It is 8:30, 8 a.m.

on Thursday, April 2nd, 2026.

Call to order, the Financial Administrative Committee, please rise and join me in the Pledge of Allegiance.

Do the flag United States of America.

And to the Republic for which it stands.

One nation under God.

Liberty and Justice for All.

Can we have a roll call, please?

Member Clark.

Chair Frank.

Here.

Member Hewitt.

Member Maine.

Vice Chair Park.

Here.

Member Peterson.

Member Volitzik.

We have four members.

That is a quorum.

I know that Chair Hart is on her way.

She'll be joining us as well.

Do we have any addenda to the agenda?

We do not.

Do we have any public comment on items not on the agenda?

There is no public comment.

Okay.

Chairs of Marks, I'll just say for our awareness of scheduling, we're going to begin our budget policy discussions today.

Part two of that will take place next week, where we'll be talking about reserve and fund balances.

And then we will take action uh enacting and approving the um budget policies at a additional meeting to be scheduled.

We'll hear more about that process and scheduling from the deputy county administrator when we get to it.

Um and then lastly, I just want to share that as a child of the space shuttle age.

I'm super excited and praying for a successful mission for the astronauts on Artemis.

We have any unfinished business.

We do not.

Our new business is consent agenda items 8.1 through 8.5.

Any items to be pulled.

Motion by member Clark, second by Vice Chair Parek.

Comments or questions.

All in favor, please say aye.

Aye.

Any opposed.

Consent agenda items are approved.

Moving to our regular agenda.

8.6.

We have a Lake County Partners update with President and CEO Kevin Cotonight.

Good morning.

Good morning, everyone.

Nice to be here.

Thank you for having me.

And excited to be here with uh what is hopefully a some good news and an interesting update.

Um we have uh so I'm happy to say that I'm no longer here sitting in front of you going, 2025 was our best year ever.

We're moving on.

Um but uh so Q1 has been uh really good.

Um so uh four wins so far uh this year.

Um you probably saw the news about Abvi announcing um so they made two announcements.

One was last August or September, and one um just a few weeks ago.

So between those two projects, that's 575 million dollars and 350 new jobs uh at their Sheridan Road campus in North Chicago.

Really awesome.

Uh that the second one um is one we were we were looking at other places in the county for that to land and ultimately uh they were able to make it work on their existing um campus.

But so that's a that's a great win uh for Lake County for North Chicago, and we appreciate those investments.

Um some other ones, probably the the most recent on that list is Bath Concepts.

Um the I I didn't know we were gonna we were gonna sort of talk about this one yet, but then the Daily Herald had a story last week, so now we're talking about it.

Um but uh they are a Libertyville manufacturer of um, if you're familiar with the sort of like one-day bath remodeling.

Um and they've been about 20 years old, they've been in Libertyville for quite some time.

We have uh we're looking back at the notes, we've been working on this project for a little over four years, actually.

It's a little bit sort of on again, off again.

We lost it, we're back in, we lost it again, we're back in.

Um so really excited to land this one uh still in Libertyville, uh, moving uh down the street.

But this was one that uh Wisconsin was kind of counting on, and they almost had it.

Um so we were happy to pull this one back.

Uh it's about an 80 million dollar-ish um investment.

Um importantly keeping about 400 jobs here and in Libertyville.

Um I think it's about a hundred or so um new jobs.

So excited about that one.

Um that's uh that's a good win.

Um the so as we look at our five-year run.

So in Q1 of this year would frankly be a pretty good year.

Um so uh Ron hates it when I say things like that to jinx the rest of the year, but we're we're off to a really good start.

And um it should be a pretty good year.

The pipeline is full.

We've got a lot of projects.

Um there are uh many that that you all are aware of.

Um I'll share here that uh uh so large, the um Dutch solar panel manufacturer, we do not have a yes or no yet, but they are going through continuing their um site due diligence.

So they've been uh they've had uh engineering teams out of the site over the last couple of weeks doing soil borings and just the standard sort of site due diligence.

So they're they're continuing to do that evaluation, which is always a good sign.

So we keep our fingers crossed.

Um, you know, realistically, it's probably a few more months before we have an answer.

So I thought that we would uh could talk a little bit about, and this was sparked by a question that member Maine had last time.

Um just kind of a quick look at what the sort of employment picture looks like.

Um and importantly, the the number that I look at most is actually the labor force number.

Like that's actually the one that keeps me up at night.

Um so looking at that chart, uh the gray line is 2019 as the sort of pre-COVID measure.

Um the orange line is 2025.

You see the break in the orange line.

That was October, federal shutdown, and the Bureau of Labor Statistics didn't issue their report for that month.

So that break will forever be there.

Um we are still pretty materially behind our 2019 number.

And this kind of lines up-ish.

You remember coming out of the um out of the SEDs, our projection, and that was back in 2022.

Our projection was that our working age population was going to drop by 16,000 by 2027.

Um, and and that was a projection.

And the real word that average, because it does move around in any given month.

Um average gap of just under 12,000.

So, you know, the these things are are kind of lining up.

So that's the piece from an unemployment standpoint, 4.5, right?

That's generally something in the 4% range is generally considered full employment.

Um and that 16,000 individuals unemployed, that really is our long-term average.

Like I literally have a spreadsheet going back to like 2014, and there have been spikes in any given month.

And obviously, there was a massive COVID spike, and that took about a year for that to settle back down to our standard waterline.

It doesn't mean it's the same 16,000 people every month, right?

But that is just sort of about what that number typically is.

Um, so it's the it's the labor force piece um that is most concerning, which comes back to we'll talk a little bit about housing again, but that's why housing is such a key critical conversation.

Rob, so I you know, I love this kind of data.

Also, no, it also scares me to present data to you.

So I might so I yeah, but the labor force what about and I don't if you don't know this, it's totally fine.

But our workforce participation rate, right?

Because the workforce participation rate, you know, people who choose to work, because if you don't choose to work for whatever reason, you're not considered unemployed, right?

And if we do have this decrease in our labor, and so I'm assuming when you say labor force, this is this is just people of working age.

This isn't the workforce participation rate.

It's not, it it could be a uh an element in the participation rate uh equation.

This to be counted in the labor force, you're either working or have looked for work in the last six months.

Okay, so this maybe is the workforce participation rate.

Yeah, it is actually.

So it would be it's the numerator.

Because sometimes um one thing just looking in long term is that if we are having less people of working age, shall I say, that trying to encourage people to work, to be to decide to work with either through you know, reskill training or different ways like economic development to like do reach out so that you know, maybe we if we increase our work per participation rate, then the labor force issue isn't as big a deal, if that makes sense.

That there is definitely um that that would help uh a lot.

And I know the the workforce department does a lot uh uh of work on that front, either you know, turning folks around uh, you know, getting them resettled as quickly as possible.

Um they've got a uh great re-entry program.

Um they they do a lot of great work there.

And even things like for us to think about like child care, providing you know, child care for people can help people then choose to work.

Um, you know, there's different things we can do to support people that um maybe would choose to work, but whatever circumstances, you know, from children to they don't have the right skills that can help increase our because I don't somehow I don't think we're gonna be uh suddenly having maybe we will have a lot of young people suddenly in Delhi County, and this will totally reverse, but with an aging population, looking at then where can we increase the number of workers do do with different incentives might be something that you know I'm sure in the set you know we look through going forward?

Yeah, I think no, you're you're spot on, and that's a lot of the the thinking also behind the work that the um that the ROE is doing and for the navigate like the career the youth career fair now.

This will be its third year coming up this fall, which is really awesome.

Yeah.

Every eighth grader rolls through, I'm not sure what percentage of thousands of the high school students.

Let me let me go with that on and not try and do a percentage of that.

Um that has gotten better every year.

Um that sort of career awareness and you know, sort of enabling uh those things is a big part of that as well.

It is a good part of it.

Thank you.

I could talk all day.

Things like that.

I'm just wondering.

You know, we often hear during economic fluctuations that Illinois tends to be slower to uh feel the effects of recessionary pressures and slower to rebound.

And that's you know, a nature of the state's economy.

I don't know if that still holds true or not, but I remember hearing that many, many times.

Are we to some degree insulated from uh pressures, potential pressures on job losses due to automation?

Do we have uh a diverse employment base, or do you think that there's some susceptibility there?

And I'm talking specifically about technology jobs that are that are being heavily automated.

Yeah.

Um, my my smart answer should be uh let me look into that and come back in my in my next one.

Um, rather than uh I have I have some thoughts and opinions, but they're not necessarily I can't necessarily back them up.

So let me come back with I personally would love to get some useful analysis of what that looks like because I have a lot of fears, but I don't know if they're uh you know founded in facts based on the workforce here.

Yeah.

And and that will be so we'll run this analysis and I'll have it for next time of what are the we'll have to look at what are the projections of the most affected industries.

And and frankly, that analysis keeps changing.

Um, you know, a couple of years ago, you would have said uh, you know, computer science coders like you guys are great, you're driving this.

Uh you wouldn't say that today.

Um so I think some of that still has to settle.

Um we have a decent number of that, but not a ton.

We are pretty, and it and when I say we now, I'm speaking of sort of Chicago land, but this is true of like county two of professional and technical services.

