It is 8 30 a.m.

on Thursday, February 5th, 2026.

Call to order.

The Lake County Board's Financial and Administrative Committee.

Vice Chair Parek, would you please lead us in the Pledge of Allegiance?

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.

Can we please have a roll call?

Member Clark.

Chair Frank.

Here.

Member Hewitt.

Here.

Member Maine.

Vice Chair Park.

Here.

Member Peterson.

Member Voletzek.

We are all present.

Thank you.

Do we have any addenda to the agenda?

We do not have any public comments?

Nope.

Okay.

For chair remarks, I will just note we do have executive session.

And it might take some time because we're getting an update on pending litigation from the state attorney's office.

So I think we're just going to budget some time for that as well.

Okay.

Consent agenda items.

I'm sorry, I skipped unfinished business.

We have any.

No.

Okay.

New business consent agenda items 8.1 through 8.6.

Motion to approve these items by Vice Chair Parak.

Second by member Hewitt.

You want to pull 8.16.

You said 8.13.

3.16.

I apologize.

It's 8.16.

8.1 through 8.16.

Thank you for the correction.

Does anybody want to pull any of these items before we proceed to vote?

Any comments or questions?

All in favor, please say aye.

Any oppose.

Those items are approved.

On to our regular agenda.

8.17 is a Lake County Partners update.

Good morning and welcome to Partners President CEO Kevin Considine.

Good morning.

Nice to see you all.

Fun to be back and uh kickoff 2026.

Uh so great to be here and uh have the chance to share some fun news and to kind of look ahead.

Um some of it, some of you are probably sick of hearing from me.

But um nonetheless, uh some some fun news to share.

Uh that 2025 was our best year ever.

Um, and uh you all know that we we measure that by the new jobs created from the projects that we work on and the direct capital investment uh from those projects.

Um so last year was uh about 1800 new jobs uh and 633 million dollars in direct capital investment.

Um this was a familiar logo slide.

You got to watch it sort of build over the course of the year uh last year.

So some uh sort of fun nuggets within that.

So uh of those 1800 jobs, a thousand of those in manufacturing.

Um what was really interesting is almost all of those were existing businesses.

So it wasn't necessarily uh, you know, new businesses moving in.

In many cases, they were businesses that we helped set up three or four years ago and already having to grow and expand and needed to either uh second building, expand the building.

This was uh, you know, maybe a a new production line or a new venture.

Um, which was pretty cool to see.

That's exactly what we want to see is existing business continuing to grow um uh successfully in the county.

Uh a couple other new things, and you see some of those bullets uh towards the bottom.

Um, in keeping with the Lake County Partners uh initiatives around housing that are totally aligned with the county's initiatives around housing.

Um, as we've begun to uh to work in that space.

Uh so three of those projects uh were actually multifamily housing developments.

Um you see there in uh two of them in Fox Lake and one in Libertyville.

There'll be more on the housing front to come.

So our typical five-year uh look, uh it continues to be uh a great run, about 4,000 jobs.

Um you might remember me saying, you know, gosh, when we when 2020 rolls off, that number's gonna take a hit.

Well, it really hasn't because we've been able to keep a really strong trajectory going.

Um so and 2700 retained jobs and 1.8 billion dollars in direct investment.

Um, I think I said here, I I shouldn't have said it.

I think in October, I kind of said like, oh, I think we're gonna get over the two billion mark, and I shouldn't have said it because I jinxed it.

We were so close.

Um, I am I'm confident that we will uh this year.

We've got a couple of our wins already in the um uh already in the bucket for this year.

We can't really announce them yet, but we've been told, hey, we're coming.

And those are some of the ones that I thought would you know close last year that we would get over.

So really good stuff.

The year will uh is off to a good start, and we're really optimistic about what 2026 looks like.

But um kudos to the team back at uh back at the shop and uh Ron Lands, our senior director of business development leads really all of this project work.

Um, and he's been doing a fantastic job.

Um so any questions on that.

Uh yeah.

Remember mean.

Oh, sorry.

Thank you.

Great, great work, Kevin, by you and your team.

I was just wondering what um net employment was.

You've got new jobs.

What's our net?

Because I'm I'm assuming, you know, companies move or close or whatever.

So where are we of the net jobs?

Uh our the it kicks around kind of in any given month.

So it's about 360 to 370,000.

Um is the and and technically that's uh residents employed.

So that's the well it it's hard to get the the actual data.

You know what?

Let me say that's the stat I can quote off the top of my head.

Okay, sure.

Um let me get you the actual one, which is jobs here rather than resident base.

Yeah, and then you know, the resident base, I was thinking about that too, but that's going down in the weeds.

But yeah, it would just be good to know.

You know, a five-year trend line of total jobs offered or total jobs here in Lake County.

Yeah, we can get that.

Yeah.

So as we as we look ahead, one of the things that I wanted to share, and this is uh also appropriate as we're we're starting the year.

Um, that I just kind of wanted to share a little bit about sort of the LCP budget, sort of where our money goes, where it comes from, um, et cetera, and wanted to share that.

So our total budget is, you know, we call it a million and a half dollars.

Um the the county investment you all know is 387,000.

So that's 26% of our total budget, uh, for which we are very grateful.

Um six employees, one of those positions is open right now.

Um kind of unsurprisingly looking where the where the dollars go in the pie chart.

Um, so salaries are about half.

That's pretty typical for a nonprofit, anywhere between 50 and 65% salaries are average for a nonprofit.

If you got into or even a service uh business, if you get into manufacturing or something like that um where you have you know materials inputs that those change, and it's probably more like 30%.

Uh and then the other the other pieces of the of the pie here, a lot of that is in you know, economic development uh and marketing.

And then as you get we get smaller and smaller to the to the little pieces, but obviously uh people uh is our biggest chunk.

Um and a little bit of uh kind of what our uh uh investors and board looks like.

So 38 private sector investors.

Uh we have a well, I guess every year we have a concerted effort to increase that number.

Um and we have grown that pretty well over the last couple of years.

Well, I'm looking to grow that more significantly this year.

Um and you can see kind of uh a bunch of the logos, most of those familiar.

They're they're kind of who you'd expect uh to see.

Um hopefully there's some fun surprises on there.

Um those of you who were able to make the big event last year saw that we had a transition of our board chair.

It's a two-year cycle.

So uh Dan Joyce is the current chair of our board of governors.

Uh, and he is the chief operating officer for a manufacturer of Bath Concepts in Libertyville.

As we kind of look ahead to the work, um, in many cases it's gonna be keep doing what we're doing.

Um, you know, our economic development bread and butter, the business retention and attraction.

Um, we will continue to to do um and we've got a really strong project pipeline, uh, which we're excited about.

