you to flag something to say, hey, this has been in our system longer than the average number of days for cases like this.

Exactly.

Has this DUI been here 60 days longer than the average for DUI cases, et cetera?

Can you flag that and generate that report and look at it and say, hey, how can we deal with these?

Right.

And the answer is not to the level of precision we would appreciate.

And so one of the things we've been doing since ICMS launched is being better able to refine that data, both by programming ICMS and also learning what inputs can we do to help the data situation.

And to your point, if you look at things like on the criminal side, how long a person fails to appear and a warrant is issued, most of the systems are not set up to remove that time from that calculation.

So if that case takes two years, but nine months of the time the the defendant had absconded and there was an open warrant for them.

Most systems will not remove that nine months.

So in order to get really precise data, data that you can hang your head on, it's going to take us a couple of years just to get ICMS where we want it in calculating that data.

Most that that's the type of report and analysis that any organization that's looking to improve customer satisfaction.

In this case, we're talking about days through the system.

Yeah, would use data to highlight it to say, hey, we're beyond the average here.

And when you're not up to your eyeballs and budget, let's schedule a public day to talk about it, if you like.

Um, do they say, hey, I'm not?

Because I get a lot of calls that people say a lawyer is representing them.

They like my lawyer say we're not ready to go to court.

I've been here three years, I've been here two years.

Where do that fit in at with this?

Because I get a lot of calls, and you know, I'm in the courtroom just about every day with somebody.

Yeah.

So uh what is they throwing the lawyers back from representing them or uh they just ain't ready to go between the judge and the lawyer and the prosecutor.

Uh uh, I get so many calls about this.

I've been family members called me stuff.

I had a kid or child of five years, and my lawyer ain't doing nothing, but he had to be done.

So he represents you, you know.

But anyway, where do they fit in it with this data?

Chair Cunningham, you're exactly right.

They are a major reason why cases don't move as fast as their clients would like them to, because the lawyers tell the judge we need more time to be ready.

We need to investigate this.

We need to issue subpoenas for that.

We need to get discovery from the other side.

And the court would like to have be as efficient as possible, but in the end, must do justice.

So if a lawyer is going to tell me I cannot be ready for this trial on Monday, I will not be able to effectively represent my client.

They don't get a fair trial.

We call that practice and do it over again.

So because that's reversible error.

So the the lawyers are amazing, not throwing anyone on the bus, but the lawyers have an obligation to their client to be prepared.

And if they need time to be prepared, they need the time.

If we don't have any other comments or questions, okay, and we do have the amendment.

Okay.

Thank you.

Um I do we have a data coordinator?

We don't, do we?

Do we have some of the that does the data for us?

Or is I mean, is in your department.

I mean, is it someone's job, or you'd have to?

Yes.

Or for for for all of us for your department for the state's attorney's department.

I mean, you don't have to work together.

On that question.

Mine wasn't funded this budget.

That was a handoff for me for him.

So yes.

Thank you.

We do have an in-house data person, and really much of her life the last two years has been getting ICMS into the shape that she needs it to generate useful data.

But don't you need to work with the state's attorney's office as well?

It's always beneficial when the various partners can contribute.

Right.

I'm not sure why that wasn't funded, but that's another question.

I'll leave that for when I'm not staying here.

Thank you.

Frank, we've taken an immense amount of your time.

I appreciate your interest.

All the members of both committees appreciate your interest and support as partners for the justice system.

You know, I'll stay as long as you want me to.

I know you have other things to do.

Thank you.

We do have the county administrator's recommended amendment for 8.L19 in front of us, which is a projected increase of $8,691 in total expense for FICA IMRF and salaries and wages.

And this increase is going to be offset by a reduction personal contingency and the general operating expense of the exact same amount, $8,691.

Uh each committee has to vote on the amendment for 8.L19, and then we'll vote on the other items in the budget.

Yeah, someone from your committee is to do the motion.

Motion by amendments, second by memo connection then favor if there's any as yet.

No no's motion and approved.

Okay.

Uh so that amendment for 8.l19, motion by member Clark, second by member main.

Any other comments or questions?

All in favor, please say aye.

Aye.

Any opposed?

That amendment is approved.

So now we'll vote on all these items.

Okay.

Uh law and addition.

We've voting on 18 through 26.

That's what no, just 26, what I'm saying.

Okay.

No.

This is what we voted on.

We already got a motion on it.

We already have a motion.

I think we do.

Yeah, yes, we do.

We do.

So no.

All in favor.

Aye and say every no non-oppos.

Motion been approved.

Finance it dot L18 through 8.L26, including a dot L19 as amended.

All in favor, please say aye.

Any opposed?

Those items are approved.

Um, for timing, we have several other items for this committee.

I know that we are going to free to go.

Thank you.

Thank you, Judge.

Chief, you guys are free to go.

Thank you.

Thank you very much.

Thank you all.

I know we're going back to the state's attorney's office items members.

We are planning to break for lunch.

Um at some point, I think it would be good if we just estimate right now that we will be here for at least 45 minutes and planning to break at 1245.

Does that seem appropriate to everyone?

We should break it to it.

You want to break now?

Oh, unless I get him out the way.

That's up to you.

No, we can get out to wait.

Then we're gonna break.

Okay, so we'll just say it's attorney and then break.

Okay.

Yeah, we're going for because we skipped ahead.

That's right.

Right.

So we're at uh L one.

Right.

We're gonna take the motion all your items together, but then you know, as we have, we we'd anticipate you will highlight things that we need to discuss, and members are free to break into any of those items.

The advocacy center first.

I don't know if that I'm only bringing that up because I don't know if it impacts your motion.

I don't think you do the motion separate for CAC versus SAM.

That's all one motion.

Oh, one motion.

Okay, thank you.

Okay, so you guys will do a motion on L one.

Right.

I already get it.

Okay.

I got mad over here.

Six.

Yeah, six.

Yeah.

Okay.

I need a motion.

From one through six.

I think yes.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I need a motion for law in addition.

Motion by commissioner uh second by memo.

Finance motion on eight dot L1 through eight dot L6 by member Clark, second by member Hewitt.

All right.

So the Child Avocacy Center's budget can be found on page 136.

Page 136.

Morning.

All right.

Oh, sorry.

I'm so sorry.

Uh so fee revenue is expected to remain flat for FY26.

Their uh expense budget has been further reduced to reflect only county funded salaries and benefits included in their budget is the recommended NPR for the on-call special pay in the amount of 32,000.

The child advocacy center also submitted an NPR for a program facilitator.

That was not recommended.

I will not I will now turn over, um, turn it over to our state's attorney Eric Reinhardt and Carrie Flanagan.

Good morning, good afternoon.

I'll turn it over to Carrie Flan.

Hi, good afternoon, Carrie Flanagan, executive director of the Lake County Children's Advocacy Center.

Thank you so much for having me here today.

Um, as was pointed out, our budget um this year in terms of what the county will be contributing to the children's advocacy center is 689,453.

I have passed out some handouts to give a little bit of an overview of what the children's advocacy center total budget is um this year, with the approximate budget of 1.

Um six million dollars, in addition to the remaining 400,000 that we were awarded um through the state for our medical, so close to a little bit over 2 million dollars.

I appreciate um the other funds being taken out to truly reflect what the county contributes to our overall budget, in addition to the change in that actual dollar value.

The other significant change that you will see, as mentioned, um, was an NPR that is being recommended to move forward in addition to obviously a rec uh um an NPR that we are it's not moving forward.

The NPR um this special pay is what we have asked for in the NPR that is being moving forward, and that is for special pay for on-call staff members.

As most of you, if not all of you know, the children's advocacy center is required to be accessible 24-7 in my time um at the children's advocacy center for the last eight years, it is and strictly has been on a voluntary basis, where the team, which would consist of the estate's attorney, our um forensic interviewer, and our advocate come in quite frankly, out of the goodness of their heart to address these cases on a regular basis um after hours and on the weekends.

What we did was we really looked at all of the children's advocacy centers across the state.

I would point out that there are 41 children's advocacy centers in the state of Illinois.

We are currently number two in terms of productivity next to Chicago, downtown Chicago.

Out of um the cases that we see come through on the weekend, for those of you that can imagine children who have been abused, it doesn't always happen during the nine to five hours.

So we're accessible to law enforcement in addition to DCFS.

It also should be pointed out that we are one of the only children's advocacy centers in the state of Illinois that takes physical abuse.

That was changed um when I became um executive director, so that as most of you probably already know that when you can do a forensic interview on a child who's been physically abused, oftentimes it will lead to other disclosures if done if done correctly without being in a setting that um oftentimes can be intimidating.

So this new program request is asking for on-call staff to be able to come in and be compensated for their time for a few reasons, not to accumulate a significant amount of comp time to be able to have a quick response.

Right now, we reach out to a team and to be able to give them a heads-up notice that they're on call for the weekend is super beneficial.

And then one of the most important reasons is because in June, we did our soft launch of our medical facility.

And that in turn has created a lot more cases that are coming through.

So children who would have often presented themselves to an emergency room are now presenting themselves to the children's advocacy center, which is resulting in these children getting forensic interviews, which is also resulting in significant evidence collection, in addition to resulting in these kids, quite frankly, getting the care that they need.

For those of you that remember at the last budget cycle, I think I presented that in 2000, I think it was 2005, I'm sorry, 2023, we had approximately over 500 sexual abuse cases from children that could have warranted an exam within a hospital setting, and only a hundred of them plus we were able to track.

To date, I think it's important to know that since our soft launch, our medical team, which consists of our medical director, Lutheran, a nurse that we hired from Lutheran, in addition to a nurse that was hired through children's in Wisconsin.

We've conducted 153 consults.

That means that every child that walks to the center now gets to meet with a medical personnel.

We've conducted 35 sexual assault exams and 14 physical abuse exams.

Currently, we are also in the process of accreditation.

Tomorrow we have the National Children's Alliance coming on site as they do every five years to evaluate all of what we do from a policy standpoint of view, in addition to logistics of how our building operates and how the team operates in terms of collaboration.

Out of that, um, it should be noted that we are one of the first centers in the state to also apply for the two additional components that are optional, one of them being a physical abuse component, the second one also being a community awareness and education component.

To date, we've reached out to over thousands, if not five plus thousand children within school systems to educate them on the work that we do and the physical abuse cases.

So we tomorrow I'm hoping that we can um you know cross our T's and dot our I's to say that we've passed all of our standards and that we'll be one of the first in the state to have met those.

Um in addition to that, I would say that what you'll notice in our budget is also no change in terms of the things that we asked for over the years, a contractual line, which um is a significant contractual line, but I should point out that that contractual line helps us with forensic interviewers, helps us maintain all of our recording systems on site, in addition to other work that's done within the CAC from staff that come help us man waiting rooms and things of that nature.

And then um last but not least, I think it should be pointed out that one of the things that I mentioned as to something that we're looking to do in the future is expansion of the center.

We've currently brought on to our advisory board some corporate um entities that can really look at how we need to expand and looking to work and solicit corporate funding to be able to build and expand on what we currently have.

I also think it's important to point out based on what I've heard here today, is that collaboration and working with our county entities we believe to be truly important.

Um, we do um have funding that um we work with the Lake County Health Department, mental health, as we hear across the board a lot in terms of kids that are in the need of it and obviously other populations as well.

We currently have two mental health workers to feed through all of the kids that come through.

We have a waiting list for these children who are in the need of mental health services.

We partner with the Lake County Health Department.

The children's advocacy center pays 100% of one of their therapists' salaries who's located in-house to work to be able to provide those services.

And most recently, we added a mental health worker to the CAC to help us address the needs of the kids on the waiting list.

Other than that, I don't think I have anything to add.

Question Disha Commuter.

Member Clark, the member of Litig.

Thank you.

Yeah, thank you for that overview.

I just had a question for your future capital planning.

Um, are you looking, I know is this like tentative of expanding your existing site?

I know we've talked about maybe like Libertyville campus or you know, when we're looking at moving ahead because we're we're like planning for money and capital.

What are your thoughts?

Thank you.

So years ago, and forgive me if I don't remember the exact date.

I want to say it was around 2020, 2021.

Um, we had an independent, I think it might have even been um Baker Tilly who came in to do really look at the center and where we were at in terms of expansion.

And at that point in time, they suggested um probably three times the size of currently what we are.

And I think it was concluded at that point in time that the location that we're currently in just did not make sense for expansion because of the way children's advocacy centers quite honestly need to be designed in terms of the collaboration.

It wouldn't make sense to go up.

In addition to that, for those of you that have been there, see that the parking isn't very limited.

We have probably 10 parking spaces.

Um, so that is limited.

Um, what we have talked about with our advisory board, um, obviously you can see that a majority of our funding comes from obviously outside agencies, in addition to a significant amount of grant funds that is awarded to us through our 501c3.

Is that really having some community stake into the building and what we're doing in terms of um building?

So the corporate people that we have brought on to our advisory board is looking at how we can do some public capital campaigns to ask for some of these um donors to contribute to it.

So we have been saving on a 501c3 basis to look at what we're gonna do in terms of that and go from there.

We do not and have not any exact plan at this point.

It's just been something that the board has been discussing.

Member of Let's Thanks.

Uh similar question, and then also I'll just say I'm really glad that you included in the budget pain for the um the on-call.

That's super important and and happy to support that.

Thank you.

All right.

You do wish to proceed with your other item.

Yes, I'd like uh a first assistant and uh office manager to come up.

Thank you very much, Carrie.

Well, while Carrie's packing up, I want to say good morning again to everyone, good afternoon.

And the innovative, the innovative and multidisciplinary approach that you just heard from Director Flanagan is exactly what we should be using in every area that we are attempting to make Lake County safer, whether it's gun violence, whether it's domestic violence, whether it's opioid fatalities, whether it's suicide prevention.

That type of innovative, collaborative and multidisciplinary data-driven approach is what I believe that we should have in every aspect of public safety.

Um, I should say this, and and some of you have been here long enough.