So think of all the stuff that that supports our other companies, whether that's you know, accounting and legal and consulting and and a lot of that.

I think there's still varied opinions on who in that, not that the impact isn't gonna be significant, but who and at what level gets impacted.

That still kind of moves around.

So um let me sort of put the put the team on that and come back with uh some information on that next time.

Appreciate it.

Thank you.

Yeah, you bet.

The um one thing on this that I did want to um also call out is this gap in um in the labor force.

We are unique in Chicagoland with that.

The other counties do not look the same.

And particularly I used, you know, DuPage is probably the chief corollary.

They are well above their 2019 labor force.

We're the only one who's down.

The um, you know, and I've I've seen some other things of have we had more people retire?

Demographically, we don't necessarily skew older than say DuPage.

I don't know that we could find data to support that, but I it's interesting, bless you.

Are the data sources the same?

Yeah.

We're comparing apples to apples.

We yeah, we really are.

Okay, thanks.

Member of Litek.

Is it uh what what other metrics would you look at besides age, like income?

Is it fewer people deciding to work here because of some sort of income level or it's possible that that, yeah.

So we so like um age demographically, we don't look terribly different.

Like average income or like the income buckets.

We don't look terribly different either.

Um so then you just kind of go to anecdotal.

Um I don't want to come back and beat the housing horse again, but um that that becomes part of it.

It is I think maybe uh they have many more affordable communities, and those communities are growing.

Um I just wanted to call that out.

It's interesting.

Thank you.

The next slide is answering member main's question, and I will admit I'm uh I don't totally have my head around all this data.

So this this slide looks at residents.

So this is the household survey, how many of our residents are working?

This slide comes from the like company survey.

So how many jobs are there?

So these are materially lower numbers, right?

Which also makes sense.

We send a lot of workers to Cook County and we also get workers from those other counties.

Um I haven't been able to sort of pressure test this a little bit.

That big dive in uh 2020, like okay, that makes sense.

So in one sense, okay, we've been able to raise back the you know, 10,000 or so jobs um from COVID, but that gap again from our pre-COVID peak of 300,000 jobs, and we're at 290 now.

That's a pretty similar number to the drop in the labor force.

So in that these are two different surveys, so you have to be careful comparing them.

Um but it kind of passes muster, sorta.

Oh how does that 27% of residents working outside the county?

How's that compare to the other countries?

It's it's pretty um, it's pretty standard.

Um similar numbers.

Um, I was gonna count that 40% of city of Chicago residents work outside of the city.

I'm sure much of that is still in Cook County, so they don't cross a county boundary.

Um but uh others look pretty pretty similar.

And is that based is that data point based on where your employer is based?

So I live in Lake County, I work remotely, I out of my house, but my employer who pays me is based in a different location.

That is probably it's based on how that employer answered that survey of how many jobs are they considered to be at that location.

So probably yes, you're you are counted where that office or that company is located.

Thanks.

Yeah.

Vice chair.

Yeah.

Um I mean, we some kind of decently size losses in terms of corporate jobs, right?

I mean, Takeda, Walgreens, I don't know about the discover.

Uh, there have been a decent number at Discover uh recently.

And in fact, that the discover is probably not in this data yet.

Yeah.

But does that do you think someone those were like to cater probably like a thousand or two thousand jobs went away, right?

So it's probably about right.

So do you think some of that corporate downsizing is impacted this?

From the job perspective, uh yes.

Um, except we've had growth on the other side.

So uh should probably do some more math from the individual standpoint, like that data shows that those people get rehired pretty well.

Like we haven't at unemployment spikes haven't lasted long.

Um but uh yeah, it's a good question.

Let me yeah, let me dive in uh on that one.

I thought I missed you.

Did you still have a question?

No, I'm good.

I well, I'll just say I recall maybe it's been a couple of years now, uh, when member Maine shared something about housing and how the housing numbers include even into Kenosha.

So I'm just thinking that our county might be different from some others that we have people that come from Wisconsin and work in Lake County, and you guys already covered sort of the affordable uh uh you know, lack of affordable housing here.

So anyway, thank you.

Yeah, we do we win the talent battle with Kenosha County.

We send about 8,000 workers north every day.

Um we get about 16,000 coming back the other way.

Um we send like 120 to Cook County, 120,000 to Cook County.

We get 87,000 back from Cook County, though.

That's back to that reverse commute piece.

Just to clarify that.

Sorry.

So we're there are 16,000 roles that are filled by commuters from north of the border on a daily basis.

Um yes, it it that's Kenosha County specifically.

There's probably a few more sprinkled from other people.

And then conversely, 8,000 Lake County residents go up there to work in Kenosha County.

Correct.

Okay.

Thank you.

Dave, you have a question.

And I and it would be interesting, and I'm not gonna ask you to do this, but it'd be very interesting to see like kind of like what member Park was saying too is like each month, or not month, but like how many jobs are lost, how many jobs are gained?

So it looks like looking over time, as there have been we've heard of many losses.

We're obviously gaining also, but we're kind of staying the same.

Right?

Which is good, at least we're not going down.

But like, you know, when looking at these larger corporate losses or corporate gains, just like over time, is the goal to get more total jobs?

I mean, I would that be our overall, or are we pretty happy?

I mean, like, I think just even keeping it steady might be really good.

Because it we must be getting like for every Takeda loss, there must be a bunch of other smaller companies coming in that would be making this up for it to stay so consistent.

And there are some things like we we hear about you know, a Takeda or a discover or a Walgreens loss.

Yeah.

If uh an abvi adds a thousand people, like we never hear it.

Yeah.

Right.

So that's and then you just have to sort of interpolate that, I guess, into that number.

So that's so that's tough.

So yeah, it's um I as the group who's charged with growing jobs.

I don't like seeing that it's you know been largely flat.

I think it's that's where you have to look at the labor force number two, which has also been um, you know, was flat for a long time, and now we're under like those those two things really are tied.

So it really does.

So if we had more workers, then maybe we would end up with more company, like more jobs here.

Yeah, it's really yeah, I guess it'd be a strong correlation between the two.

Um yeah, I this is really interesting.

And it shows how important your job is.

I just have to say, because you know, for these lessons, making sure all these businesses are coming, you know, have the support to come to Lake County shows how important economic development is, which is what I tell my students all the time too.

So thank you.

Like it's very important to have these type of jobs.

Kevin feels validated.

Yes, yes, this is great.

I'm in the we could talk about that.

Yeah.

Um, so other things, and these are all things that really feed those job numbers.

We talked a little bit about housing.

You are all intimately familiar with the Housing Lake uh project and sort of where we are in that.

Um, as we're we're we are working very closely with with your team with Eric and Dominic, et cetera, as we sort of map out what phase two of that looks like.

Um first thing that we're gonna do, we are hosting um, I guess the slide does say speed networking.

That's probably a better sounding term, but of um this was actually the idea of the village manager in Wakanda who said, hey, you guys should host a speed dating between developers and municipalities.

We kind of went, wow, that's actually a really good idea.

So um that is coming up at the end of April.

Um just for just to bring those groups together for municipalities to promote, hey, here's here's what we have.

Here's what we'd like to see here, and for developers to become aware of that.

Uh we'll have some other um things and where appropriate incentives and things like that too.

Um we're working on uh opportunity zone 2.0.

This is a federal tax incentive around reinvesting capital gains.

It was started in 2017.

Um I can go deeper if you want me to, but um, it was a 10-year program.

So that's coming around to be uh to be extended.

There are some tweaks in the program.

Um the ones that we had in the first round were not really that useful.

Um so as far as we know, there have there were not any investments made in those opportunity zones.

Um or uh using this incentive.

Um so we've been working with a handful of municipalities on where our best opportunities are, they're they're uh census track driven.

So it's a tax incentive program for companies with capital gains to invest in specific geographic areas for economic development or employment opportunities.

And you're not seeing a lot of uptick from the local employers.

Has it been promoted or is there awareness of it?

Yeah, it's it's really so it's it's very specific.

There's a very specific map of where it's within these census tracts, it's eligible.

And the way that map was drawn, um it was in certain like mostly single family neighborhoods, and there wasn't gonna be anything we could do with that.

So there's really not a lot of commercial real estate there that's a good idea.

There was not a lot of potential.

And and how are those maps drawn?

Is that a great question?

Is there a way to get those amended?

Um well, so that's what this so we're now we're uh as we're coming into the um renewal period, the federal government is renewing it, making some tweaks to the program.

Um so it's not quite as sweet an incentive.

That's probably okay.

Um but uh which also then begets another round of uh being able to say, hey, here's where we think there would be.

These are the these are decisions made by the governor.

Um they can each governor can uh select 25% of their eligible census tracks um to be opportunity zones.

So we're working that the state has developed a process.

We've been working on this for a few months to identify.

Um the last time there there wasn't this process of like, hey, here's where we think the best opportunity was.

We were we were given a finished map.

Um and so we we're identifying now areas where we think there's great opportunity and where we can then pursue this investment.

Great.

Thank you.

Yep.

Um that's a big one.

Lots more work on the college going front.

Uh there's a really interesting workforce landscape study going on right now.

