Good morning.

Today is Tuesday.

No, I'm finna say September.

November the 4th, right?

2025.

Calling the law and judiciary meeting to order.

At 1032.

In addition to being able to attend the person remote attendant has been made available to the public of Zone Zoom at the link on the agenda.

The meeting is being recorded through Zoom.

Per counterboard rules and the open meeting act.

Attended by remote mean is permitted for qualifying reason as long as the majority of the committee members are physical present.

We have been notified in advance by Commissioner Sarah Kenisha that she won't be, she requested to participate electronic due to one off the qualified reason.

And that's a physical.

Okay, so we do have a quorum.

As a member of the tenant remote, please reinsure your camera is on all time.

And we're gonna mark uh member Sarah Kenisa as present.

Thank you.

Okay.

If there's any in uh commissioners here in attending remark, please reassure your camera is on all time.

Okay.

All righty.

So that's make uh corn.

My voice sounds crazy.

My allergy is gonna do nuts.

So that's what you get when you get old.

I'm proud of it.

Okay.

Roll call, no Pledge of Allegiance.

Yep.

I pledge to the play of the United States of America.

And to the Republic for which it stands.

One nation.

I'm a God with the DVD and SSR.

Amen.

All right.

Roll call, please.

Uh member Altenberg is absent.

Chair Cunningham.

Here.

Uh member Dan Forth.

Member Kenesnik.

Here.

Member Peterson.

I'm sorry.

President.

Bush Roberts.

Here.

Okay, thank you.

Oh, here.

Gotcha.

Yeah.

Okay.

So we have a physical corn.

Uh there's an addenda to the agenda.

There is not.

If there's any public comment online at all.

There is no.

Okay.

Chair remarks.

No remarks.

Unfinished business.

There's none.

New business.

Consent.

I need a motion for the consent agenda one through eight one through eight four.

Motion by Vice Chair Robert.

Second by member Peterson.

Okay.

Voice vote chair.

Boy.

Oh, that's right.

I need a voice vote.

All in favor.

Ayes have it.

None opposed.

Thank you.

Okay.

Back to the regular agenda.

19 judiciary circuit court.

Uh, and this is a um a revolution joint revolution authorized in emergency appropriation in the amount of 223,600 with offset in revenue from the Illinois Department of Human Service.

Settlement payment to fund a staff psychology position within the 19 judicial court, a circuit court psychologist service division and increasing full-time head count by one position.

And increasing full-time hit count by one position.

And I need a motion.

Motion by Vice Chair Rob of Second Ba Memo Peterson.

Okay.

Good morning, Lisa Wolfer, the 19th.

I believe Carl Waldorf is online on attending via Zoom as well.

Yes, this resolution is for the 223,000 that we receive from the Department of Human Services in May.

What we'd like to do with that funding is then to um reinstitute uh, so to speak, a staff psychologist position that we had in our inventory.

Um, I believe a year or two ago.

It was before my time with the 19th.

Um, and take that though those those dollars and to be able to fund that position.

Question.

Um thank you.

Um how long will that be funded?

Um, this I believe is maybe a year and a half to two years.

It's going to depend on the salary grade benefits.

And do you have a plan?

May I ask another question, please?

And how do you what what happens then?

I that's when the tough questions will have to come into play.

Um, we will be looking at other open positions.

We'll be also looking at funding.

Um I'm also hopeful that our economy will will be a little better shape than what it is in now.

And and then there'll be additional funding there uh uh you know for uh NPR for next year, perhaps.

Um, but we'll be we're already looking at options.

Thank you.

Thank you so much.

So okay, so that I feel like that was maybe added into our 2026 budget, right?

Okay, thank you.

And my question is so we have um, you know, Lake County Health Department, a lot of uh psychiatrists, psychologists that that we work with with a pretty robust behavioral health program.

Um, can you help me understand?

Like, is there some coordination with the health department?

Did anybody reach out to the health department to say, hey, we've got these justice-involved individuals, you know, could we work out some sort of intergovernmental agreement or memorandum of understanding um in order to use somebody there instead of creating a new head count?

Um that I'm gonna have to refer over to um our executive director, Carl Waldorf, if he's available to answer that question.

I believe those conversations have taken place.

I know we work with the health department for a couple of therapists for our juvenile redeploy grant.

Okay.

Um, I don't know if it's a uh staffing issue, if it's a availability issue, um, if it is a matter of um, I know some of these individuals actually go into the jail and do the evaluations at that time, and if it's a matter of um not being able to do that.

If I may, just a follow-up question.

I assume with the juvenile redeploy, they also go into the jail, and you guys are working with the health department for that.

Correct.

Yes, we have an MOU with the health department for two specific positions.

Okay.

So somebody's already going into the jail from the health department, but yeah, it looks like Carl is on, so I don't know if he was going to speak to the conversations they've had with the health department.

I can, ma'am.

Um, so it's a little bit different.

The these psychologists do fitness examinations in actually Lake County jail are two uh our two shared workers with the health department are meeting with juveniles and their families, sometimes in the detention center, but more often outside of detention.

So a little bit different.

The fitness evaluations for uh at the jail are really um being done by three of our in-house psychologists and four contractual psychologists.

And one of the reasons in bringing this department uh this position back after a couple of years uh uh from it being cut from our roster, was uh we're just not sure our pool of contractual psychologists will be around.

Um it's it's very difficult to recruit people to do this type of work to come to Joaquin and go to the jail and meet with people for fitness evaluations, and it really is a specialty that not everyone's qualified for.

Got it.

Okay, thank you.

And I'm sorry, just if you could say that again, you have three in-house people.

We have three in-house psychologists now.

Um, and we're using four contractual psychologists.

