Good morning, everyone.

Today is October 21st, 2025, and I call the Lake County Health and Community Services joint budget hearing to order at 8 30 a.m.

In addition to being able to attend in person.

Remote attendance has been made available to the public via Zoom at the link on the agenda.

This meeting is being recorded through Zoom.

Is anybody coming on Zoom?

Passed over to I am now gonna pass it over to FA Chair Frank.

Good morning.

We are now at 8 31.

I call to order the Finance and Administrative Committee.

Um we do have a quorum physically present.

We have no one uh from the committee participating remotely at this time.

So can you please rise and join a committee vice chair Altenberg and reside and pledge allegiance?

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands.

One nation under God, indivisible with liberty and justice for all.

Oh, so this is just all I'm gonna do the HCS roll call.

Okay.

Can I get a roll call, please?

Question Altenberg?

Here.

Member Casmin?

Here.

Member Cunningham?

Here.

Member Danforth.

Member Kenny Snake.

Member Maine.

Chair Park.

Okay.

Present.

Okay.

And the Finance Committee roll call, please.

Member Clark.

Chair Frank?

Here.

Member Hewitt.

Member Maine.

Present.

Vice Chair Park.

Member Peterson.

Member Falitzik.

Okay.

Is there public comment?

Yes, there is public comment for HCS.

I'm gonna go ahead and uh read a statement before we bring over um Carl Ziegan for the public comment.

Yep.

An individual has three minutes of cumulative time to provide their public comments.

Public comment must be related to the business of the county board and not be redundant or political.

When appropriate, matters raised by public comment shall be referred to the appropriate standing committee.

The public shall refrain from commenting about private activities, lifestyles, or beliefs of others, including county employees and elected officials that are unrelated to the business of the county board or county government in their public comment.

Comments that are uncivil, rude, vulgar, profane, or otherwise disruptive will not be allowed.

Candidates running for public office must refrain from including comments that are political in nature or that promote or support a candidate, including refraining from identifying oneself as a candidate for public office.

We have Carl Zegan.

Is he available to speak?

Yes.

Yes, good morning, board.

Thank you so much.

I appreciate getting the opportunity.

I just wanted to encourage as you guys go through the budget process.

We live in Lake County, and I would like to encourage the board to consider uh putting forth some efforts to clean up our local lakes.

Uh there are there's an organization locally in Libertyville called, and I'm not affiliated with them, called Global Waterworks, and and some others I found out they're testing some of the lakes in Lake County, and there's some lakes you can't swim in at certain times of the year.

And I think it would be uh a good idea for the Lord to the board to consider some methods that are less toxic methods to clean up some of the lakes, spend some money in that.

We are Lake County, and it would be a good idea to not have a situation in the future when we want to attract visitors to the county and they can't use our lakes.

Uh that's all of my comments, and thank you very much for the opportunity.

Thank you.

Any unfinished business?

No unfinished business.

Okay.

Handing it back to Chair Paul Frank.

Thank you.

Um we don't have any identities in that.

Okay.

Yeah.

Yep.

Okay.

So we have a request for additional public comment for someone who did not submit the form.

Can you please just identify yourself?

And is the item you're commenting on on the agenda or not?

Mr.

Bryson.

Hello.

Uh my name's Rob Breyson.

And I want to, it's almost like a follow-up comment to the previous person.

Um I live in Lake County and I'm familiar with the watershed plan that was developed by the chain of lakes.

And one of the things that they identified is that there are 8,000 septic systems around the chain of lakes, which are having a negative impact on the lake.

There are 80% of those are within a thousand feet of the um of the lake.

And so uh what I'd ask you to consider is when when you're considering a budget is to think about how we can work to expand sewer systems in this area so that we can have lakes that are usable.

So that that's what that's what I'm asking.

Thank you.

Thank you.

We have no additional public comments.

Okay.

Um I just have one quick chair remark, which is regarding our process today and tomorrow.

Um, I would like to suggest to the finance committee members that we consider any amendments that are made by the individual subject matter committees, and we and we hold off on taking action on any changes until the end of the day tomorrow.

So we can have an aggregate perspective on the total budgetary impact and consider how to uh fund any additions that might be made.

Um, and so you know, correspondingly to the HCS and and the other committees, you know, we will consider whatever you forward, but um, I think uh F and A should should hold off on taking final action on any changes until tomorrow.

Okay.

Chair Prack.

Oh, I'm sorry.

I'm gonna go ahead and uh ask for eight dot F1 on our agenda to proceed with the presentation and consideration of the proposed fiscal year 2026 budget.

Good morning, Michael Wheeler, budget manager.

Just want to roll through our normal kind of opening presentation where we talk through some of the specifics about the budget and how the process was prepared.

I will test the clicker now.

Here we go.

Now, so the first slide we have is really just kind of a review of the process and how we got to this point.

You know, there was the county board policy guidance that was updated back in April.

Um, and then we have the budget guidelines that we put out for departments and agencies to use to prepare the budget.

And from June through July, departments were preparing the budget, and then in August and September, that's when those of us in the finance department and in the county administrator's office met with all of the departments to kind of talk through their budget, identify some areas where maybe some changes could be made, understand what the thoughts were behind their budget, and that's also when we're kind of doing the balancing, starting to do the balancing of the operating property tax funds, hence the the note of it being in green, the color being green.

Then we move into the document that many of you have before you, whether that's digitally or in person, and you know, the hard copy, which is the county administrator's recommended budget.

That's what's before us now, and this is where we are today for the next couple of days.

After that, you know, of course, we have the meetings today and tomorrow, and then there is the approval that is currently scheduled for the county board meeting on the 18th of November.

So what did we do in terms of the budget preparation process?

We were going along with the county board guidance, which is trying to have the budget and everything aligned with the strategic plan using the property tax levy guidance.

There are two scenarios.

What is included in the recommended budget document is half of the allowable CPI growth per the policies uh under the PTEL Act.

And then there are some discussions about alternate scenarios or things that could be done if the additional or some portion of the additional uh half that's allowable uh is actually considered by the board.

Um one of the things to note this year that's very important is this is the first year that in the budget document the compensation study increases that were approved back in, I think it was October of last year, are actually included in the department budgets, department agency budgets throughout the entire year.

If you all remember last year, we had those budgeted for the property tax departments in general operating expense or in contingency, because we weren't we were still learning what how much each department should get.

And so we have it there prepared to transfer to departments if needed as needed throughout the fiscal year.

So this budget actually includes those amounts.

It's kind of a fully loaded personnel labor cost budget for 24 in each of the departments' budgets.

Uh also part of the budget preparation process was a review of all of the positions where we kind of sat and talked with departments, where we look for and to be in consistent with the uh county board policies, identifying those positions that appear to have been vacant for the 12 months, identifying those, talking with departments about those, understanding if they really had been vacant, if there had been some effort to recruit, and we made adjustments accordingly based on those conversations and evidence that we had of that recruitment.

It was also the process where we talked about new program requests, and we did something different this year.

You see, I've got the note about the collaborative peer review.

I'll talk about that more on the next slide.

But it was something very different that uh our county administrator kind of had all the departments go through.

As part of the review of the budgets, we did the revenue analysis, understanding what people projected, what was rolled into those projections, trying to understand if that seemed reasonable, see if there were some opportunities for adjustments, just kind of kind of a review of that.

And then one of the other things I think we want to note is the policies talk about having the operating budget capital contribution, that is the transfer we do from the general fund to the capital fund.

It has to the very least cover the facilities maintenance requests from facilities and other departments, and it does that in then some.

It's it actually covers that in almost all of the other things that are recommended in CIP.

So we'll get there when we get to those pages, but I wanted to note that because that's a that's a good thing.

Uh, next slide is the new program request process.

And I'll ask the county administrator to jump in if she feels I don't do this justice.

Um departments created PowerPoint presentations for each new program request.

They were submitted to county administration.

Uh, and what we had was a day-long session just like this, except it was all uh department heads of their representatives, and they came and they presented to each other what their new program requests were.

It was an opportunity for them to do a I think it was a five to 10 minute presentation, uh QA feedback with other department heads and uh managers and leaders in departments, and then they all kind of voted or rated what they thought should be considered by the county administrator.

Now the final decision rests with the county administrator, and that's what's recommended in the budget.

But I think what uh she was going for was an opportunity for everybody to see what others were interested in, understand each other's needs better, and I think to create a culture of we're kind of all in this together, and we have to prioritize based on one of the limited resources that we have between tax dollars, special revenue funds, et cetera.

So the recommendations that came out of that kind of fall into one of four categories.

One is it's funded and included in the recommended budget in the you know, one half of the allowable.

The second is it's recommended for funding in scenario two.

Should the board decide to do any or all of the full allowable property tax.

The third is something to be considered in second quarter of fiscal year 26, and then finally, some just weren't recommended at all.

So that was kind of a major step during that process that was different for us this year.

And we did that kind of as the before we got into the conversations about how much are you requesting, how are your revenues looking.

So we tried something different this year.

I'll look at the county administrator.

Is there anything more you wanted to add to that?

All right, I will move on.

Um next slide speaks to, and we go through this every year, but I we think it's worth repeating.

The county board is approving the budgets at the category level.

So as you can see in the slide there, you see, particularly under uh revenue, you've got personnel, commodities, benefits, contractuals.

There are many different personnel line items, whether it's regular salaries, part-time salaries, excuse me, overtime or what have you.

All of those, but the budget level approval is where those all roll up, which is in this case, it's at the A5X personnel.

Same thing for office supplies, operational supplies that may fall under commodities and so on for benefits and contractuals.

So the actual approval authority rests at that level, and it's not necessarily 150 dollars for this line item or 200,000 for that line item.

It's how it all rolls up because that's where we manage budget control.

One other thing I'll mention, I was going to mention this later, but I know it kind of can throw people off.

If you see the A there in front of all of the account numbers, it's just literally the shorthand for account.

And we have that there because our system by defaults and default includes that in the reports.

But so it's just it's just shorthand.

So we'll often throw out account numbers and we won't say A, so I'll apologize for you that for that ahead of time right now, but it's really just account and it speaks to the account class.

So I'll move on.

And so, how did we do the revenue budget?

Uh the finance department entered the property tax amounts for all departments.

It's consistent with the annual estimate that was approved by the FA committee uh last month as required by state statute.

The final distribution will be determined after we complete the budget meetings, and we're preparing the final budget that comes before the full board in uh November.

Uh and there's a separate property tax ordinance.

Some of you may remember this or maybe have looked back and been refreshed.

Uh, that's considered by the FNA committee at the November committee meeting.

So there's like an ordinance for each of the property tax uh funds that we're dealing with, and those are approved by FNA, and they also go to the full board.

Um, interest income, that's one we always kind of like to look at because that depends on what market conditions are.

Have rates gone up, have rates gone down, you know, do we have investments coming to maturity?

Those are determined by the treasurer's office, and to some degree, recommendations are also provided by the finance department.

So between the the treasurer's office and finance, we enter those numbers as well.

For all other revenues that are out there, uh nonproperty tax amounts, you know, your fee, your intergovernmental revenue, charges for services for services provided.

We see this a lot in many departments, such as the health department and miscellaneous revenue that can be copy charges and miscellaneous fees that miscellaneous revenues that are collected for, I'll call them one offer, you know, inconsistent activities.

Those are all budgeted by the departments in the budgets.

So on the expense side, uh, we broke this into two categories.

There's what the department does, and then there is what uh kind of what they did as part of the process.

The department's entry dealt primarily with non-labour expenses, commodities.

When I was referencing office supplies, office equipment, contractuals, that could be consultants, that could be trips and training, that could be certain other kinds of services, uh professional services, and capital expenditures within the targets that were provided by the county administrator's office and finance.

And I will uh mention that just as we have done for the last few years, uh, between the county administrators' office and finance, each department has been given targets, those that are in the property tax funds to say, okay, we're looking at, for example, the last few years of actuals, and we're looking at what you're requesting, and we're looking at what we think you can get used to, you know, successfully provide the services that are required here, and this is the target that was set.

And so when a department came back to us and said we can meet the target, it was great.

If we can't meet the target, we had a conversation about that to try to understand what was changing, what was different from what we'd seen in the last few years of actuals.

Um departments also entered labor expenses, so that's the overtime.

Uh those that's special pay.

Uh sorry that that's in there twice.

My apologies.

Judges of election is entered by the county clerk's office.

They enter those pieces.

Most of the rest of the labor expenses, the finance department does, but there are few like those which the departments actually do.

In addition to that level of budget entry, departments also review the position inventory.

I mentioned the conversations that we have with them uh earlier, where we're going through and talking about positions, talking about vacancies and all of that.