Uh partnered of all of those, those of us in the workforce ecosystem, um funded by a number of our uh very generous uh philanthropy partners.

That'll be we'll we'll have some fascinating stuff in the fall.

Um we're working on something similar for the in the life sciences space.

That'll be more of a regional, not just Lake County um piece.

Fed lots of fun uh promotion stuff in Q1.

Uh I I was on the news.

That's not my picture, but I was on uh there, and um uh I've I've been on several podcasts now.

Most importantly, we are all aware of the big event coming up April 24th.

So we are uh our our team fresh from spring break is now in very deep event mode.

Uh but we're we're really excited about that.

Uh some really fun stuff on the regional front.

Um we have officially announced that Chicagoland uh was is once again the number one market in the country for uh business expansion relocation for the 13th year in a row.

Um and when I went down uh to uh ceremony uh for that, I learned that so site selection magazine has been doing this tracking for 25 years.

We've won 22 with a 25.

Um, which I I never knew.

We apparently we lost a few to Houston in there somewhere, but the last 13 in a row.

Um, and what was uh I think really significant and that sort of uh mashup photo there.

So and this is I think just a great testament to how far we've come in the regional collaboration.

So on Chicago's birthday, March 3rd or 4th, one of those, go with me.

Um, there was a birthday celebration where we announced this victory where this victory was announced by the mayor.

Um, and there were four speakers commemorating Chicago's birthday.

And two of the four speakers were from Lake County.

Chair Hart and me.

That would never have happened, just a couple years ago.

Unthinkable.

Um we were able to do that, which was really, really cool.

Um, so uh the just as a little marker of how far we've cut uh also cut a giant Eli's cheesecake, which was pretty good too.

So that was fun.

Um lots of good stuff coming up on the GSEP front.

Uh we have a group going to Germany in just a couple weeks.

It is the week right before the big event that's not ideal timing, but it's how it had to work out.

So um, but uh we're excited about that.

We've got a number of other uh events uh teed up for the for the summer as well.

Um and just a quick thought we thought we'd share that uh a number of new investors.

This is over the last 12 months, really.

Um, but just thought we'd share um good handful of new investors in Lake County Partners, um, which is always a good sign.

And that is my report.

So the ROE is a new investor partner.

They are, yes.

And that's not included in our contribution.

That's a separate investment.

It is not away.

Uh I did have that discussion uh with uh Dr.

Carter.

Okay.

I I can't answer where it's coming from, but it is not from the county.

Okay, members.

I have some questions about it.

Feels a little redundant to me, but that's not necessarily your issue.

That's mainly we need to talk about and and as our thinking was here's a way to cover because we did have a handful of schools who were partners.

We thought here's a way to just kind of cover the K-12 system.

I got that.

Understood.

I'm just concerned about that.

Okay.

Understood.

Appreciate it.

Thank you.

Thank you for the update.

And thank you, Almost.

Chair Hart.

Um, I just uh really want to thank Kevin for his leadership and as well as his team's leadership of all the work that they do.

Um, you know, there's a lot of evening meetings, right?

So Kevin is meeting with companies in the in the day, and then he and his team are going to many events across the Chicago land area.

And uh I just really appreciate um the work that you guys are doing to bring jobs to Lake County while you're also looking at the entire Chicago land area given your role at GSEP.

Um, and you know, I only get to go to a very small handful of those, uh, but it has really been uh terrific to see all of the collaboration which you talked about.

And um, you know, I would just echo member Clark about how important economic development is and then keeping people here in Lake County.

So um appreciate it.

Thank you so much for being here.

Could I take one more minute for just a cool little story?

Uh so working with this UK-based company who has developed a um AI-enabled uh way to detect leaks in water systems, like municipal water systems.

We were introduced to the company, they need to set up shop in the US somewhere, so obviously here.

And when we understood um lots of companies asked us for help on their business development.

Could you introduce us?

And it's like, uh, we don't really do that.

We're not really set up for that.

We could argue whether we should be.

But when you said, well, our customers are sort of municipalities, we were on a Zoom call, and they said, in fact, we we um there's a town, um Highland Park, is that near you?

We all sort of chuckled, like yeah, we know where that is.

Um, so we did actually, they were coming in town.

We said, All right, because we could actually execute on this.

So um we worked with them to host uh a luncheon.

We had 50 some people there from probably 35 agencies, a bunch of municipalities, county public works, IDNR was there to for them to sort of explain how their system works.

Really cool.

No, I couldn't explain it back.

Um, but all the public works guys in the room knew what they were talking about.

Um so we just thought that was kind of a uh cool confluence.

We haven't uh scored the goal for them to land here yet, but um I think it it will be a small win for starters, but given what they do, it was also like, oh wait, I I want this to happen here.

That's the right match to make between them.

There's no other municipality that celebrated a leak week more than the city of Highland Park.

They really promote it.

Uh I get I get a lot of emails.

They are they're all over it.

Um Chair Hart, I want to thank you for your comments, uh, applauding Kevin and the team for their work.

But also want to say it's really important for the partners and potential partners that you're attracting that they see the partnership with government.

And Chair Hart, um, your leadership in this space and your visibility and your engagement with these potential employers is really unprecedented.

And just want to thank you for your leadership and your work in that space.

Yeah.

Anything else?

Thank you, Kevin.

Thank you, Captain Evan.

8.7 is committee action approving contract modification number two with Yellowstone landscape of Walcanda Wah Conda for lawn care and landscape services for Lake County facilities.

Motion to approve by member Clark, second by Vice Chair Park.

Thank you.

Good morning, Director Carr.

Morning, Carl Carrar, Director of Facilities and Construction Services.

Uh, so the first, this is a modification to our landscaping contract.

A little bit of background.

Uh, this was originally ordered uh awarded in 2024.

Uh the rock project was completed last summer, as you're well aware, and initial grounds maintenance um was actually part of that original construction project that included uh all the grasses, the uh the natural landscaping, as well as the retention pond and then maintaining that.

Now, part of the rock facility lease with LACOM uh actually includes some of those landscaping costs.

So part of that's been prorated based on Lakecom's size.

And so what this modification does is that it provides those additional services for the rock and for that the surrounding landscaping as well as the maintenance and uh the mod uh any the maintenance of the retention pond itself.

Uh so it's just it should be noted that the retention pond, it was smaller.

We enlarged it for the rock.

And we had never had a contract for maintaining that that retention pond, and that's the most expensive part of this modification.

Uh, but during the course of building the rock, we had some really good direction and directives and uh instruction from stormwater management on how to properly maintain that.

So that's what's included with this modification today.

Thanks for for noting um that on the maintenance point.

I saw that so um there will be herbicide used initially, which I I understand the effectiveness of that.

Um, and then after that, natives planted and sort of a routine weeding and gardening maintenance plan, um, not just an herbicide plan, especially around the water.

Do I have that right?

Correct.

Okay, all right, thank you.

It's important to establish it and get it going correctly, and then yeah, it should take care of itself.

Yeah.

I yeah, makes sense.

Thanks.

Thanks.

No, I'm always excited about the landscaping here.

Um, and so this looks great.

So this will be for that that link the the wetlands area and then the native plants, and it'll like you know, so it's gonna grow them.

What about like around the rest of the campus?

Do we have a I know there's supposed I remember I think years ago we voted on like putting like a plan together, like a landscaping plan for like the whole area?

Is that still happening?

That that initiative is happening.

Robin is is our sustainability manager is actually is running that.

Yeah.

Uh and facilities have supported that effort moving forward.

Right now that the focus is the Winchester House lot.

Um, and then that the secondary portion of that contract, which we are programming in for next year, which will have those design initiatives for the rest of the county uh to really have those sustainability, native plannings, less mowing be included in the rest of the county spaces.

So that those uh those parts of that will be included next year.

So that is a separate initiative that's ongoing right now.

So that so right now you're still in the planning phase.

Yes.

And we're starting to focus on the corner lot, yeah.

Where it's yeah, which needs a little love, or at least something, right?

And so, and then when when would that actually happen?

I know that's not like but are so are we gonna finish the plan this year and look at like implementing the plan?

The intent is to finish the plan this year.

And uh it I don't know when we are bringing that to committee or when that's gonna become up.

But I I understand that we will complete that plan and then that will be presented at some future committee.

I mean, I don't know if that's gonna be the environmental energy committee or it'll come here.

Okay, and just to like throw something up.

The committee, I know when we're planning this the corner, it's a really important, like a very visible corner of the lake county.

And I know we're celebrating our 250th anniversary, and we've never really looked at art or any kind of like things to think about.

And I think when we have, and I know it's a different conversation, but you know, people ask me a lot about adding public art or something.

It could be an opportunity when we're working with this landscaping plan to have you know a path there or in it, maybe something that really represents Lake County.

So when we're looking toward the, you know, maybe all the members of Marks ask if we can look into this, but I it is such a prominent area for Lake County that it's I feel you know, it's it's it would be really an opportunity for us to do something with it.

I love the idea.

Thank you.

Any other comments or questions?

Okay.

All in favor, please say aye.

Aye.

Any opposed?

8.7 is approved.