Uh, before I was state's attorney, there are people, there are forces in our county who think that Carrie's work is too innovative, and that it is not within the traditional approach of a children's advocacy center.

Obviously, I passionately disagree with those people.

But those people, those people still exist within our system who think that the children's advocacy center should have a narrower, more traditional approach.

We disagree.

I disagree with them, we disagree with them.

I think most of you disagree with them.

But it does go to another question that was earlier asked about why we should invest in services.

Somewhat regardless of Director Flanagan's funding, what you just heard is an expansion of services, which helps states.

What you have heard from Director Flanagan, somewhat separate from her funding source, is an expansion of services that helps people.

And that is what the rest of my presentation will be about is how can we expand services to make people happier, healthier, and safer.

Um, we had two of our NPRs that were recommended.

We appreciate that very much.

They constituted 20,000 uh of our multiple asks.

There was a 10,000 dollar request for diversion program.

Um, I don't think we need to put these up.

There was a 10,000 dollar uh diversion program, which was a request in our contractual line.

We appreciate the NPR being recommended.

There was also a, I believe a 10,000 expansion in our training budget.

We greatly appreciate that.

In light of the stakes, I'd rather answer any questions that people have about those two NPRs, 20,000 is real money, uh, and we take that very seriously.

But in light of the recommendation from the county administrator, I'd rather talk about two NPRs that we would ask respectfully be funded under scenario two.

Respectfully, we would ask that our gun violence prevention initiative and our cyber forensic request be moved into scenario two in light of the important safety issues.

Um happy to answer any questions about that.

Um, generally speaking, people are familiar with our gun violence prevention initiative and the work that it does.

Our cyber analysts, um, this is what we've passed out is the work on the cyber as well as the gun violence prevention initiative, but the cyber funding, uh, the cyber funding um is explained about an increase um of our cyber lab, which we use again, which is directed uh at working with our law enforcement partners.

You will also see from the documents we handed out that at least two police chiefs, are there two, Mar, two or three?

Two police chiefs, uh many police chiefs are in strong support of this cyber of this cyber uh request or of our cyber lab.

I should point out that um respectfully, um, we cannot wait for quarter two on two licensing agreements, which will run out in January.

I believe that that all of our licensing agreements are 118,000.

We will lose uh that funding uh in January, those licenses uh will uh will lapse.

And so we do need additional funding for that.

Regarding the gun violence prevention initiative, you have a one page that was handed out.

You have a one pager that was handed out that explains that despite our optimism a few months ago, we have not received additional funding from Springfield as of this point.

Um, and we are very concerned about potential layoffs out of the gun violence prevention initiative.

We also are not able to apply for federal grants anymore.

President Trump has de-emphasized these grants that are actually shut down these grants that come out of the Department of Justice that were for community violence work.

So we have sort of, if you imagine three outfielders, we have sort of the grant funding from the DOJ.

We have our state partners who have been amazing.

But by the way, our local state representatives, Adrian Johnson and Rita Mayfield have done everything they can to move the money.

It's a question of funding coming out of Springfield.

It doesn't have anything to do with our local legislators.

But we have our grant funding, we have our legislators, and then we have um our county partners who have been fantastic up until this point.

I just can't wait until second quarter.

So if you imagine three outfielders, the ball's about to drop and hit the ground, and all three people are gonna say, well, I thought you were gonna get it.

Uh that's kind of what we're headed towards, of course, the the Department of Justice grants really that that outfielder is kind of out of position in my story.

Uh and so we are about to run out of our legislative money uh on our gun violence prevention initiative.

That money is not moving.

Whenever it does move, we could potentially reimburse the county.

Um, but we do have a hard ask to move the gun violence prevention initiative funding into the scenario two in case it is fully funded.

Um, we do feel that the situation is dire.

Uh as everyone knows, we've seen uh strong decreases in Lake County uh due to the gun violence prevention uh initiative.

Um for this year alone in 2025, we have seen a 38% decrease in non-fatal shootings in North Chicago and Zion.

This is just for this year.

Countywide, we've seen a 17 uh percent decrease in firearm-related homicides.

And in our three towns of Zion, North Chicago, and Waukegan, which is where our violence interrupters are deployed.

We've seen a 12.5% uh decrease.

That's just for this year.

Everybody is also familiar with the decreases that we've seen between 2022, 2023, 2023, and 2024.

Each of these, um, each of your investment does save lives.

Your investment in the gun violence prevention initiative um does lead to decreases.

This is not a situation at this point of correlation being causation.

Um, we know that these programs work throughout the country.

Uh they work in all types of areas throughout the country.

Uh, my friend and partner in starting this, Sarah Kenishnik, uh, brought this idea to the state's attorney's office.

I know I talk about it every few months, but the funding continues to be at an ad hoc basis.

And now that we have a different administration in Washington, we cannot have all of the outfielders looking at the ball and then the ball dropping.

So I'm respectfully asking that the county move into permanent funding of the G VPI.

I greatly, I understand that this was going to be considered in the second quarter.

We cannot wait until the second quarter.

We need to move this into respectfully need to move this into scenario too.

I'm happy to answer any questions that you may have.

Member Kenese.

Thank you.

Are you able to share any information about why you have no expected time frame on the funding from the state?

As I've said, Senator, thank you.

Thank you, Member Kennish.

Senator Adrian Johnson, Representative Rita Mayfield, they they have done their part in the appropriations votes.

Uh, this is nothing to do with any individuals that we that work here locally.

The money, we are not the only one.

I will say, I will say that.

I will say that those budget appropriations that went to a lot of community funding.

There are a lot of people in pain because the Springfield money, which is approved as of July 1st, 2025, has not moved into anyone's bank accounts as of October 21st, 2025.

So this is not directed at our local folks, uh, but it has not moved out of anything in Springfield.

I believe our, I believe our budgetary um amount was 1.5 million.

Why?

No.

We have worked with our, we have worked with our Springfield legislative consultant, obviously, Senator Johnson and Representative Mediafield are besides their vote are doing other things, uh, doing everything they can.

But the money is not moved to everybody.

Nobody's picking on us.

It hasn't moved out to any community groups or government groups that were in that budget that type of funding.

So let me just confirm that my assumption is correct then.

So the fact that don't feel like at least based on the information you have now that the reason it's not been moving is because the state is prioritizing funding this work in other communities.

No it has nothing to do with that.

Okay.

This no thank you.

Yeah.

This is all laid out in a one pager and I pop not you know we don't want to we don't want to inundate you with handouts either you're doing really hard work today um and asking really good questions.

Uh but the one pager is an attempt to explain is an attempt to explain some of the money.

The federal the federal shutdown um has also closed down our C V IPI federal grant which was moving unabated despite the change in despite the change in administrations now our challenge there is the the government shutdown which doesn't seem to have much end in sight.

So um yeah this one pager I think is uh excellent I want to thank uh I want to thank Joe Gravitter Lauren Calling my first assistant in C spagnolo for putting that material together um but I think it's um I think it's time that we move the G VPI into permanent funding in light of the successes uh that we have seen so uh uh states attorney I guess ma'am I heard you say you had conversation with state rep state and Senator Johnson did they give you any date that you'll the fund and state fund will come at least they should have a date where they can say well we might not get to you to you know January I know they insection now they have talked about they have talked about hopefully the funding would be here in January but that feels no different I mean that's not directed them I'm saying the general Springfield has generally said hopefully the money is here by January 1 but that feels no different to me than them saying October 15th I mean there's not some yeah they're not voting chair what that what a great question I I appreciate your question now that I think about this calendar there's nothing going on in the veto session that will expedite this money this problem was the same the day before veto session it will be the same the day after veto session this is a budgetary problem from the June 30th 2025 midnight midnight passage I had a conversation with her yesterday I was with I paid Johnson yeah Senator Johnson and uh they working on it but I think it they need to because you know we county we only can do so much but we need you need help from other eight I don't know Brad probably can't because the government shut down but they're not doing no business I was with him yesterday myself and cheer so uh um at least the state should let you know we're gonna get you this money so you won't be on the edge when it comes up when it you know when it when it keeps pushing it and getting the money is two different things I just I can't think of a better example than the two outfielders and I apologize for a sports metaphor but the the ball is going to drop and both outfielders thought the ball was going to be caught right it this is literally the situation we find ourselves in this is a top priority this is a top safety priority I would ask that you consider it as a safety priority which is saving lives and it's been successful.

I'm not asking you to take a chance on a pilot program.

You already did that once for for the for the office and for the community through the ARPA funding and you were heroes for that and um uh representative Mayfield and Senator Johnson have been heroes for getting this this other funding but we're now at a crossroads where there is not another funding source that can be counted on okay I got M Otenburg Bastia Gina and Mim Kenish.

Well first of all Eric I want to applaud your whole team and the GVPI it's been extremely successful.

We've seen amazing results and I know everybody is really proud of the work that you've done with it.

Thank you.

Um so right I mean Springfield's also in a bind everybody's in a bind right now I don't think there's any I think they're holding on to their money because they're not sure what they're gonna need their money for and um you know I think it's a really perplexing situation for everyone um I mean there's no reason except you know do we want to spend the money to to not fund it you know you've you've proven the program's worth there is no doubt I feel you know we've seen a lot of success there Patrice so where does that money come from if we did fund it would um I don't think I have the full amount right because this was a a partial year yes the partial year is 879131 that would be half of the year so uh administrator said it'd be double 880 so what is that yeah so it's in the 1.7 million dollar range i i believe we'd I mean I guess what I need to know from you is uh is this something that we want to fund forever or am I finding one time fund

It would um I don't think I have the full amount, right?

Because this was a partial year.

Yes, the partial year is 879-131.

That would be half of the year.

So uh administrator said it'd be double 880.

So what is that?

Yeah.

So it's in the 1.7 million dollar range.

I I believe we'd I mean I guess what I need to know from you is uh is this something that we want to fund forever, or am I finding one-time funds?

So that's the direction that I would need from um the county board to be able to answer that correct that correctly.

Okay.

So that's a full disclosure, we could have the funds tomorrow, right?

But what if we never get the funds, right?

I'm not I'm not I I know where I know where you're coming.

We can do it as a temporary, we could do it as something temporary, and then there's a there's a reimbursement reimbursement from Springfield, like I can't let the baseball drop between the outfielders.

Okay, I mean I literally would be facing layoffs at the end of January.

Yeah.

Huh?

So I might be for doing it a one-time thing, but also considering it in the future and planning ahead if we did want to make it a permanent thing, but I don't know if we'd want to make it a permanent thing right now.

Um other thing I wanted to comment on the forensic analyst.

I I did go my first year on the board.

I took a very extensive tour, and I did see this.

You had a one person analyst.

Is that still true?

Is there just one?

We have two now.

Oh, you have two now.

Yeah, two guys.

We have a director and an analyst.

Okay, I was mystified that this one person, I saw the amount of work, the heavy load that they had to carry for all these cases, and I just couldn't believe that it was one person who had, I mean, it's a monumental amount of work to get the evidence for these cases.

I mean, it's so um I personally would be in favor, you know, of seeing that department expand.

I don't think even the few people they will have there will be able to handle this type of workload.

It's it's an incredible, incredible amount of um, the digital, especially.

It's it's incredible.

Thank you.

When I came in in when I came in in 2020, there was a director and and she was great and she retired and and there was uh an analyst there, and we now have an amazing director.

Um, and then we have an amazing analyst, but since at least 2020, we've had two people, but the world has changed a great deal.

We've laid out the numbers um in terms of massive numbers of increases um in terms of percentages.

We're we're talking about very large percentages in the uh that are described in what we handed out.

Um and so the percentage increase, you know, we see a 34% increase between 22 and 23.

And then on top of that, uh, you have another increase, uh, a further increase on top of that.

You're seeing um different these increases are are very hard on our law enforcement partners.

We never want to create lag time.

We never want to um not get you know, not get the evidence process that we need.

As everyone knows, the cell phone isn't just it's it's with all of us, right?

And so we take out fracking data, we take out any data you could do an arm robbery and not use your cell phone at all, and we want all that information with a search warrant.

Uh and or you may unfortunately use your phone to commit a crime against a child or something like that, whether you're using the phone as an instrumentality or whether the phone is just with you uh with someone while they commit an arm robbery, we are analyzing, you know, uh we're gonna have over a thousand devices analyzed in in 20 uh in 2025.

And so these numbers are just massive increase.

The amount of data that we're looking at is a 235% increase in terms of the actual data inside of the phones because obviously the amount of data in a phone has changed over the last five years.

Uh when we look at when we look at clearance rates in Lake County, they've gone up consistently every year, and it's because of law enforcement.

It's because of, it's because our law enforcement is able to work with the individuals.

I think actually, remember Dan Forth has some great questions.

Maybe it was in our uh in our uh one of our presentations about how much more often phones and laptops are being used in crimes.

The the law enforcement are collecting these things and and they're in danger themselves when they collect these things.

We can't have lag times after they've risked their lives to get this information, then we can't process it.

So I think this, you know, as Judge Shane said, we have to stay on top of technology, we have to continue to be a leader.

I think this is a I think this is a uh marginal ask in a light of the importance of the problem.

And can I mean the oh, can I add one more thing?

Yes, because we go on the okay, sorry.

Um so uh do you get for this type of services that you need?

Is it possible to get grants from the state or the federal government for those positions?

We in the when I first became state's attorney, we did have a grant very early.

It was called the innovative prosecution grant that has been taken down.

Uh, we see instability out of our federal government right now.

It's very hard to think of that.

We've had an amazing grant team.

Joe uh is kind of the grant team right now and does an amazing job.

I by the way, I think it was very wise of the count of County Administrator Sutton to get a grant analyst inside of county finance.

I think that was brilliant.

Um, but we are not optimistic right now about a grant for this particular for this particular one.

That's great.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you so much.

And member um Altenberg asked the question where the money would come from.

And my fear is all this work that you've done in this program and and increasing the safety in our communities will just go away, right?