Um you you all receive a lot of our communications and marketing and telling the story is also a big part about what we do.

Uh you see the big picture there, of course, the big event, uh, which we are in uh furious planning mode for.

So that is April 24th.

I think it's all on all of your calendars, but if not, please pencil that in.

Uh, that's a Friday morning this year.

Uh we are uh we're excited about it.

We'll be announcing that speaker soon.

Um, and the uh the those official announcements uh maybe going out in the next week or so.

What's the date again?

Uh April 24th.

Thank you.

That's for the big event, yes.

Um also good stuff in the look ahead for the Greater Chicagoland Economic Partnership.

Uh this will be my final year as as chair that will will rotate in December.

Um and we've been able to to over the last year or so, I think better focus uh the organization and the efforts with uh with World Business Chicago to be uh really solidly focused on lead generation and business development.

Um so we've we've got a bunch of things on that front coming up.

Uh we are taking a delegation to Germany in April, uh, which we're really excited about, uh making uh a couple stops in Germany as well as then we've uh sort of built it around uh a trade show, Hanover Mesa is the largest manufacturing technology trade show in the world.

Um, and it actually alternates between Hanover, Germany and Chicago.

In Chicago, we call it IMTS, the international MTS.

Um so that gives us a great opportunity also to meet with uh tons of businesses, not just German at that point, but really from all over the world, but predominantly from all over Europe.

So we're excited about that.

Um Select Shy, this will be our third um uh edition of that event, and that's in conjunction with Select USA, which is a U.S.

Department of Commerce sponsored event uh for uh international companies and investors looking to do business here in the US.

And what that we have a Chicago spinoff event saying, hey, you're coming to this event in DC.

Why don't you come a couple days early and stop by stop in Chicago?

The first year we had 25 businesses, last year we had 52.

Uh, we're looking to to grow that further.

Um it was that event two years ago, uh, where we first met a certain uh Dutch solar panel manufacturer.

So it also gives you a view of the sales cycle sometimes of these things as well.

Um but uh lots of other events uh uh with GSEP as well to maximize the conventions that come to Chicago.

That's kind of a no-brainer, things you don't have to buy a plane ticket for, uh, or that we don't, um, as well as maximizing the site selectors.

And then there's an effort to uh we start a largely private sector funding model for GCEP starts January 1, 2027.

So the uh sales effort around that uh starts now.

So we're we're excited about that as well.

Um looking at our other what we call the the the SEDs initiatives um around predominantly housing, uh college going and career awareness, uh early childhood is in there as well and life science.

Interesting on housing.

Obviously, there's a lot of discussion around that these days, which is outstanding.

Uh we are wrapping up uh the county's housing lake project uh next week.

So hopefully you'll all be at that summit on February 11th at one o'clock at the um new headquarters of the regional office of education uh in Lake Forest.

Um really cool space.

So we're excited to be able to host it there as well.

Um interesting little side note, and I will, I'm sorry I should have uh included the link in here, but I'll I'll send it out afterwards.

Uh of uh we did just kind of a housing roundup story of what's what's going on where um and did you know that there are over uh 3,000 units either under construction or have been approved um in Lake County uh right now, including 400 and some of those uh affordable, which are really excited about.

And it was one of those that frankly, until we did the story and kind of raked it all together.

It was none of us realized that there were that there was that much happening, which is really great.

It is a long way to go to to fill the gap that we have.

Um, but I don't know, that felt like pretty good progress.

Um so we wanted at least, you know, enjoy the good feeling for a moment before we you know dove back into to trying to fill the gap.

Um so that's pretty exciting.

We are also just kicking off uh Steve De Bretto on our team is just kicking off a um effort to kind of map and what do we need to do to expand our and capitalize on our life sciences ecosystem.

It is in the infant stages.

So you'll hear a lot more about that.

Um ahead.

Yeah.

Deficit in housing in Lake County was what 7,000 or 7,000 affordable, 11,000 market rate.

So an 18,000 total.

Oh, yeah.

So the 3,000, like that's great.

But yeah, yeah.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Sorry.

Again, please.

Uh Light Tech is the typical way that affordable housing is it's low-income housing tax credit.

Um, and that is those are state tax credits.

Uh, there's probably federal funding behind them, but but through the state, and it's the way that affordable housing is typically uh financed and funded.

Okay.

All right.

Um there's a we can go more into the weeds of that, two different kinds, et cetera.

But that's the primary way that affordable housing development is funded.

Okay.

And then you have the life sciences ecosystem discovery stage mapping.

And what does that mean?

So it's really what we want to do is understand what is the what's the life sciences ecosystem look like, not just in like county, but frankly in the region.

Um, and what do we need to grow to do to grow and expand that?

So, an example would be we've sometimes um there's some cool small startup stuff happening um in the city, particularly in the Fulton market.

Actually, there's a couple pockets of it down in Hyde Park around the University of Chicago.

There's some downtown, some interesting things happening in Evanston around Northwestern.

So, like that kind of makes sense.

And then Lake County.

So it all kind of follows the coast.

So uh kind of a uh simple way to look at the question is we think, hey, for Lake County, should we try and mimic the things that are happening in those sort of startup enclaves there?

Or should we be the place where those companies graduate to?

I could argue either side, but that's a question that we need to answer.

Um and some things and what and what's missing.

Yeah, thanks so much.

You bet.

That is my report.

Thank you, Kevin.

Uh congratulations on a fantastic successful year in 2025.

These updates are great.

Uh, need to fully disclose.

I borrowed some of these slides from your last update for recent update to uh constituents in my area, and they really uh found it informative.

So really useful, good highlights.

Appreciate the presentation.

Great.

Other questions for Kevin?

Chair Hart.

Just one comment.

Kevin and I had been on calls earlier this week, and um, he was heading out to a village board meeting to speak in support of the housing development that was happening there, which was I think um what tell me what it was.

It was how many you have 130 units um of single family attached uh rental community in Round Lake, targeted at uh 50 plus age crew.

So really exciting uh a place where we have a big gap.

Um very housing stock.

Um you know, that is the definition of missing middle that you hear a lot in the housing discussion.

So I I just wanted to publicly thank Kevin for taking the time after hours too to go and advocate for these housing developments around Lake County, right?

So they did the SEDS report.

We know that we have the missing middle.

We know we have all of these um these needs.

I think you said Ron Lands was meeting you out there too.

So I just wanted to say thank you to you and your team for you know continuing to recognize and advocate for um for housing uh across the county.

So thanks.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Anything else?

Thank you, Ken.

Good.

Thank you all.

Appreciate the opportunity.

8.18 is an update from a county clerk, Anthony Vega.

Good morning, uh board members.