8.8 is committee action approving job order contract modification for unsur unforeseen conditions and the execution of job order with AGAE contractors of Elkrow Village in the amount of 365,000 to a not to exceed amount of 1,165,000.

Motion to approve on this item by Vice Chair Pract, second by member Clark.

Good morning again.

Uh, so background on this project.

Uh, this project is actually uh is the third phase of four that to renovate multiple spaces within the basement.

The first phase created admin space for facilities, and that was completed last summer.

We're actually down there now.

Second phase converted the old IT mainframe room into a tech room conference space, uh coupe space and break room, and that was just completed.

The third phase is is currently underway, and that's converting the old facilities maintenance office to an employee, uh all county employee locker room, shower room, and security office.

And that's good scheduled to be complete this summer.

A fourth phase we're gonna we're which we're programming in for next year is uh gonna focus on the the facilities carpentry shop and up with some updated ventilation and some tool storage.

The the third phase, uh, the one we're talking about today was originally budgeted for $800,000, and we adjusted the scope to meet the budget for that.

And this modification is necessary because we ran into some unforeseen asbestos within uh while on while we're doing that um, excuse me, while we're doing some of the demo work.

Uh, and that's the demo work in the locker room that we're working on right now.

Uh, there's some pipe fittings and other things I had this asbestos containing material with uh so we're already know we have asbestos in the print shop.

Uh so the intent of moving forward with this is mobilize the asbestos contractor today.

They could take care of this the unforeseen site conditions that we found, as well as do the print shop.

And while we're doing that, do a slightly larger modification to pull in some of that work that we were looking at programming for next year to do that now so that we're fully complete and done with that area, and we can move on to to other uh other work.

So we like to take this opportunity to fully complete that work, and that includes the asbestos removal locker room and a print shop, update to HVAC equipment within the locker room area, and as well as refresh the hallway, which is new lights.

Uh oh, Gabble fell.

New lights, uh, new ceiling and painting of the walls to really refresh that whole hallway going down.

So it does look like it's been uh modified and updated.

Uh, there is funding, and it's always a good starting point for everything.

Uh funding will come out of the facilities capital assessment, facilities assessment funding, and uh within the overall capital budget.

So we're staying within our means, and we have a couple projects that are we're projected to come in lower than we have were originally programmed, and those are the HVAC projects supporting CPF and DOT server rooms.

Uh so we do have a, and that's because they have smaller loads, and we just uh it's it turns out through design, finishing design that it's just gonna be a less expensive contract.

Uh so we'd like to uh move forward with this, and the proposal for this modification is not only to do the asbestos, but to do this additional work just to have it done this year while we can.

The alternative would be to just do the asbestos, uh, which is not a committee action, but because we're at this dollar value and because it's jock, that's why we're bringing it to you for committee action.

Okay.

So just uh so I I'm clear, you're not requesting or recommending a budget amendment at this time because you think this will sort of balance out with some other projects in the queue that might come in under budget as well.

Correct.

To offset this.

And what we're doing here is moving forward with the asbestos remediation while the project is in place instead of postponing it to another point in time, which I think makes sense.

Correct.

Yes.

Okay.

Other comments or questions.

Okay.

Thank you.

All in favor, please say aye.

Aye.

Any opposed?

8.8 is approved.

8.9 is your director's report.

Yes.

So I have a couple bits of information for today.

One is the job order contract report.

I'll provide that.

And then I do have a couple items after that, and I'll jump into that when we get there.

Um, so as per the job order contract policy, this is our first quarter report.

Uh, general process is we pull the data for the first three months of the year and then spend about a month compiling it and then preparing it for the committee here.

Uh, so this presentation has been modified to to fit the ADA standards, so it's been simplified in some of the language, and I'll be able to walk through it.

I did pass out the spreadsheet, and you can see that it's definitely an eye chart, even even within that spreadsheet I sent you.

So I uh happy to talk about any questions you have may have on that.

Uh but we'll jump into it.

Uh just as a refresher, the job order contract is with a multiple source contract competitively solicited and awarded to these three contractors.

Contract terms is five total years, and we have I got I got an error on there.

I apologize.

There are two potential renewals remaining.

We're in our third third year of it right now.

Uh contract value uh $50,000 guaranteed, two million maximum for facility assessment projects, and we had increased it last year to include the additional work for the US uh Navy demolition work up to four million dollars.

So it's a good capacity for each one of the contractors to perform all that work.

As per the policy, we uh of course we provide a procurement strategy at the start of every fiscal year, and then we provide annual execution port report as well as this quarterly report.

And just uh the different types of contracts, the job order contractor is one of them.

There's always open bid and there's joint purchasing as well.

Okay, so I'll sit on this for uh a hot minute because there it is because it's a different format as opposed to what I have come back in previous iterations.

So the value of job order contracts carry over from the last fiscal year is 211,000.

That's work that hasn't been yet complete and it's just been carried over.

Total number of jobs, job orders issued last year was 27 with 18 over 30,000, four over 350,000.

And so far this year we've issued 11 job orders, seven of them being over 30,000, two of them over 350,000.

Total value of the job orders awarded so far for this year is 1.9 million with an average of 173, and it's comparison to last year, uh 3.4 million with an average of 126.

So sit on the last little bit so the value of local and minority-owned business participation.

Uh last year you can see the numbers there.

For this year so far, we have $577,000, which is about 30.3% of all contracts issued.

And with 34.8 of that issued to minority minority-owned subcontractors, 4.8 of it to women-owned subcontractors.

Again, this data is gathered through our own internet searches searches.

This is not officially uh mandated by the state or by the county here of the or that they're uh signed up to be a minority-owned or women-owned subcontractor.

So it's higher percentages because of the amount of work that has been self uh self-performed by a couple of our contractors.

So just to clarify that, this is uh subcontractors and their identity based on what we've been able to determine.

Do we ask the subcontractors to disclose or do we ask for certifications?

Because the Illinois state has a MBE WBE, you know, certification program.

Do we ask for those certifications?

We are only asking for self-certified.

It's like they're they're telling us if they're women-owned or minority owned.

We're not to our knowledge, we don't know that they're fully certified by the state.

Would there be any risk to the program for us to ask if they have an actual certification from the state?

I don't believe there's a risk that I'm I would just say that I think the high-level data is useful, it tells us the trend, it's of course, but the actual certification is quite rigorous, and it's designed to get past companies that are not genuinely owned by women or minorities, and that there's a history of some of that in the state.

And so if we could, you know, break that out even further to say, hey, these are the ones that have a certification, and these are the ones that are claiming it without a certification, might help us understand, you know, a little bit more about the numbers.

Well, we'll dig a little deeper this this next time around.

Thank you.

Member Clark.

Thank you.

This is really really helpful.

Um, and so when the Navy with the Navy potential, the for the four million for the Navy, when you report these, do you also report what will you be reporting if they're like naval contracts?

I know they're not from our budget.

Um, because I always wonder what's going on with that with uh demolition.

So if there are uh contracts, then when you do the reporting, they'll they'll be listed, even though they're not out of our budget.

Will they still we still hear about that?

That's a good point.

When that is awarded, we will I'll call that out specifically.

Okay.

I just like to, it's just nice to know what's going on with those contracts.

I do get questions about it, so I'm never sure if we have any.

So if we do some, then we'll know.

If we know that would be great.

Thank you.

Yes, absolutely.

Thank you.

If there's no other questions on this, I'll go back to another couple items that I have.

Uh, just as a um a follow-up on a rock.

Uh we officially awarded a lead gold certification.

So that was a great learning experience by everybody.

So that project, that building is actually legal certified.

So that's a great thing.

And uh the sit on the Naval Station Great Lakes demo project, the Halsey Vill Village demo project.

So we finalize our jock proposal on that.

We got the final numbers.

We've shared that with the Navy.

Uh, we're we're digging through some of those to make sure we have the scope aligned with what the Navy wants.

And once we have that final proposal, the Navy will route that up there chain of command.

Again, it has to go all the way up to the Pentagon at that level for their approvals, and that's four steps.

That takes some time.

Um but we plan to bring this back for the I think the second round of the of May FA for approval of that JOC project.

So you'll see that next next round, which is great.

And with a potential groundbreaking as early as June.

But that's all dependent on whatever level they need to the approvals at.

So we are pressing forward very quickly on this, and we're excited about getting getting moving on it.

So more information soon.

And that's all I have.

Thank you for the updates.

All right, thank you.

8.10 is a discussion of budget-related finance policies in advance of preparation for the fiscal year 2027 budget.

And sure, well, Gene and Mike are coming up.

I'll just talk process for a moment.

And typically this time of year, April Finance County Administrator brings forward the budget policies to begin discussions.

Typically, we have some red lines as we do today to go through those are recommended based on various things.

How last year's budget went and some other things that may have come up.

And Gene and Mike will go through those in a moment.

One thing that we recognized was that these policies are policies and therefore need to go through the policies on policies process that the county administrator has established.

I think that would be beneficial.

The county administrator thinks that would be beneficial just based on some outreach from department heads, some comments received from some department heads that you may have uh noticed as well.

And uh that process will allow some um stakeholder engagement engagement by the department heads to provide feedback on anything that's added or request anything may be included.