I mean, that would be that would be the concern.

Uh we have we have amazing, we have amazing individuals in the office.

We also do uh a pass through of funds to the to the violence interrupters that are not our employees, but they receive it through Joaquin and Township.

And yes, the whole program at this point is at risk.

Is at risk.

Thank you.

Um thank you.

I have a follow-up question on what I asked earlier about the state funding that you came to expect.

I believe it was July that you thought you you were informed you were gonna be able to count on this money.

Uh, and it has not flown flowed.

Um, you made a comment earlier.

I just want to confirm it seemed to imply that it's possible that money from the state will never come, correct?

I you just don't know.

I have seen things over the last several months.

I thought I would never say uh why would I why would I have confidence?

I mean, I just you don't know.

So yeah, okay, and that's part of the concern that you're raising.

Uh great.

Um, in the towards the bottom of your one pager that you shared with us in under important considerations.

I'd like you to ask, I'd like to ask you to describe a little bit more about bullet point three.

Um, your dedicated exploring future grants and other independent funding to support the G VPI to lessen the burden on Lake County.

Can you please go into some give us some examples of what you have in mind for pursuing other independent funding?

Similar to the similar to the children's advocacy center, somewhat similar to the poorest preserve, which has a different statutory structure.

Um, there is private funding that can potentially move into this space.

We think there's a lot of interest in that.

I will say that with the administration in Washington, the money uh does get a little bit more complicated because other government funding in this prevention work has been cut.

So we are now in a more competitive space for private money, maybe than we would have been before.

But we have begun, we have already started fundraising.

We've reached out to the Wake County Community Foundation and have been directly fundraising.

We've received uh some money into that, not very much money, but some money into that uh fund.

Uh I believe it's about 25,000 dollars right now, Chair Frank.

So it's not a large amount of money, but we are receiving uh private contributions.

Um we have made a request of of the federal government separate from the federal shutdown for block grant funding that uh Congressman Schneider has recommended, but it seems very um difficult to continue to sustain this, where we are constantly asking new and innovative people to come into our office and then say we're gonna be able to fund you for 12.2 months.

This is not sustainable.

And I think that the I think the county should show its commitment to a public safety program that works uh by funding this and um taking that pressure off of our amazing grant-funded employees who do not know if they will be here right now.

They don't know if they'll be here in February, but typically they wouldn't even know if they're gonna be here a year.

In a year, we will not be able to sustain outstanding professionals who, by the way, are doing the fro training.

That's part of our G VPI.

We now lead the state per capita in firearm restraining orders because of the gun violence prevention initiative.

And that's because law enforcement is fantastic partners again.

When I became state's attorney, DuPage County was already training its law enforcement partners, and they were leaders in this.

Um state's attorney Berlin was a leader in this.

We I said, let's do that here.

Now we are ahead of DuPage.

Uh, I haven't told Pod yet.

Uh, we are ahead of DuPage on a per capita basis or firearm restraining orders.

Every 10 to 20 firearm restraining order saves a life.

We cannot do that without the gun violence prevention initiative.

And so all of this is is life-saving work.

It is beginning for last time for the last time for the very first time, as far as I can tell, we went, we were below Kane County when it comes to homicides per 100,000.

Those are the metrics that we should be looking at.

It's not simply a question of spending more money.

It's a question of how are we doing compared to Kane County?

That's our odd, that's our there's 688,000 people.

They have similar demographics, they have similar economics.

Before I became state's attorney, we weren't looking, we weren't looking at how's Kane County doing on opioid fatalities.

We are behind Kane County when it comes to opioid fatalities.

We're doing a lot better this year, but not last year.

These are the metrics that we should be looking at, and these are the things that we should be spending on.

Two part follow up.

I'd like to know do you have a plan to build on the $25,000 that's been raised through private sources with the Lake County Community Foundation?

We're continuing to talk to corporate partners and philanthropic agencies about having more money.

There, we hope to have a 501c3 someday that will that will um that will continue to move money in, but that's a process.

And I think the 501c3 approval process is also slowed down under the current administration.

Yeah, my understanding is the staffing um the IRS has been dramatically cut, which will slow all of that down.

But the plan is in progress.

Yes.

Uh all right.

Um you talked about metrics and how important it is to look at the right metrics before we make our decisions.

Uh, could you just you quickly made the point about King County, but just to make it a little easier for people to grasp what's not quite so abstract.

Can you just repeat quickly the decreases in violence we've seen?

You mentioned them at the very beginning of this conversation.

Yeah, we've seen decreases in, we've seen decreases between 2023 and 2024.

Our decreases were in 60 percent.

I gotta have one, where they were in the 60 percent in um here it is 61% decrease between 2022 and 2024 in firearm homicides in our three areas where we serve North Chicago, Joaquin, and Zion.

By the way, it's important that we mention if we're comparing 22 to 24.

I am not including the Highland Park mass shooting.

That those do not include uh non-North Chicago Joaquin Zion statistics.

The general decline is in the 30s and 40s for the county.

Between 22 and 24, we had a 63% decrease in non-fatal shootings in those same three areas.

Um the Waqiga, or excuse me, the Highland Park mass shooting uh was uh so large because of the weapon that was used that I want to always make sure that I'm taking those statistics out.

These are for the areas where our G VPI uh is concentrated is concentrated.

So those are the real numbers from our law enforcement partners, by the way.

By the way, those are not from court filings, those are directly from Waquita, North Chicago, and Zion.

These are not my charging decisions.

I I don't, it's not about what I charge.

I don't mean to smile.

I remember somebody who kept saying that.

It's from directly from our law enforcement partners and our coroner who counts the data from them.

Go talk to them, go FOIA them for their data.

This is not, this is data they give us, um, but it is from law enforcement and the coroner that we see these, that we see these declines.

So numbers like 61% decrease in firearm homicides in the three areas of the county where we see the highest rates of gun violence.

I mean, that's those are extraordinary decreases.

Uh, but I also am concerned that sometimes when we quite rightly put all the focus on those communities, uh, it's easy to lose sight of the fact that the gun violence prevention initiative benefits the entire county.

Uh, and you touched on this a moment ago when you were talking about the incredible increase in um the number of firearm restraining orders filed in Lake County because of the work of the G VPI.

Um, and this is my last question, I'll make a point, I promise, after um I get the answer to this question, and then I'll wrap up my comments.

I know I've been a little long-winded, but could you again, I know you've already touched on it, but just to help me make my point, could you please talk and give us a little more detail on how the G VPI is effectively serving all of the county?

Well, the the problem of gun violence obviously extends to the whole county.

The the the root, whether it's the root causes or the offenders themselves, they don't care about our municipal borders.

Uh, and so the gun violence prevention initiative is um is working throughout the county.

We obviously do community outreach everywhere.

Our firearm restraining orders, frankly, are probably higher in the non in those non-three areas that we uh that we talk about.

The the sheriff's office uh has filed a great uh deal of those and has been a fantastic partner.

But the gun violence prevention initiative is directed at the root causes, which are obviously uh obviously not a uh border geographically.

So whether it's giving individuals uh individuals the the support that they need, whether it's mediating a dispute, uh and obviously our violence, uh our violence prevention specialists will go to, for example, Condell Hospital.

They don't go to Condel Hospital, they go to Condell Hospital after a shooting, they don't know where the shooting occurred.

So uh whether it's community outreach, whether it's the firearm restraining order, whether it's the general problem of gun violence, um, we are seeing the results, we are seeing the results uh they're seeing the results everywhere.

But I but I will say the more we the more we focus on, the more we focus on the general root causes, which are um uh, you know, obviously vast, uh, the more decrease we will continue to see.

So I'm very uh I'm very hopeful that an investment in this will will continue to, you know, fund us uh for the time that we need uh to make Lake County safer than Kane County.

That's my goal, by the way.

My goal is to make Lake County the safest.

My goal is to make Lake County the safest county county in the state.

Um and I have to have I have to have resources uh to do that.

Thank you for that explanation for those answers.

And I'd just like to make a comment to my fellow committee members and also my fellow board members.

Um I'd just like to share some context with you that you may not be aware of.

Uh when the firearm homicide rate is 60 some percent lower in the eastern part of the county.

I don't know about you, but I feel safer in my community in Vernon Hills, right?

Uh and so perception matters, right?

And I I believe the gun violence prevention initiative has done an outstanding job of proving its effectiveness, but also having creating a perception of increased safety in Lake County.

I think we should continue to invest in that.

But the last and final piece I would like to remind everyone of is that 60% decrease is the result of a combination between the skills and expertise of the staff of the G VPI and the dedication, commitment, and expertise of the Lake County peacemakers.

And just in case you're not aware, uh Lake County peacemakers, they are professional community violence interrupters.

These are people, these are the only people in the Zion North Chicago, Waukegan area who could who are qualified to do this work because they are they have credibility in their communities.

I can go stand on the corner of Waukegan all day long and ask people to find peaceful ways to solve their differences.

But would you listen to me if you are a young person on the streets of Joaquin?

We need these gun violence prevention, uh community violence interruption professionals.

We need to keep them employed because they're the only ones that can do the job.

And by the way, they do that job without bulletproof vests and without guns.

So they put themselves in harm's way every day in order to help us achieve these dramatic decreases in firearm homicides.

And then the last thing I want to say is many of the folks that were hired to do this work did similar work 15, 20 years ago under the ceasefire program, which was primarily funded through the state.

Anyone who knows, if if I'm wrong about that, jump in and correct me.

But that state funding was not reliable.

So a lot of these people had the experience of being hired to do this incredibly vital effective violence prevention work and then repeatedly getting their their jobs taken away from them.

So they would receive the funding, then the state would pull the funding, then they would get the funding back.

They they couldn't rely on anything, they had no access to uh benefits.

Uh the they weren't being treated as the professionals that they are.

And it took an enormous amount of cajoling on the part of the G VPI and the state's attorney's office to get these incredibly um important peacemakers to trust us again, that we we they could count on us supporting them, right?

Um and my greatest fear is that if we don't make sure that the Lake County peacemakers still have a job on January 1st, they'll never trust us again.

So I wish that I were not having to make such an urgent appeal for your support as I am right now.

Uh, if the current administration in Washington had more respect for the field of community violence intervention and had opted not to refund, not to withdraw 50% of congressionally approved funding for these programs nationwide.

Uh, I would not feel such a sense of urgency.

Um, but these people put their lives on the line every day.

And we've invested in them.

We've we've our credibility is on the line with them.

And if we want this success to continue, we're going to have to make sure that we support them.

Thank you.

Mm-hmm.

So every year we have lots of worthy programs that come in front of us.

I mean, there's a whole list of new program requests, and every year the uh county administrator goes through this with her staff and they make recommendations.

And sometimes we get recommendations that don't go our way.

And we knew that when we funded this several years ago that this day may come, and this day is here.

And you know, we can blame the three outfielders.

You can pick any media and mining, and we can hope there's no Mo, right?

But you're gonna blame somebody.

And I don't know where that blame necessarily should lie.

I do know this.

I mean, I know Springfield, I mean, that's where we get a lot of our money from.

And you know, they're not approving money coming out of their budgets at this point in time, and there's a super majority uh that should be able to open those funds up if they felt it was worthy of, you know, being spent this.

And maybe they will.

In fact, I actually do think that they probably will.

Um, but our dilemma today is you know, just maybe we can do an emergency appropriation when that money comes when that when those tickets open.

I mean, it's not like it's a decision we have to make right now today.

Yes.

Um you finished.

Um, so we've got this funded, I think, through January, at least that's what I thought I heard.

Um, and I'm not serious saying the program is talking about worthiness of programs.

And I know that uh it's you know, a lot of people, a lot of members in this room's passion is this particular program, and I get it, but we can't fund everything, and it's a heavy lift for the county.

I mean, it's basically 1.8 million dollars when you when you figure it all out.

I mean, um, and I can't help that the money is not there.

I mean, there's a lot of worthy programs.

I feel like this is deja vu all over again, but it is what it is, and um I think we just need to wait and see if the funding does come through.

There's a lot of things I think that will have to start opening up within the next less than 30 days.

And I think we've got a clearer picture of that point in time.

So I'm not saying no to this.

I'm just saying not that.

Let's wait a little bit longer, see where we're at in 30 to 90 days, and then maybe we will have more information to make the right decision at that point in time.

That's okay.

Thank you.

Thanks for my response.

I I think my outfield or analogy, I mean, two of the outfielders or one of the outfielders is in this room, and and the other one I kept complimenting in terms of the state representative.

So it's kind of I wasn't blaming any one outfielder any more than the other, except that we've all seen that moment where three outfielders thought the ball was going to be caught.

So I wasn't we get it.

Thank you.

Well, I didn't know I think we've got it.

I I mean uh got it.

I think he gets it.

We got it.

Um, so yeah, I I really appreciate it actually his his point about I appreciate his point about um uh you know, about it not yet, or let's let's keep working on it.

And I do want to, and county administrator Sutton is has been fantastic about this.

She did the when the decision, I don't want to speak for her, but the decision was to look at this in the second quarter.

The reason we did this one page or which was so boring, right?

The reason we did the one page was because things had been constantly changing.

It was very appropriate when she said member Danforth it was fine when she said look at it in the second quarter.

And I thought I was gonna get the money until you know the money until uh July 1st uh 2026, or when uh I have a grant that has been uh that has been impacted by the shutdown.

So the second quarter asked was completely and totally appropriate because we also don't want to use uh our county taxpayer monies if the if the grant funding or federal uh funding is moving.

The problem is that the world I think has changed a little bit from a funding perspective, uh since the the move to the second quarter.

So um, yeah, but I I I appreciate I I think we're really on the same page at the end of the day.

The problem is I just I've got I've got people who are you know very impacted by this.

I do think it is a worthwhile public safety investment to make permanently so that we are not relying upon uh Springfield and DC, but rather rely upon this community investing in the community safety.