I was asked to provide an update to all of you about the recent United States postal changes that have been implemented as of January 1st that uh will impact the delivery uh of and return of vote by mail.

Uh on December 24th, we were notified that the United States Postal Service was uh updating its postmarking rules.

Uh, previously, uh, when a piece of mail was dropped uh at a local location, it could have been postmarked at that location, or it could have been postmarked at the processing facility.

Uh that's no longer the case.

That is now being uh post pieces of mail are now being postmarked at the processing facility.

Uh ours is in Carroll Stream.

So all of the mail has to get there first before it is postmarked.

Illinois is a postmarked state, meaning that any vote by mail ballots uh postmarked by election day and received by our office uh within the two weeks after election day, we can st we can still count.

That does complicate matters a little bit.

The second change is the fact that they are uh the postal service is also reducing their pickup, uh their pickup routes from the local United States postal retail locations.

So that we used to rely on two pickups per day, now that's going down to one.

Again, that does that will impact how mail gets to the processing facilities if we miss that that initial pickup uh on that business day.

The third change, which is the one that I'm most concerned about, is for a very long time.

Uh the United States Postal Service implemented extraordinary measures for election mail.

That was more pickups, more drop-offs.

They did a lot more uh work behind the scenes to ensure the timely delivery of what by mail ballots.

That is no longer the case as of this year.

They will only be employing extraordinary measures for November general elections.

So for primaries, uh for municipal elections, uh those extraordinary measures are no longer being employed.

So what does this mean for us?

It means that you know, my office and my colleagues uh will rise to the challenge once again.

Uh and it is the uh the owners really is on us to inform voters.

Um some of you may have realized that some of your newsletters already have some messaging that started last month about this.

We are recommending voters uh to not wait to return their vote by mail ballot as soon as possible.

If they are waiting um seven days uh if they're if they're returning their ballot within seven days of election day, we are either recommending two, well, really three things.

One, use a drop box, go to a re USPS retail location, ask for the manual postmark, or three uh walk it in to an early voting location and surrender your vote by mail ballot to ensure uh timely uh that it's actually counted.

Uh we are also asking voters, like we do in every election to sign up for ballot tracks so they get notified where their vote by mail ballot is in the stream and when we receive it.

Um my office will be notifying all voters two weeks from election day who are signed up for ballot tracks.

Hey, this is two weeks from election day.

Now's the time to return your vote by mail ballot if you haven't.

Um we're gonna be doing a lot more uh again, we're gonna be meeting the drum on social media and with our partners.

Um all of your newsletters.

I did notify both party chairs uh of in Lake County about this change in early January.

They have my guidance, and I am asking both of them to relay that to their precinct committee people and their township chairs uh to help spread the word.

Um this was a change that we were not we heard rumors about, but we were not expecting.

Uh again, the postmarking rule came down on December 24th on December 31st.

Uh, we were notified that there was going to be a statewide call later that same day uh with the changes effective January 1st, 2026.

So we were not really given a lot of lead time.

We have expressed our concerns.

We have us uh a group of clerks in Illinois have uh have continued to advocate for the bare minimum, which is just employ extraordinary measures until we find an actual solution moving forward.

Uh that it that's included sitting down with members of our Illinois congressional delegation as of recently uh to see and from what I understand, they're gonna be circulating a bipartisan letter to just to hopefully put more pressure on the United States Postal Service.

That is my update.

Thank you, Clerk.

If you may, if you have a few minutes, we have to do that.

Absolutely.

Okay, member bulletic.

Um don't wait.

Uh uh mailing company.

Um certain again, certain voters overseas mainly military voters could also possibly email their their ballots.

Again, ask questions of the local elections office to see what the process is.

Um and that's what I would recommend.

And then do you know offhand um how many states are postmarking states?

I don't know the exact number, but it is uh the vast majority.

All right, thank you.

Thanks for all of the words.

Yeah, thank you.

This is very kind of disappointing to hear about this.

So can people, because this obviously affects more than voting.

I mean, like you could your taxes or other things.

So do you do you know, happen to know if people go into a post office, can they request it to be like something to be postmarked?

Or is it really have to wait till it gets to get they can request the manual postmark?

So that means the the person going uh to the postal location, parking, getting in line, and asking them for that physical postmark.

They have to ask for it for that postmark, that manual one to to be stamped on the piece of mail.

Okay, so they but they could say, do like if because if the voter or or for taxes or everything on election day, though, you could go in on the day and be like, I need to see, but you'd have to watch them and they can they still can postmark it, but you'd have to you know wait and see.

Yes.

Because it sounds like yeah, with it with the nut collecting at night, it sounds like it could be a while to other ways to get postmarks.

And then for us, we're having the ballot, people can drop off their ballots, correct?

Uh the drop boxes are external site uh locations and then during early voting, uh, once it's countywide at every uh countywide uh early voting location.

Okay, so it'll be at all the county wide fully voting locations.

Okay, that's really helpful.

18 sites okay, thank you.

And thank you for publicizing.

I know I've been seeing it on social media and things like this, and this is a question I'm I'm getting all the time from constituents because it affects so much, not just our voting.

Thank you.

Thank you, Kerhart.

Thank you.

Thanks for coming and talking to us today.

So, two questions.

Um those ballots or all mail go to the processing center.

Do they by law all have to be postmarked upon arrival?

Do you know?

They should be postmarked.

However, we were also advised that they cannot guarantee that a postmark will be applied to the piece of mail.

Wow.

They can't guarantee that it will receive a postmark.

Correct.

Okay.

Which is why we're also advising voters to make sure that they date the certification on the return envelope.

There's a provision in the law.

When you when the voters signed the box, there's a date, right?

Either next or below that.

In the absence of a postmark, we can go by the date on that they certified that they fill out their ballot.

Most voters leave it blank.

We're asking them to make sure that they it's actually dated.

Okay.

Great.

Thank you.

And then somebody just asked me this question yesterday.

How do we protect sort of the external ballot boxes?

I feel like there's one on the driveway into the central permit facility, right?

How do we how do we protect those that no, that's a good question.

Um, I I will say that one of I think the foresight that the county had when we went to drop boxes was actually putting them on county property, which means that they're under 24 hours surveillance.

We we we can ask the sheriff's office, and we have, especially during 2024, uh the election and a lot of uncertainty.

We ask for extra patrols overnight at those drop boxes because that's a concern.

Usually what we saw across the country is people coming at night trying to damage the drop boxes or put some sort of sort of uh paint or seller in um uh inside.

Um so we can ask for that.

Other jurisdictions have them in a parking lot at a jewel or you know, other less secure areas.

I have been asked, would we consider adding more drop boxes?

My my feeling about that is the more drop boxes we have, also that it may be more accessible, but then we also lose control and security with that.