So we're gonna take the month uh and go through that process.

And I know that the agenda today stated that we'll be bringing these back for action next week.

We're gonna delay that unless the committee says otherwise and uh route it through that process, the three policies through that process that'll give opportunity for the department heads to comment and provide any feedback on the current policies and any red lines that we're proposing and any feedback that we hear uh today, and then we'll bring that back next month um with feedback from the county administrator as well.

Great.

Thank you.

So some added time into the process for feedback from the departments, and next week we'll be having a discussion about uh fund balance and reserve policies as well.

Okay, Dr.

Tuchek, good morning.

Good morning, Chair Frank and members of the committee.

Um, as uh Matt indicated, we're just gonna go through these uh budget policies and um indicate the changes that we have from uh feedback from last year, lessons learned, uh some things that we'd like to clarify or um change from the the prior policies.

One thing I do want to note on I was gonna start with 3.5.

Do you want to start with 3.6?

Let's start with 3.5.

There we go.

Okay.

One thing I want to note on this one is that the version that you're seeing with the red lines um doesn't incorporate the changes that were brought to the committee and the board in October of last year.

So October of last year, we actually had some very specific uh compensation numbers in there with regards to the budgeted compensation um amounts, the three that the three percent and the 1.75 for the the uh the grade, the salary scale grades.

We have taken that out.

Um we are not in a position right now to have a recommendation on those numbers.

So that that is not in this version, um, but that will be brought uh later in the process as we get farther along into the budget season and have some numbers that we can recommend.

Um so with that, I'll get started on the changes.

So the first one is item 5.1.

Um, this is just a clarification.

We're adding in there uh very specific uh that this is uh to be adopted in accordance with actually the next policy three point uh 3.5 the fiscal year budget planning uh policy.

So just a very clarification to add some specificity.

Um the next change is 5.8.7.

Um and this is a clarification also to indicate kind of what's already happening that um certainly we understand that there are some departments that have independent authority under the 3.1 finance policy section 5.3 in those situations where there is an addition or reclassification within those departments, the county administrator will bring those to the FA committee um at the next regularly scheduled meeting.

Okay, next is 5.8.9.

Um so we are requiring a living replacement schedule is submitted with each department's um budget submission.

This has been required um as part of the budget process in the past, but again, we're memorializing this that this is absolutely required.

Um it's in the policy and puts that in in black and right, black and white in writing there.

Um next item is 5.8.17.

Um again, we're memorializing current practices, certainly as part of the budgeting process.

The county administrator can make adjustments as uh he or she sees fit to balance the budget, but that is absolutely prior to consideration of the recommended budget to the standing committees and the county board.

Okay, the next item is 5.9.8.

Um we have in the policy the fact that there is if there's a vacancy for 12 months, it's automatically eliminated, unless um during the budget process, the department provides justification for retaining the position.

But we do want to note that there are some situations where this elimination might be an issue with a collective bargaining agreement.

So of course we will administer that and ensure that that is addressed as part of the as part of the budget process.

Next item is 5.1.1.

Um, we are indicating here that items with five thousand dollars or more are included in a capital account category.

That's from a budget perspective.

It's not meant to be an accounting um uh policy, it's just the uh budget process on how that is to be um placed in the budget categories.

Um item five, eleven, three, uh just a little change there.

Of course, if you are requesting a new program expense that is to be um documented and submitted if you're requesting it, not upon acceptance as part of the as part of the request that's to be included.

Um item five point eleven point five.

Um budget submissions must contain sufficient detail to describe the intended purchase.

We want the departments to be very specific on what they would like to purchase.

We need we need sufficient detail on that.

I'm gonna pause here for a second, Chair Hart has a comment or question.

So sorry, for five, okay, yeah.

So all per so budget submissions must contain sufficient detail.

So I know we're making sure we kind of tell them like this is what sufficient detail means because we've had conversations before.

What is sufficient, right?

We've had some vocabulary conversations.

So I just want to make sure that if there's more on if you can scroll to the rest of 511.

Okay.

So you know, I think just maybe providing clarity.

If you think that's an issue, if look, I don't know, but if you think that's important to include, I might suggest it.

But if if it's really not necessary, that's fine.

Okay, great.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Okay, 5.12.1.

Um clarification again on our current practice is that the budgets that are submitted can only contain the same level of services and operations as has been previously approved in accordance with the target budget.

Of course, there's always an opportunity for new program requests that can be made.

Um, and then this last item is just adding consistent uh nomenclature with the current policy name.

So those are my um, those are the suggested changes on policy 3.5.

But is there anything else that the committee members would like to change or comment on or discuss with regards to this policy?

I just want to say I think I think the change that we've discussed about the you know proposed levy amount makes sense so that we're going with one scenario and and you know the committee and the board can make additional modifications going forward throughout the process.

I think that I think that's uh an appropriate change.

I'm I'm good with that.

But also I think um I wanted to ask you a little bit about how to clarify communications with departments related to mid-year changes, as such as what we saw, you know, come forward related to the additional domestic violence court.

There were some RuPaul effects, right?

Which is one of the reasons we sort of pause and send it back to L and J for further review because we wanted to understand what the additional head count impacts would be from state's attorney from the sheriff, all the other justice partners in that specific example, but more generally speaking, how are we handling those conversations going forward to make sure that those uh requests are being you know thoroughly developed before they come forward to us.

Okay, uh my apologies.

I just covered 3.5.

Some of those items that you just mentioned are in the next two policies.

So I'm getting ahead of you.

Yeah.

Uh I'm sorry, Jane, it's my bad.

My apologies.

I I was stopping after each one to ask for feedback.

Perhaps I should have done all three together.

I jumped ahead.

I apologize.

But now I know what the questions are ahead of time.

Did you have a comment too?

Just to say that I was on the different page.

Yeah, we're not there yet.

Okay.

Sorry, I was looking at my notes.

Go ahead.

Okay.

Uh, we'll go to the next one.

Uh 3.5 fiscal year 27, fiscal year 27 budget planning policy.

Obviously, there's changes in here to change 26 to 27.

But to item 5.

Uh 1.2, which Chair Frank was just um discussing, is uh we have we have indicated here that we are going to do one scenario uh that will be proposed, which will be half of the allowable amount rather than the the two of the two options.

Uh moving to member Clark, yes.

Go ahead.

If you have a comment, go ahead.

You have a comment that so I this is very different than we've done before.

Um I understand so one half of the so I guess you know what we've done just in the last couple of years is we've had the two options, right?

We've had the then there's things if we want to make the full um amount for the levy.

So I what will happen if I mean I understand, you know, building it on the because we usually that's kind of our starting point has been this half the half the levy, which I agree with.

But then is there going to be a process if there are other things that programs that potentially people have support for above this?

Because the good thing I think about the process we had before was it was all vetted by the county administrator.

And so we could see, like with the scoring, like these would be better.

So does are we saying that there's no, you know, it's just gonna be half, or if there were going to be other programs like we've discussed in the past, how would that discussion happen?

So I think that it's it's actually not that big of a change because they had always built the budget with scenario one.

And then scenario two is like, okay, and if you want to pay for these other things, you can go with a higher levy.

That element still exists, right?

We're gonna we're gonna see some things that uh we're gonna hear about that we're gonna say, hey, that's you know, that's not making it into the budget this year, et cetera.

It's not in the recommended budget, et cetera.

And so I feel like, yeah, we still have the authority and the ability to discuss and talk about making additions and changes if we want to come up with offsets to pay for something else, or we want to increase the levy beyond the scenario one.

I just think in terms of budgeting and focusing, it's it may be uh a more streamlined approach to have one target and say this is what we're going with for the for the for the budget.

Oh, I mean, I guess I could that I guess I'm just concerned that if um there was a very straightforward process to see the other things that were recommended by the county administrator.

Um, and so at least we would say like these have been like vetted.

And so will that still exist?

Like will there still be because I what I don't want to happen necessarily is that you know, we have the budget, and then someone hears from somebody that gets lobbied that says we'd really like to add this.

And since they know me, I come and I'm like, we should do this.

That hasn't been vetted by the county administrator.

And I really think that the budget should be vetted by the county administrator.

So will those type of extra projects be still vetted, or will it just be here's the this, if you want anything else, it's up to you.

Because to me, that I don't, I'm a little more uncomfortable with that process.

Yeah, so I'm not speaking for the CFO, the county administrator, but my perspective is that they would have those vetting conversations and they'll say, okay, well, this is what's recommended and this what's not.

So we still would have recommended project.

Okay, because that would be really helpful, I think.

So that that would be so we'd still have that um like that data.

So it wouldn't just be like, I think this is important.

It would be like it's already been vetted, here are these projects.

If you know it's that you're interested in we're gonna see a proposed recommended budget, yeah.

But that but that would be above the budget.

That's what I'm saying.

Would we see the items that were not recommended?

Well, we did last year.

So Chair Hart.

Thank you.

So and I also want to understand, and maybe you can help me the reason why to do it differently, because I think when we sort of had the two scenarios, if you will, it was, hey, this is the scenario of keeping it at X level.

And if you want to add this in, these are gonna be the puts and takes, right?