They kind of confirm we in finance prepare the position inventory, give it to the department to review and to make sure that it's consistent in with what HR has on file and with what they understand the case should be.

And if there are differences, we talk about that and finalize that for the upcoming fiscal year budget request.

Uh departments, as we mentioned earlier, also submitted NPRs for you know any new or any expansion of current programming or adding additional personnel.

And then for those that have the performance metrics, all of that's included there.

They provide that information to us to populate the charts that you see on those pages in the budget book.

Moving on, um, and I know I may be just kind of going through it.

If you have any questions, please stop me.

So getting to labor costs, what we did with that, yes, sir.

I'm sorry, yes.

I'm sorry, you opened that door.

I've been sitting on my hand.

Um, but it is related to the new program requests and um to the the previous slide that you had about um uh expense budgeting.

Oh yeah, those and you had talked about that process that was used.

Yes.

Um, which sounded great.

What I was wondering is so if a department had a new project they wanted, a new program.

Could they just say, hey, we don't want to keep this old program and keep our budget flat by getting rid of this and adding this instead.

So I don't know where that question goes.

I I think we tried to look at those on a case-by-case basis and try to see what the financial impact was to see if that was a because in some cases we could be talking about it's a you know, even exchange.

Right.

All right.

In other cases, it could be where it's more, or other cases it could be less.

So I I won't get too far out ahead.

I see the county administrators reaching for her microphone, but I think that's generally what we did on a case-by-case basis and look at them that way.

If I may, yeah, if they're able to absorb the change, um it's not new or expanded.

If they can do it within their target, then there was no need to do a new program request.

So if they decided, hey, this program isn't working, we don't want to spend our money on this, that is something they could have done.

They could prioritize.

Here's what we're doing, here's what we want.

Maybe some of those things should drop off and other things should rise to the top.

Correct.

They could do that internally without any process.

Yes.

As long as it wasn't something statutorily required that we had to do.

Exactly.

Thank you.

All right.

I'll go back.

So getting to how we budgeted the labor costs.

These things are budgeted through kind of a systematic process that we use.

And I mentioned earlier the exceptions that departments enter, such as uh overtime, holiday pay, special pay, judges of election.

Um, we we basically kind of look at what the position inventory is.

We know what the benefit costs are going to be, and we calculate those costs out to prepare the budget that we present to the departments to say, is this position inventory?

You know, this is what the position inventory is.

Make sure we're on the same page about that, and we kind of enter the costs that are there for the position.

So in just about every case, uh, we in finance did that, or we work very closely with the department while they did.

Um moving to vacation sick payouts, this is something we've done for years.

We don't budget vacation sick payouts for employees who depart.

We uh anticipate that being covered by the existing budget that the department has.

Vacancy savings, which is where we kind of budget a negative offset to account for the fact that most departments are not 100% staffed throughout the entire fiscal year.

We do those calculations by finance and we tweak those each year.

Uh this year is a little bit different where we budgeted a little bit lower than what we did back in fiscal year 25 because we're starting to see some hiring uh kind of stabilized and employee retention stabilize in recent years.

We're coming out of the pandemic, things are kind of changing.

Uh so we the rates aren't as high as we use in 25 and in some cases in previous years before that.

Uh and the way we calculate that, you can't physically see it in the budget document that's before you, but it's netted out of your regular salaries and wages, five that the count number I've noted there, and the benefits line items that includes uh FICA, uh IMRF and HLD or health life and dental insurance.

So we do have vacancy savings baked into the budget into the department budgets.

With the salary and wage increase, the recommended budget includes a 3% as a lump sum for non-union employees, uh, and department heads have the ability to distribute distribute based upon merit.

Some may recall that during the uh discussions with the compensation study, there was a recommendation to kind of move the table at some degree every year uh so that we don't end up in the same situation that we're trying to rectify.

So the I think this was just approved by the county board last week.

There's a going to be one point in the policies, there's a change so that it represents a 1.75% increase to salary and wage table, and individual employees can receive between 1.75% and 4% as long as a department does not exceed the lump sum amount.

So to give an example, because I think this is the way I would need to hear it, so I'd understand it.

If your total amount uh for wages is I'm making up a number is $50,000, you can give your employees anywhere between that one and three quarter percent and that 4%, but you can't exceed that $50,000.

Uh the one of the ways that that can kind of work is uh as we talk about in the next bullet, and the increase for non-union employees can be distributed based on a merit basis.

But if you've been with the county for less than six months, the current HR policy say that you're only eligible for kind of the cost of living adjustment, which is that 1.75% increase.

So there is in theory some savings there.

Um so but the idea is we're going to move the salary and wage table up, which is good, so that we try to stay at pace with market.

And then on top of that, we're giving the parameters for what department heads, department agency heads can give to their employees as a wage increase.

Um we also, in terms of what's budgeted here, factored in the collective bargaining unit compensation schedules, you know, based on those contracts.

So those are all included here as well.

So I'll look around.

No questions.

I'll move on.

Uh so what are our benefit numbers for this year, the percentages?

IMRF went down slightly from 6.05 to 6.02%.

The SLEP pension for the sheriff's office went down a bit from the 22.91 to 21.6.

That was great, although those decreases weren't huge.

They helped to offset.

We had an increase in health insurance.

The blended average increase, as we've calculated it is 7.4% between the county's HMO and PPO plan.

So it helped that increase and not be as challenging to absorb as it could have been.

And where does our money come from?

It comes you know, our revenues total 655 million.

That's up about three and a half, not quite 3.6% from FY25, little less than a third.

It's property taxes.

Uh, we have other taxes that that compare.

Uh intergovernmental revenues that can be money that we get from the state, can be money that we get from the feds, uh, charges for service, that's 14%.

Charges for services can be things like um, I'm thinking of as an example, the health department may provide certain types of services.

There may be services that are provided by some of our departments to other uh to two people as a kind of a fee for service.

That's all included in there.

Transfers, that's where we're moving dollars around.

Sometimes those are from external places, that's 10%.

And then that miscellaneous bucket that is basically for everything else, that's all in there.

There are a couple of small pieces for licenses and permits, licensing and permitting revenue and fines of forfeitures are very, very, very small.

So it's zero point something percent.

Now, knowing where it comes from, where does the money go?

Uh as we see personnel benefits for all funds is about 42%.

When you add the um when we look at debt service, that's about four percent capital, it's about 17% in services and contracts.

That's you know, that comes back to consultants, that comes back to trips and training, that comes back to any anything where we're not buying stuff, but we're paying for a service.

That can be software and online subscriptions for some of our computer applications that we host that we have that are hosted remotely.

All of those things fall in services and contracts and commodities, the way I like to simply put it is it's simply the stuff that we buy.

So that's that's about two percent of the overall budget.

So in the budget book, I apologize.

This is probably not as large as I would like it to be, but uh essentially the things we kind of wanted to draw out here were you're going to see in the department, you're gonna see in the far right, you're gonna see a couple of columns there.

Department request budget and county administrator budget.

What the differences are there is the department request budget may not perfectly represent, but largely represents what the department has submitted.

And then the last column, county administrator, represents the changes that were made as a result of conversations with the county administrator.

I just note that the department request budget may not match exactly because as we were having conversations, there were some cases where after dialogue, the department said it's okay to put that in my column.

It's okay to make that adjustment here.

So it may not be an exact copy, but it largely represents what the department submitted, and then the adjustments that were made are on the other side in the county administrator column.

Just as uh we noted earlier with the uh class budget.

So we see there when you get about halfway down, it says A5X, and remember A is for account personnel, and we see all see all those accounts there.

The level at which you're approving the budget is at that A5X personnel level or going down a little further, the A6X commodities level.

So essentially that's the account class level that we're talking about.

So I just wanted to remind everyone of that because I know uh people don't live with it every day like a lot of us in finance do, and uh it just is a helpful reminder.

So moving on uh to the alternate balancing scenario, uh taking the full allowable property tax growth of the 2.9% results in additional 2.6, almost 2.7 million.

So the recommendations that the county administrators put forward are some additional new program requests.

There are seven, and they are identified on the new program request page in the budget book.

I don't remember the page number, I'm sorry.

Uh, and then putting some additional dollars in contingency.

And then finally, I think that's it.

Opening the floor for questions.

Thank you.

Not a question, just a comment.

Um, first, that was Michael, that was a really excellent overview.

Thank you.

It was uh really easy to follow and understand.

Um, I just want to commend um uh county administrator and CFO and your team for having that idea to bring in all of the departments together to really hear about all of those new program requests.

I think that's so important.

We all have to think holistically, there's only so much money, and I think having um people hear all of the different ideas and then you know, giving some feedback, not a not a decision, but some feedback um to the county administrator on what they felt was a really important thing.

I I just think that's uh a tremendous ad.

Um, so thank you for that.

And I also just have to give um kudos to uh County Administrator Sutton when she was CFO.

Um, you know, this was several years ago.

Uh, she had said, you know what, instead of um budgeting for these positions that we likely will not fill, and then we end up with a huge sweep at the end that would uh fund capital.

Uh why don't we just recognize that there are vacancies in there and that you're rarely at 100%?

And um essentially I would say right sizing that budget and then setting money aside for capital.

So I think your capital slide was very, very important.

I'm really happy to see that.

Um, so I I just wanted to point out those things.

I think it makes a really big difference in how we've been budgeting over the last um seven years.

So thank you.

Well said, thank you, Chair.

I don't see any other questions.

We can proceed with the agenda items.

Chair Parry.

Thank you.

We'll now move to um items within the HCS committee.

So item the first item we'll have is 8.81, which is a joint committee action approving the recommended fiscal year 2026 budget for the workforce development department.

Can I have a motion?

Motion by Vice Chair Altenburg, second by Vice Chair Cunningham.

And uh finance committee motion by member Clark, second by member Hewitt.

I'm sorry.

Go ahead.

Yeah, we previously had had those on the agenda.

We don't have them on here today.

Nick is providing he's going to do the baby.

Okay.

Thank you, Mike.

Thank you for pointing that out.

Maybe we could have.

Because I went through tomorrow.

It is hard possible.

We could get those reprinted for tomorrow.

Okay.

Yeah.

Okay.

Thank you.

Great.

Thank you.

Okay.

Good morning, everyone.

My name is Nick Principale.

I'll just be providing a brief introduction for the departments.

Um for the workforce development budget.

This is found on page 296.

And the FY2026 recommended budget for workforce development totals 8,985,501.

The increase that you guys are likely noticing here is really just a change in methodology and how the department's budgeting.

Previously, we had uh shifted the methodology to appropriate doing an emergency appropriation during the year.

Um for consistency and continuity in operations.

We've decided to switch back to budgeting, uh, including the we OA funds as part of their annual budget.

Um smaller one-time grants will continue to be appropriated as they're awarded throughout the year.

This level of funding will allow workforce to continue conducting job seekers with employment opportunities, supporting local employers, and coordinating programs that strengthen the county's workforce.

And I will hand it over to Jennifer.

Good morning, Jennifer Sereno, Director of Workforce Development.

And I'd like to introduce Patrick Nelson, our business and finance manager.

Patrick joined our team this time last year under the Skill Bridge internship program, and then was hired on as our manager.

Um, an overview of the budget you're looking at.

Um, not only is the increase due to a change in methodology, but we did receive an increase to our base funding, 24% increase to our base funding.

It's a formula grant through the U.S.

Department of Labor.

That increase is due to the state of Illinois received an increase in their funding, which then translated to us receiving an increase.

It's also that bitter sweet with formula funding because that means our unemployment rate was trending higher than the um average unemployment rate in the nation.

Um, with the additional funding, it's allowing our department to move forward with some innovative ways to connect both job seeker readiness and employer engagement into a cohesive talent strategy.

Um, you talked about jobs here and how there's some retention.

That's all what we're experiencing in the labor force.

Um, Lake County unemployment rate in August was 4.6, a little bit higher than it had been in the previous month.

So we're hovering at a very low rate, around 4% in Lake County.

Our labor force participation is just over 66%, which then causes it to be a more competitive labor market.

Um, and so hiring it companies that are looking to hire are really finding themselves in positions where hiring they're needing to do additional training, additional onboarding, looking at some of the underrepresented populations and addressing some of those life events, child care, transportation, flexible work hours, even length of commute time to the job.

That's where workforce development comes in.

And that's what some of our strategies, all of our strategies address.

But this year in particular, we're using different strategies to address that so that what we're doing is establishing practices that are attainable and within reach, even if there is a reduction in some federal funding going forward.

Um paying attention to our budget.