Um right now we we're using county property, and I think that that was a really good um a solution at the time when the county decided to implement that.

Great.

Thank you very much.

Uh Vice Chair, then member of the Thanks so much, Chris.

Um Clerk Vega.

One question, I know you have a lot of uh media going out about this.

Is there anything in the mail that you're also gonna drop to let voters know about the changes?

Because I feel some folks just I mean, I read your mail, and so uh luckily we were notified in time that we were able to redo the instructions that's actually inserted in the pieces of mail.

Um, so that there is language in the instruction page as to what that they need to do.

Um for November, we're actually thinking, because again, we had a really short window to turn it around of adding um November will have a much larger turnout in the primary, but we're actually thinking of uh adding us uh uh like a bright piece of paper that's actually could be inserted that's just the hey, don't wait.

This is these are your options.

And those extraordinary measures should be employed for November.

But again, just out of abundance of caution, we need to start kind of drilling um re-educating voters, the expectation that they should make really make a plan and plan ahead to on returning their vote by mail ballot.

Excellent.

Thank you.

Thank you, member of Let's take.

I just wanted to reiterate our thanks for you coming, not only today, but all of the um public education and awareness that your office and the bipartisan group of clerks down the state have been really out there in the public talking about this because I've I've seen seemingly organized disinformation saying the opposite.

So I think it's really important for official county clerks like yourself to be out making the public aware of what's going on so that they can guard themselves against this disinformation being spread.

Thank you.

I had one more question.

I um I've gotten this question from people.

So if someone has a vote by mail ballot, and in two things.

One is like they've checked their check, the tracker and it's not there and it's election day and they're worried it's not going to count, or if they have it and they just are like, you know what, I just want to vote in person now, even though I got this.

Can they still like could you could look what would there be their options?

So if they've already voted and they and they sent it in and it's been accepted and they want to and they want to change their vote.

No, okay.

So then that's fine.

Uh, then that they're good.

But if they have their ballot and they want to vote in person, they can take that vote by mail ballot, go to an early voting location or an election day vote center and surrender that ballot and get an actual election, you know, election.

They should bring it in.

Yes, they should.

And I I meant to say, maybe I said it wrong.

People who check the tracker and it wasn't accepted on election day.

So they don't know if it's been received in time.

So we would again uh sometimes um voters what we found think they've signed up for ballot tracks when they haven't.

Um so we always ask them, please call our office to see, hey, when do we sign your vote by mail ballot?

This is when you should have received it.

Um, and then we ask them, hey, when did you uh when did you return it that gives us an idea of when to expect it?

I always tell voters, don't wait until election day, because by that point it will be too late.

Um if, for example, they say that they returned it in the post office and we haven't received it, then they're they're gonna have to go to an election day site and vote provisionally.

Okay.

Um at that point, we're gonna have to wait to see that piece of mail actually hits our um hits our mail, and then we can, you know, not cast the provisional, but if it doesn't come in, then we can possibly cast the provisional.

But I again I think the the theme is don't wait.

Yeah, thank you.

Thank you.

Any other comments or questions?

Thank you.

We look forward to future updates.

Thank you to you and your team for the great work.

Thank you.

And not completed.

Motion by member Clark, second by member Hewitt.

Good morning, Michael.

Good morning, Michael Wheeler, budget manager finance.

Good to see everyone today.

I think people are kind of used to this.

This is our next round of carryovers.

These are for grants or projects that weren't completed by the end of fiscal year 25.

We're just requesting that you allow the budget authority that's remaining to be transferred from fiscal 25 to fiscal 26, so that these projects may continue and be completed and the grants can carry on as planned.

And I'm happy to answer any questions.

Yeah, just for uh clarity and understanding, what's the total amount of the of the carryovers that we're talking about here?

Uh, what we're looking at on this list is about 20 million, and a lot of it is grant dollars.

Okay.

Thank you.

Comments or questions?

None.

All in favor, please say aye.

Aye.

Any opposed?

8.19 is approved.

8.20 is a resolution authorizing line item transfers between various homes for the purpose of transferring previously approved funds in fiscal year 2025.

Motion to approve by member Hewitt, second by member Clark.

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

Um, as part of the year-end process, there are some line item transfers that are um needed to align the budget with the actual spend.

Um each department kind of has their own story on on what's causing some of these issues, but vacancy saving assumptions that were part of built into the budget is a common theme.

Um, and what uh we're requesting is approval of these.

This doesn't increase the overall budget for the county, it's just reallocating some of the budget dollars amongst various departments.

Comments or questions, member Maine.

Thank you.

I noticed looking at this, like some were transfers because they had exceeded the their their budget in one area.

How does the and I understand that happened?

That's not necessarily an issue, but do we track that and uh sort of over time, like if there's a certain area where year after year they're exceeding that, do we say, hey, you need to account for this in your next in your next budget, so that the proposed budget is aligning with what historically happening once you take it into account the line item line item transfers.

Yes, thank you, Member Main.

As part of the budget process, um historical information is reviewed and taken into account.

There's always the stories of you know, this is kind of a one-off year for this or that.

Um, but it is part of the analysis and is part of the budget policy.

We're always trying to work on how we can approve improve some of the assumptions that we have.

So can I thanks?

And I was just, I mean, I understand things happen uh as a one-off.

Are you and I know you're newer in this position, so might not have that historical, but do you know in general?

Do they say, well, we've heard that every year, right?

Well, last year it was a one-off, and the year before it was one-off, where hey, there's a pattern of one off.

So do they kind of try to go to the phone?

Yeah, if I may add before you respond, I feel like um identifying those departments is a really good opportunity for you to coach them, right?

To say, hey, it's not a punitive thing.

It's not to say we're not gonna approve this, but to say this department, you're out you're you're at the high end.

You do a lot of these every year, and some other departments are a little bit more accurate and they do less of them.

And so I think you know, you could identify where the outliers are and coach and set expectations for for what you'd like to see going forward.

Yes, absolutely.

Yes, thank you.

Yeah.

I'm not speaking for you, but I feel like that was well, you kind of were, but that I forgive you this time.

Thank you.

Other comments or questions?

Okay, back to 8.20.

All in favor, please say aye.

Aye.

Any opposed?

Item is approved.

8.21 is resolution authorizing emergency appropriation of a community project funding grant agreement with the U.S.

Department of Housing and Urban Development in the amount of four million dollars for the North Chicago environmental remediation at Sheridan Crossing.

Motion to approve by Sher Park, second by member Volitzek.

Uh good morning.

Thank you.

Uh with res with regard to this matter, back in 2023, the board was um notified that a joint grant between Lake County and the City of North Chicago was received from the U.S.

Department of Housing and Urban Development for the Sheridan Crossing Environmental Cleanup.