You know, if you want to add in X, and I think Jennifer makes a really good point.

You know, we do hear uh from people like, hey, my project wasn't uh selected, you know, we really think this is important, and then we're essentially I mean, I would say going around county administration, which I have a concern with because they've done that vetting.

So what I'm trying to understand is um would we still see, hey, um, we do think this project is important county admin, regardless of what you say, which I disagree with.

Um where would the um where would the money come from to do that?

Or would that really, as Jennifer is saying, well, then it's somebody kind of operating like, well, I guess I should take it from salaries or whatever.

Yeah, no, those are all valid points.

I think that the um the vision here is that the process would pretty much be the same, that the the new program requests would be in the in the in the budget book, whether they're approved or not approved, they'd all be there.

The ones that the county administrator recommends are included in the in the budget presented, but that process would still be vetted and to the extent that a committee member wanted to um or committee would would want something included, that there would be some um additional work performed before it goes uh for finalization, just to see, okay, we want this, but we maybe don't want to raise the levy.

And to the extent that a committee member wanted to or committee would want something included, that there would be some additional work performed before it goes uh for finalization just to see, okay, we want this, but we maybe don't want to raise the levy.

Is there something else that we could we could get rid of?

Or okay, you gave us the half of what's allowable.

We understand we really want this, and it's going to be an amendment that's going to increase the levy.

So I the vision is is that all the information that you've received would still be the same.

It's just we're presenting um one budget at half of the allowable amount, and then the committees can vet if they want to make amendments and funding for that would be something that would be would be worked on to bring the final uh recommended budget to you.

Got it.

Thank you.

So that's really helpful to me.

It's essentially essentially the same process, if you will.

We're just not, you just don't have to go through uh doing this second thing, all this work over here, if we're never even going to use it.

And now that I think about it, sometimes there might be, hey, uh, if you guys want to add in these four things, this is what it would look like.

But you never really know if we want the four things or the one thing or the two things.

Right.

So this is a little bit cleaner for you.

Um, but as Chair Frank had said, the process essentially stays the same.

Am I am I stating that correctly?

Yes, that's my understanding.

I is the county administrator is the one that makes these adjustments.

Certainly, if there's anything that you want to add, Patrice, I don't want to speak on your behalf with all the work that you do after the committees uh come forward with any recommended changes.

Um I just want to add unless you want to.

My my recollection is that each of the last three years, we've had the two scenarios and we have ended up with the lower scenario, maybe with one or two adjustments.

But we've got a lot of um strong direction from members to not use the higher scenario each of the time that we've had the two.

And so uh I understand we may need to make adjustments and we may need to go above scenario, you know, the the 50% scenario.

But members will have to understand, hey, this is the impact, right?

You're gonna drive the levy up by adding X, Y, and C for sure.

Okay, thank you.

And I I have not heard from board members that they are not interested in that for this year.

So I haven't had those conversations with people.

Vice Chair.

You can I just get a sense of for the half allowable limit is roughly what percent generally.

Uh well, last year it was 1.45.

And so we think it'll probably that again.

I would, I would have, yeah.

It's half of CPI.

So I just wasn't sure where we landed on CPI for this budget cycle.

Yeah, and I don't have the CPI number in my head right now.

Um, but I'm I'm assuming it's somewhat in that range.

Thank you.

Member Clark.

Yeah, I mean, as long as we are, like you said, as long as it's the similar process where we can see everything that's been, you know, vetted and recommended, like before.

But I also, I mean, sometimes I mean half isn't like a magic number.

Sometimes, I mean, things cost money.

I am the economist, right?

And so I I don't know.

I don't want to, I mean, if there's an important project, I hope we would have the discussion, like maybe the levy needs to go up another tenth of a percent to pay for this.

Like I I'm hoping that so that would still be allowed then.

I mean, we're not saying that we can't raise the levy more than that.

Is that correct?

No, we're not saying that.

This is this the policy that we established now in the spring, right?

Is are the budget targets that the administration uses to develop the proposed budget to us.

Right.

And it's limited by this.

So it isn't, it isn't saying what do we need, it's saying here's the limit.

It's it's the budget goal.

Yes, it's the budget.

So we're yes, we're saying you can only lay raise it by like 1.4%, no matter what.

And then if it then, so really that's what we're saying here.

Where before we we did kind of give a range, which is more of, you know, what do we need to do versus here's your limit?

Because I I can't, as I, you know, things cost money.

There's a lot, inflation is very high right now.

Costs are going up so much right now across the board.

And so I just want to mean like what if there are important things.

And are we saying today, like, nope, doesn't matter.

This is this is the limit.

We're not gonna budge when you build this budget.

Or would it be possible if you know the county administrator's office or someone came back and said, you know what, you know, our energy costs have gone up so much right now because of this warranty.

I think we have pretty good tracking on month to month, but real to budgeted for for the previous fiscal year.

I think they have a pretty good handle on where we're gonna be.

I mean, are we are we way off?

Do we under budget this year?

Do we think that we need to make adjustments?

Is the half CPI not gonna support our operations?

Uh, as far as I'm aware, so far, so good.

Okay.

I just said vice chair.

Yeah, I I just I think correct me if I'm wrong here, but I think what member Clark's saying is this or in what you're saying is this is the target.

We're gonna see additional program requests that perhaps didn't fit into that.

So we can evaluate those.

And when departments come, they can still discuss things that weren't perhaps included in the budget as we've done in the past.

And then we can make a decision of whether we want to go beyond the 1.45%.

Let's just say that what it is and go to 1.52 or 5.8 or whatever, depending on if we decide as a body that we want to add those in, knowing the target is 1.45 and believing that we can get most, if not everything in there.

Is that fair?

I think that's what you're asking.

I think so.

And I think we all have to bear in mind that the property tax levy is only one of our revenue sources, although it's the most important, and it's the one that we control.

It's not the only revenue source that the budget's based on.

Chair Hart.

Thank you.

Um, you know, I I guess I just want to understand why we would not uh and and I, you know, we have these conversations before uh this even comes to committee.

So I I do apologize that obviously I miss this.

Um, but I don't know why we would not include a budget for full allowable CPI growth.

Is there a reason that the county administration feels that you don't you don't think you need full CPI for moving forward?

As I understand that the budgets the last few years have been at at half of the CPI growth.

Um and so this is consistent with the with the prior practices.

And again, this is the a recommended budget, but it it doesn't mean that it's the final budget.

This will be part of the the uh standing committees and through the thorough vetting process.

So additions can certainly be made as we go through the process of presentation.

Okay, thank you.

Uh personally, I would argue um seeing a budget that's full CPI and pulling back from that if necessary, rather than having a floor conversation of, hey, let's actually raise what we planned.

So I I I and I and I understand and thank you for doing that research and um, you know, of what we've done historically, we were really proud to say, hey, we have held the levy flat.

Um and we were able to do that, I would say, because of the environment and because of really important changes that we made in terms of counting for vacancy.

Um, but I always feel like we have to say we're in unprecedented times.

Um, you know, costs are going to go up for our homeowners as well.

Um, but I personally would say budgeting for full CPI and pulling back from that would make more sense.

Like if we end up having to pull back from that, I I think I would appreciate that conversation more than um, yeah, we're gonna raise what we kind of said we were gonna do.

Can I can I just get a clarity?

Absolutely, yeah.

Are you saying you're okay with the change to one scenario?

You just think the scenario should be full CPI, not half.

Um, I guess I would turn to staff on that one, because if if doing two scenarios is really burdensome, then I'm not and and they're like, look, we end up in the same place anyway.

You guys are driving us crazy, right?

So um I I'm I would defer to staff on that, but I think not looking at full CPI in a time like this um is maybe not such a great idea.

And I I actually took the time to go back, like I think it was about 28 years now.

Um we have historically always taken full CPI.

Um we just and you shouldn't have to go back that far.

Mine was just a different reason, but I'm just saying we've always taken full CPI, just we've kind of looked at it differently recently.

So my only challenge with that is if we decide that we want to make a reduction from the full CPI, then you then you are cutting things from the recommended budget.

Then you're saying, oh, well, we're gonna take this out.

And I always felt from uh conversation uh sort of uh alignment perspective, it's almost easier to get support to add something in, like, hey, we this is important, we're gonna pay for it, we're gonna add it in.

It's it's really hard to cut something once it's already budgeted and recommended.

That's yeah.

And and I agree, if I may, and and I agree with that.

And one is that internal conversation, right?

Of hey, I'm really sorry, we don't want to go to full CPI.

Um, but so we're going to have to cut this expartment, right?

And I would guess that staff, because this is sort of how it's worked historically.

Hey, look, if you guys don't want to go to full CPI, we're gonna cut this and this, and we feel like that's legitimate.

Um, for these reasons.

So that's sort of that internal focus.

The other is more of an external, like, hey, we're gonna only go to a, you know, we really want to only go to 1.45.

Actually, now we're going to increase to full.

That do you kind of see what I'm like a difference in conversation?

There's challenges to both approaches.

Absolutely.

There always is.

So I I personally would argue for um for budgeting for full CPI, given the environment that we're in.

Okay.

Members, I would love your input on this specific question.

Again, we're not taking action today, but we will be probably sometime in early night.