That number goes up and down uh every year, depending on how many people we can actually recruit to do that.

Okay.

This my last follow-up.

Thank you, Vice Chair.

Um so that's those are all 40 hours a week.

I mean, not the contractual, but your three in-house 40 hours a week, they are doing fitness evaluations in the jail.

They also like dispensing medication and things like that.

No, no, uh, they don't do treatment um on that end uh unfortunately that is in recent years what their job has slowly evolved into that 40-hour fitness evaluation.

It's not at all their job description.

Um, it's really supposed to be a smaller number, uh, a smaller percentage of their time spent on fitness evaluations and treatment is really a bigger part of their job description, but as the number of fitness evaluations every year goes up, they're spending more of their time on these fitness evaluations.

Got it.

Okay, thank you.

Okay, by Cheryl.

Thank you.

Um so these are to determine whether they're fit to go to trial.

And are you are these people also going psychologists going to McHenry or this is just Lake County?

It so the three in-house are just Lake County.

Some of the contractual uh psychologists are probably going to multiple court circuits uh in the area.

That's amazing.

Okay, thank you.

So you um you haven't had the fourth person yet, right?

No, ma'am.

That's correct.

You're in the process of doing it.

And the niece is there when it comes to psychology.

So um okay.

Out of favor.

Aye.

I have a non opposed.

Thank you.

Great job.

Keep saving life.

Okay.

We got an 8.6.

And this is a joint resolution of the ride and emergency appropriation of 440,000 for the fish a year 2025, accepting addition of funding from the administrative offer off the Illinois court.

And I need a motion motion by Vice Chair Robert, second by yes, this 440,000 um will be funding a position for the um technical analyst.

Um part of our fiscal year 26 new program requests included a program manager, which was um moved forward with and and recommended the second portion of that new program request was a technical analyst.

That one was not recommended to move forward.

However, we did receive notification from the administrative offices of the Illinois courts in um early June, I believe it was right after the new program requests were submitted, that they had an additional additional funding that they were making available to the circuit courts, and with that we were able to receive 440,000 dollars of above and beyond funding that we were not expecting.

So what we would like to do is to um take that 440,000 and to be able to fund this technical analyst position, which will be the right-hand person to our program manager, and we'll work with the with the justice partners for e-courts.

So you haven't had you haven't had this person yet, right?

No, we have not.

Okay, so I'm looking at it.

This is owner foot administrative office.

No, what this person will do is they will coordinate between us, the public defender, the state's attorney.

Oh, okay.

All right.

Okay, you got me back on the right train.

Okay.

Yeah, right now we're you were utilizing consulting services, which are costing a good 400 to 600,000 annually, depending on uh on the amount of hours that we need.

And this will really put this position in-house and will allow us to have somebody full-time in on staff to answer questions between the the partners.

Okay, so you have somebody in there, you don't have to go out in.

Correct.

We will we will own the position as opposed to green.

That's good when a consultant can fit us in.

That's good.

I believe in that, you know.

Because it's costing you when you're going out.

Correct.

Out and your own is better than going out.

So do you go through temp service when you go on the outside and look for people, so you just oh no, this is a very um, these are very unique set of skills that they would have to obtain.

We are fortunate in that we do have one consultant who um used to work with JTI, our our partnering um company, and he has a uh wide variety.

We also um partnered with MCP.

Um, however, that contract is as um has expired.

Okay, yeah, that's what I see.

Okay, all right.

Thank you.

So you you'll handle this the same way as the other one when the money runs out.

Correct.

That's when the tough questions before that.

I'm sure you'll start looking for correct other grants.

Okay, yep.

Thank you.

Right now, this is additional funding.

These are not grants that we will have to renew, but they are limited funds, so eventually they will run out, and at that point we will have to you know reexamine our our available funding and our positions.

Okay, okay.

Sound good to me.

All right, all in favor?

Aye, seven, not opposed.

Thank you.

Thank you.

All right, thank you.

Okay.

State's attorney's office, and this is 8.7.

Uh this is a joint resolution.

Authorized in the exception and execution offer renewal just to assistance grant, violent crime for prosecution grant, which assists the lake county state's attorney offer with the prosecution of violent crime within the lake county, including an emergency appropriation of 200,000 in grant fund.

And I need a motion.

Motion by member Rob second by memo.

I mean a chair hot.

Okay, any question on this?

Chair Joe and uh Steve are up on the slide.

Oh, I didn't even see him.

Okay.

Okay.

And you okay.

Okay.

Good morning, everyone.

Um, sorry, yes, I am good morning.

I'm I'm virtual today, so hopefully everyone can hear me all right.

Yep.

Um, I am Joe Gravitter, Chief Deputy of Administrative Services at the state's attorney's office.

Um also Steve Spagnolo is joining me remotely.

He is the director of government relations and external affairs, and then he would be able to answer any program specific questions.

Um, so this is a renewal one-year justice assistance grant that will expire September 30th of next year.

Um, and it's for the purpose of assisting the SAO with prosecuting violent crimes in Lake County.

Uh, the grant will continue to offset the funding for one of our assistant states attorneys along with uh 40% of the salary and benefits of our data analyst.

Uh the ASA will continue focusing on prosecuting gun violence offenses in Lake County, and then the data analyst, excuse me, will continue to track and map those incidents.

Um, and then additionally, our office will be purchasing an electronic gun storage locker with these funds.

Any question from the committee, Steve?

You had anything?

Um Joe summed it up perfectly.

If there's any questions, I'm happy to answer.

Okay, thank you.

See no question.

Care in the motion.

All in favor?

Aye.

No, non-opposed.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Okay.

All right, thank you guys.

There's that executive session.

Any member remarks.

And I declare this meeting joined to December 2nd, 2026.

2025.

Great.