I just want to point out a couple of line items because it's imperative in the way that we do our budgeting and what's presented here today.

Um, if you look at some of the uh accounts, um temp wages, that's our summer youth employment wages.

Computer supplies, those are participant laptops, 91,000 for participant laptops, miscellaneous commodities, participant assistance.

That's financial assistance for rent, um, transportation, not transportation, rent, auto repair, some child care assistance, transportation, account 72610 is participant transportation to help them get to and from employment as well as training.

Um tuition 72680 is our participant tuition.

That's where we pay for training and tuition while they're gaining skills and occupational vocational training.

That's over $2 million.

Other miscellaneous 79950, those are our employer training grants for on-the-job training, incumbent worker training, just over a million dollars.

Contract other 72870, those are paid internships.

Those are the wages for individuals through onboarding through an internship or learning new skills in a new type of job, over a million dollars.

And then temporary employment, 7280.

Those are community workers.

Those are individuals that have lived experience that are helping us expand job center on the move through community organizations out there.

In total, 56%, $5 million of our budget is going directly to participants, wages, tuition, or financial assistance to help them stay in employment or stay in training.

Calling your attention to our Skillbridge program.

You funded last year a coordinator.

We did hire a coordinator this past year.

We promoted an internal candidate, Cliff Smith to that role.

He is a veteran as well.

And also with the work of Patrick, who now oversees the Skillbridge program with Cliff and the work of Carl Carrar, who knows all the departments in the county.

We have expanded that Skillbridge program.

We've had four additional interns in this past year.

We have a total of three hires in the county.

We have a total of 12 interns for the entire program.

11 have completed.

The 12th one is finishing up their internship at the Veterans Assistance Commission at the end of this month.

We've added the Veterans Assistance Commission.

We've added the Sheriff's Department to the Skilled Bridge program.

And we have seven interns scheduled to start in 2026 in various departments.

And then lastly, paying attention to our summer youth program, 172 youth were enrolled in the program this past summer.

We had over a thousand applications.

It's about a one-to-one ratio for everyone that we interviewed.

One gets enrolled in the program.

Serving 13 communities, serving 30 work sites.

We brought on five new work sites, including Highwood Library and the Hope Center.

And we do work with five county departments, clerk's office, treasurer's office, communications, the circuit courts, and public works.

Again, seeing the majority of the youth from the Waukegan, Zion, and North Chicago area to get them placed in their first job.

And the majority are 14 and 15-year-old.

That wraps up our summary of our budget and knowing that again, 5 million going directly to our participant training so that they're successful in employment.

Thank you.

Questions from HCS Committee?

Member open.

Good morning.

Yeah, first of all, I want to say, you know, we've been so pleased with the workforce development program.

You're expanding every year.

It's been really incredible to see how the county is involved as well and with all our departments.

Do you have contingency plans or prioritization for certain things in your department based on, I mean, what percentage of your budget is federally funded?

82%.

82%.

So I just wanted you to talk about that a little bit.

So we're fortunate.

All of the federal grants we have have been awarded.

And Department of Labor has been dispersing funds, and there's not an extra delay in the disbursement of funds.

So we have access to our funds, and the grant that is in this budget, the $8.5 million is included in that.

And building out contingency plan, it has a lot to do with working with our partners throughout the community throughout Lake County and looking at aspects that will be needed beyond we owe a beyond federal funding.

It's that access to services, so job center on the move, and it's that connection to employers for hiring and making more decisions around who to hire so that you're able to look for a greater pool of candidates.

So it's working with our partners, including the College of Lake County, ROE, the high schools, community-based organizations, and then again, we have a very robust business outreach team that is leaning into employers to help make those decisions.

Okay.

And like right now, so you've got all these grants in place.

Like, do you have a timeline like of how do you have grants for sure until June?

Do you have you know do you could you talk about that?

Um, so our grant, the grant, our base funding is a two-year grant.

Okay.

Um, so this grant goes until 2027, June of 2027.

Um, we do have one year grants that's expired June 2026.

And then our CEJA, which is our state funding.

Um, we're in the second year of a three-year grant cycle.

Okay.

So it's all staggered, but yeah, but we do have funding through this grant through 2027.

And we've done some strategies, um, different business practices, and we'll be bringing them to committee in the near future, where we're contracting out and obligating funds so that we're extending those programs through 2027 and not doing transactions only.

Okay, terrific.

Now you've just made me feel a little bit better.

And I'm glad you're thinking that way, because I think we're all trying to think that way, you know, just to make sure we don't have some catastrophic thing happen all of a sudden because we're just unsure of the future.

All right, thank you so much.

Thank you.

Qu question from uh member Cunningham.

Uh I just want to thank Jennifer and her group.

I serves on Wickfors Board for saying.

Thank God my child for pointing me there.

Because I serve on the Wickfors board with the National Associate Counties.

And throughout the years, this workforce board have made the county look very, very good because what you doing.

See, don't nobody know what workforce does, you know.

Uh if you're not on it, because I didn't know they did all that.

If you're not on that board, and uh they just the programs that they come up with, they you know they that that they get uh it just tremendous and and uh it's no ways money.

That's for sure, it's no ways money because it put it where and it helped the younger people just helped the youth.

That's my thing, the youth, the program that we get every year, some of the youth program, and they all go to work because most of them is saying appearance, children that get those jobs 14 and and and uh over, but uh we should be proud, uh workforce of what they doing for our county here.

Jennifer came through and just and just uh it just uh uh it just uh then we have training.

See, that's the thing.

She has she have a little bit of everything, you know.

And um, we never had that before.

We never had that before.

I seen it been here 23 years, and I've never seen what I see now.

But I see now that what you're doing, and so that's why I always support it because it's worth what I have no question.

I have nothing to question about because I see it firsthand, for saying all I want to do is support it.

Thank you.

Okay.

Seeing no other comments or questions from HCS.

We'll move over to finance.

Yeah, I have one quick question, which is on reporting and performance outcomes for the grants.

I'm assuming all the federal grants have some sort of reporting that are required.

Is that the same for Skillbridge funding?

Are we demonstrating number of uh recruitments attempted, number of placements, number of hires, things like that?

I mean, I know that we benefit as an organization for the uh people that we're able to attract to to the county, but um, as a funder, I'm certain that the federal government is looking for the outcomes for for the funding of the program generally.

Is that part of that funding as well?

We don't have to report back to Department of Defense on the outcomes.

Um, but we do work closely with the Department of Defense and ensuring that our information is pushed out there.

We've had over 60 individuals inquire about this program since its lifetime.

Um, so we do have that relationship with the naval base so that this information's pushed out.

We do keep internal metrics for Skillbridge to continue to increase the numbers, and we also do share with our colleagues throughout the country how they could integrate a Skill Bridge program in their county.

Great.

Thank you for that.

I think it's important that we keep that data because if they're not asking for it now, they may at some point.

So appreciate it.

Uh, any other questions from finance committee members seeing none?

I'm gonna take action on that one.

Yes, we'll take action on this item.

So uh for item 8.81.

All those in favor say aye.

Aye.

Any opposed?

Motion passed from HCS.

Um, and just to be clear, I think we had a motion to approve from member Clark and a second from Member Hewitt.

Just wanted to confirm on this one.

Yes.

Okay.

Any other questions?

All in favor, please say aye.

Aye.

Any opposed?

Finance approves eight.

H1.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

We'll now move on to item 8.H2, which is a joint committee action approving the recommended fiscal year 2026 budget for community development, which this part will be the HUD grants with the Director Eric Wagner and Dominic Streso.

Welcome, gentlemen.

This budget can be found on page 2018.

The FY2026 recommended budget for the community development fund totals $1,161,405, which is an increase of 8% from the FY25 budget.

This allows the department to leverage more than three and a half million dollars in direct community support through housing infrastructure and neighborhood investment projects.

Overall, this is a stable budget that maintains the department's capacity to deliver critical community programs and continues to maximize the impact of available federal and local dollars.

And with that, I'll hand it over to Dominic.

Good morning, Eric Wagner, Planning Building and Development Director.

This morning joined with Dominic Strezo, community development administrator.

Before Dominic begins his remarks this morning, I'd like to thank him and the staff of community development for their continued vital service to the Lake County community.

Every day, the CD team partners with social service agencies, identifies solutions to some of the most pressing challenges for residents, like housing, food, and access to supportive services and administers funding to accomplish the same.

This year marks a few notable highlights for community development.

First, CD is make has taken major strides with planning building and development and county administrator's office and advancing the regional conversation about affordable housing through the Lake County Housing Coalition's launch earlier this summer, and those meetings continue.

They've also partnered with PADS to facilitate the gradual transition from the current motel uh model uh towards fixed site shelter solutions, beginning with the family shelter on Lewis Avenue in Waukegan.

They've worked with county administrators' office to smoothly integrate the opioid settlement funds into the annual HCDC uh application round process and so doing.

They've reorganized the HCDC's application review committee structure.

And they've recently celebrated the successful close out of their locally managed emergency rental assistance or ER rate program, which is the largest scale rental assistance program using one-time funds in the history of Lake County.

These are only a few of the major accomplishments that Dominic and his team have posted up this year, and we anticipate more successes in fiscal year 26.

And with that, Dominic will begin.

Thanks, Eric.

Um, just sorry, really quickly, Dominic.

I think I've I've neglected to get a motion and a second on the for this item.

So motion by Member Altonbrook, second by member Kasman.

Thank you.

FNA motion by Member Clark, second by member Belichick.

Great.

We have been had some success in expanding the number of units in our housing pipeline.

A lot of that has been due to the allocation of one-time funds for the ARPA dollars allocated by this board.

We have projects in all phases.

We have projects in the leasing phase right now.

We have multiple projects under construction, and we're working through closing on the financial due diligence for a project that was recently awarded tax credits earlier this year.

Um all that being said, the total number of units in our pipeline is in the hundreds.

We know from the report's been done, the need is in the thousands.

So we do have a lot of eggs in the housing lake basket to really kind of change the framework from which we talk about the production of housing supply.

But until that happens, um community development will still stay focused on other opportunities, try me creative to bring additional resources into the community.

Um Eric mentioned the pad shelter.

We were successful in uh procuring two million dollars from the state of Illinois to help support that.

Um additionally, we have to be thoughtful and creative in how we spend and invest the five million dollars in our FY26 budget.

Um, those funds really do represent the vast majority of them are our entitlement programs, home, C DBG, and ESG.

The way we operationalize that money is through our annual application round.

That process has already begun.

Um, we do really feel that that round application round is time tested, and it's a fair and impactful way to pass through those dollars into the community for their intended purpose.

So that is really what that five million dollars represents in our FY26 budget.

The numbers we use were based on last year's.

Obviously, there is no FY26 budget at the federal level.

So we as we've done in every previous year, we used last year's numbers to project out into the next year.

And that's that's really it for our for our budget presentation.

Yeah.

Thank you.

Um questions from the committee.

Um, I have a question.

Well, go member uh Cunningham and then member all okay.

Sorry.

I didn't I don't have a question, I have a comment to the community development.

Uh to Eric and Dominique and the his staff.

What a great job they are done.

Uh what a great job they are done by allocating these funds to and they are fair by doing this, and they very well for those that don't know.

I serves on community development uh myself and and uh Mama Altonburg and I sees what they do, and I help make these decisions that the funds and hey, they really dominique you're doing a great, great job.

I mean, I don't see no different in it.

I don't see no different in it in communal development because I've been on it ever since I've been here.

So I don't see no different in it because uh you uh uh people's person, you know how to deal with your uh agency that put in you uh uh uh hey you just you just great and Eric, thank you for all your God and I know you you just you just does a wonderful job.

As I have work with you, both of you.

I have work with you, I have talked with you.

So uh it's it's not easy on that committee because you know, it's to me it's easy, but those that come in, and I know a lot of commissioners get called, you know, about they won't list for the agency, but Dominic does a great job uh accommodating him if they're eligible.

You got to be eligible.

If they we just don't give out money for just giving out money, county don't do it that way.

And that's what I tell constituent they call me.

We just don't hand out money.

You got to you got to earn it and you got to have the uh you got to have it the points.

I said we don't do it that way.

Well, some people think you just go hand it, but we don't county don't do it that way.

We do legal stuff, we don't do illegal stuff.

So uh and uh so we we we you're done a great job, and I don't see no different in it.

You're moving right along, and I support it, always gonna support it because you're helping someone.

Okay, I'm finished.

Okay, question from member Altonberg.

Yeah, first of all, I just want to compliment your department.

Um we are so proud of the housing Lake County program.

Um I think it's been an incredible launch, and I'm hoping we're gonna develop some amazing partners throughout the county this year.