Member Clark.

You can probably guess that you know the latest inflation looks like for this year, the latest one is 4.2% for this year inflation um rate, which you know, our target rate of inflation in the United States is 2%.

So we're already over double our target.

There could be it could go even higher depending on how things go.

And that's like right now that's happening.

And so I'm I am concerned.

I I would be more comfortable budgeting for full CPI is based on last year's CPI event.

So with this year, um, and if we don't, let's just be honest, like if we don't, if we don't CPI is just how much inflation is going up or went up last year.

So if we don't take the full CPI, we are already making cuts because we are not keeping up with inflation.

And then we you can just end up going down this cycle where every year you're not taking enough, and then all the salaries will go down low enough.

Everything just starts shifting, and we're not keeping up with our costs.

So, you know, CPI just allows us to literally keep up with our costs.

It doesn't, that's what it does.

And so with inflation being potentially, I would argue much higher than 3% this year.

I and I don't know what the CPI is.

It sounds like it might be like 2.9%.

I also for this year think it would be much more um strategic to budget for full CPI.

Okay.

Okay.

It's slightly lower than last year.

Member of OliTick, any are you prepared to weigh in on it?

Okay.

All right.

So I'll just say I'm comfortable with the full CPI as well.

Um, but I do think we should still go forward with one scenario.

That's just my preference.

I think it's uh easier for budgeting purposes, but I'm you know open to feedback on that.

Vice Chair.

No, I mean, I it's to me it's a little bit of psychology, right?

Of is it easier to cut or is it easier to add knowing and finance experts would know the psychology more?

I I personally like to be a little more ruthless and then add more in.

I just don't want to personally be in a scenario where we're at CPI and we get more and more requests, right?

That's that's my concern is that I'd like to stick.

I've historically like to stick at or below CPI.

So just know that, then I will tend to be asking us to cut if people come in here and historically it seems like people always come to whatever and then ask for more, right?

And so just I think we should try to stick to CPI or less.

So it's like what we're gonna tell members.

I hear that.

But the conversely, my experience has been members will say, I don't want to go above what this number was, where we started at.

And so it in terms of feedback from members of the board, it may be easier to to start at CPI and if we eliminate something to go lower.

Yeah.

As long as we kind of agree with what we're all mentally moving towards.

Okay.

So our our feedback on this is that we're we're okay with the recommendation to go to one scenario, but we'd like uh the policy to go to full CPI instead of half.

Okay.

Thank you, members.

I know you have more to go, and I've already gotten ahead of you a few places as well.

So I'm gonna stop and let you go.

Thank you.

Okay.

I think 5.1.

I'm sorry.

Um, okay, 5.1.8.

Um, we've added a paragraph here on electric vehicles.

We're being uh very specific that this is a given and not um an option as part of the budgeting process.

And that really is the changes for this particular policy five 3.5 fiscal year 27, uh the fiscal year budgeting policy.

Any other comments on this policy?

Can I just find me?

I just really want to say thank you for this electric vehicle thing.

We did discuss that uh on our previous call.

And I think this change is is really um important in prioritizing that procurement of EVs.

So just want to say thank you for adding that in.

Sure, if I may.

Uh, member Bolitzik did have a comment on this one uh to staff that she she was requesting that we consider also um uh adding in battery-powered equipment.

We we did have a chat with uh um Carl regarding what equipment we have, such as snowblowers or any other a lot of things we contract, but we do have some equipment like snowblowers, which are gas-powered that uh we could consider adding that in to shift towards battery power for some of the equipment that we use for maintenance.

I I think it makes a ton of sense.

I'm really happy to see this proposal change, like that there's enough availability of options and that are cost effective and energy efficient.

And I could tell you those of us with EVs are saving a lot of money right now at the pump.

Um so I think it makes sense to switch to the default.

And uh if there's something that's not available or something that doesn't work for a department, the administrator has the authority to provide, you know, basically an operational uh waiver on that.

Yeah.

Very good.

We'll add that in the added.

Yep, okay.

Okay.

Okay, the last one is 3.6, the budget execution policy.

We go to item 5.6.

Um, with regards to reorganizations or restructurings, of course, we very much prefer that this is all part of the uh budget process, so it can be vetted at that level as part of the um all the budget review.

But we do understand that um life happens, and if a situation development, if a situation develops after the uh budget passing, that such uh reorganization or restructuring that's proposed must uh include uh offsets to make the reorganization or the restructuring cost neutral.

Thank you for that.

Other comments or questions on that?

Okay.

And then 5.8 point 3.4.

This is just a edit to remove redundancy.

Um and that's it for this this policy, and that's it for the budget policies.

Um anything else that the members would like to change or or comment on.

Checking online, I don't see any hands up.

Great.

Thank you.

Thank you for the good discussion.

More next week, and to follow.

You'll see these again next month, then.

Great.

Okay, appreciate it.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Um, I'll note that uh member Valitic has uh some forest preserve business she's attending to, but we still have quorum because Chair Hart is here.

Moving forward with 8.11 is a resolution authorizing an emergency appropriation for fund 206 liability insurance and risk fund to fund settlement expenses in excess of the fiscal year 2026 budget and the amount of 2 million dollars from fund 206 fund balance.

Motion to approve by Vice Chair Park, second by member Clark.

Morning.

Erika Ossinski, risk manager.

Good morning.

Um I wanted to uh provide to you a before uh we get to the uh approval of this matter.

I wanted to provide some information.

Last year, there maybe maybe mid-year-ish, there was an appropriation request for settlements and a question developed with regards to actuarial liabilities and the budgeted settlements amount, kind of how how are those things interwoven, how does this work?

Um so I'm here today to discuss these matters and hopefully provide some clarity on the on the process.

Um, so with that, we'll go to the next slide.

Uh what I'd like to discuss today.

Gina, the the clicker's right there.

Oh, I'm sorry.

I will handle that.

Okay.

Okay.

You just turned okay.

Uh background, we gave that.

I'm going to talk about what the fund balance reserve requirements are, the actuarial analysis, how that's performed, what's our current year budget, and some information on how that's developed, a summary, and then concluding with the appropriation request.

So I think the first place to start is we do have a required reserve for risk management and the liability insurance fund.

And what I'd like to focus in on is that second bullet point there.

And this is a direct excerpt from the policy.

So the second bullet point does say that additional designated reserves are going to be maintained for the risk management and liability insurance fund liabilities and an amount based on a professionally performed actuarial analysis.

Um so what does that mean?

What is an actuarial analysis?

Go to the next slide.

So we do have a professional actuarial firm.

Currently it's Millen Inc.

that calculates this reserve annually as of November 30th.

And the types of claims that are in the reserve, we have workers' comp, general liability, auto liability, property liability, and medical malpractice.

And the reserve, the second bullet point here includes unpaid claims and various stages of developments.

Obviously, open claims, there is claims that have been occurred but not reported.

There's an estimate for that.

Claims that were that are reported but have future case reserve development in process, and even claims that have closed but potentially could reopen.

So that those are all the elements of what's included in the reserve.

On to the next slide.

So as part of the process at year end, when the actuary works on this, there's there's a data exchange between Lake County and the actuarial firm.

We provide all the historical claim information along with all the outstanding claims, and of course, our self-insurance retentions.

Based on that information, the actual firm performs all the analysis on the information, and they provide a draft to us.

We have a discussion with the actuary, go through the results.

Um, if there's anything that we think needs to be considered, uh make sure we include that in the analysis or have questions, et cetera.

Um, and then the the results are finalized.

We do give a copy of the report to the external auditors.

Uh, the amounts are included in our annual comprehensive financial report, and of course, the amount is also included in the fund balance reserve calculation.

So that's all the information about the actuarial reserve and how it's developed, uh, what that number is is comprised of.

So then moving on to the current year budgeting.

So, how is that different?

So the annual budget includes an appropriation for funding settlements.

This is within the risk management and insurance liability fund for fiscal year 26.

The amount was 800,000.

Um, and this funding that's set in the current year budget is based on expected near-term settlements.

But as you can imagine, when the budget is developed, of course, we don't know what those settlements are going to be.

Um, it's an estimate.

So we we try to set the budget so that um it is sufficient to pay near-term claims, but it may not be sufficient to pay all the settlements that are finalized during the fiscal year.

By having an amount in the budget, it does allow fund staff that when a settlement is reached and all parties have agreed, we can we can quickly get that paid through the through the current year appropriation.

So an alternative would be if uh we didn't budget for this in the current fiscal year, is that every time there was a negotiated settlement with all parties signing off, we would come back to the committee and ask for an emergency appropriation every time we have one of these.

Um, and in the interest of getting these adjudicated and paid, currently we have um a funding amount available, and we draw on that to pay claims, and then in the event it's not enough, we'll come back to you for an emergency appropriation.

I just want to clarify on that point.

This committee is still authorizing all those settlements, they still come to us for approval as per our policy.

So it's it's just one added step of making budget amendments that we're avoiding by having this fund.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Very important point.

Thank you.

Um, the next slide, just some financial numbers.

You know, I always I always like talking about numbers.