I disagree respectfully with uh my friend member Dan Forth that 1.8 million dollars is a lot in light of the returns.

Um, as much as I would love to have that moment in the movie Dave, where uh we all go through the budget book together, Charles Grodin and Dave Klein, uh Calvin Klein, one of my favorite scenes.

Um, I don't, you know, I think that the money, I think that the money is is is there, and and obviously I'm proposing that it be under scenario two.

So I know what I'm saying when I say scenario two um with respect to taxes.

Uh, but I think that the 1.8 million can be found.

Um I'm not I'm not an accountant or a government uh financial professional, but I think 1.8 can be found in light of a write.

Go ahead.

Thank you.

I'm gonna make this real quickly.

So when you you're saying it's 60 percent gun violence is down by 60 percent.

In the in the three areas where our true where our folks are deployed.

And it also did is it correct for me to say it also impacts the courts because then you don't have that many people in court and that many public defenders that need to be hired, that many, because most of these cases wouldn't probably be public defenders and I don't know and impacts.

We think that a murder, we think that a homicide uh we think that a homicide costs two million dollars and a non-fatal shooting costs 700,000 spread throughout businesses, taxpayers, uh court systems, um, lost tax revenue.

And so um places with let places with less gun violence are able, you know, might be a chicken and egg thing, but places with less gun violence are able to invest in other things, and when those other things are invested in, there's less gun violence, right?

And so this fee in a good way, this feeds off of itself uh to improve safety to improve uh tax revenues to improve um the business side of it.

I haven't talked a ton about the money of it, but obviously we want our business communities to invest here.

Uh, we want people to feel safe in the schools, and when you see these decreases, if this is able to continue to sustain itself, I think there's gonna be more happiness and and healthiness.

And yes, I think that's an expansion of services, and I think we should pay for it.

Okay, uh she done you own none.

Okay.

Uh oh, well, it thrown me off.

Because it's been a long anyway.

I just wanna with the peacemakers.

I know every last one of them in their parents.

They grew up in the South Side project.

I know when all of them got in trouble.

So I have nothing against them, and I'm very safe in my area.

In my area, I'm very safe.

I used to then when all the commotion was going on.

I used to, but I'm safe where I live at uh in Joaquin.

So uh we had um the one that uh uh we had before Peacemaker.

Uh what was the name of that one?

What was the name?

Anyway, the funds they gave it funds, and they had a group of people just like the state's attorney got now with the peacemakers, and the state did not take those funds.

The funds was misused by the people that held it, and I know who they are.

Some of them not even living now.

You know, they gone.

They were state peoples, they gone, they gone on the other.

So I I don't want them to say that what the state did, the state gave them the money, but they misused the funds and wouldn't doing anything.

I'm just correcting because I heard commissioner key commissioner you for correcting me.

Yes, I'd heard.

See, I was here because they tried to get me to work on it, but I couldn't work on it because I was involved with the county.

And uh uh I see a lot of miss a lot of missed information get out there.

And I think I've been here and Angelo, I've been here the longest through all of this in Lake County and know what went on.

Because it was read in my district.

Uh what the name of that group, what the name of it was C's Five.

I don't know why I couldn't think of it.

When CS5 first come here, Eddie Washington brought it.

He's gone on to heaven.

And it been in, he was in three different places.

It was in three different places.

Each person was holding.

I take it.

I can do this with it, but all of it was misfunded.

The state didn't pull nothing back.

The state took it from all of them.

That's how we lost C5.

That's how we lost it.

So uh I don't want to miss you.

I don't want to miss information out there in the public.

Like uh uh the state did this, the state did not do it.

And Terry Link fighted for us to keep it, but it they couldn't.

So uh and the peacemakers, and I have a question.

Who paying the insurance?

Like if one eye peacemakers get hurt out there.

Yeah, it's a great question.

So Waukegan Township, well, we may obviously made sure that it was all, you know, everybody is a full-time employee of the Waukegan Township.

It's a pass-through from the state's attorney's office, these grants or these legislative requests directly over to the Waukeegan Township.

They are insured, uh fully funded, uh salaried employees out of the township.

I have no our office has no HR control over them.

That's very important for their credibility in the community.

If they were were to obtain information about a case, they don't have to run and find a prosecutor and say this or that.

They're not employees of the office.

It is our, and this is all obviously you know disclosed in our uh in our grants and such that it moves from the state's attorney's office over to the township.

And I would that that HR work is all done by uh Supervisor Jones who always doesn't mean right.

So you saying it's because one of the peacemaker was talking to me.

So I have some family owned at peacemaker.

Um they said if I get hurt, is the county gonna pay my bill?

So you're not on us.

Correct.

You're not under the county.

Correct.

We don't pay your bill.

So I don't know who pay your bill.

Well, I know who I'm I'm asking him.

I'm asking the source.

Joaquin and Townshow.

Oh, so they will pay.

Yes.

Oh, okay.

Because I know mom john very well.

Well, wouldn't know the night.

Okay, we have some questions.

Okay, go ahead.

One quick question, then I'll toss to members.

Okay.

This document and your comments, you mentioned both the shutdown and the change in grant philosophy from the federal government.

I think I would just like some clarity.

I don't think this has anything to do with the shutdown.

This is right, like they're they're not funding this anymore.

Is that correct?

Well when Member Dan Force said this day would come, we didn't necessarily predict the end of the funding.

The grants have all been the grants have all been taken down or do not comply with Illinois law regarding whether we could accept the funds for the investment into community violence and eruption work.

I don't think I don't think there's any funding available regardless of Illinois law, but the there is no funding source, and there is no longer a funding source from the Department of Justice for this prevention work due to a philosophical change in Washington.

Right.

The funding that happened prior to September 30th.

Yes, but the yes, but uh my my friend Steve Spagnolo is correct, uh, that the funding shutdown is prevented is in a short-term way, uh clogging up one of our grants, which again I don't want I didn't want to have to worry about this.

Um, which would be some funding for this if the shutdown were to end when the or this grant weren't killed, by the way, the president couldn't pound this fund.

The fund the shutdown could end and then the president couldn't pound the fund.

But yeah, yes, yes.

But you think it's a possibility still that when the government reopens it's some of the grant, and I'm not I'm just trying to get a handle on it.

You think there's some federal dollars that could still support the walls?

Very briefly, the federal shutdown is very likely, I think 100% preventing us from issuing no costs uh sorry, budget modification, or move some money over to continue funding of peacemakers through the December.

So we will make it to maybe October, end of October, November to pay the peacemakers.

Beyond that, we won't have any money um without the government reopening.

And if the government reopens tomorrow, what does that reallocation look like?

How much funding does that give you?

Yeah, okay.

That that money can be gone out.

Okay, all right.

Just I was just looking for clarity on the two issues.

Okay, members.

Comments, questions, member may being on the finance committee going through the budget, these things that are not part of the recommended budget.

We hear all about them today.

We're gonna talk all about them today, but and then we're gonna talk all about them again tomorrow and vote on it.

What my suggestion is if if I'm just trying to understand yes, yeah, understand.

Yeah, so clarifying what I said in email and earlier today.

My suggestion is if the LNJ committee wants to amend the budget and include funding for these things that we postpone action as committee, and we we take it up again tomorrow when we have a holistic view of all the requests that the other committees are approving.

Yes.

All right, so thank you.

That's helpful.

So then I just have a few questions, comments.

I thought I heard you say that you got 20,000 in NPR.

We we did get 20,000 in.

Well, I don't see that.

I see 10,000 for divert diversion programs for juveniles, 5,000 for increase SAO, and then 32 for the on-call program.

Yes, I'm sorry.

So it's 47.

I wasn't counting director Flanagan's.

So you were well, it is part of the state's attorney.

Yeah, but you're right, it's 15, not 20.

Good point.

47.

32 was recommended.

No, yeah, all right.

So it's 47 altogether.

Right.

Okay, I said 20.

Okay, just just I wanted to make sure that I wasn't missing something.

Um so with this uh um gun violence protection, one year uh and the other form, there's a form that has a one year and a five year, and this just gives a one year.

Yes.

So we just multiply that's partial year, but what would the cost be out?

Five years.

Five years would be in the I apologize.

The five years in the full NPR that we submitted.

I just need to.

Yeah, we didn't get that.

No, I okay.

I apologize.

Uh five year cost 7.675 million.

Okay.

Um it was just we got two different forms.

Absolutely.

No, actually, that this was our handout when uh when an NPR is when an NPR is independent, we get more information.

All right, that's fine.

I just wanted to and then for the other one, the cyber forensics.

Yes.

Um so you had a couple letters.

So this is a service the county provides, and the um police departments that use it don't pay for anything.

They pay some money into it.

Our our director JB uh is attempting to find out if there's a way to get more money from our police partners, but they pay into it on a schedule.

Okay, so it is it pay because I see Zion said uh thank you.

We've used it 353 times.

That's what their letter says.

Um Gurney I'm just saying what their letter says.

Gurney says, hey, it was really good one time.

Not saying it wasn't good other times, and Vernon Hill says it's helpful.

How how many times are these?

Is this utilized overall?

I mean, you had 353 from Zion or how you know, across it's used out, it's used.

Um we had 825 devices.

What are the numbers?

The uh number the wrong one.

It's used in 2024.

We performed 742 exams.

Um half of them are used by Zion.

I don't know what time frame he's talking about.

I'm not looking at the letter.

Well, you you handed me the letter, so but well, thankfully I'm not under oath.

Uh I don't mind though.

Oh, okay.

Two date since mid-2020.

2022.

Never mean whatever you say.

I'm looking, you're looking forget it.

Forget it.

Never mind.

I'm done.

I'm done.

Other comments or questions, nothing else from the night.

So thank you.

You don't have that replace.

Um it has been on your so we're um I'm good.

Thank you.

So thank you.

Oh no.

If you guys are doing any amendments, you should do it now.

Yes.

I think the priest just provided a little direction.

Go ahead, administer.

I think um given the direction that you just provided, it would be very helpful for the L and J committee to provide consensus on which if any um NPRs that are not currently recommended, they would like for the FNA committee to consider for funding tomorrow.

Um I don't think we can amends right now because especially for those larger dollar ones.

I'd I wouldn't be able to come up with the offsetting revenue at this time.

So I guess all I'd I'd like for their consensus so that FNA knows how they feel about the NPRs, but I I don't think we can amend on the floor.

Okay, I I think I think the end result is the same because we're we have the final word on it anyway.

So I'm fine with that.

Okay.

Yeah, you guys have to say what you want to do.

That's not it.

I'm just gonna from one to six, and we'll take a whole lot.

Well, you can approve those items, but on the other things he's asking for tomorrow.

We we can we want to know what you guys want to do on these other two requests that are not in the budget.

Okay, the new request and not in the budget.

Um, scan a minute.

Right.

Yeah, consensus.

Uh just what we want to do.

What you want to do?

Keep discussing it.

Uh I would like to consider the recommendations put forward by the state's attorney's office the last 30 minutes.

I'm not sure how you need me to word it.

Yeah, I think I think that was the direction that we're looking for from each member today.

If we want to go with adding in the two NPRs, um, as uh put forward by the state screen today, and if that's the general consensus of this committee, that's the direction that um the FNA committee needs and the county administrator.

So I think it's one by one to see if they don't okay.

You said okay.

Um you want to uh add this new the new um it was the cyber forensic analyst and the um G VPI program sure I'd still move no it's no motion you just want to say yeah, do you want it or not?

Okay.

So which one you want it or no?

I think I think it's yeah.

You can't tell him.

I'm not telling him.

I'm not telling you.

That's the problem.

I didn't say one word.

Which are those?

I'm okay.

I'm okay.

You okay with are you passing?

Yeah.

Okay.

Okay, so you're saying, do I want to amend it to include no amendments?

Just no amendment, babe.

It just we want a yes or no.

Okay, do I want those things to add those things?

Yes.

Yes.

I'm sure that is majority consensus then too from the LJ committee to look for a way to add those into the budget.

Okay, this is a look for oh wait, you heard what is that?

Yeah, to add this to the budget if we get the money.

Right.

Okay.

Okay.

And this is uh come back up tomorrow, right?

Yeah.

Correct.

It'll come back tomorrow, and we'll do a uh uh a live vote, but today I'm just uh in favor.

Okay.

Yeah, so we can proceed with the vote on the others as recommended.

And we'll we'll take those up another time.

Right.

Okay.

So from one through six, we're gonna vote on this that these are recommended.

So is all in favor with one through six.

Uh honey, can you get off of your phone and your business and um vote?

I'm sorry.

You know, I got to make a suggestion.

Yes.

Okay, okay.

All in favor.

I I okay.

I say this is embarrassed to my page one through six finance committee other comments.

Members velitic main and peters.

Can someone please clarify for me which yes of the items they just had consensus to add?

It's my understanding that they are asking or there's a consensus from the L and J Committee that that they would like the board to consider adding the uh additional position of for forensic analyst and an annual amount of 233,935, as well as funding for the G VPI program of my correct state attorney right now, 879,000.

Well, that would be for one year.

Yeah, that's what it says.

So that's what they're that's what they uh they said they have consensus for.

That's assuming that's assuming that's that would have been from that would be from June.

That would that would be that's only half of the year.

That's only half of it.

It's the full the full NPR, the full NPR lays out.

We don't get our mic though, please, Steve, if you don't mind that the state releases the funds at any point before July one, we would be able to reimburse the county for any money before the stipulations, but we're making a budget decision.

We're trying to figure out what the number is.

Right.

That that that would be the whatever the number that we're talking about.

Right.

That would be the half year number that we put in for the MPR.

I think that's appropriate.

879,000.

Yes.

Okay.

Okay.

Member Maine, Peterson and Clark.

We're member Belitza, it's going.

So their consensus does not include the two other items from the state's attorney of the data coordinator and the human trafficking task force, because we didn't talk about that.

I just want to make really clear that we're just talking about they are just talking about those two items, not all the items that were listed.

That's my understanding.

Okay, I just okay.