And you guys have put a lot of a lot of work into that.

So I really hope it pays off.

Um I wanted to find out what percentage of your budget is federal.

This one's probably well over the budget you see here, it probably well over 99% of that is the federal funding through HUD.

Yeah, almost entirely HUD grants.

Yeah, that's what I thought.

Okay.

I just wanted to hear it.

Um do we have concerns or certainly um we're paying attention uh like everyone else.

If there was no HUD dollars to come through in the budget, there would be no application round.

That's I mean, that's the simplest answer.

There's been conversation.

We've been here before.

Um, CDBG has been continuously funded since its implementation.

Um, these programs have been funded for decades now.

Um, so I'm confident the funding will come through.

The concerns that we're hearing right now are more around implementation and maybe changing some of the rules and the policies around the HUD grants, not necessarily the budgetary themselves.

I think uh there is in general bipartisan support for these programs for the most part.

Um, but we will watch um just for reference.

We didn't have our final HUD dollars amounts for program year 2025 until March of last year.

So even though things are looking a little grim now, we're not that far from behind schedule from where we normally are.

So you probably won't find out about 2026 summit, I'm assuming until like March or April.

Um, your guess is uh yeah, I mean, I I don't suspect we'll hear before Thanksgiving, maybe around before the end of the calendar year, but even if it was, I mean, like I said, I mentioned we weren't until March last year, and we still were able to, I mean, we're a little bit behind schedule.

We were able to get the funding out in time.

Okay.

Okay.

Um, any other concerns um that you want to mention in terms of you know, your programs or how you know the flow of everything.

Strictly in terms of the entitlement programs, not a ton.

The the impacts again are around our partners.

Um, I think the stuff we're hearing around with the CLA County COC and the housing authority, I think they're getting impacted more around the implementation in their programs more than the C DBG Home and ESG.

Obviously, they're close partners of ours, so what impacts them impacts us.

Um, but just strictly from a budgetary purpose, um, just waiting for the numbers, I think.

Okay.

All right.

Then again, thank you.

Uh you guys, you make it look seamless.

This your department works so hard on all of the different areas that are critical.

Housing, food, you know, things that are vital to people.

So we want to definitely keep an eye on everything and make sure that uh humans are the priority in the coming year.

That's you know, I worry about that a lot.

So thank you.

Seeing any more questions from the committee.

Just also, um, I've been warned about our clock already.

So we are um requesting if um clearly we want to hear from all members, but if you have a specific question of the line item within the budget or itself, please um ask those.

We do need to keep this moving along.

If you have just comments about the the how well it's been done, I think we're we're very thankful for for the committee uh for or sorry for the staff and for Michael and others to put this together so we can kind of put that to a side and focus on the committee questions as or the budget questions as we do need to move this along a little bit.

So I'll move over to finance.

Thanks, Chair, and Mr.

Sun.

I just wanted to um point out this is not directly in Dominic's budget, but the affordable housing program is funded at the same level as last year at $600,000.

Um, just wanted to make sure that you were aware that there was a new program request in fiscal year 25, increasing that from 300 to 600.

And we made the assumption that that would continue.

So what you see in his budget is $60,000 worth of administrative revenue because they'll be running that program.

Um, but while Dominic was still sitting here, even though this is in GOE and you'll approve it later.

Um, I just wanted to bring that forward in case anyone had any questions for Dominic about the county funded affordable housing program.

I think you touched on this already, but just for clarity for those who are looking at the budget summary page, the significant modification for FY25, and it was significant, was largely a pass-through grant that we use to support investments in infrastructure through our nonprofit partners, correct?

Modified versus the 24 million for for 20 for the 25 budget.

That represents kind of the the backlog of funding we have from prior program years, same uses, same eligible um just projects that haven't spent.

So our prior year CDBG home and ESG that through the carryover process.

I think that's where that the big jump into the 24 million dollar comes from.

Okay, great.

Questions from finance members.

Seeing none.

All right.

We need to vote on this.

So all those in favor for item 8.4H2.

All in favor say aye.

Aye.

Any opposed?

Motion passes HCS.

Uh eight.

All in favor, please say aye.

Any opposed, eight.

Thank you.

We'll now move to eight point H3, which is the joint committee action approving the recommended fiscal year but 2026 budget for video gaming.

All those uh can I have a motion?

Motion by Kasman, second by member can finance motion by Bolitic, second by Maine.

This budget can be found on page 290.

The FY 2026 recommended budget for the video gaming revenue fund totals 1.2 million, an increase of 100,000 or 9% from FY2025.

The change reflects higher projected video gaming revenues just based on recent collection trends.

In accordance with the county policy, the first 825,000 of annual revenue is retained in this fund, and anything additional to that above that is allocated to the general fund.

Um this is a status quo budget that continues to support 211 information services and community awareness initiatives focused on gambling disorder prevention and treatment consistent with the county's video gaming revenue policy.

Um you'll also notice there was an amendment that was just passed out.

Um with the recent policy update uh increasing the gaming revenue that sits in this fund from 800,000 to 825,000.

That was not captured here in this budget.

You'll notice that account 79935 still reflects the 800,000 amount.

So we're just looking to make an amendment here.

So just to clarify, the handout that we've just been given is a proposed amendment of $25,000 in addition to the video gaming revenue fund.

Correct, to be in accordance with the updated policy.

Great.

Thank you.

Dominic?

Or sure.

So this budget reflects the the video gaming revenue policy that was approved in September of this year.

That $25,000 increase uh directly will go to support 211 information um referral cost that is implemented through the United Way.

Uh we operationalize the $800,000, $825,000, similarly to the HUD grants.

We have our annual application round that entities nonprofits are able to apply for.

That application round is open.

Um for reference last year, we made 14 sub awards averaging around $55,000 uh per grantee.

And um this program's been around for a while now, and we can plan to continue the same way in program year 2026 as well.

So I do have one question.

Um Dominic, just so I'm I'm clear.

By ordinance, it's eight eight hundred and twenty-five thousand is what we are required to put from our the revenues that we collect.

The policy, the policy says eight hundred and twenty-five.

The first thing is requesting one point two budgeting one point two as like the projected revenue and the projected revenue, but but the the difference between the two can then be put into our operating funds.

I believe I believe that's how it works.

Okay.

There is a a port, sorry, there is a portion that we get for administrative within the policy as well.

That's 4047,500 that also comes to community development for program administration.

Sorry, I didn't see it on 292.

Um, member Cunningham's question.

Yeah.

I'm concerned.

Uh you said 25, this 25,000 will go to 211.

Did I hit it right?

Uh that's correct.

Okay.

No, I was in a I was in uh meeting while elected official was speaking, you know, the Senate the state wrote myself.

And now this 211.

I know we passed that because it started from Stingy Carson.

One brought it to this board, got it through.

But the state said they got it.

Nah, can somebody explain it to me?

Because they own an that they did it.

Uh uh 211.

One of the one of the Senate is you know, downstate.

They were speaking on it saying that they passed it, and uh, I was sort of confused then, because I remember when we went round and around on this 211, the Steve Carlson brought it here through with the United Way.

So who is the so there is they had to pass it to I'm confused on it because weight of people's thinking that that's the state did it, not the county.

Chair Hurt, did you want to go?

If I may, and listen, so um Lake County, I think was the first in the state of Illinois.

I know, and so we do that, and then I think the state is um filling in some of the statewide areas.

I don't know if it's as robust as our program.

I know Kevin Hunter sits on the United Way board.

Um, so maybe I think I think Fais Chair Cunningham is bringing up a good point.

Are there dollars that the state would be putting towards um 211 that we have traditionally taken out of our budget?

I don't know the answer to that, but I think that's a good point for us to look in.

Right, because they own an interesting uh uh I mean they they because I asked a question, I said, well, our county started this bank, I guess eight years ago when Steve Carson, because I remember when Steve Carson came to the board with it and you know presented it through the United Way.

And first I was literally about voting for it, and yeah, he said once he they explained, you know, broke it down to me.

Now I'm listening at the state saying that they brought 211 to Illinois.

So I'm trying to see, and then I'm saying here 25,000 going to 211.

Is that part of the state getting it?

I I'm just confused on this, how this is working, how this is gonna go that we don't own it.

The state is owning it, the 211.

So uh I don't know.

Okay, go ahead.

If I might yeah, please.

I I mean I can't give the exact numbers.

I don't know them off the top of my head, and I wasn't prepared for this.

You're right, it started in Lake County.

Out of the 102 counties right now in the state, there's all but two.

Uh so the state has to fund a lot of those other smaller counties that are out there.

I know that we still uh United Way Lake County is different than United Way of the state of Illinois.

So I don't know the breakdown of all of how that money comes in without sitting in front of me, but it is a partnership, Member Cunningham, between uh the various counties and the state.

But it's it's while it's heavily state funded now where it wasn't before because it started here.

Um it um it still relies on a lot of the money it had before in order to continue to do this.

And it is one in Illinois is one of the only states that's almost 100% 211 by all by every county for what it's worth.

Okay.

Good question.

Thank you.

Any other questions from the committee?

Uh we have a question for member Hunter, but we'll start over here with okay, member main go ahead.

Oh, yeah.

Over here.

Thank you.

Um, if I I was about the policy update, I I just need a reminder.

Was that um was that cap was that a dollar amount?

And was there room in subsequent years um matching CPI or anything like that?

Or it's a flat dollar amount that is in perpetuity until such time that it could be changed.

I'll defer to administrator if she recalls.

I think it was something we enacted in 24 for the 25 budget, and I think it was a a dollar amount that's in the policy, but of course we can adjust our policy.

But um, I also want to take the opportunity since you asked the question to point out we are as as uh Vice Chair Cunningham said, we are leaders in this space.

We are the only community in Lake County that's investing these revenue dollars in addiction services and support for people recovering.

So if I could finish since I had the floor, okay.

So um I was just gonna say I'm fine with this for now and at an outside time, not at this budget hearing.

Um we can talk about that because a change of policy is not appropriate right now.

That's just wanted to finish.

Yeah, that'd be that'd be for FA.

Uh, did I have that correctly, Administrator Sutton?

It's it's $800,000 in the policy plan.

It's now $825,000, which is why we had to do the amendments because unfortunately we created the budget documents when it was still $800, and we neglected to go back and update it.

So from this um funds perspective, all we're doing is utilizing $825,000 and reducing the transfer to the general fund by 25,000, such that only an estimated amount of 375,000 will be swept and um taken over to the general fund to clarify.

And the reason for that it is hard dollars.

Um the awards within the hard dollars are are flexible, but there was set asides for specific purposes, and one of those set asides was the software cost of the 211 system, which went up, which is why we came back to you and did that amendment to the the policy, but we can certainly bring it back again and and look at this again.

thousand will be swept and um taken over to the general fund to clarify and the reason for that it is hard dollars um the awards within the hard dollars are are flexible but there was set asides for specific purposes and one of those set asides was the software cost of the two one one system which went up which is why we came back to you and did that amendment to the the policy but we can certainly bring it back again and and look at this again any other questions from FA member hunter thanks chair um you had mentioned that you have the the grants you had 14 different grants that were subgrants do you have that listed who those were awarded to I don't I don't have a word but it is publicly available um and yes I I can provide that immediately after yep thank you seeing no further questions for the HCS committee all those in favor say aye aye aye any opposed motion passes FNA this is uh oh sorry yes we do we so we need to uh do this as an amendment correct we need to go ahead okay do that one yeah sorry so uh casman and who had made the motion that we approve the okay so we need to make a motion this amendment um a motion on the amendment to increase the funding by 2500 motion by vice chair cunningham by member casbin all those in favor say aye aye any opposed the amendment passes and then vote as amended and now as amended all those in favor say aye aye amending any opposed motion passes okay motion on the amendment by member velitic second by member clerk any other questions all in favor please say aye aye any opposed amendment is approved as amended any other questions all in favor please say aye aye any opposed eight dot h three is approved by finance thank you we'll now move on to item eight point h4 which is a joint committee action approving the recommended fiscal year 2026 budget for the opioid settlement fund welcome ashley watson motion by member cunningham second by member knees uh finance motion by member hewitt second by member peterson uh good morning ashley watson uh opioid coordinator for the county administrator's office hello so opioid will be found on page 254 all right I'll go ahead and pass it over to you for comments and questions so the um opioid settlement budget is pretty straightforward uh as you will see there's costs for the personnel and benefits which is the opioid coordinator position to oversee the grants as well as um the uh research and development of how to use this funding um as down by the contractuals is where you will see that there is some adjustments from the previous year um we are pretty um set with our um strategic planning that was produced by third horizon so there is no need for additional consulting fees at this time um there is a small amount allotted for uh software trips and training and a stipend for interviews with people with lived experience to have their input put into how we are spending these dollars and then the larger amount of the funding in the amount of 700,000 dollars is an increase of 200,000 from the previous year is our grant program.