Work is about to begin on that.

And in this situation, we need to emergency appropriate that those grant monies into this budget fiscal year uh for the work that is about to commence.

Thank you.

Member Clark.

Yeah.

I'm glad to see this.

Um exciting project.

And my only question is do we oversee, like, are we overseeing this work?

And would they would would these contracts have to like comply with our responsible bidder ordinance?

Or is this like a pass-through like I for this project?

Yeah, so um Matt Mars, there'd be kind of administrator.

Um we are they're working directly with North Chicago, and we are kind of that that middle entity because of the way that the grant funds flowed, but they do have to comply with all HUD requirements with respect to the grants, the contracts, and um the methods of reimbursement.

We're reviewing everything that comes in and approving that prior to payment from transferring the funds from HUD to um the city of North Chicago.

So we so we're more so we're just more like a conduit kind of like an overseeing okay.

Ensuring that it complies though with all the HUD requirements because of the fact that our name is on it.

Okay.

All right, and thank you.

And thank you for your work on this.

Other comments or questions.

Thank you for this.

And I also just wanted to take a moment, we got this as a community project funding, and just last night we got notified that um Congressman Schneider was able to secure an additional one million dollars for Lakeside Towers, which is an affordable housing uh uh building in uh city of Joaquin.

So I just wanted to throw that out there.

So thank you.

Great news.

Seeing no other comments, all in favor, please say aye.

Aye.

Any opposed, 8.21 is approved.

8.22 is your director's report.

Thank you.

Last item here for me.

Um again, as part of the year end uh closeout process.

There is authority given to the CFO on certain line item transfers uh within a department's budget.

So in front of you is the listing of approvals that I have done for the month of January with regards to these these items.

A lot of it again is trying to get actual spend or the budget aligned with actual spend, but smaller dollars here in this um report versus the one that uh I presented previously.

There's no need for um committee approval.

This is just for your information, and the intention is is that when this whole year end reconciliation closeout process is completed, I'll also provide a tally of everything so you can see it from the the higher view of what was the total of all of this.

Great.

Thank you.

Other comments or questions?

Thank you very much.

Thank you.

8.23 is committee action authorizing the reclassification of position 34043 from senior planner grade eight salary to assistant planning and zoning manager grade 14 salary with an associated increase to base pay to the 25th percentile.

Motion to approve this item by member Clark, second by member Maine.

Morning, Darcy.

Morning, Darcy Idkack, HR director.

Um yes, this was discussed at executive session last week.

Um a request from the planning, building and development department to reclassification from grade eight to grade 14 to the 25th percentile.

Um it's about a $30,000 annual increase.

Comments or questions.

All in favor, please say aye.

Aye.

Any opposed?

8.23 is approved.

8.24 is committee action authorizing reclassification of position 46014 from Info Compliance Specialist Grade 4 hourly to Info Systems Compliance LEED grade 8 hourly with an associated increase to base pay of 5%.

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

Thank you.

Also discussed at executive session last week.

This is for the workforce development department, um, resulting in an increase of approximately $3,000 annually.

Um, completely grant funded.

Comments or questions?

All in favor, say aye.

Aye.

Any opposed, 8.24 is approved.

Thanks so much.

Thank you.

8.25 is a resolution approving the sale of two county owned properties located at 29278 Route 83 and 21010 West Illinois Route 60, Mondaline for 135,000.

Mondaline, Illinois.

Yes, consisting of approximately 5.6 acres, formally used as the old animal care and control facility for the Lake County Health Department, and declaring the parcel as excess property.

Motion to approve this item by member Maine, second by member Clark.

Good morning.

Uh, this is an item that we've discussed previously at this committee.

Uh this property has been for sale since 2018, was formally the site of animal care and control before they moved and constructed a new facility.

It is set vacant and for sale since that time.

The offer is above the appraised value of the property and staff recommends sale.

And it's two parcels, but it's adjacent.

It's the same property as I'm sorry, right?

Correct.

Okay.

Comments or questions.

All in favor, please say aye.

Any opposed?

8.25 is approved.

8.26.

It's an ERP system implementation update from our county ministry and CIO planning.

Good morning.

Patrice Sutton, County Administrator.

Chris Blinding, CIO.

So we've um at our technology committee, we did update you on an ERP update, but we wanted to also update the uh finance and administrative committee because there is a financial component to this.

This project, as you may recall, is 100% funded by the ARPA fund.

Um but I just wanted to be extremely transparent with you.

I do have the authority granted by the county board to make the decisions within the ARPA fund for timeliness purposes and to ensure compliance with the grant.

Um, but I just wanted to be extremely transparent with you before I entered into this um change order.

So just by way of background, for those of you that weren't at the technology committee or haven't had a chance to listen in, um, we did take a pause on our enterprise resource planning system.

This is the backbone of our financial and HR system.

It it handles all of our human resources and financial transactions.

It is our general ledger, it handles all of our payables, all of our receivables, all cash, um, all financial reporting, and then everything having to do with all of our employees, all of their data characteristics, um, all of their benefit package, training requirements, performance evaluations, and um, of course, payroll.

So an extremely important system.

And as you may recall, we did make the um difficult decision in the fall to take a pause and not go live with the configuration as it was um configured at that time.

Uh during this time, we've not been inactive.

We've been extremely active.

Um, and a good portion of uh effort has gone towards uh reinstating and negotiating a change order because um we are looking to extend the project a fair amount of time and our consultant implementers um need to be compensated for that time.

So before I go into the uh financial aspect in more detail, I'm gonna have Chris give a high-level overview of um the efforts and the relaunch of how we're kind of taking a new approach to this, but using the same fundamental guidelines.

Um, as you may recall, our um tagline was streamlined, standardized, and simplified.

Um, but we really wanted to lean into that and make sure that we're all aligned towards one way of doing business.

Um, and so I'm really proud of the work that Chris and the entire project team have been doing, and I'd like for him to share just a little bit of that activity.

Thank you.

Uh as Patrice said, we've been working hard during the pause, take lessons learned and improve the way we we move forward.

Don't just keep doing the same thing for the second phase.

So working with the system implementer, we are putting together a governance framework which will guide how it'll be our North Star, how we're gonna operate the project.

So we're gonna clarify the vision.

What are we really trying to accomplish?

This is a transformational opportunity with a modern system.

Um we can change the way we do business for the better.

So clarifying that vision, um, aligning on guiding principles, which will point to throughout the project, um, clarifying goals and objectives, how we'll operate as a team and the sub-teams, uh, clarify roles and responsibilities, and what's our decision-making approach and the escalation approach when decisions can't be made uh with a compromise.

How we're going to approach this is um the transformational opportunities is through use cases.

So it's 10 to 12 use cases, which touch on processes that uh are countywide.