And that that 800,000 covers which part of the year, like you you're budgeting for a partial year, right?

Did I understand that?

So which part of the year is that covered member Frank, you might have to help me or Patrice might have to help me with this if this would be something that the county would be able to do.

But if the grant funds are released, obviously we would be able to reimburse the county through the use of those funds if they are needed as we expect by January and February.

Assuming those funds are released, we would reimburse the county for those funds that were used under the state time period that we were supposed to have until July 1.

And then we would be back on track to use the allocated amount that we're asking for for the rest of the year, since it is a six month period that we're expecting.

The 879 is a six is a six month period.

We can continue to provide details in light of the, you know, in light of the to the dollars and cents.

I think you're asking the right question, Chair.

Yeah, so I don't think I'm not I don't speak for the finance department, but I don't think we would budget for a reimbursement.

I think we would budget for the program.

And if funds became available to extend it beyond that period of time, then that's how we would direct you to apply it.

Correct.

And I don't think we're gonna assume a reimbursement here.

Right.

So for today or tomorrow, this is just saying if this were to go forward to say, hey, they're gonna get money.

It would be like everything at the health department, right?

With all those things.

Here's partial, although in this case it'd be county money.

Here's money for six months.

When that's gone, it's gone.

Because we've got we would only have budgeted for six months of the program.

Is that what I he's saying six months?

I just want to understand in our budget.

That's what that would mean.

Well, that's is the 879 the six months cost of operating for all those positions through the grant to the Waukegan Township.

Is that the six month cost?

We have no D.

We have county positions and the township people.

And that is the six-month cost for both.

Okay.

We stand by the budget.

We stand by the budget we submitted.

We appreciate we appreciate the complexity of the funding.

All of this were I the questions are good.

The money is moving around in terms of on a daily basis because of different grant funding.

This is all laid out in our formal budget, which I would direct the F the FNA committee to look at, which we submitted and stand by.

The problem is the change in income, whether it's the federal government, whether it's the reliance upon the state, the budget in terms of what each of these individuals costs is laid out in the full NPR budget, which we submitted previously.

We would refer the committee to that budget.

Okay.

Thank you.

I would just like to remind you that I'm on law and judicial also.

So I'd like to register my voters or no.

Okay.

So this is for six months.

So the one new full-time funded position.

Does that mean it's going to be a new full-time, like permanent position?

Which one you will have?

I'm looking at the NPR for the state's attorney for the G VPI.

So it says request funding of G VPI division.

Includes making four grant funded positions county funded, one new full-time coordinator position, contractual funds for Waqegan Township, and additional funding for staff training.

So is that like a new position that would then be like a county position?

And then there before.

So that would be like a permanent position.

Yes.

Okay.

So if money, and it needs to have a new full-time position right now.

Is there currently somebody in this role?

Or like yes, they're funding.

Okay.

So none of this is new.

None of this.

No.

Okay.

Uh because it just says one new full-time position.

So that's confusing.

Yes, the youth engagement coordinator is it would be a new full-time head count.

So, but it is currently a person.

So, but it's currently a person.

So we're not, you're not like making the program larger right now.

It's right.

It's somebody who's can some contracting.

Okay.

And then if, and I'm trying, I guess this is what you guys, if you did get the grant funding, then I mean, are these people going to be then not county funded?

I mean, county permanent positions anymore.

I guess I'm like it's like where is this going down the road?

Down the road, where's this going?

Yeah.

Yes.

My recommendation to the to the board.

Um is that my recommendation to the board is that the and certainly want to work with the minister or something on this, is that the internal SAO staff, which is currently grant funded, that those people who are SAO employees currently, their funding source is different, that those individuals be permanent county head count to work on the problem of gun violence.

We would continue to work very hard with other state and federal partners as well as grants to fund the peacemakers.

So where this is going is that these county staff that we've been talking about, whether it's the firearms training order, whether it's the public education component, whether it's the youth engagement, that those individuals become county employees and the peacemakers who can never become county employees for operational reasons.

That we would frankly continue to be on our own in that rough in that rough environment out there of finding federal and state dollars for the peacemakers.

That's where this is going.

I love that question, by the way.

Thank you.

That actually that's really helpful.

I hope that helped.

Yeah.

Yeah, that's it.

Yeah.

Other comments or questions on the requests or the proposed budget for the state's attorney's office.

Okay.

So we have a motion and a second on the items as recommended.

We're not taking action on the NPR requests at the moment.

Chair Hart.

Question.

Just in terms of we want to be really careful that we're making sure we're voting like appropriately.

So I know uh anyway.

I just want to make sure I know uh member Knisnik is very involved in the gun violence prevention uh statewide.

Is does she need to recuse herself or how does it work?

Our rule state that the recusal is at the discretion of the member.

We don't if you serve on a I'm I'm not I'm not certain.

I maybe I'm misunderstanding that we we declare our own recusals.

We we don't we don't dictate which member has to recuse for anything else.

That's a that's viewed as a complex.

I think there was a new law in 2024 that said if you serve on a board, even if you are not personally benefiting from that item, if you serve on that board, you now have to recuse yourself.

That is my thank you, Chair Hart.

That is my understanding.

That is my understanding of the law.

Certainly, Member Kenisha can speak for herself.

I think you've stated the law correctly.

I'll let Member Kenishnik answer your question if she wants, but from my perspective, as somebody who works and has worked with member Knishnik, there's no there's no current board that that would refer to.

Got it.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thanks, Chair.

Okay.

All in favor on the items as recommended, and that is 8.l1 through 8.l6.

Please indicate by saying aye.

Any opposed, those items are approved.

I know we will have uh additional conversation on these items tomorrow.

You may not necessarily be present, but we appreciate your time and investment in the conversation.

Linda, I'm so sorry.

I forgot you so low under dish.

I'm looking old.

I'm like this.

I'm glad you spoke up.

Um very glad because you own both of them finance and low under decision.

And uh, but I don't think Member Kinesia can vote on this because uh um vice chair Gina was on children Africa.

She had to come off the board order to vote to keep for funds.

So I don't think she if she owned Nick Boy, she cannot vote.

There's no board.

Uh yeah, what she owned.

There's no board.

Oh, it's no she owns no G VPI 501c3 board.

There is a children's advocacy center 50.

No, I'm talking about Kenya.

There is no there is no G VPI 501c3 board.

There is a children's advocacy center 501c3 board.

That's the reason.

There's no board on our on the G VPI side, there's no board.

Now there may be some debate, and then all of these concerns are valid and we need to be very careful.

But there is I don't want to go illegal here come and get me.

I'm keeping it right because I've been here a long time.

I'm just saying I I think maybe the reason it's confusing is because I had asked the state's attorney to talk about what their plans were for trying to take the burden of having to support this program financially or some of the burden off of the county.

I asked what it what they were doing in order to find other independent sources of funding.

And so what you talked about was the possibility of a board in the future, but the board doesn't exist.

I heard it.

I heard am I okay?

I just confused too.

So I wanted to 45.

Can you just tell us what your position is with um I so just for clarification, that's all.

I I don't with the G VPI, yeah.

I don't have a position.

Okay, I advisory before I was elected to the board, it was before I even ran for the Lake County Board.

He and I talked about what the G VPI will the vision for it, right?

But no, I is that's correct, right?

Yes, I mean I think our last legally incorrect.

I don't think I did.

Yeah, I have no position.

I mean, I think our last I think our last publication on this referred to as like a member of the team or like co-founder, but I mean, there's not a formal to be clear, she's not an employee within the office, she's not a uh voluntary employee within the office, nor does she sit on any any boards.

And I've never appreciated that you just mentioned when she when you came on what her she just brought it to you.

That's all.

Uh yeah, I would call her the co-founder, absolutely.

Well, but I always want to give credit, right?

Happened before I was elected to the boards.

Yeah.

is like a member of the team or like co-founder but I mean there's not a formal to be clear she's not an employee within the office she's not a uh a voluntary employee within the office nor does she sit on any any boards and I've never appreciated that you just mentioned when she when you came on what her she just brought it to you that's all yeah yeah I would call her the co-founder absolutely well but I always want to give credit right happened before I was elected to the boards yeah okay we have uh more for Ellen Jay following our break um I think we're going to take a 30 minute break and resume at 150 right thank you we are back in joint session we're going to proceed at at 8.l7 and 8.l8 that's the coroner's uh budget and the coroner fees just for awareness following that we'll do the sheriff's office and sheriff's merit commission the public defender and then this the circuit court clerk and that will finish the topics for L and J.

So you guys can do start with a motion for L and seven yeah um we need seven and eight over I need a motion motion by my alternative Roberts finance motion by member Clark second by member Volet good afternoon everyone this budget can be found on page 68 the FY2026 recommended budget for the coroner's office includes 2 million 70314 in their general fund and 3560 dollars in their coroner's fees fund the general fund increase primarily reflects the incorporation of compensation study results which were not included in the in the prior year's budget at the same time you'll also notice that all commodities have been shifted to their special revenue fund uh this includes autopsy supplies body bags safety equipment that sort sort of stuff has been shifted just to streamline the purchasing under that one special revenue fund but when viewed together their total resources available to the department remain consistent with the prior year and this is otherwise a status quo budget with that I'll hand it over to Steve Thank you Nick Chair Hart Chair Frank Chair Cunningham and members um I'm not sitting down before you this afternoon with seven NPRs at 54.6 million dollars um one of the things that we pride ourselves on at the coroner's office is we try to maintain a very strict uh strict budget and operate within the means of what we have I think this budget uh this year again reflects that you'll probably remember a couple years ago there was a state statutory increase in the cremation permit fees and every year consistently since that increase we have been able to transition things out of the general fund budget to be covered by the fees revenue i would love to entertain any questions you have I'm glad I'm after lunch and I can make it a little easy for you and the dish you have any and then a question make sure everybody had a phones cut off who in okay no question over here okay so I just have a question for you on retention uh you're showing a steady head count at 15 are are all the positions filled have you retained is it is it all the same folks or do you have any that are vacant that you're recruiting for uh we have one right now that just became vacant we had uh uh an employee of ours that transitioned over to the sheriff's office um and we're currently doing the application process now for that position thank you sure questions no questions here so you didn't put you still showing that you got 15 but you didn't show that you had one drop out transfer yeah that just happened this one before they did it yeah it just happened about two and a half weeks ago okay yeah that's why okay that's okay thank you sure and we're good okay no question question over here car in the motion out in favor I have as have no no thank you all favor please say aye any opposed seven and eight are approved thank you thank you thank you for having a short one right thanks the short words need to be on like the sheriff's face and all that need to be time consumed let's see if he can get if he could beat this oh no done thanks no no baby

Thank you for having a short one.

Right.

Thanks, J.

The short words made to be on my share of space.

Let's see if he can get if he could be just.

Oh no.

Done.

Thanks.

No, no, babe.

Yeah.

We lost our merit commission person.

Okay.

Um it's technically a different department though, so you should probably do it separate.

Okay, got it.

We'll do the merit commission separately.

So nine through 13.

So we'll pull it.

Yeah, we'll put it.

Yep.

So you can pull a lot.

Okay.

This is the manifestion.

So we'll do that.

Oh, okay.

No, this is made up to me.

Oh, you have to put out motion about you.

Second about my sure that was for nine to thirteen, right?

Yes.

Yeah.

Eight dot l nine through thirteen for FA.

Motion by member Clark, second by member Bolitick.

This budget can be found on page 124.

The FY2026 recommended budget for the sheriff's office totals 87 million two hundred and forty-six thousand nine hundred and eighty-six dollars, an increase of 4.7 million or six percent from the FY2025 adopted budget.

This budget assumes another full year of the agreement with the McHenry County with McHenry County for the temporary housing of inmates, which continues to provide operational flexibility and enhance overall safety within the adult corrections facility.

Inmate medical service costs have increased following a competitive RFP process and subsequent renegotiation of the existing contract earlier this year.

This budget also reclassifies inmate meal expenses from the commodities accounts from a commodities account to a contractual's account, which is why you may be noticing a decrease, a significant decrease in their commodities.

And with that, I'll hand it over to Jim.

Good afternoon, Jim Chairman.

Um thank you.

Um I want to thank Nick.

Nick did a great job as always, along with um sheriff's office staff in command.

Um like to bring up every year is how much of our budget that you're voting on today is uh the what the makeup is.

So for personnel benefits and mandates, it's 94% of our budget.

Um also want to point out that for the past four years, our revenue projections have been right around 100%.

Uh we do have uh a few increases in our budget.

We went out for like Nick said or jail medical contract, and that was a significant increase.

The other increase, the other substantial increase that we are seeing this year is for the body worn cameras in the jail.

Um, you know, I could go over any of that if you want.

We did request five NPRs.

Um, two were recommended by the county administrator, and one was partially recommended.

I do have the subject matter experts on the MPRs uh here to discuss them.

So I don't know if you want to go over the NPRs first or if you want to go over the budget.

Is that what you're gonna say?

However, you want to handle it.

I mean, I I didn't know if you wanted to go over the budget first that our NPRs or MPRs kind of explain because that MPRs then were put into the budget.

We haven't actually uh complied with this yet, but originally we had asked the departments that had new program requests that were recommended to share with you the presentations that they had shared with the group so that you could understand why we thought that their newer expanded service request was um necessary.

So we do have those queued up and the sheriff's department could go through them, but unfortunately we haven't done that to date.

So if you'd prefer we could just have him speak through them or answer any questions if that's your preference.

But we do have them ready.

I think we should see it.

Okay.

Um you want to do you want to can you do the warrants clerks first?

Or whatever you have.

We we could we could wherever's easy warrants, yeah, warrant staffing.

Wow.

Sergeant Morrison's my bodyguard today.

So go ahead.

I'll let you run through it because I think maybe uh a quicker version than maybe what you originally had um given to us.

So real quick, what this is as a result of the safety act, and I know that the board loves data.

So what we did was we compiled data uh regarding warrants, um the increase in warrants and other matters because part of the safety act.