We will be renewing our current grants for 5000 in the spring and then allotting uh an additional 200,000 for the fall for additional grants to uh exist in Lake County to help us to combat the opioid epidemic and that's that's really it it's pretty straightforward any questions I just said just a clarification so in 2024 we received the first kind of tranche of our funds actually it they've been coming since 2022.

2022 okay and so how much of that roughly do we have at this at this point our current budget is about uh we have in our bank account about four million and we expect nine a little over nine at this point is what we're expected um we do still not have any answer from the Purdue pharma settlement which is supposed to be fairly large and may put us up closer to 10 but for right now we're expecting 9.2 million through what year roughly so it was originally um predicted that we would get the funds through 2038 based on the agreements and the allotment we have been receiving a lot more funding quicker than that I suspect that by 2030 we should have the bulk of the funding if not all of the funding again with the exception of Purdue Pharma.

And we want to make sure that it's also um strategic insofar as we're spending enough money that it's making an impact, but also not running through the money kind of recklessly.

We want to make sure that we are investing in programs that are making a difference and that are evidence-based.

And so as of right now, we are planning to continue to spend at about 700,000 on grants annually over the course of the next you know several years.

We haven't able to outline this money for approximately 10 years at this rate.

Um and so yeah, it would take us just a little bit over 2030.

I would have just encouraged faster than then later, just given you know the situation and what you can do with the money.

So appreciate it.

Any questions from the committee?

None from HCS.

Any questions from Finance?

No.

All right.

Thank you so much.

All those in favor say aye.

Aye.

Any opposed?

Motion passes finance.

All in favor say aye.

Any opposed?

8.84 is approved.

Thank you, actually.

Thank you, Ashley, for the great job you're doing.

All right.

Well, welcome Dr.

Kerner for item 8.5, which is a joint committee of action approving the recommended fiscal year 2026 budget for the regional office of education.

Can I have a motion?

Motion by Vice Chair Cunningham, second by member Kenny.

Finance motion by Vice Chair Park, second by member Bletchick.

Welcome, Dr.

Kerner.

Uh good morning.

Uh thank you so much.

A few things I just wanted to start off with before I go right into the budget is really wanted to thank my staff for all their hard work.

Uh we continue to do amazing things that help support our county schools.

Um, we've made numerous improvements uh through our office, you know, on the financial side and some of our other procedures that have made uh leaps and bounds uh for our department and to help get more money back to schools.

Uh tomorrow, I think one of the the coolest things that you know it's gonna go on in Lake County is the Navigate Eight Lake Fair.

Um we have 6,000 students coming to the fairgrounds, over 140 plus businesses for career experiential learning.

So I highly encourage you to attend that if possible.

Um, other things that have really helped support our school districts this past year um has been our countywide uh referral GPS, you know, for mental health and care navigation.

And we've had over 23,000 individuals use that this past year and helped uh pay for uh uh over 1600 treatment sessions.

Um in my budget, you will notice uh this this year a lot of the the funding that comes forward is obviously for personnel uh for my department and a few minor things, and we have all the things with that we do every single year with the Health Life Safety visits.

You will notice an increase.

Uh, I think a success is you know, my office currently is in Vernon Hills, and you know, a few years back we did move everything into one location that was able to help me consolidate uh money, save money, and you know, ensure that every dollar that we utilize is maximized through my uh multiple budgets that I do have.

And we are you know getting the new facility that we will move into in January, which we'll actually host in a national conference next week for over 150 people.

So you will notice an increase in the uh the rent that the county does provide for this upcoming fiscal year.

Thank you, Dr.

Kerner.

Do we want to quickly go through?

Yeah, to just provide a brief uh overview.

Um, as Dr.

Carner mentioned, um really page number.

Yes, thank you.

Uh page 119.

Thanks for the reminder.

Um, as Dr.

Connor mentioned, the the increase that you're noticing is is primarily due to the building rental expense, as he mentioned.

Um, and then um personnel increases resulting from the compensation study.

Uh, but apart from this change, it is a stable budget, so I'll turn it back over to Dr.

Carner.

Um, this this budget is very helpful, and I'm very grateful for what you do provide us.

I've tried to continue to ensure that we are trying to find different ways to fund so we're not you know and impacting the county funds.

Uh you know, last year we did receive a 10 million dollar grant.

We applied for another 10 million dollar grant uh this past week, and we'll continue to find ways uh to help support our schools and not impact the county.

So I have a question.

Yes, member Altonberg.

Oh, so can you discuss um why you decided to move?

Uh more space.

Um we're going from about 18,000 square feet to 42,000 square feet.

And the the biggest other piece I'd say is turnkey and the ability to support more student programming.

And uh, I'd say a world-class facility fully furnished that's turnkey for the school and the functions of our office to serve the county.

Okay.

That's still in Vernon Hills.

Uh that's actually it's technically three miles east.

It'll be just on the east side of 94 and Conway Farms at the old uh Lake Forest Graduate School of Management.

Any any questions from the committee?

I guess they have a comment.

Yes, I'm kind of um Mike.

I just want to say to you, you're doing a great job for our schools.

I'm in the schools.

Just about twice a month being the principal reading to the kids in my district.

And um it just has been a big difference in it.

And the key is learning.

They uh really learning with the programs that you bring, you can brought in.

And you've done a wonderful, wonderful job for Lake County schools.

So I just want to thank you for that.

And I'm always taking books to my to my middle school kids.

And uh uh I have nothing but good stuff.

So keep it up.

Always support them.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Always impressed by how much you do with with so little.

So thank you, Dr.

Carner.

I don't think we have any more questions from the uh HCS, member Clark.

So for the um, yeah, um uh for the building rental.

So is I still you know, so the increase is for because is rent the rent is a lot more at the new place.

Is that what it is?

No, so I would say uh two things.

Yeah, rent is more, but the other piece is when we originally calculated the the original amount, which was 40,000, it was based on a square footage.

And that was based on the mandated square footage.

So for example, although the building is bigger, um when we had the calculation for Vernon Hills, we only made sure of the county funded positions.

Um that's what it came out to.

And so now that the building is bigger, the square footage does increase for those employees, and that was you know, for the increase in the rent, then I am so sorry, but I don't understand what you said.

So think of it like so yeah.

Sorry, I just think like if for example, let's say right now that um, and we could get you the all the numbers too.

Let's pretend that like the offices that we have for these uh county uh funded employees, like you know, the general space, their offices, et cetera.

Let's say it was three thousand square feet pretend.

Um in the new building, their the offices have increased, the actual public space has increased for the actual public.

So that square footage, while although in my old or my office in Vernon Hills might have been three thousand feet, now it could be eight thousand.

So that's what the increase would be for the rent.

So it's the rent because it's a bigger space.

Yeah, yeah.

I mean, it's bigger space, more square footage for the actual mandated employees that are in my budget versus the space that they have now, yes.

Okay.

So like our portion is more, so it's our portion of the square footage has increased for the portion.

Yeah.

Okay.

Okay.

And when are when are you gonna is it for a whole year's rent?

Or uh yeah, yeah, that goes for the whole year.

I cover it through um my other funding that I do have.

Um one of the things like the question is if you're asking what we're gonna move in, the goals to do January um from now, starting next week when we host our national conference.

We're doing other different professional development sessions for the county, like the state board of education is going to come in and host a school finance webinar.

We have another like AI technology for educators the following week.

So from basically October till January, we'll be doing intermittent professional development sessions for education, uh, educators in Lake County, and then the goal is to move the office side public facing in January.

Do you think this will be pretty stable then going forward?

Yes, the the the goal is to stay here for forever.

And then okay.

All right, thanks.

I think I actually do have a question now that I've heard questions.

You you do?

Yeah.

Okay.

Um just but once that you move into the new facility.

Since it's our our facility, will you still have rental expense then?

Well, it's not county owned, it is uh a lease.

Oh, it'll be oh, so it'll it'll still be owned by the the Lake Forest.

It'll be owned by yeah, not the oh okay.

I thought we were you're taking possession of it.

No, so it's only going to be rental.

Yeah.

I thought we were looking at purchasing it, weren't we?

We were.

We were on unsuccessful.

Uh okay.

Okay.

I guess I missed that part.

All right.

Uh question by member Altonberg.

So the rent is increased, but you have it's not costing the county any more money because you have funds that will cover that increase of the lease.

Yes.

Um, so the the money that I have received from the county has been a a portion of a rent that is paid that I pay that I cover through other areas.

Um, so you know, technically the rent is increasing, but that is also increasing due to the mandated square footage increasing.

But um the county is not gonna expend more funds.

I will be the one who expend the funds.

Okay.

And the mandated square footage increased by who?

Uh it's for the county employees that are on my county budget.

Okay.

Like when we when we factor this in, yeah.

You know, I have I will have the school there too, but I don't, you know, require the county to, you know, pay rent for the school because they're it's they're not on the county budget.

So that should be separate.

So we've made sure to include that only the county mandated services that are you know under school school code um that the county is um supposed to help assist with, like for true the truancy officer, you know, the positions in here, we make sure that that rent and square footage is covered and I cover the other through other funds.

Okay.

All right, thank you.

I mean one last uh piece I I think that should be just discussed too, not necessarily with this, but um I think there's a really just posit just positivity going on in Lake County right now with all the different uh collaboration that's going on.

You know, I mentioned Navigate 8 last week.

Uh that fair is becoming kind of like a statewide model, uh, you know, through the partnerships with Lake County Workforce Development, Lake County Partners.

Um, the things that we do with the health department who continue to do amazing things, you know, for our schools and even um one of the initiatives we have that the state's attorney, but just know that we continue to find ways to partner with our own, you know, governmental services.

So I just wanted to mention that.

Yeah, you can just I just want to say Dr.

Carner has been incredibly creative with every program and how the expansion of that office and really does things provide services that affect every school in our county, and we're really grateful at you know, the new programs that have come out of this, and um, you know, you've really done an excellent job.

So thank you.

No further questions from the committee.

All those in favor say aye.

I oppose the motion passes.

Finance committee member Belichick.

I apologize.

I I'm trying to follow the conversation or the the QA around the square footage.

Who mandates your square footage?

Uh so when we came up with the rent, you know, like for the Vernon Hill space, for example, right?

Um, we had determined that you know, obviously the county shouldn't pay for the the whole lease that I had, correct?

So what we did was at the time, uh, this is prior to county administrator Sutton, uh, when county administrator Gibson was here.

They looked at that building and said, here are the mandated, you know, functions that the county must provide.

A lot of it's in school code, the Illinois school code.

And so we took those individuals, only the county budget, the mandated functions that must occur.

Staff.

Yeah, staff, like you know, like for example, like you see in here, the licensure, health life safety, you know, finance, like um front desk, etc.

A truancy officer, and said, here's what the square footage is in the building, they came up with a calculation, and that's how they got to the 40,000.

And then I said, okay, so I know I have that and everything else I paid for, you know, for like although we do all these other awesome things, like with professional development, our safe school, that shouldn't, you know, be on the county budget when I have other funding from other sources that pay, you know, for those square footage areas.

Okay, so the the number of services or the number of employees didn't increase.

It's that the building increased and our therefore our portion of that pie increased as did the cost.

And can you just sorry, one line?

Why the increased square footage?

The increased square footage uh will one allow like currently, like in our office, uh, we only have a spot for like we host professional development, and one of the things was it's only holds 50 people tops.

Like the new place will allow us to hold uh triple that.

Um our student programming that we have for you know for the safe school and the the base program has been great.

But you know, we've seen a need to continue to find different ways to serve different programs for students in Lake County that might need have needs, like for example, I put in their ALOP.

Um that's more of like an academic-based program that our districts could utilize.

So the space increase is more to help just serve the students better, you know, provide ways to educate uh students, more professional development and some of those services to ensure that they can then reduce that you know responsibility locally and things.

And are those needs for increased square footage related to the services that the county is mandated to provide?

So the increased square footage for the mandated services that the county would provide increased just because the building was bigger, yeah.

The those requirements that sound wonderful are related to the services that the county is mandated to provide.

I'd say I would say it's both.

Okay.

Okay, thank you.

Any other comments or questions?

All in favor, please say aye.

Any opposed?

Eight dot h5 is approved.

Thank you.

Yes.

Yeah.

I don't think these can just all four of these.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I don't mean I'm just saying whether the vote can be one.