And we are then working with teams throughout the county to identify what are the pain points we have, what are potential outcomes we want from the new system, and then get aligned on a future state.

This alignment is key.

It's not designing and configuration how we do it, it's us all working together saying, yes, we see opportunity to improve and transform the way we do business.

Then it will go down to the project teams or the work stream teams to configure it and make it happen.

Um, and that's where the real collaboration on how to make it happen uh goes on.

Um I'd like to thank all the departments as we've been spinning up the project for their flexibility as we try to get the the representation countywide into these meetings and start getting that alignment.

And then thanks to the all the project team that for the hard work they're gonna do as this project goes into full project mode.

As far as timeline, we're looking at Q4.

We have to build in as much time as possible for this collaboration.

It takes time to work through uh get the alignment and then how we're gonna make it happen.

So we're still honing in on the exact date, but it's uh looks like quarter four.

A lot of good work's been done to this point.

Hopefully, we wouldn't have to do a lot of rework, but it's important to get the input countywide and collaborate together.

So with that, I'll take any questions.

Thank you.

And I just want to thank you both.

Um, I know we talked about this technology too, but you know, this project obviously will be transformational for Lake County.

I also just want to thank you for taking the pause.

I mean, I think going through something like this and not having it be what we needed it to be from the beginning would have been much harder to fix later than to have this done right to begin with.

So taking this time and making sure this is as we've talked about in the committee.

I don't think we're gonna do this again for a while.

Hopefully not.

Well, we're all on the board.

It could be like a long time.

And so we want to make sure it's doing right.

And I'm glad to hear about the collaboration and reaching out.

And so you're looking at looks like it um, so we're gonna like relaunch, it sounds like, and I know you've already been working anyway, like with uh getting everyone together.

So basically you'll be talking to people.

So when you talk, I know we talked like use cases, so you'll be talking to all the distant departments, like what do we want workday to do for you?

And then, you know, and and I think it's important, you know, people have to like rethink how they're might do it, and then you're gonna so come up with the system, and then we'll look at like going live at the end of the year.

And then my question really is um, is it possible?

And I know this is kind of far reaching, but like once we get to the end of the year um and it's implemented and it's running, is it still the type of system where there could be changes, like, oh, it turns out like we'd also like to add this kind of module in the future.

Is that kind of how we're this works with this type of ERP system?

Um, you know, I don't want it to be everyone writes their own code and has their own little thing.

Um so that I was wondering about the expandability in the future.

And also I do hope at some point when this is launched, um, we can like look back and say, like, how many softwares are we not using?

How much are we, you know, how much work are we not supporting?

Because now everyone's on this one system.

So that I'm looking forward to hearing that report back.

But also um, is workday something that's kind of a living thing going forward?

Go for it.

Okay.

It absolutely is.

Uh, they say it is not the end once you go live.

Um, there are annual updates twice that happen, and the system is designed to be configured and uh new uh features will be added as we go on.

So it's important also to have a post-production governance model, kind of like we're doing now.

Um that is inclusive and takes all departments a part of that, and we're not just making decisions in a vacuum.

It's a governance model to support those updates and what new configurations might we change.

So it is living and breathing.

Yes, uh, you don't want to customize, so you want to try to use the functionality out of the box, as they say, but it is highly configurable, but you need governance around that.

So we're not changing one thing over here that may affect others.

I'm really glad to hear that.

I know as someone, as I've shared, has gone through a workday, my other thing at my other job, and sometimes there are other things now that we struggle with that we wish we could add or change, but I'm glad to hear that they'll be the government's model, not just like, well, our department's gonna change it to this.

So hopefully everyone will be so you've got it going now and forward.

So I'm really glad to hear that.

Thank you.

So if I may just um be very transparent about the cost of the change order, it is a million eighty-eight thousand nine hundred and twenty-five dollars.

Um to give you some perspective, the overall project cost, the budget for this entire project is 13.5 million, and that is made up of the software licensing cost, the implementation services.

We do have some consulting services for quality assurance.

Um, we built in staff augmentation.

Uh, our ERP manager is funded by the project.

And then finally, um, the readiness assessment projects um that got us to this point and assisted us in selecting workday was also funded by this project budget.

So um the original amount of this software implementation um contract was $4,128, $128,008.

So this is a 26% increase.

Um we are extending the project by almost double.

So you know, this has been a very cooperative process with our software implementer.

Um the negotiation had to happen because we certainly didn't want to pay for the same services twice.

Um, or if we hadn't reached a good conclusion, you know, so there was a lot going on uh during this process, and um I think it's a testament to the team that they've been able to continue working throughout this process um while we've been sort of working through this negotiation process on the change order.

So right now, um the plan is to just absorb it within the ERP budget within the ARPA budget.

Um, if that should change based on the um ability and the um needs of the project team, um, for example, staff augmentation is hard to predict because we don't know for sure who we're gonna be able to uh hire.

Um the team may not need as much staff augmentation as they had the first time around.

So this is all very fluid, and as we get more information, I may need to come back to you and let you know that we are gonna have to move some things around within the ARPA project budgets.

But at this time, um, we are going to absorb the change order within the uh ERP budget within the ARPA fund.

Thank you.

Thanks for uh thanks for the update.

You you touched on something related to what I was going to ask.

So this one million plus was part of you said the an original four million.

Correct.

And the overall project was going to be 13 million.

Correct.

So of that nine million from the original 13, has that, and you just touched on stop staff augmentation, but the other costs associated in that nine million, have they remained constant, or have we seen changes um in those areas since the original concept?

So um a big portion of this 4.5 million dollars is software licensing, and there's been no change in that cost.

Um another big portion of it is that consulting services, staff augmentation and payroll.

So those are the fluid costs where we may have to make some changes going forward to be able to stay within the budget.

Okay.

Um I would request that and when we next get an update on this.

I'm a more visual person and having a document attached, which shows the breakdown of that original 13 million and then dates like, hey, then we needed to pause, and now we need this one million for this, and if there are other changes, just so that we could follow a dollar amount and a time sequence into how the project has needed to be responsive.

Thank you.

Yep.

And as things, you know, get finalized with uh a firm go live date, and once we get things, you know, more firm-up, that will give us the perfect opportunity to come back and do that.

We'll look forward to that at the next update.

Any other questions, comments?

Great.

Thank you.

Thanks, Chris.

8.27 is an update on the status of federal funding in county departments.

Again, this is a duplicative presentation.

I was at the HCS meeting earlier this week talking about this.

You had asked DAF to continue to monitor federal federal funding uncertainty.

And then you asked the very good questions of how is staff doing that and what would be a trigger to initiate some sort of action on our part.

So this is an extremely fluid and constantly changing environment.