And after we have plenty of data that Sergeant could go over, it was time to ask for uh additional staffing because we're being inundated with um issues, but I'll let Sergeant go from here.

So in a nutshell, green means goal.

That's part of traffic school too.

Thank you.

So in a nutshell, uh 2022 was the first year without the safety act.

I'm sorry, the last year without the safety act.

2024 was the first year with the safety act fully enacted.

Uh we compared the numbers from 2022 to 2024, and they went up 99% on just the warrants.

When I met with uh administration back in February, March, I did a uh three-month projection of 2025, and those numbers have maintained.

Now I'm at 105% from my 2022 numbers.

2025 has gone up 105% compared to the last year without the safety act.

And what that means is um thousands of warrants that are entered every year.

Each warrant takes anywhere between 10, 15, 45 minutes, depending on the criminal history of the of the defendant.

I am overloading three divisions because of the work volume, the the amount of warrants coming in.

I'm I am farming out to three different divisions just to survive, and that's with my employees and warrants.

Right now I have two and one on loan, so I have three.

That's with them coming in early, staying through lunch, working late, sometimes nights and weekends.

So we had asked for a total of six just to get above water, basically, and not tax the other divisions that that have their own their own work to do.

So in a nutshell, um we asked for six.

I understand the committee recommended three or four, I don't know the number three, which is extremely helpful.

But keep in mind the six was just to get us above water and get compliance with leads because uh with every warrant entered, we have to go back three months later and a year later and verify that the the case is still valid, the warrant's still valid, the victim wants to prosecute, the state wants to prosecute.

So we're we're taking two steps forward and one step back just to get three steps forward again.

So in a nutshell, that's what we asked for for the extra for the rest of the slides.

This is just data that we put together um showing the increases.

Um there's like the sergeant said about how many times we have to verify the warrants.

Um, and if I'm going too fast, I apologize.

I'm happy to go back.

And keep in mind that last slide.

The dip is because I only had three months data, then six months data, then nine months data.

The last column actually is the projection of 2025, which is 105% of that first column.

We do have data.

The the one column over or the one bullet point over is three or nine months worth of data.

Um so we we are pretty accurate with our projections.

Happy to answer any questions.

Are there more warrants today?

I mean, does the number of warrants that you need to process?

Has that gone up a lot?

And and why would that be?

So what's happening is is is the amount of arrests countywide are up.

And then people don't come to court.

And so when they make their first appearance, they're told to come back on November 1st.

When they don't come back on November 1st, a warrant is issued.

Then they get picked up in Chicago, let's say on December 1st.

We have to go to Chicago, bring them back.

They go to first appearance court.

They're walking out the door on December 2nd.

Judge tells them to come back on uh January 2nd.

They don't come back on January 2nd.

Another warrant's issued.

So it's it's it is a we have multiple, we have multiple dependent defendants that we see 15 times a year on a failure to appear warrant.

Okay.

And to answer your question, the warrants have doubled.

Because our police are better.

No, it's part of the safety act.

So basically, with with no cash bond, if the if the person's not detained, they're given instructions to return.

Um then they don't return, and that creates the warrant.

So yeah, it's been a hundred there.

We're we're anticipating a 105% increase.

And that's why we need the additional staffing.

Okay.

We got a few over here.

Thank you.

Are we just asking uh just about the NPR or just the budget overall?

Go ahead.

I I okay, I just didn't want to go into a new area.

Um, thank you so much for being here.

I saw the um, so it looks like we're gonna continue to need people to go out to McHenry.

It's like 150 people.

Is that right?

Out to McHenry, and that cost doesn't look like, oh no, it it doesn't look like the cost has increased with McHenry County.

That is correct.

It's the same, it's the same uh rate per uh inmate.

Okay.

And so we're seeing uh an increase in medical fees.

McHenry County is responsible for the medical costs of the people we have over in McHenry County.

That's I'm sorry.

Correctly, correct.

Okay, thank you.

And um I had two questions.

Well, I'll start with uh work release.

I know uh we have been told if we increase salaries in that union contract, we would be able to hire enough people.

And so I do see overtime, looks like it's down versus 2023.

Actually, since 2022, 23 and 24.

So that's um good news.

Um, but I still am, I guess I'm just wondering is there do we see a point in which the work release could start up again?

Because um it feels like allowing people to go to work and then return would be a lower cost and enable people to keep their jobs.

So I don't know if yeah, Chief Chief Richard Klaus.

Uh work release in and of itself is not cost effective, it's not staff effective.

It actually takes us more people to run work release than it does to keep someone in jail.

I understand the uh if you let someone out and you let them go to work, they can maintain their job.

Uh unfortunately, what we're work release has turned into is more of a deterrent than someone going to prison.

That's becoming a sentence alternative to going to prison.

So we're almost just holding off, sending someone to prison or sentencing someone to county time.

It's not an effective program.

I don't have the numbers in front of me for work release, but the majority of people that go into work release don't complete their sentence.

They either end up violating or ending up going back to jail, but I don't have the numbers in front of me to answer that.

No, I I I trust you on that.

You've done the research, and you're saying work release program has been found to be ineffective and more expensive than keeping people in the jail.

And um, so I I'm just interested in that because I know the judges, of course, can't sentence anybody to work release or or uh because it's just not available.

So that's just as helpful.

I have not looked into work release other than I see it, you know.

I can tell you work release is not popular among other counties.

McKenry County has an endless supply of staffing and they don't want to run a work release.

This is something that uh sheriff's offices are going away from.

Uh it is more labor intensive because you do have to have RFCs and you do have to have individuals that are supervising them when they leave the facility.

The courts can sentence anyone they want to to electronic monitoring.

That program is still available.

I don't have the numbers in front of me because probation is running that.

So I don't know how many people are being sentenced to EM and if the judges are even using that as uh option when they go to sentence people, but I could tell you when work release was running, we had in excess of a hundred people that were out on EM.

I don't have those numbers in front of me, so I don't know if that's what they're doing now.

Got it.

Thank you very much.

And then at the September board meeting, and this might be uh a question for 26 to operate within the sheriff's department.

Do you mean yes?

Thank you.

So the 911 dispatch the um communications management center.

Do you happen to have that, Jim?

Um I did not bring that with me, no.

Nick pull it.

Is it 3010110?

Communications administration.

Yeah.

Um, just that budget on its own is uh I have yeah, that's last year's budget.

And I'm happy to, I mean, except for I thought it was about 4.2 for 391 899.899.

Yes.

Okay.

And do we have a sense of what the cost is uh if the sheriff were to choose to join LACOM?

I received a recent email that they're very interested and thinking positively about consolidation.

Um, so I'm just interested in what that cost would be.

So um based on information that county administration had done back in 2024.

Um it was guesstimated that the latecom membership fee for Lake County based on its numbers, number of officers, EAV population, all the stuff, all the factors would range anywhere from three million to upwards of 3.6, depending on the number of deputies um that would be required to do all of the sheriffs only related things that they had brought up that were unique to the sheriff's office.

And again, I want to state that that was an estimate based on the calculations, the formulas that were in the IGA.

Um, the conversations of what the extra duties would be and all of that um would need a lot more work to kind of determine the number of extra dispatchers that would be needed to execute all that work.

But the rough numbers uh were somewhere between three and three point six million dollars.

Okay, thank you.

And I recognize these are rough numbers, but I think it's important for for us just to be aware of certainly it's the sheriff's prerogative of what he wants to do.

Uh it sounds like it would be a savings from anywhere, rough numbers of 800,000 to 1.3 million.

And and I am really pleased um, you know, to hear that the sheriff is is having fruitful conversations uh with LACOM to consolidate.

So that was that was um news to me, and I was happy to hear it.

So thank you.

Member Maine and member of Litzing.

I forget my question.

Um my question was about the oh the failure to appears.

Can you let um with the with the increase?

Can you just um let me know a bit about what the best practices are when you have increased failure to appears and do we do some of those things like you know um like texting reminders?

Do we have those programs or um we don't any of that?

We don't.

I mean the courts or maybe the public defender if they have clients.

Oh go ahead.

So all of the document is it comes from the clerk's office, the judge science.

Okay.

We had to go say in You just had to follow nothing other than pick this person up.

Okay.

So I guess you're right.

So my question was more appropriate for maybe another department, but do you know not since we're talking about it if if the county or the justice system has like I believe that circuit clerk you don't have the tax office at it free?

Uh based on grant money, but that grant money expired.

I believe the clerk is considering doing that on a regular basis.

But there is not taxable.

Okay.

All right, thank you.

Yeah, I have a couple questions in the member of Clark.

Um Chief Klaus.

Uh I forgot to say hello, Sheriff.

Thank you for being with us this afternoon.

My pleasure.

I want to acknowledge your presence, of course.

Um, Chief Klaus, you've been really transparent with us through our conversations about jail staffing over the past couple of years and the contract.

And uh, I really just want to acknowledge that and appreciate the fact that you, you know, really clearly identified some of the challenges for us.

Which we I think we've been responsive uh in terms of trying to support staffing and in this contract going forward.

Um and clearly the need for it was as you stated, um, you know, safety of the workforce and safety of the environment.

Um, but as we look at the budget and and the continued use of uh the contract in McHenry, it it again just makes me want us to have a very big picture long-term strategic conversation about what's the best way to run a jail and does this facility work?

Does the staffing model work?

Because I I don't know that we want to be in a situation where we continue this for many years without a plan to modify that plan going forward.

So I don't have an answer or question about that.

I just want to take this opportunity to say we need to have a bigger conversation about what the jail plan looks like for the for the response to that.

Please, yeah.

Uh I believe we hired what, 19 last year.

Right.

Uh we're currently have hired 35 people.

We will probably by the end of the year end up hiring 40, which is a tremendous improvement thanks to the raises that were given and things of that nature.

We are heading in the correct direction.

We were in such a hole.

We're not going to fix this in six months.

It's going to take some time.

But I think that we are going in the right direction.

We're getting a lot of applicants, we're hiring a lot more, we're getting laterals in.

We're actually getting people from other departments instead of people leaving our department to go elsewhere where they would make more money.

So we are going in the right direction.

I don't have an answer as to how long it'll take us to fill those staffing, but I can say that probably by the end of the year we'll be under 50, which I haven't looked, but I couldn't even tell you the last time we were under 50 open slots.

Under 50 vacancies.

Yes.

So then the the thank you for explaining that the new hires, you're seeing a net gain.

We're we're reducing turnover and hiring at the same time.

Well, yes, I I've hired 35 people thus this year, but we've lost 23.

Now there was a gro uh a giant hiring phase in the early 90s.

Well, now we're 25, 30 years later.

We have a large portion of the staff that's over 20 years.

Me myself, I could go today right now.

Uh there's a lot of people in that boat.

So we are gonna continue to hire and we're doing good, but as long as we can stay in that positive, we're doing okay, I think.

Okay.

Thank you.

Thank you.

I like to make an input, sir.

As well as we talk about the jail population, I've always stated I have no input in the jail population.

I have people in my jail that's been over there for five years.

Some people have been there, I probably have about close to 100 inmates has been over there for three years in the jail.

And we are managing these individuals.

So if we want to have a conversation about the population in the jail, that conversation should be with the state's attorney and the judges to move these cases so we wouldn't be in this situation.

So every day my population seemed like it goes up.

Right now, I'm over 600 people in the jail, and you put 150 in McKinney County, so that leaves me 450 in my jail that we manage in.

And as well as we hired people, as with the chief just said, we hired these many people, and we had those many people leave.

So it's a revolving door that I have no control over, other than the safety of my staff and the safety of the inmates.

And my decision was to do what I needed to protect the inmates and the safety of my staff, force them to work overtime.

So the only solution I had was to move these inmates over to McHenry County to alleviate the stress on the staff and also the inmates.

And if as my population dwindle, we can have a conversation.

But if my population stayed the way it is, sir, I don't see any other solution for me to do that.

And I have other people who can make those input and make those changes, and I'm still waiting on them to do that.

Thank you for that.

So what you're saying, uh I hear what you're saying, uh and said what you're saying.

You got dumb many people in your jail ain't been ain't moving.

So the judge, I thought this did the um we discussed this earlier and the state's attorneys.

Uh uh, I felt that the lawyers moved the cases with the judges.

And that's probably very true, ma'am.

But what I'm saying is no matter how slow that turtle moves, I'm still holding the inmates.

If the turtle could move a little faster to alleviate my head count, that could alleviate my stress on my staff and everyone.

But until they move a little quicker, I'm still holding these individuals and I have to manage them because if anything happened to those inmates, I'll be standing in front of everybody here trying to explain what happened, share.

What is the solution?

So to me, the only solution I had was to do this.

It's working, but I understand it costs a lot of money, but also no matter where these inmates are, if they in Lake County or McHenry County, we have to take care of them.

And that's what I'm trying to do the best that I can with the tools I have to work with.

I have no doubt about that.

Uh I I uh I agree with you that, but uh I have many family mothers calling me, said my son been in there five years and they haven't done anything.

But I thought that what I'm hearing today from the state's attorney that the the lawyers say, I'm not ready yet.

Give me ask the jury to give me more time.

And that's what keep your jail with the peoples in there for the longest.

That's what my understanding.

It's not I'm not saying it's your you the holding sale.

I'm not saying it's your your uh uh I'm not fighting you over anything.

You the whole if the judges and the lawyers don't move them, they can't go nowhere.

That is correct.

That just like a hospital.

Yes.

A hospital got a bed.

It's a holding sale for the sick patient.

So uh uh I think it's really good that I know uh guy stayed in there for over seven years, but that was for your time.

Yeah.

And we used to ask why they've been in why they're holding them, but I found out it's a lawyer because they're trying to lawyer go to say, we're not ready, judge.

Give me many days, give me many months.

And the clients waiting on them to say something.

One guy called me from the jail, his parents did, and he said, I just want to get sentenced and go do my time.

You know, but he had been there four years.