I don't think it's a good one.

No, you guys.

We can't vote on these together.

I think we can take them all together.

I think we can.

We take them all again.

Yep.

Okay.

Welcome, Angela and Chris.

Um we're gonna start with 8.86.

And can I do I first need to make a motion to take all multiple?

You can do a motion all together.

Okay.

So I'm gonna take we're gonna have a motion to take items eight point eight six through eight point h9 together as one vote.

Can I have a motion?

Motion by member Cunningham, second by member Altonberg.

Motion on those four items by Member Clark, second by Member Hewitt.

Morning.

Good morning.

So the first item is the joint committee action approving the recommended fiscal year 2026 budget for the health departments.

We have director uh executive director uh Hoff and Angela joining as well.

Thank you.

Thanks.

And this budget can be found on page 157.

So similar to the overall county process, the health department starts their budget process in the spring.

The health department coordinates with their directors to meet with the manager of each program, which there are approximately 50 or more programs with over 80 different grants.

Programmatic priorities are established for the year and serve as a basis for the health department's budget.

The Board of Health and Governing Council approved the health department's FY2026 budget at their August meeting, and funding and expenses appropriating in the health department's funds must be spent on health on business.

The TB board is responsible for approving the TB clinic budget.

I will hand it over to Chris.

Excellent.

Thanks, Nick.

Uh thanks for the opportunity to present our 2026 budget.

This is obviously my first time presenting the budget to you, and I'm pleased to uh share with you our priorities for the coming year.

Again, I'm Chris Hoff, I'm the executive director of the health department and community health center.

Um Health Department really works to take care of our residents anywhere they live in the county for any number of things.

Uh HealthRums goal is to provide safe, healthy communities for everyone that lives, works, and plays here in Lake County.

And I think the staff has done a tremendous job doing that over the course of the year.

Uh we provide service at really two key levels.

One is a direct service provider, right?

So we provide direct hands-on care to individuals to help them lead healthier lives.

We also work at the policy systems and environmental level, really trying to change the policy systems and environments that people live in to help make sure that they're healthy and promote good health for all.

Um, since I started in March, we've seen tremendous impacts to the public health and health care landscape.

Um the federal government has taken a number of actions that reduce our ability to take care of residents as we have traditionally done.

And I think that's an important context to our budget this year and into the future.

Um in March, we were notified that many of our federal grants were being terminated effective immediately.

No time to ramp down, no time to ramp up work, transition.

Um the federal government canceled about 11 billion dollars uh to public health agencies across the country, including some that we hold here.

Thankfully, that's been held up uh in court um by a lawsuit by the state of Illinois along with over 20 other states.

Um, but the threat of those changes kind of looms out there for a number of the programs that are supported by federal dollars and have been over the years.

Uh one big beautiful bill imposes a number of changes on the healthcare landscape, um, restricts and limits the ability for people to access Medicaid, um, reduces subsidies for people who are on marketplace uh health care plans, which means that fewer Lake County residents will have access to Medicaid or other healthcare marketplace plans in the future.

Uh that's a concern for us.

Um certainly our budget takes those into account, but we expect more of those changes to come out in the 2027 budget planning.

Um, despite the challenges, we had a number of successes this year that I think are important as we look at the 26 budget.

Um, one is that we received a number of quality awards for the community health center work, um, one around improving health goals, health improvement goals for clients uh around heart health and diabetes, so really getting better outcomes for our patients that come to the community health center.

Um, we received awards around our preventive services, uh reaching national goals for health screenings, trying to prevent and keep costs lower by screening for things early and treating people before we get to more acute situations, uh, and recognition for our health uh IT infrastructure that really brings healthcare into the health brings more IT infrastructure into the healthcare experience, like you would at any other provider.

Um we've been recognized nationally for our work in those areas.

Um our family case management program transitioned to something called better birth outcomes that really enables one-to-one uh support for pregnant and parenting families uh to make sure that infants and families get off on the right foot uh and that we lower infant uh and maternal morbidity and mortality across Lake County, and that's a really important goal for us.

Um we also continue to see a record number of calls to our behavioral health crisis hotlines.

Uh this year we had over 11,000 calls.

Uh August was our busiest month on record, um, and we've done this for numbers of years.

Uh so we continue to see increases in the demand for those services.

Uh so our budget really reflects our priority trying to enhance those services for our residents uh making sure that they connect to the care that they need at the time that they need it.

Um the budget, uh, as Nick mentioned was approved and recommended by the Board of Health, uh, appointed by you to oversee health care operations.

Um presented that budget to them and the governing council.

We've tried to maintain the highest level of quality care possible despite the federal changes.

Uh, we owe it to the 32,000 plus patients a year we see uh to make sure that we provide high quality care as their medical home.

Um every year we do go through the budget top to bottom, um, look at every program, look at every vacant position, um, really try to reduce expenses where we can in commodities and contractuals to make sure that we have the people and things that we need to provide that care.

Um, we fully leverage the property tax support that we do receive through competitive federal grants, fees for service, uh, insurance billing, any other revenue that we can capture.

So the health department is supported by property tax, but that's only a small portion of the overall budget for the health department.

Uh the 26 budget you'll see reflects an overall increase from 25, primarily as an increase in the salaries and benefits due to the compensation study that were applied in early FY25.

Um helps us to address the ongoing challenge of recruiting and retaining primary care providers, physicians, nurses, advanced practice nurses, dentists, um, all of those folks that provide the care that enables us to take care of our residents.

Um it reflects increasing technology costs.

We see more of our health care IT services being delivered through subscriptions rather than owning that infrastructure.

Just like at home, you see Netflix, you see Apple, you see all those things increasing.

It's the same for our medical medical records, data infrastructure, data exchange, all of those things are increasing.

Um we've worked to balance any of those increases with reductions in commodities and contractuals uh to meet the targets that were identified that Mike talked about early on.

Uh, we've also eliminated programs that we don't think are necessary any longer.

Uh we also partnered this year with Comed on an energy efficiency program to reduce lighting and some of the HVAC controls uh that will help us to decrease costs in the long term and help us meet sustainability goals.

So again, trying to reduce costs where we can in the future.

Uh in the upcoming budget year, three kind of features that you should expect to see.

One is we're reopening our substance use withdrawal management unit that uh closed in 2020 during COVID.

Uh, we're bringing that back online to provide uh inpatient withdrawal management for people suffering from substance use disorder.

Um, that's an important uh opportunity for us to meet a community need that is a big need for people who are uninsured or underinsured in Lake County.

Um so that'll enable us to help more people and get people out of emergency rooms and police custody that need to get into treatment and back on track.

Uh, we're continuing to pursue value-based care contracts with insurance companies that will enable us to generate additional revenue based on the high quality care we provide.

Um, I referenced the quality care awards that we were receiving earlier this year that sets us up for better negotiation with those insurance companies on value-based care to get some of the cost savings that we're uh finding and getting for those patients and the companies.

Um we're investing in changes to our environmental health record system that will enable better customer service for our clients and the community, including the over 3,000 food establishments that we inspect and regulate every year.

Um, I want to thank and acknowledge Angela Cooper, Sam Johnson, Gene Haig, Erica Mason, Toby Carg, Michael Staling, a whole bunch of people that worked really hard to put this budget together.

Um, the executive team of the health department and county finance uh as well for helping us to build a budget for a nearly 100 million dollar organization that reflects a lot of important care and opportunities for our residents.

So thank you for supporting our work and look forward to questions.

Thank you, Chris, for that.

I just had a couple quick questions and then I'll turn it over to the committee.

So for the um the big change in the intergovernmental, looks like we had 57 million for this year, expecting 53.

Is that primarily based on the expectation that we might have a decrease in federal grants?

Um, so some of that will reflect as we do budget carryovers with our grant spending.

So at this point, we don't have a lot of reductions in the grants, but again, in the budgeting process, we'll do a carryover of all the remaining grants we're in last year's budget.

And so that will be increased at that point.

So we we could see that number potentially go up a little bit.

Yes.

Okay.

Um, and then in terms of the charge for charges for services, I see it's an increase.

So that was what you were saying, Chris, before that we think that with the contract with the insurance companies and value-based care that we can actually charge more.

Uh, along with our self-pay clients, we see more people without insurance who are on a sliding fee scale, who then are paying a little bit more for their health care out of pocket because they don't have Medicaid or an insurance plan.

So this assumes we'll see some increase in the number of people who are uninsured uh and are self-paying for that care.

Okay.

Um I think that was my only other question.

Uh questions from the committee.

I have a few.

I'm gonna take advantage of the opportunity to have you here.

I'm sorry, I'm not at HCS very often.

So um thank you for the great work.

Um so HR one essentially cuts a trillion dollars from Medicaid provider supports nationally over a decade.

Uh and the rural health transformation funds uh attempt to offset some of those cuts by putting 5% of that amount into one-time grants for systems transformation.

We're not a rural county.

I'm just curious.

Has the health department looked at all or had conversations with the state about trying to seek some of those funds to improve data collection analytics systems?

Is that something that we're looking at at all?

Looking at it, uh, we had a conversation last week down in Springfield with um the IDPH staff lead for that.

Um, their application is due to the feds in two weeks, I think.

Uh so they're proposing a number of projects.

We haven't had the opportunity to give input on what we would like to see.

Um, they gave us like two minutes to say would we like those things or not?

Some of it, as you alluded to, is for rural counties.

Um, it's not clear the designation they're applying to that if that's based on the census codes or if that's based on do you have rural areas?

So I'm hopeful that we'll be able to get some of those funds.

Uh IDPH did say that they're expecting to put some of that money into local public health transformation, um, but didn't commit to a dollar amount or anything.

So I'm hopeful that those dollars might be available to us.

It's promising those funds are there.

It's um it is sort of a balancing act for that HR one, but it's not enough money to make up for everything we could see in the future.

Great.

Thank you for the response on that.

Comments or questions.

Member Clark.

Yeah, thank you for the presentation.

Um, I had a question about the um, and I saw there's a decrease in benefits.

And is that because of people's choices of plans?

I was trying to see in the budget part, and I just this it's like 750,000.

So it seemed like a substantial.

Is that just because of like people chose different places on Utah, or is it a cut in benefits?

That's so um again, that calculation comes with the help of the budget team.

And I think it's just um, you know, as we see younger people coming on, they're covered under their parents' insurance until age 26.

So a lot of them take that opt-out premium and don't take all the benefits available to them.

That's what I was wondering.

So it isn't that we change benefits for the health department.

It's just you know choices or as we get different employees, they that would lead to some savings.

So that's good to see.

And my other question was under um the count, the payroll contingency account, it says that it's requested a less six million dollars decrease in that, but then I can't figure out if that was included or not.

Um that's on line A51135.

Yeah, I think I can answer that one.

So when the health department submits their budget to us, they include a vacancy savings amount that they put in the payroll contingency account.

We take and move it to a different account into the five one one one oh and other accounts for HLD.

So it is still built in there.

It's just sitting in a different account.

You just can't see it because we budget vacancy savings differently, but historically they've given it to us in that account and then we we move it.

Okay.

So it is still it is still in there.

That is still a contingency, especially with I I'm concerned with potential federal cuts that it's my, I just want to make sure the contingency was still there.

Yes.

Okay.

Good.

All right.

I was just gonna clarify that the health department is the only department that does um budgeting differently than the way Mike described it.

They do their own personnel and they're allowed to enter it in themselves.

So that's why it's inconsistently done.

Um, and when we move to the county administrators column, then we make it standardized with the way that we do all of the rest of the departments.

Oh, okay.

Thank you.

Go ahead, Gerard.

Sorry.

I just want to understand why that is.

It is that is that sort of a state mandated way that health departments or FQHCs have to do it, or is the is there potential for the health department moving forward to um kind of follow in the format that we use here in Lake County government.

I'll let Angela start and then I'll jump in.

So um I I think past history has allowed us to do that.

Some of that is based upon the timing of the board of health.

So we have to present our budget to the board of health and um earlier than we come here to the um county board budget, and then we present a full encompassing uh budget to them of our overall operations.

We've also got a number of revenue generating positions as healthcare providers that we build into the revenue assumptions too.

And so trying to manage the vacancies on those in such a way that we don't want to eliminate a physician position if we think we will be able to recruit one at some point.

And so the policy application is a little bit different as I understand it.

But I think in general, the how we budget contingency is similar.

The percentage of the assumption that we make, the fact that it goes into a contingency pool, that it's held back from the budget, all of those things are the same uh as other departments.

Okay, I'm just um, if I may, just real quick, and I don't need to get too much in the weeds, but whenever we're sort of taking information from a department, if you will, right?