And our staff is doing a great job of trying to keep on top of things.

In terms of how we're monitoring it, we're getting information in lots of different ways.

Sometimes Matt Myers gets legislative notification.

A lot of times the granting agencies reach out to the departments.

We're getting this information in a lot of different ways.

And sometimes, you know, it's then changed or challenged in court.

So the monitoring process is ever present and ongoing and happens in whatever way we can get the information.

As for what we're going to do about it or how are we, what is our solution for this?

I convened a group of our experts within the health department, workforce development, and community development.

And the reason that we started there is because their departments are the most impacted by federal funding.

As you heard from executive director Chris Hoff on Tuesday, approximately one quarter of all of his funding is federally funded.

Our community development and workforce development groups are one nearly 100% funded by federal funding.

So the federal funding is inherent in the operations of those three departments, which is why we started with them to come up with our proposed mitigation strategy.

And what I learned when I was speaking to them is that it's the urgent nature when these notifications are come across and the um urgent need to react immediately because even by our policy, it states that grant funded positions need to go away when the grant funding goes away.

And so they act very quickly to give these employees termination notices of 30 days so that they can meet the spirit of our policy and you know what we intend to do from a financial perspective.

However, as you well know, some of these things are then being reversed and or um being challenged in court, which creates a lot of uncertainty for our employees and our clients or patients or customers.

And so what the team had come up with was a desire to have sort of a safety net fund that allows them more time for an orderly transition.

So the amount that we've identified just in those three departments that is at risk is 26.9 million dollars of active grants or current awards of 36.5 million.

So this is no small dollar amount.

And there's no one solution for all of them.

And so what they were stating was that just having a safety net that would give us the time for an orderly transition and the ability to come back to you with a more specific plan that works for that particular program would be the best way to provide some certainty to our employees on these programs, as well as give us the opportunity to come back to the county board with an exact plan for that exact program.

So, for example, there might be funding streams that are available for one program that may not be available for another.

So I want to be very, very clear that what we're asking for your consensus on today is a safety net amount that would be just a short-term solution while they are working on the long-term solution.

And of course, you would have to approve any of the long-term solutions.

So if we were trying to sustain the program for an additional six or 10 or 12 months, for example, that would not come out of the safety fund.

That would require a funding package that we would come to you or ask for you to approve.

So to be very, very clear, what we were looking to try to design is an amount that would allow these departments to tap in on the chance that they need it and give them time to come up with a solution that they would then come back to you on.

So again, we are still in the design stages, but we wanted to come to HCS and then FA today to see if you're in consensus with an approach similar to this.

And then we'll continue to design the details and then come back to you with a more detailed plan.

So that is the process.

I do have the experts here today.

But I'm happy to just take questions or take the discussion where you see fit.

Great.

Thank you.

I was able to hear part of the discussion the other day at HCS.

And I'm really appreciative of the fact that you're bringing it to us and really applaud the sort of thinking that's gone into this to try and provide at least a window of a small window of continuity and ability to make some plans and react to changes that are not well thought out.

Member of Litzik.

Thanks.

Can you provide a like a real world sort of concrete example?

So I mean, I'm imagining like, you know the presidential administration or the federal government says X program is no longer going to be funded.

B program maybe, and there might be staff people whose work sort of bridges both of those programs.

And while maybe there's a court, it's being contested in court.

Sometimes the funds are then frozen, sometimes they're not.

A judge says you have to keep funding this while it's being played out in court.

But um, so I get the funding gaps and why there has to be a contingency plan, which I completely support, by the way.

But I'm just curious on a in a concrete, like, you know, February week in 2026, what does that mean?

Um, and then I have another question after that.

I'm gonna give that yes.

A great question.

Um, two weeks ago, uh Wednesday night or Tuesday night, I'm reading the news and we see notice that the federal administration has canceled $2 billion in SAMHSA grants, substance abuse and mental health services administration, $2 billion in grants across the country.

Like, wow, that okay, interesting.

The very next morning we got official notice from SAMHSA that says your grant was terminated effective yesterday.

Not six months from now, not at the end of the grant contract, but it's terminated, period.

No more reimbursements, whatever you have not recouped at that point, we're out.

Those federal grants are all reimbursement driven.

So we can only draw down the funds that we've actually incurred.

Um, and that's a problem because we had a training coming up that weekend, a $30,000 training to train people in mental health first aid across Lake County.

Um, the staff are impacted.

Um, so right away we're making decisions about their future.

24 hours later, sitting in bed doom scrolling, like shouldn't we know we shouldn't do?

Federal administration says they're reversing course.

They're not going to cancel that grant.

And we still don't have official notice.

So we're still making plans by 9 a.m.

the next morning, 24 hours later, we have an official notice from SAMHSA that says never mind the program has been reinstated.

So that's one example.

And they're not all like that.

Some have been, we're canceling them in the future and don't expect to get funded again.

Some have been, they were canceled yesterday, last March when I started, um, they'd canceled 11 billion dollars in public health funds.

So that's the kind of example.

So it if if so this contingency fund might have been used to pay for that training that was already planned, for instance.

Yeah, it could be used for the waiting.

Okay.

Got an expense we've like planned.

Do the option is cancel that training, and we made a decision to say we're gonna carry that on because we don't know where this will go.

And our experience has been that every single one of these has either ended up in court or it's been reversed, or there's been some other detail change that didn't end up impacting us.

So we've had many of these grants threatened.

We're making decisions operationally, you know, right away because we have to, we owe it to taxpayers to do that.

Um, but yeah, it could be used to cover those things that we know we have to do.

We can't take a vendor out, right?

That person, those trainers are being expected.

We have a contract with them.

We can't cancel that.

So, yes, it would buy us some time to pay staff for that program, complete out the things we know we can't cancel yet, and then make an orderly transition.

And then I'm sorry if I missed this, but where would what fund would this come from?

And in is it does our policy allow for contingency to be used for this?

Yeah.

So we started to dabble into a fund balance discussion, which I'm not still prepared to have.

Um I it thank you for bringing that up.

I believe our policy states that we would have to exhaust contingency before we go into fund balance reserves.

So I really wanted to make sure that we were on the right track with this.

Um, and then we'll continue to work on um what that looks like, where that emergency appropriation would come from.

Um again, it's a little bit fluid because we kind of just need to have it there.

We may not tap into it because in that particular case, he would have just continued with the training and then they found out that it was paid for.

And so I think what we're giving um our departments here is the certainty for continuation and not like abrupt decision making.

Um so I think it is important to develop the safety net funding in that manner.

And I'm we I don't believe that we have the exact solution just yet, but that's what we're putting together here.

Got it.

All right, thank you.

Thank you.

Member Maine.

Thank you.