So he just wanted it, ain't the inmates, it is not you.

It's who representing them.

Get them out of there.

That's what they be, that's what they tell me because I get a lot of calls.

I don't like for them to do that very much, vice chair is to get them out of there, okay?

I know you would.

Because when I came on board as sheriff in 2018, I think I had an individual who's been in that jail for over 10 years.

I know.

And that's uncalled for.

I know.

But I have no control of that.

That's that's so sad.

And I tell them switch judges, switch lawyers so you can get moving.

Yeah.

Uh especially if they're paying them.

Okay, go.

Sorry.

Member Clark, Chair Hart, Member Maine.

Thank you.

I think that would explain a lot of my questions.

So I appreciate that.

That was a good explanation.

And so I understand.

So it sounds like that hopefully we'll finally catch up.

Because I know we've been doing all these things to try to hire people, and eventually the staffing will finally like balance out because everyone will retire finally that anyone to retire.

And so, in the meantime, though, I know it's 4.7 more million dollars.

And I'm just wondering, where does just budgetly, what's in the budget?

Where does this money come from?

Is it like out of it's a big increase?

So I'm just wondering, I don't know if this is a like is this like out of our operating money?

How do we find this 4.7 million dollars?

Like, do we are we cutting other things or like it's a lot of money.

So is this adding to our operating budget?

This money, and like it just seems like it's a big increase.

And I was wondering where the money was coming from.

I don't know who's anyone can answer.

Yeah, if it's a pretty so you're you're talking about the overall increase of fiscal year 26 budget compared to the adopted budget of fiscal year 25.

Um it yeah, I mean, we look at the big pie and um yeah, revenue increased and expenses increased, and we just tried to balance.

So yeah, we absorbed this increase.

Out of like the general uh like our yeah, this is the general fund.

Yeah, okay, because that just seems I mean, hopefully it'll slow down because that's I mean, that's a lot of money to absorb.

Um, I'm glad we could do it.

All right, thank you.

Thank you.

And thank you, Sheriff, for that.

And you have always stated that, and I appreciate it.

You get what you get, yes, and you gotta manage that population.

So I would just say, um, sheriff, I hope you'll partner.

What I what I hope this board feels like is hey, let's get the numbers about how long it takes for these cases to close, right?

We should know why are things taking so long.

Because people are sitting in your jail.

So I think that data is available.

If I heard the chief judge correctly, he he utilizes that data internally.

So we should know that because the impact is on you, and then the impact is on all of us, and the impact is on the taxpayers.

So I did I did just want to ask two follow-up questions.

One to Patrice.

We have the multi-use building um that is going to have space, I think, for 911 dispatch.

Does that uh additional cost include the cost of that space within that multi-use building, or would that be a little bit more?

I'm not asking you to calculate anything.

I'm just curious if that cost is included.

No, it does not include that.

Okay, thank you so much.

So there's maybe additional cost there.

And then uh, as I said, I am excited that there's these conversations going on with Latecom.

Um wondering if there's any thought about we talked a you know with the state's attorney at length about sort of half year funding, right?

Second year 2026.

So if conversations are are fruitful, um, is there some appetite for like, yeah, we think we could have some sort of signed agreement by mid-2026 um for a consolidation with latecom.

I'm just interested in your thoughts because it sounds like conversations are going well.

We are engaging in a conversation, but like any conversation, there's always a possibility of some bumps and hurdles.

I am very hopeful, and that's all I can say for now.

Great.

Okay.

All right, thank you.

Remember me.

Thank you.

My my question is not about the jail.

Um, but I just wanted just to go back to that um the warrants position.

And um I I just couldn't make that connection why you need why there's additional workload with the safety act, what it says three, three are for the safety act.

I understood that there were more warrants.

I just don't understand how that relates to the safety act.

So I maybe I'm missing something.

Safety act, people would vote the cash bond or would stay in jail.

Oh, I see.

Or if they missed their court appearance, they would lose their cash bond.

Okay.

So there's no there's less incentive, less incentive to come back.

I understand on your court date.

Thank you.

So do you have data on that, or you're just you do have that numbers double from pre-safety act to post safety act.

So you're just you're okay.

And the cases, I don't have a number on how many criminal cases were in 2022, but I can tell you that the the amount of warrants in 2022 is about a third of what my warrants are in 2025, and we're not done yet with 2025.

Thank active on the shelf.

I'm what I'm saying for active warrants out in the community, waiting for the person to come back to court, captured and brought back to court okay.

So you think because they post a $10,000 bond, they're gonna come back.

That's what you're saying.

In 20 prior to the safety act, people would either be housed in the jail until their next court appearance.

Yeah or post something to ensure they would come back.

Okay, because that was taken away.

They miss court more frequently.

We we travel literally around the state to pick them up to bring them back before the judge, and oftentimes they're walking out the front door.

When my team is coming back with another inmate from downstate.

But but you also said there are there are more rest.

Are I I don't know, I can't compare the criminal cases in 2022 versus 2025.

I can just tell you that the amount of 2022 warrants that are active are about a third of my 2025 active warrants and they're active because people have not come back to court when they were told to come back to court.

Gotcha.

Okay.

Just wanted to clarify why you collate it to the safety act.

So thank you.

Okay.

Thanks, Chair.

You know, we all sat here last year with the Safety Act, trying to do the best we could trying to figure out what it was going to cost.

Um obviously you you don't know with the state's attorney's office, and you don't know with the court system.

That's a question for those folks.

What do what do we think it's actually added in cost to the sheriff's department this year?

Now that we've had a year to under our belts with this, or almost.

I could speak for the the um assuming the three clerks are um approved, it's in the it's in the budget.

So I it I could go through my papers, but it's um I think that we asked for how much we asked for nine.

Well, actually, we give the PowerPoint because it's right there.

Um, but then we also asked and received two additional port security officer positions because of the additional courtrooms.

Um I'm just I don't know, Chief, if there's any anything else that has affected corrections.

I mean, I know that we're not we don't need people to count bond.

So maybe I'd say maybe uh can you just go back to the I thought the financials were on there?

Oh, you know what?

I have it here.

Um two court officers, probably about 75,000 hours each with benefits, so it's 150.

And I would say with three warrant clerks, we're probably looking at another hundred thousand dollars.

So I'd say, you know, quarter million dollars for the sheriff's office.

And I might be missing something, so I might I mean, you know.

I'm just trying to put it together because we spent a lot of time last year talking about it as it was the implementation is coming, and it just I now now it's the recognize to see okay, what did it really cost us to do?

Right.

You know, because those are the two items that are sticking out in my mind.

I might be missing something right now, but you know, that's why a batter gets three swings on even on the other side of the ledger sheet, the the jail doesn't have as many people, and because of the because we're not retaining people, so that would be you know save on that side per se.

But then if you get hooked up in the warrant process, then are you really saving money by not housing them at jail?

Okay, thanks.

Um, one thing I wanted to mention since Chief is up here.

If you wanted to do the body scanner new program request real quick, if you guys want to see if another fascinating PowerPoint that I created.

We've seen it already.

Okay, if you could just explain it, that'd be good.

Yeah, we need a body scanner to keep uh to everybody that's gonna come into the jail will be uh scanned um because people are smuggling guns, cell phones, um drugs in their person.

We cannot we cannot uh we could just do pat-down searches, it's not like on TV.

We can't uh only certain felonies could do strip surges, and there is uh prohibited uh items getting into our jail, and uh we are kind of behind in the times on this.

Most jails do have a body scanner in uh in place.

We've had 45 incidents uh up to this, up to today's date of uh items being brought into the jail to include fentanyl, crack cocaine, and two handguns.

So this these stops, these items were recovered after they came in, but there's no way for our staff other than the pat down in the strip search to check individuals when they're coming in.

Uh people hide stuff in body cavities, a strip search isn't going to cover that.

So we kind of fell behind everyone else where it comes to this, and this is pretty much commonplace in most correctional facilities having a body scanner.

Okay, and that's on the recommended list, correct?

Okay, correct.

Yes, great.

And so after the budget is approved, assuming that this stays uh funded, how quickly can you procure and install it?

What's the timeline?

Uh Vin V who we're purchasing this from is going to come on site the week before Thanksgiving, and they're going to get with building maintenance, and we're going to find out where we're going to put this.

We're in the process of putting Odyssey together and things of that nature, but I won't be able to answer that till they actually come on site in November when we would get uh get an estimate from them exactly how long it would take to get that on site.

When we quoted it, they said 90 days from uh purchase order approval.

Okay.

Thank you.

Obviously, timing's important.

Yeah.

Memorability.

Thanks.

Um does that cost include like how how long is it is it expected to last?

And then what if something breaks with it?

Do we have the ability to fix it?

Oh, yeah, we're gonna purchase a five-year warranty with that.

Um so uh I don't know the lifespan, so figure uh uh the I'd say for probably five years we every five years we'd have to replace it, but that's just a guess.

Maybe we could get 10 years out of it, but they only offer five year warranty warranty.

It would be nice to know just with the it's a significant cost, just with the I'm just curious too if you can find out.

Yeah, I can find out or expectancy.

Thank you.

Any question on the dishes that we have one more recommended MPR.

If you want to go through it, Mr.

Malkoff is here.

Sorry, I'm I neglected.

Yeah, go ahead.

So I'll let Bernard come up.

Glad you didn't leave.

I didn't look you just go ahead and start.

The last recommended MPR is the replacement of our radios in our squad cars.

Uh traditionally we've had VHF radios in our squad cars, however, VHF technology is now obsolete.

Only a few uh Lake County fire departments still have VHF, some schools have it, and some outlier agencies have it.

So the recommendation is to put dual band STARCOM radios in the cars to match the portable radios that we have.

Um that would give us the opportunity to still have the legacy VHF for the departments that still have them, but also have the STARCOM capabilities as well.

While our current radios are portable radios, they are able to scan.

There's a lot of times that there's um big ins big incidents going on, and deputies are trying to listen to multiple radio channels at the same time.

So this would give us the ability to listen to one channel in the car and another channel on our portable radio, giving us better operational um insight into incidents going around in the county.

So it kind of serves multiple purposes, still giving us the legacy VHF, giving us the additional uh StarCom radio in the car, and also giving us um some backup too in case something happened to a portable radio, deputies would still be able to communicate on the radios in their cars.

So we actually stopped buying the VHF radios about I think two years ago because we knew that they were obsolete, we didn't want to waste uh valuable county money, so we stopped buying them with anticipation that this was gonna go through at some point.

I don't know.

Go ahead.

Could you just I can't see, and maybe it's up there.

What is VHF?

It's uh one question I I don't know that I don't know what it stands for.

It's all it's a legacy from the 80s, yeah.

It's a legacy uh it's a legacy of frequency.

Oh, did you say BHS or F is in Frank?

F is in Frank?

Very okay.

Okay, thank you.

Yep.

Just wonder because I didn't know what RFC was either before when we're resident field coordinator.

Thank you.

We're full of acronyms.

No, thank you.

Ma.

Oh too, but so do most police departments have the newer radios now, or are we way behind other people?

Are people just changing over?

Yeah, like most rate most departments have starcoms now.

There's only a few left that have VHF.

Okay, so we're one of the few that still has a yeah.

We stop like I said that we stopped buying them because most people have changed over already.

Okay.

And we we don't transmit on those, we just listen on on VHF.

So just to hear what other people were doing.

But now there's very few agencies that are actually doing business on that on that channel.

I gotcha.

Okay, so then so once we get StarCon, we'll also be aligned better with all the other departments so they can all communicate better.

Is it kind of putting us at a disadvantage now that we're not?

We have StarCom on our portables.

We just didn't have it on the mobile radios in the cars.

Oh, okay.

So you know, though the VHF radio in the car wasn't doing us a whole lot of service just because people don't have it anymore.

So this will still give us the opportunity to listen to those few towns that still have VHF while also monitoring maybe a different SARCOM channel in the car versus a different STARCOM channel on the portable.

So we can kind of hear, you know, our primary channel, uh HP one on our portables, and then you know, if a district car is in Gurney, they can you know listen to Gurney on their portable and the car or mobile in the car, or they can listen to Zion Joaquin.

They can you know hone in on that channel because when you're scanning, you miss things.

Okay, and you can just listen to one channel that uh, you know, two different dedicated channels, and that makes free much question on the law under dishes back.

Yeah, thank you.

Okay.

All in favor.

I'm gonna call the vote.

Uh this vote is from nine, ten, eleven, twelve, and thirteen.

All in favor.

Aye.

I seven, none approval.

Motion been approved.

Any further questions on those items?

All in favor, please say aye.

Aye.

Any opposed, nine through thirteen are approved.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

They have to stay for the MOOC.

Uh, I think Patrice says someone else is doing there.

Oh, there she is.

Yep.

Yes, she is.

Thank you.

Okay, I need a motion for 8014 for the Merc Commission.

Motion by memory.

My second by member.

Can these financed motion by member of Litzik, second by member Clark?

This budget can be found on page 129.

The FY 2026 recommended budget for the Sheriff's Merit Commission totals 118,649, an increase of 9,961 dollars or approximately 9% from the FY25 budget.

This increase reflects updates to the deputy hiring process recommended by HR, including maintaining an ongoing application period for entry-level deputy positions and related adjustments to testing and recruitment procedures.

This change helps the commission more effectively manage candidate testing and maintain a continuous pool of qualified applicants to support the sheriff's office hiring needs.

The FY 2026 budget continues to provide the resources necessary for the commission to uphold a fair consistent and transparent transparent hiring process.

And with that, I will hand it over to Alex.

Good afternoon.

Is there any questions on the process of the commission or the increase that the commission is requesting?

And a question on the Merit Commissioner.

Thanks, Chair.

Does the Merit Commission also do the hiring for the um for the jail?

They're not for corrections, it's only for the deputies.

That's correct.

Okay, thank you.

Any questions from finance?

We have none.

Thank you.

Great.

We got to carry the motion.

All in favor.

I say not a poll.