And then sort of making a transfer so it fits within our budgeting process.

I I feel like there might be chances where there could be errors, whereas if we because we also budget for vacancies, and I think Mike Wheeler presented at the very beginning, hey, we recognize that there's we're still recruiting, and so we don't take those dollars back.

Um it just feels like having um greater alignment wherever we can would be better for the entire process and hopefully still fits within the needs of the Lake County Health Department and the Board of Health.

So thanks.

Thank you.

You mentioned the fee schedule, which is a sliding fee schedule for those without insurance or seeking care from our providers.

Is that something that's set and established and adjusted each year by your team?

Is it the ski fee schedule approved by the board of health?

What's the process for that?

Yeah, it's adjusted every year and approved by the governing council and board of health.

That's a requirement of our um community health center status to review and approve those changes and make sure that they reflect market costs and ability to pay.

Anything you want to add?

Yeah, and our our sliding fee schedule is looked at yearly too, based upon um poverty levels and adjusted accordingly.

And is the is the procedure and the preventative uh nature and outcome of the of the care considered in that fee schedule also?

Like you don't want to discourage somebody from addressing, you know, an abscess or something, a dental emergency, right?

If they don't have ability to pay at the same time, we do have to be mindful of covering our costs.

Are those things all considered in that process?

So we have an additional layer as well that somebody based upon extenuating circumstances can request um the sliding fee be adjusted down to very, very minimal, if not zero.

Right.

Governing council also includes at least 50% of the governing counselor for the community health center is clients, consumers of the health center.

So they have the opportunity to weigh in on the patient experience to say this is reasonable, this is not.

Uh, it's part of why it's presented to that group too, is for patient input.

Thank you for the explanation.

Other comments or questions.

I remembered I just had one more little question.

Um, I know we've been having like from for several years challenges with recruiting and maintaining staff.

So are we right now at 844?

Is that current?

I mean, that's budget for this year.

I just do we do we realistically think we'll be able to add more staff than we have.

Um, I don't understand we're gonna add above that number.

That is the total budgeted amount.

Um, but we have a smaller number with based on the vacancy savings.

We assume that some of those will not be filled immediately.

Yeah, I because I was just looking at we have 844 budget for this year and the next year we're going up by two.

I mean, it's not that much, but gotcha.

Yeah, yeah.

So a lot of that um any additional increases are related to grant funds.

Okay.

So additional grant funds that we receive that we had to hire to meet those requirements of the grant.

Excellent.

Thank you.

Member Maine.

Yeah, I was gonna say that um the health department relies on their grants for any um any staffing changes.

So I I was just I was gonna say that.

I was also gonna say that um obviously it's a huge department.

And in terms of um hiring, um they're always hiring, and there's there's uh pretty fluid, if you will, um, movement of people in like nursing and other positions who work for the health department, and then their family situation changes, and then they go work for a different agency for fewer hours or more hours as they need.

And then like 18 months later, they come back to the health department.

So there's a lot of movement of people coming in and out of positions, and we have been able um to get some more of the um at the nurse practitioner level.

It's it's very hard.

It's a very very competitive market.

I know this board is used to saying, hey, you know, tech and engineering and looking at that, but I can um assure all of you that filling people in um the health professions, especially those such as nurse practitioner or really many levels is very, very difficult.

It's a very competitive market out there.

And um especially after COVID, lots and lots of people are retiring.

They're burned out from health care, they're burned out from the hours they put in.

Um in general, how uh health care providers are treated.

I'm not saying our agency, I'm just saying across the board.

If you read um articles about that, they're they're very burned out.

So um a lot of people have um have options of of what to do.

And as I said before, they move about a lot because it's such a tight market that they can look for a job position that better fits their family's situation and their needs at that time and look for things that are more flexible.

So I think member Campbell's no, we're good.

All right.

Um we're taking votes all together at once, right?

So we can just move on to the next item.

Item 8.

Uh H7 as a joint committee action.

I think you could vote on all of them.

We did the whole department, do we not?

No, we haven't done the TB.

Are we are we gonna go through each each one in specific?

I assume we would.

I think that's what we were gonna do and then vote.

That's your call.

We we oh no, I took, I know we took one vote, but did we want to talk about anything specifically within the TB or special service area?

Do we don't we ask the executive director if there's anything we need to hear about, any updates or changes to those three items instead of hearing the whole presentation?

I'd be happy just to add for the TB fund.

I think it's always a question of what do we still need this fund?

Do is tuberculosis still an issue?

Uh the answer is yes.

In 2024, we treated 18 active tuberculosis cases in Lake County.

Uh, the very first week I was here in March of this year.

Some of you may remember we had an individual associated with the high school in Joaquin diagnosed with infectious tuberculosis who had been in the school for several months prior to his diagnosis.

Um that required a huge response uh from our staff testing and follow-up with about 166 people uh immediately to test for signs of disease.

So just um provide that context that this is still an issue that we deal with, uh important given the size of our community and uh there's work going on every day to control the spread of diseases like tuberculosis in my county.

A member cutting in.

Yeah, I just want to comment to Chris about being new at the health department.

You are doing a great job.

Thank you.

I serves on the government council, been there 23 years.

And uh Chris, you come right in with boots on the ground, getting things on and high new staff, and that's a great thing.

I'm listening at people's accent questions about us saying uh it ain't only the health department, it's all intense having a problem hiring nurses and different things.

So, and I serve on the personnel uh uh uh firsthand see the doctors, everybody come in to get hired at the health department um firsthand going over the application and and passing it on to the government council.

So uh we are getting nice great we're getting more.

We one time we was getting a lot of more um practitioners there, and they stay in a lot of them.

We want to when it's time they actually stay.

So uh we are lucky to have a health department like that.

We are lucky to have that we're done a great job.

We had an open house last month, I think it was all the health departments, Round Lake, Holland Park, or Libertyville, uh Zion, and the two here and not one in Waikegan.

Uh showing what we do.

So, Chris, I just want to thank you for not running when you came in.

Thank you.

I want to staff too.

Thank you.

And I'm always gonna support the health department because it does a lot for my era.

It does a lot for my area, and we're moving them on that uh that the ones that uh no show, we go big on and pull someone else off of the list of the waiting list.

So you're doing a great job there, so keep it up.

Thank you.

Um do we need to or do I have to go to HCS or can we?

Yeah, we have some other questions though too.

Go ahead.

Okay.

No, just yeah, I don't have so much of a question as uh just wanted to voice something because um wanna agree with uh Mayor Ross and I'll be and I'll be brief.

Um prior to me being on the board, um, I was I was in the Navy.

And so in 2020, obviously we had the we had the COVID.

Um and this was before your your tenure as um.

But I just want to say thank you for all that the health department does.

The budget looks good.

Um, you know, it's it's it's cut and dry.

Um, there's very little changes, and it's amazing how much you're able to do with the allotted uh budget that you that you're given.

And that I think you already know this, but the health department is so uniquely and intimately a part of Lake County.

Um you see that regarding uh the responses tuberculosis uh with with COVID.

Um when people are in panic when those things happen, the health department was there to instill uh secure uh confidence in the government.

And so and that's very crucial because we can't do what we do every day if there's no confidence.

So I just want to say thank you.

Thank you for that.

Sure, that was staff over here too.

Thanks.

Member Clark?

Yeah.

Thank you.

Um, I had a question about the tuberculosis clinic budget.

I noticed this year it's gone up a lot.

And so the it goes up to one million dollars.

And so, you know, it's a 63.

Well, it's a lot.

It had 385,000 more.

Is that because there's more people with tuberculosis?

Because it's I mean, is that part of the reason it's gone up so much?

So some of that's in reference to um personnel.

We're fully staffed at the TB clinic.

Um, and we're not we're not experiencing some of the vacancies that we have done in prior years.

Okay.

So it's not so the change is just that now the there's eight staff members, so everybody's there.

So it's and it comes from like tax fund.

Is it the same?

Like this, the variance.

So it's okay.

So it's just an increase because they maybe these were budgeted before these positions, they just weren't filled.

And so this year they're filled, and that's why it's gone up so much.

Yeah, I would just add, excuse me.

I would just add that yes, they have vacancies that are filled, and because they've been pretty steady with being filled, their vacancy savings number we adjusted down in FY26, so not as much.

I think actually we don't even have vacancy savings in place for them because they're fully staffed and they've been able to keep that constant.

So you're gonna see an increase, not only because they're completely filled because of what we talked about earlier with the uh the comp state compensation study adjustments in there, but also because there's not the vacancy savings reduction in the same way because they've been fully staffed for so long.

It it just it made sense to look at the recent history, and that's and we made that adjustment accordingly.

So that's why you're seeing a lot of that in the personnel and in the benefits costs.

Yeah, I mean, it's kind of from I mean, I'm all for it, but it's gone up substantially since 2024.

I mean, from 347,000 to a million and two.

So I was just so it's really just staffing is happening.

Okay.

I'm all I mean, I'm all for funding this.

I just I'm just curious as to why it went up so much.

So get to know you're fully staffed and uh glad to know that we're finding, you know, good for helping debt represent because it's treated.

Administration.

I did just want to clarify that the line you're looking at is the property tax.

They do not actually get to determine the amount of property tax that's done based on a fund balance analysis.

So um just looking at the history of how their revenue and expenses have be uh performed in the last several years.

Um there was a deficit, you know, uh an amount less than the 29% fund balance policy.

So um again, the health department doesn't actually get to determine their property tax.

They ask for an amount, but um it's it's determined based on a fund balance analysis.

So uh just wanted to clarify that it's uh uh somewhat indirectly related to staffing.

Um, but it was really a fund balance analysis and an adjustment.

So does that mean it's just that the money's coming from a different place?

So maybe the overall change hasn't happened much, it's just that it's funded differently.

Yeah.

I would look at the expense side to really see how um the operations have changed.

Yeah, because that hasn't gone up right as much under 13,000.

Still an incre increase, but okay.

Yes.

So hi, Chris.

Um first I just want to say you've done an incredible job since you joined us and you ramped up really quickly, and we appreciate that.

Um so I'm just wondering for your grants for 2026 so far, so good.

Have we had any uh type of notifications that we need to worry about?

We've had a lot of notifications that are concerning that reference the 11 billion dollar termination the Fed's made.

Thankfully, those are still held up in court.

Yeah.

Um, right now our grants have come in about where we expected them for the state fiscal year that started July 1 and runs through the middle of next year.

There could be changes next year that we're you know very worried about.

Um, but we don't have any definitive information.

So if if those things go forward that affect people's health insurance, we're expecting a large rise in clientele coming to the health department, is what I imagine.

Yeah, potentially.

I mean, for people who don't have insurance, there are very few options in Lake County other than an emergency room, uh, ourselves, Erie and Phoenix.

Um, but there's 700,000 plus residents in Lake County.

We are estimating about 25,000 could lose health insurance based on the federal administration changes.

Uh, and that's a big number that you know are going to be seeking care at other places.

So you may be coming back to us and saying, you know, your numbers are going up and you may need some additional support from us.

It's possible.

I mean, we're certainly going to be looking at that every month to see what those changes look like.

We've already seen a slight shift in the payer mix from people with insurance to those without.

Um, we'll try to manage that as best we possibly can.

But at some point, yeah, it'll be back to service, you know, changes in service levels, reductions in services, changes in grants.

Um, there's potential for a lot of change over the next year.

Okay.

Thank you very much.

Any other comments, questions on the other items?

Saying none.

I'm so are we doing all the items?

Or yeah.

Yeah.

You can ask questions then.

Anything.

Okay.

Because I was gonna ask questions on the solid waste management tax.

Um, which is on 275.

I just had a question.

I just want to make sure.

So is the miscellaneous is this money from like the landfill fees?

The dumb and so we still have landfill.

I mean, because I know I've always heard that that money might end and it's used for inspections.

So I was looking at the, you know, it looks like it's going down, and I assume that's because the um the revenues are going down maybe because of the landfill fees.

Um, we're not having that to Mike or Nick.

Yeah, if if you look at the the numbers that are in the year today column reflect September actuals, and it appears so we're basically looking at the trend of the revenue, and yes, they seem to be going down.

And what we try to do in this fund is budget what because they it's received here and there's transfer to the health department for landfill inspections.

I'm gonna make sure I don't speak out of turn here.

Um, and so we match up with what they have budgeted for revenue based upon the current trending.

So, yeah, I think what you're saying is correct.

And I mean, eventually though we aren't gonna have landfill fees, I because we're the landfills will be full in Lake County.

So and that might be a question for another day.

I just can't speak to that.

Yeah, Mike Adams here.