And I uh I got to hear this at HCS the other day, which was helpful.

So again, thank you to our county administrator and the directors that worked on this.

Um, as always, your proactive approach, looking at a situation that is choppy and fluid and unpredictable is a very is a very difficult situation.

As I said the other day, um, you brought up about um sorry if you said again, I had to get something more hot to drink, um, about looking at something like the our policy of hey, if the grant goes away, the employee goes away.

Could that be stretched out to give us a little flexibility so you're not whip sawing our employees?

And I certainly support that because I I don't the intent of the policy was hey, it's it's we know it's gone as opposed to, well, maybe it's gone and maybe it's coming back.

So I think having um that flexibility is important for for our clients, for our staff, for the functioning of the organization.

Um I think one of the things that we need to do because I think it's likely that this approach, as you will, um, could continue for a long time, right?

So we're not looking at a short-term solution.

And I think it behooves us um as we go into the next budget season, which I know we finish the king is dead, long live the king, right?

The budget's done, long live the next budget, is to really be looking at what are going to be our top priorities.

What are the things that we feel that county government that it is incumbent upon us to provide these services if no one else is providing those services?

And and it may be that there are that there is important work that we've been doing, but when we stack it up against, let's just say childhood vaccinations, we're like, this is good, but childhood vaccinations may be a higher good at this time.

And do we need to be thinking about changes?

Um, and I brought this up the other day.

You know, the health department has its own tax levy.

It is blended in with the county tax levy overall, but there's there's play in there, right?

So there is the ability through our tax levy.

It means that other things might be static or not go up, but staying within our statutory authority of using perhaps a greater percentage of the tax levy that the health department has.

So I just want to put that out now as something for us to be thinking about because before we knew it know it, price are our budget people are gonna be coming to us and saying, hey, we're developing budget policies.

What do you want us to look at?

So I want to put that out there as a placeholder.

Thank you.

Great, thank you.

Uh I really appreciate the comment about focusing on priorities and what matters to us.

And I think that's you know, where we're gonna need to go long term.

Vice chair and the member card.

I'll just keep it short.

Um, we obviously had a long conversation about this at uh HCS.

And so I think just so folks know if you weren't able to listen, we I think agree generally as a committee that we need to do something and really get this going because of the mass uncertainty.

Um and also certain departments like workforce development is 100% uh uh aligned to federal funding.

And so given the the vitalness of those, that we we just can't operate in a situation where all of a sudden one day it's gone and then we think it's coming back, and how do we manage that?

So we felt it was vital that we do something.

So I'm glad Patrice came on on Tuesday and discussed it.

And we feel very as a group, we felt very important something that needs to be done is important for us.

So thank you.

Thanks, member Clark.

I agree.

I mean, this is something that I think has been on everybody's mind.

I mean, this is whenever we go in public, people ask me, what are we gonna do?

Like, what are you gonna do?

And so I'm really glad I really want to think I think this short-term fund idea is really great.

I mean, I you can't just be, you know, and and I so I I totally support that.

Uh having the continuity, be able to make informed strategic decisions.

Um, but also looking at our policy.

I mean, I don't know if we officially have to change the policy about, you know, but maybe we do have to modify the policy on, you know, because otherwise we won't want to say we're not following our policy on that you because we don't want to be sending out notices to people that we're not gonna do.

But then the third part is really so I think you know, maybe looking at my looking at the policy, but I do think we have to look long term, like everyone has said, you know, like what are we doing?

And again, that's what people ask me.

Like, are you really you know, are we really gonna?

And I'm like, well, Lake County's here to provide essential services.

And I don't remember, I think that what you know, the health department and everyone's job to decide this.

But you know, I do think I'm really glad we've been very fiscally prudent on this board.

I feel like you know, we have the you know resources to be able to do this and to support our residents.

I think it's important for our residents to know that we are being really thoughtful about this.

Um, because I don't see any of this kind of chaos stopping for years.

And so um, I think looking long term too, what we can do, and that's gonna be tricky too, because I'm gonna federal funding does come back.

But I think it's really important that we communicate with our residents too, if there's a way to like assure, you know, that we really are looking at this and um looking at these services.

So I'm in support of you know, moving the long-term, short term, and then figuring out our you know policies going forward.

So thank you for all the work on this.

Yeah, and I think there's a couple different layers that we need to think about and prepare for and respond to.

So the example of the SAMSA grants that you talked about, Director Off, is I would say, you know, an example of the incompetence and cruelty of the administration.

There's not a lot of explanation behind it.

At the same time, we do need to be prepared for more things like that to happen.

Uh but also there are the long-term statutory changes from HR one, which uh, you know, in all fairness, were debated and discussed and enacted by the Congress.

Um, and I mentioned at HCS the other day, you know, some of the changes to Medicaid eligibility that are going to impact us at the health department level in terms of reimbursement.

I'm looking at a presentation from the state about uh that elaborates on some of those impacts and changes, and I'm gonna share it uh with this committee and yours as well.

Um, you know, but just for awareness, we talked about Medicaid and how it reimburses the health department.

There's uh it's 134,000 people in the 10th congressional district on Medicaid, slightly below the statewide average.

That's about 20% of the Lake County population.

So um estimates are 20 to 25% of people are gonna lose eligibility as related to the statutory changes in HR one.

So those are folks who are gonna still be seeking care, still need care without coverage, without compensation.

Again, something else for us to think about and plan and prepare for.

That's a little bit more known.

The timing of those changes is a little bit more known, something else we can plan and prepare for.

So appreciate the good work.

Administrator, yeah.

Yeah, if I may, uh we did actually have this discussion.

Um, the health department's levy this year is actually three million dollars higher than last year, and it is a little bit higher than actually what the health department had asked for.

Um it wasn't in anticipation of the uh concern about a greater number of uninsured and the uncertainty of these federal programs and the reimbursement for the expenses.

So um we certainly do do that already, and we'll continue to fine-tune that process um going forward.

So um I thank you for the it sounds like if you could just confirm your support for us to continue this on, we will come up with a um a firmer solution for you to consider.

Yeah, I'm saying thumbs up and nodding heads.

Very good.

Thank you very much.

Thank you very much.

Thank you.

Thank you.

No report.

Okay.

Great.

We do have an uh executive session updates, as I mentioned before.

We please have a motion to go into executive session discuss pending litigation.

Motion by Member Maine, second by member Clark.

Roll call, please.

Member Clark.

Hi.

Chair Frank.

I member Hewitt.

Member Maine.

Yes.

Member Peterson.

Yeah.

Member Villesse.

Motion is approved.

We'll head into a closed session.

We are back in regular session.

Are there any member remarks or requests today?

Seeing none, we are adjourned.

Our next meeting is February 26th.

Thank you, everyone.