Motion approved.

All in favor of L14, say aye.

Any opposed?

Approved.

Moving on to the public defender.

Yes.

Oh my goodness.

15, 16, and 17.

I need a motion for public defender 15, 16, and 17.

Motion by memo by She Robinson, second by memo.

Altonber.

Finance motion by member of Litik, second by member Hewitt.

So the public defender's budget can be found on page 115.

The implementation of the pretrial fairness act in 2023 eliminated cash bell.

Due to this act, it is anticipated that we will continue to see revenues fall in fees.

The demand for hard copy books, periodicals, and manuals has decreased due to electronic options.

Um cell phone expenses for guardian ad lightum staff are previously budgeted under the public defender, but are now budgeted in the 19th Judicial Circuit Courts where the GL staff have been located since 2025.

Included in the public defender's budget is the recommended NPR for the social worker.

I will now turn over, uh turn it over to public defender Gregory Tixai and Ashley Thomas.

Good afternoon.

Chair Cunningham, Chair Frank, members of the board.

Excuse me.

When I was before you uh last year, we were down seven attorneys in the office.

We have fought back.

Uh we were down to one as of last Friday.

We lost another person on Friday due to personal reasons.

Um so we are still struggling to get fully staffed, but in large part due to the compensation study, we were able to build up and hire five attorneys to fill that gap.

Um we are requesting our NPR if you want to the uh request.

Um we are asking for an additional social worker.

We have uh currently we have two social workers.

Um I'll wait for the I am supposed to control us.

So currently we have two social workers, and we're asking to add one more social worker.

Social workers uh based on best practices.

We should have approximately one social worker for every three to four attorneys.

Uh the social worker works with the attorneys to prepare a defense from the beginning.

The minute we meet a client, they begin to look into uh to assess the client and look into those root causes that cause them to become involved in the criminal justice system.

Many of those causes are mental health, substance abuse, um, housing instability, uh, unemployment, um, and personal trauma.

And so from the beginning, those social workers will begin to connect them with services within the county and outside the county if necessary.

And in doing so, we can begin their recovery and reduce their incarceration, reduce recidivism, and create positive outcomes for those clients.

Uh when it comes to sentencing, they prepare mitigation packages for those judges.

Um, any number of judges have spoken that the work that they do has caused them to uh work downward with regard to the sentences that they were going to impose, even if it's incarceration based on an understanding of the human being that's before them.

And so the social workers are integral in our work.

The caseloads have increased ever since the uh PFA.

We are our caseloads overall, and the request for uh social work individually on each case has gone up, so that each of our social workers is carrying over 150 cases or additional cases each year.

They stay with those clients easily a year or two because of the length of the sentences or the time it takes to resolve the matter.

So the costs are the salary benefits and the build out of the office.

Um the risks are that we will not be able to properly service our our clients.

We believe it's important to address these issues early on and throughout their uh representation.

And so our objective is to bring on someone, preferably Spanish speaking, because it taxes our Spanish-speaking uh interpreters who are actually not interpreters in the office, they do other things, and it would be helpful for us to have someone who speaks fluent Spanish that would reduce the current caseload for the other two social workers by a third.

So that is our request for the MPR.

Thank you.

Um if you want, I can address uh you know, we have two other things.

The um public defender records automation fund.

Um that is an assessment that is attached to many uh cases upon resolution.

Uh it's a nominal amount of money.

Um many times those fees are waived because the client is indigent and they cannot afford to pay the all their fees, so those fees are waived.

So that brings in uh around $3,000 a year at best, but that is used to supplement uh our needs uh based on the integrated case management system that we have to keep upgraded annually.

And then we have also uh revenue source of the public defender supreme court fund.

We're getting over 15,000 from the Supreme Court.

Uh that fund began uh at the implementation of the PFA to supplement the funding for the public defenders' offices to absorb the additional caseloads.

That uh fund has continued to be funded, and we are receiving those funds.

It's based on uh your poverty levels and case filings within each county.

Every county aside from Cook County gets a I think uh minimum of $50,000.

So we're getting an additional around $57,000 that we are uh permitted to use uh for specific things.

Right now we are using that to uh pay for uh our axon service, which is uh a system that allows us to download discovery that is based on the body cameras that were uh required under the PFA, and that processing and storage is is used.

Uh we use that uh those funds to cover that.

Um perhaps in 2027, we may not be allowed to use that fund for that specific purpose, but we are funding that through 2026 using those funds.

Um I would like to pitch some support as well for the ICMS program manager.

Uh it is an integrated system uh that the courts have requested.

We are part of that system, and we would not be able to function without that system running properly.

We have no internal IT, many other departments.

I believe the state's friend's office has IT support within their office as well as the courts.

We do not, we rely entirely on the county.

Um, and for the specific system, we would need the support uh from a tech analyst.

And with that, any questions?

Question from the Law and Nudisho.

No.

Oh, there's a question.

Thank you.

Um, thank you for that last part.

So you said you don't have an IT department and you rely on enterprise IT to support that we're so historically.

Yes, uh IT had supported us.

However, um they haven't supported our management system for several years.

It uh I I can't explain the reasoning why it was uh left to uh I can't remember who's managing that.

Uh isn't that managed by we were talking earlier.

You're talking about ICMS.

Well, once I CMS came in to replace our old system, yeah.

Um that was not uh something that IT enterprise IT was going to support.

They don't have the programmers or the knowledge to support that system right now.

So they do all of our other IT support, but we do not have anybody internally to program or upgrade our system.

Right.

Thank you.

I think what I heard earlier is that that support comes from the courts IT's correct department.

Yeah, because my question is why don't we just centralize it?

So, but I I was just curious about that piece.

So thank you.

From other questions.

All in favor.

I say no no's motion.

In favor, say aye.

Aye.

Any opposed?

Those items are approved.

Thank you.

Thank you for your time.

Just for clarity, that was 15, 16, and 17.

Yeah, six through 28.

Yeah, right.

20, 26, 28 through 30.

Through 30.

26 through 30.

Yes, I follow.

Right.

Yeah.

That's right.

Okay.

Clerk of the circuit court.

Good afternoon.

Good afternoon.

Good afternoon.

All right.

So the circuit clerk's budget can be found on page 56.

Um, yeah.

So the transcripts have been reduced, reflect the reduced fees for hard copies and additional certified copies.

Uh bond forfeiture revenues have been adjusted to reflect the revenues from motions to vacates that are being recorded in in that particular account.

Um software and online services have increased to include e-certified maintenance and all other Michelin's expenses has been reduced to align with current um and prior year spending.

The circuit clerk has budgeted 19,900 for additional e-filing stations and printer replacements in their capital.

I will now turn it over to our circuit clerk in on you before you get started.

We have to do our motion.

Motion about Autumn, second by cow.

Finance.

It was 27 through 30.

Yeah, 27.

Again, sorry.

Not 26.

27 through 30.

Got it.

No, it is just circle.

That explanation.

Okay, 27 through 30.

Got it.

Uh motion for finance by member Clark, second by member Belitz.

Okay.

Now ready.

Oh, thank you.

So I'm Aaron Cartwright.

I'm the Lake County Circuit Court Clerk.

I have Jennifer Rothundi with me today.

She is my current CFO, but she is my Jack of All Trades in my office.

She's been with us for 30 years and has worked as my IT manager during the CMS implementation and is now did finance prior to me coming in and is now back to doing finance.

So we have um several um large projects um that have been ongoing since I came into office, and those um projects are really getting closer to completion.

It's nice to see some light at the end of the tunnel.

We have our document digitization project.

We've completed almost all of it.

We have fragile wills that cannot be done by the company that we're working with.

So they are going out to another company to be copied.

We have some microfilm left, and we are in the midst of quality control on all of that with an effort towards getting rid of all of our paper records and getting rid of all of our storage that we have.

We do have the remaining, we do have some remaining work that we've got with the ICMS, but we are really on track now to where we should be at this point.

We have done several trainings lately, and one of them said it takes about four years once you implement a new case management system to get to a place where you're fully comfortable.

We are going to be having our two year anniversary next week, um, probably be a big celebration in my office.

If anyone's hungry and wants some food, we probably will be celebrating.

So the the technology does continue to evolve.

The Supreme Court rules continue to change.

Legislation continues to change.

That requires change on our part.

And so we continue to work towards those changes with the new case management system.

We do have one piece, which is the new program request that is before you.

It is reduced from the 150,000 mark to a $50,000 mark.

We realized when we put this budget together back in June, one of the projects that is included in that we thought was going to be a carryover from this year, and that project has actually been able to be completed this year.

So that was paid for out of this year's budget, and we don't need that.

And then we also had one part of the project that my staff is just not ready to implement.

And so we are pushing that to 2027.

So that drops us down to specifically requesting the attorney enhancement portal to provide eye calendar.

Um so that means that the attorneys can go in or even self-represented litigants can go into their case, schedule their court dates online, and they will not have to call our office to get their court dates anymore.

And that is our new program request for the 50,000.

We do um I and I know we had quite the discussion about that in our May and April uh board meetings.

So we are um we are continuing to work on uh making the system more accessible.

It just takes time, um, but we are up and running, and we're really happy with where we are.

We are also working on upcoming um and expanding our AAI AI capabilities.

We're going to be going live with criminal e-filing this year.

We are working on e-citation and are in the process of um getting all of that amped up to go um into testing.

And we also have a product called eCertify that is um in the process of being um, I guess you'd say put together, developed.

Thank you.

Um so that will mean that anyone who needs certified copies will no longer have to come into the office for the certified copies, they will be able to obtain them online.

Um we just as far as our e-citation budget goes, um, we are finding now um we didn't use that fund for a very long time, but now that we are getting more involved in e-citation, the sheriff's department is working towards go live on that, um, that that project um is starting to take up more of those e-citation funds.

So we are budgeting more out of that now.

It does cause requirements from vendors that we never had to pay money to before to create connections to our office, and now they are charging for those connections.

Uh, we have also budgeted um in previous years, and we're doing it again this year.

Um, we have assisted the sheriff's department um last year with 36,228 towards their e-citation project out of our e-citation funds.

We also gave them additional funds to purchase thermal paper, and we are putting in our budget this year an additional 50,000 to help them.

Um they were supposed to have an e-citation fund set up years ago.

Um, it apparently did not happen, and so they do not have any e-citation funds.

So we have been trying to be of assistance and willing to do this as an overall benefit to the county and other municipalities, um, even though we are now going to start be starting burdening that fund for its sole purpose of being used for my office.

Um, we've also contributed to the public defenders' needs in the past when their budget is not allowed for them to have sufficient funding to pay for certain things during the ICMS implementation.

Um, I do want to say that um during all of these implementations that we um have worked very, very closely with the purchasing department.

Ruth Ann is obviously stepped up and been promoted, but she has still stepped up to help us.

And we've also been working closely with Krista Kennedy and Yvette Alberon.

And I just want to give them a huge amount of kudos.

They have really um been very, very close to us and working very, very well with us and helping us with our projects.

And we couldn't have done it without them.

So thank you.

Question I share up.

I don't have a question.

I just think making a comment on being able to get a court date and not have to call the clerks is gonna be a huge benefit to attorneys and myself.

So that's it's really a it's a really needed program.

Um it'll save everybody time and maybe move things quicker to get cases out.

Wouldn't that be lovely?

Thank you.

Yeah, that is one of the Aaron is this a great program.

I know one of my family members went in.

They get a court date and get it just like that.

So uh you got a great, that's a great program.

Thank you.

Thank you.

I but they more questions, but the e-citation fund, we have an electronic citation fund that's for your office.

Are you saying that there's supposed to be another one for the sheriff's office?

There is.

There are supposed to be two.

Um, and it's not just the sheriff's department, it's also the municipalities.

So when giving a bit of history on this, this was prior to me coming into this office.

The chiefs of police all got together and elected on whether or not they chose to have all of the money go to the circuit clerk, and the circuit clerk decided what uh APIs they used, what e-citation servers they used, and or if they wanted to individually do it.

And at that time they had chosen to individually do it.

So when that happened, we just out of the five dollars we collect, three goes into our office and two goes out to if it's a municipality traffic ticket DUI, that money goes to them.

Um, if it's the sheriff's department, then that money would have gone to them.

And so the original statute for the e-citation fund always did designate a portion to the clerk and a portion to the arresting agency or the issuer of the citation.

So it's always been split by statute.

So we had our fund that we were maintaining, and when we disperse funds to the sheriff and to the rest of the agencies, that is a specific designation subaccount on their reports that they can see how much they're getting towards that fund.

Got it.

Thank you.

I'm just looking at in the budget book, it says um the proceeds are used to defray expense of establishing and maintaining electronic citations.

But did I hear you guys say that it's you're purchasing thermal paper?

Yeah, but that's part of the electronic citations.

They have to have thermal paper for the electronic citations.

Got it.

For the personal thinking of is that uh multi-layer thing, but that's a normal paper.

Yeah, my mistake.

Thank you.

And um, I'll have another follow-up question.

But Vice Chair Practice.

Yeah, thank you.

I just had a um a question on, and I may have missed this because I was I came in late for the personnel.

It's I think the costs are going up by about nine percent.

Correct.

But I don't the headcount's not going up, so I'm just wondering why why was it going up 9% versus maybe like so?

So we used the compensation study that the county did saying that the entry level employees were at 9.1% below market, and so I used that in the union contract, and that's the raise they received.

Got it.

And so it wasn't reflected in 20.

So the the new salaries weren't in the 25 budget yet.

They they were, we were able to absorb it.

Oh, okay.

So this nine percent wasn't reflected within the last year's budget.

No, because we had not completed the it just got this year.

Correct.

Awesome.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Um, we've had a lot of conversation about the operations and administrative fund.

What page is that on in this budget book, or is it not included in here?

Not in the budget book.

Okay.

Um I think Patrice, you said that there's about we did get the bank statements on the Monday evening before the county board meeting.

Was it about $518,000 were in that bank account?