Sure.

So that when the landfills do close, yeah, that'll be used to help monitor.

Okay, good.

Actually, that's what I was wondering.

Okay, great.

Because yeah, looking at this going down, I'm like, I don't know how much longer this is going to be around this revenue.

Ms.

Hairton.

So we did provide the fund balances for all of these funds.

And if you look on page 407 solid waste management, the balance is well over $2 million because we do um save it for the time when there is no longer any revenue coming in because Mike and his staff will still have to do what they have to do.

They still have to do the inspections and everything.

So it's not ever anticipated that we're gonna spend as much revenu as we're coming in, unless it continues to dwindle.

Um, but there is a fairly um fairly large fund balance set aside for this very purpose.

Is that why there's less is maybe more money's going in the fund balance for the future?

Exactly.

Okay, good.

Yeah, okay.

Thank you.

Ms.

Present, since you called it out, it does indicate fund balance as of last year at this date.

Do we have updates on those?

Is when how often are those calculated and provided?

Once a year.

So that is why.

So fiscal year 25, we can estimate, but usually by the time that we generate this spreadsheet and then we hand it out to you.

It's it's different by the time we come to these um meetings.

So we didn't actually um calculate it, but we can certainly do that if there's a fund that you're interested in.

Okay, thanks for the clarification.

Other comments or questions?

Member can plus have one.

Okay.

Yeah, there's one last one.

Thank you, uh director.

Um, I have a quick question regarding the uh the manpower here, the full-time and the part-time.

Um I know you're allotted your budgeting for eight four hundred eight hundred and forty-six positions as well as eighty-two.

How much of those are vacancies?

Um, at the time that we did the budget, there was, I believe, 33 positions that were vacant.

In full time or both full-time and part-time.

Um, I believe that was in total.

In total, okay.

So we don't know the breakdown of full-time and part-time.

Most of them are in full time with very minimal and in part-time.

Okay.

Well, I mean, if if it was if it was we be able to know that because it would be good to know what's the makeup of full-time and part-time those vacancies, right?

I believe if we can send that to you.

Okay.

And that's my only question.

Sorry.

All right.

I think we're ready to vote.

I just want to clarify.

We're we're we're finished discussing the special service area as well as solid waste management.

Any other questions for the health department this time?

Okay.

All right.

We'll take a vote on items 8.8 H5 through 8.9.

All those in favor say aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Any opposed?

Postas HCS.

Uh 8.8678.

Oh, sorry.

55 was ROE.

Yes.

Okay.

Uh, I think we already have a motion.

Any other comments or questions?

All in favor, please say aye.

Aye.

Any opposed?

Those items are approved.

Uh, just for everyone's awareness, we are as posted going to take a 10 minute break between the two committees after HCS adjourns.

Thank you.

Thanks.

Are you adjourning?

Oh, uh, so yes, we will.

Do we have any county administrative reports?

No county administrators report.

Need for executive session.

No need for executive session.

I assume we'll not have any members' remarks.

It's uh if a lot more.

Or do we have a member comment?

No.

Okay.

Uh item 12 is we will adjourn until October 28th.

Thank you.

Okay, and uh FNA will be back here with the LNJ committee at 10 47.

Thank you.

Day is 2 21st.

Uh Lord.

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 call.

I'll have to do your dead.

Okay, we have a physical call.

We do for law and judicial.

Okay.

Okay.

Can I have a roll call, please?

No, pledge.

Do we have to do that?

We can dispense with the pledge since it was already completed this morning, or you okay.

Okay, we're dismissed the pledge because it's already been done this morning.

From the other two committees.

Okay, uh roll call.

Member Altenberg?

Here.

Chair Cunningham?

Here.

Member Danforth.

Member Kinesnik?

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 unless it won't go first.

Oh they want to go first.

And uh moving that the vacant.

Yep.

Okay.

Uh well.

Court administration.

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

Uh we're dispensing with the pledge and attendances were 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.

8.

Thank you, Administrator Sutton.

8.L18 through 8.L27.

We're going to hear those items first.

26.

26.

26, not the clerk of the court.

26.

8.26.

Yes.

Yes.

Correct.

Okay.

Thank you.

Yeah.

Hi.

My name is Bernisha Lawrence.

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

18 through 26.

Can I have a motion?

Through 18 through 26 by second bound uh uh memo damp uh finance committee I'm sorry I'm sorry I didn't mean to 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.

19 Judicial Courts submitted the following NPRs that were not recommended.

EBP quality assurance and training management, SLO, SRL paralegal, staff psychologists, and a strategic plan consulting services.

I will now turn it over to Chief Judge Shanes, Carl Waldorf, and Lisa Wolf for the for further comments.

Thank you.

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.

I 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 gonna 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 um that are in that line item uh on 351.

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 of 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, uh 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 receive 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 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.

You want to do your committee first?

Well and of course it's from the dish committee.

Okay.

So you says if I'm looking at this the first line, it says 2825.

Right.

Right.

And you're talking about 440.

So 282 is the first year cost for paying 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 with the 440,000 dollars.

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, um, 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 you know the consultant felt we were mature enough as a system to move ahead with in-house support versus outside support.

Thank you.

And a more question.

I mean the court has been able to garner this additional 450,000 is kind of a you don't use it, you lose it kind of proposition the way I look at it.

So it'd be supportive of whatever the uh uh the courts uh think is in the best interest of of what they're trying to get accounted, that we 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 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 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 L and J 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.

We didn't have um yeah, 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 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 have 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.

Wait, wait, the ministry recommended um uh 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 already spoke of the uh board would what administrator uh uh recommend it to the courts.

So uh we have some questions here.

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 what the administrator uh uh recommend it to the courts so uh that's we have some questions here that's 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 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 um 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 okay thanks for the clarity member main 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 I was going back to so some new project requests are baked in here yes the ones that are recommended in the county administrators recommended budget are were moved into the departmental budgets yes okay and that was keeping I'm sorry I'm getting 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 weren'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 dock 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 that 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 if I may because you are paying from it from here now you're not gonna 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 and we continue to budget it's six if I'm understanding this you've just eliminated 6000 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 still money and still money 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

Didn't you say that that's what 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 still money.

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 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 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 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 had 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 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 would 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 it's 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 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 head count 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 main, 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 can do with that money?

That's how I understand your question, right?

Um so 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 in 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 unpredictability, inpredictability of what those revenues will be, but I don't disagree with your premise of you're not going to be using the money that you you you were using before.

What are you going to be using it for?

Uh, but I I think that the county's approach for these many years of moving headcount 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.

Okay.

I know that we have reduced the expenditures on that fund.

Could you speak up, please?

So we can allow it.

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 that 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 program 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 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 question to follow up on on what you just said there, which is um Judge Change, 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 took discussed 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 misreinterpreting 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.

Okay, member Clark.

And thank 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, I'm so sorry.

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

We've got we present a budget every year.

That's what I thought.

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

Okay, that that's helpful.

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 5% or something like that.

About 5%, 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 we all know that 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 one.

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, 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.

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

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 growth in the county, and I specifically asked 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 going to 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 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 uh 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.

Oh, okay.

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

And uh, I wanna 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 the eCourt financial accounting system has financial reporting limitations.

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

That's a huge problem.

So uh it does not appear to be accounting for the collection of a $2 probationary fee required by states that you 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 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 use 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 headcount, because we understand that's a huge driver of costs 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 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 one 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.

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 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.

Um sorry, 2025, 17 was the year before.

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.

They're 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 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 could 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.

Um, 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 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.

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 had 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 older and not children, you know, money, no money, that kind of stuff.

So we're seeing more and more of it, and 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 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 self-represent orders of protection where there are self-represented litigants.

Um 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'd we would see them in family and order protection, domestic violence a lot.

Um, 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, 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-represented 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 Sutton, 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 Holst 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 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.

Um 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 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 on some of these issues.

Um thank you.

I'm not sure it's really what for today we can talk about it a 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 that's a good idea.

Yeah, no, 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 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 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 communications 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.

Member of Litzik.

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?

Cool.

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 of three months and pushing it forward three months.

Um 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 L and J on your position in terms of not having that data readily available.

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 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 and 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 are 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 received 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 truly would, and I will pick 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.

Oh, we teach courses 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.

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 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.

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 at 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.

I'm hearing all this.

Where do the lawyers fit in at if they represent DUS?

Yeah.

Where do they do they say, hey, I'm not, because I get a lot of calls that people say a lawyers represent 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 does they throw in the lawyers back from representing them or uh they just ain't ready to go.

Sure.

Between the judge and the lawyer and the prosecutor.

Uh uh, I get so many calls by this.

I've been family members called me.

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

Something he representing 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 lawyers are a made, 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.

Okay.

Um 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 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 cycle.

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 saying here.

Thank you.

Chair Cunningham, Chair 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 member ban for second by memotion.

I can figure the motion on the baby.

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?

I'll and Taylor, please say aye.

Aye.

Any opposed?

That amendment is approved.

So now we'll vote on all these items.

Okay.

Uh low under this year.

We've voted on AL18 through 26.

That's what nope.

Yes, 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.

Is that true?

Yes, we do.

Yep.

We do.

So no.

All in favor.

I say no, non-opposed.

Motion approved.

Finance 8.L18 through 8.L26, including 8.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 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.

You want to break down?

Oh, unless we get here.

It's up to you.

No, we can get okay.

Just basically have to wait.

Damn, we're gonna break.

Okay.

So we'll just taste attorney and then break.

Okay.

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

Gotta go back.

Right.

Right.

So we're on uh L1.

Right.

We've put a PM in the front.

Okay.

Attorney Reinhardt, do we're gonna take the motion all your items together, but then we'll 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.

It's all one motion.

All one motion.

Okay, thank you.

Okay, so you guys will do a motion on L1 through.

I already get it.

Okay.

I got Matt over here.

Six.

Yeah, L six.

Yep.

Okay.

I need a motion from one through six.

I think is it yeah.

I need a motion from Lord Nadisha.

Motion by Commissioner uh second by member finance motion on eight dot l1 through eight.l6 by member clerk, second by member hewitt.

All right, so the child application's budget can be found on page 136.

Page 136.

Morning.

All right.

Oh, sorry, I'm so sorry.

Uh Sophie 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 uh an NPR that we are it's not moving forward, the NPR.

The NPR, 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 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 state's attorney, our forensic interviewer, and our advocate come in, quite frankly, out of the goodness of the heart to address these cases on a regular basis 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 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 when I become 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 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 100 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 through 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, 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, you know, cross our Ts and dot our I's to say that we passed all of our standards and that we'll be one of the first in the state to have met those.

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, or contractual line, which 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 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 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 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 Lola New District Committee.

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 for 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 is a 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 num 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 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 Lincoln.

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 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 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 kids.

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 how can we expand services to make people happier, healthier, and safer.

We had two of our NPRs that were recommended.

We appreciate that very much.

They constituted 20,000 of our multiple asks.

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

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

There was a 10,000 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, 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.

Happy to answer any questions about that.

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

Our cyber analysts, 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 is explained about an increase 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, Marn?

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're 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% decrease in firearm-related homicides and in our three towns of Zion, North Chicago, and Joaquegan, 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 in this respectfully need to move this into scenario too.

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

Member Kineson.

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 Kennisser.

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 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 was 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.

What?

No.

We have worked with our we have worked with our Springfield legislative consultant.

Obviously, Senator Johnson and Representative Mayfield 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 you 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 Callahan, my first assistant in C Sbagnolo 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 state's attorney I guess 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.

Or they can say, well, we might not get to you to you know uh January and no day in section 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 to 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.

Yeah, because I had a conversation with her yesterday.

I was with State 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.

Well, we need you need help from other eight.

I don't know, I know Brad probably can't because the government shit down.

They're not doing no business.

I was with him yesterday, myself and chia high.

So uh 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, 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.

So okay.

I'll go Mim Altenberg, Bastia Gina, and Mim Kodnesia.

Well, first of all, Eric, I want to applaud your whole team on the G VPI.

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, uh, we've seen a lot of success there.

Patrice.

So where does that money come from if we did fund it?

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 then I have to say 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 could 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 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 uh 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.

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 and when I came in in 2020, there was a director, and 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 and 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 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 tracking data, we take out any data you could do an armed 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 armed robbery, we are analyzing, you know, uh we're gonna have over a thousand devices analyzed in in 20 uh in 2025.

And 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 asked 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 light of the importance of the problem.

And can I 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 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 this particular one.

That's very true.

Thank you.

Thank you.

And 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 a pass through of funds to the to the violence interrupters that are not our employees, but they receive it through Joaquin 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 going to 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.