Um, and here, just to kind of give you a snapshot of where we are, what the fund balances were for the last three years, of course, 2025, our audit isn't complete, so it's estimated, what the actual reserve that was calculated is, and then what the budget amount is for the subsequent year.

So as of November 30th, 2025, we're estimating a fund balance of 20.9 million.

The actuarial calculated reserve is 12 million, and the budget for fiscal year 26 is 800,000.

Um, so in summary, just to kind of summarize how all this plays together, we have an independent actuarial firm that estimates the county's total liability for unpaid claims at the end of the fiscal year.

Um, as part of our fund balance reserve policy, we do have sufficient reserves to pay these estimated long-term liabilities.

The annual budget does include an appropriation for near-term settlements to ensure that prompt payment can be made once the settlement is complete.

Um, as these final settlements for the upcoming fiscal year are not known in advance, sometimes the annual budget is not enough to pay all the settlements that are finalized during the year.

And in the event it's not enough, then staff will come to the committee and ask for an emergency appropriation from fund balance so that we can provide additional funding for additional things that are in the pipeline that are expected to settle for the remainder of the year.

Um, and so that brings me to the current request, which is we are requesting an emergency appropriation of 2.0 from the fund balance from the uh risk management insurance liability fund to settle expected claims in the near term.

Thank you for the explainer.

Really helpful.

A lot of good info that uh about the policies that went into the recommendation.

Member Clark.

I think this was really helpful.

It was very it was very um informative.

And so when um so I didn't realize it.

So an independent firm each year then estimates.

So because I saw there's like a big difference sometimes in the years of how much has been budgeted.

It was like 12 million, then it was 20 million.

So that's all done by this independent firm that kind of looks at what's out there.

So and where is this budgeted?

Like is this in the obvious does this come just out of the general fund?

No, it is budgeted in the risk management insurance liability fund budget.

Okay.

And that there's a line item for settlements, it's in there.

So I think it's fund 206.

I hope that's the right number.

And would this be something that comes out of the property tax levy?

Because that's what I you know, like or pretty yeah.

So they would because I know we have different sources of funds, but this would just be general from our tax levy.

Because there is a huge swing.

I mean, eight million dollars one year less than another.

So it's just good to know we can swing.

But I now I understand where you get the numbers from, and that makes a lot of sense.

So thank you.

So to the two million that we're requesting, just so you know, we had the 800 budgeted for this year.

We've already paid 1.1 in uh settlements, one of which was the claim that I came to you in January.

It was the civil claim that was a quick turnaround that we did not anticipate, and it was literally the entire budget.

And then some carryover from uh 2025 that were authorized.

Uh, we still have 1.2 that are pending that have been authorized for settlements from last year and are still being negotiated because sometimes they do take a long time.

They're larger claims.

So uh if we were to pay all of those this year, we would be in a deficit of 1.5.

So we're asking two so that we have at least 413,000 to work with if any new demands come in in 26 that we can settle.

Got it.

Thank you for the explainer.

I don't see any other comments or questions.

All in favor, please say aye.

Aye.

Any opposed?

8.11 is approved.

County Mr.

Sure.

We do have a county uh county administrator's report today.

Uh the county administrator and Dominic Srizzo from community development are going to come up and just talk about a scenario related to the federal funding contingency fund that was created last month.

Um, and something that has come up, and we're just looking for committee feedback.

So um just to refresh your memory, we've talked about a federal funding um contingency fund over the last several meetings, and our first application came in.

And I was um I'd like for the committee's guidance because it's not squarely how we described this happening when we talked about this fund.

So I asked Dominic to just refresh you on the continuum of care situation right now to provide some background.

So some background continuum of care funding is homeless assistance uh dollars that come, federal dollars that come through HUD.

Uh traditionally, it's about three and a half million dollars, and it comes in the form of about 12 contracts, most of which are contracted directly between HUD and the provider agency.

Some do flow uh pass through community development.

The way these dollars are allocated traditionally is there is one application submitted on behalf of the entire COC called the collaborative application that's put together by community development staff.

And again, traditionally, about 90% of that funding of the three and a half million is protected, included in they call it tier one status.

So essentially guaranteed funding.

The balance of the 10% is kind of competed about national or nationwide.

Um two years ago, HUD kind of acknowledged the administrative burden that goes along with putting together these applications on both sides and made a decision to put out a two-year uh funding NOFO, basically saying we'll fund you for two years.

This is renewal funding.

It's kind of silly to keep having to submit year after year, which is great.

Year one went fine.

And then when it came time for year two renewals, right around the time they should be issuing out um some information, the government shut down.

And then on the first day back, they issued uh a notice saying we kind of changed their mind.

We do want to see an application this year.

Not only do we want to see an application, we've written the entire rules of your program, including uh around that protected status.

That number went from 90% down to 30%.

So that that no-foo was announced uh November 13th.

Obviously, it caused a lot of chaos, not just here locally, but nationwide.

They were sued about this.

Uh the complaint was filed about two weeks later.

So on behalf of including the state of Illinois is part of that lawsuit.

So HUD was sued.

That lawsuit is still ongoing.

It's been very active.

There's been a lot of filings, um, including one just yesterday on an appeal that HUD made about a preliminary injunction.

The result is no money has been received locally.

And what that means is these provider agencies are being asked to make decisions about these programs.

Outlaying dollars for programs that they don't have contracts for, and for programs that at least HUD has initially signaled that they no longer really support.

So what that means in in real life, most of these dollars are rental assistance.

These agencies are being asked to renew leases as they expire.

Some have expired already this year and make decisions around what they're gonna do internally.

Um, you know, cash flow is an issue, and those have been some tough, tough decisions they've had to make.

So knowing this these funds were kind of set aside, uh, my understanding was to kind of mitigate the local impacts of the inconsistent federal funding environment.

I did submit a uh request on behalf of community development um for about $513,000 based on that 60-day number to support the continuum of care funding portfolio because these dollars have not been received locally, and it's it's becoming a struggle.

It has been a struggle, I'd say.

Thanks, Dominic.

So the reason I'm coming to you, um, I just wanted to clarify.

So as we described this process, you know, there would there needed to be eligibility criteria so that you know the county administrator would have very clear guidance as to when we would tap into these funds.

So one of our definitions was a verified federal funding interruption.

So, you know, this one's a little fuzzy since the lawsuit is still pending.

It's actually not a verified interruption.

Um, that being said, though, as Dominic has pointed out, you know, this situation has caused a behavior change that definitely does have an impact that was covered under the allowable uses, which is that there are contractual obligations that are tied to federally funded programs that are interrupted.

And these are essential operating expenses necessary to maintain continuity so that these people can stay in their housing units.

So that is the first thing where I would just like the committee's guidance.

The other thing is kind of on the execution end of this.

Um this one's a little bit different than the examples that I provided to you when we were kind of discussing through this because the 60-day amount that Dominic has calculated would then be offered up to all of the um partners, and they would decide whether or not they would like to enter into an agreement with the county for the equivalent of a 60-day amount divvied up amongst them all.

And you know, that's a little bit different than how we described the 60-day amount being utilized.

We were gonna take that time, you know, that 60-day time frame, and then come back to you.

Staff would come back to you with a long-term solution, or you know, potentially state that there is no way for us to sustain this ourselves.

So in this particular case, we would be entering into subcontracts with the partners that decide that they would like to utilize this funding.

And they would use it to, you know, execute these contracts with landlords so that they could keep things going.

Um then in those subcontracts or those agreements, we would have a clawback that if the lawsuit, you know, closes out and is in their favor, then they would have to pay the money back to us.

Um we are talking a lot about this being leases, but it does include wraparound services as well.

And um so I it's just really important for me to be very, very clear with you that we would continue to execute the agreements as they were before.

It's not like we could state that this can only be used for leases.

For example, we would want to continue the program, how it's laid out, um, which means that we're not really just supporting 60 days.

We would be supporting and you know, their ability to enter into a contract.

So again, we're not helping everyone, we're only helping the ones of the partners that choose to contract with us, and secondly, only those that they can include within this cap, not necessarily all of them.

So for those reasons, um, I really just was looking for committee guidance before moving forward because it it's not falling as nicely into the guidelines.

Um, obviously these are all going to be squishy, but just really wanted your guidance as to whether or not you felt like this was an opportunity to tap into those um federal funding sustainability funds.

Thank you.

Helpful to understand the decision point.

And like you said, administrator something, it's not exactly as we envisioned the other example, which were hey, we're trying to protect our workforce from a short-term decision that could get reversed, it's or make long-term plans, et cetera.

Can you tell us what's the annualized amount of HUD grants that flow through us to these organizations for these kinds of support services?

Three point three hundred three million four hundred and seventy-two thousand seven hundred and thirty-three.

So again, these aren't like our employees is on our program.

It's just we're the convenient uh uh door to knock on because we are the pass through.

My concern is people could be unhoused or lose other support services that they need, and it's you know, life-saving care that we're talking about.

The other concern I have is these are grantees that we haven't vetted, you know.

I know we don't do RFPs for human services grants and things like that, but we do have our own processes.

We haven't engaged in any of that because it's not our program essentially, right?

Or have we?

The relationship between the county and and the coalition is is a little tricky.

There's an MOU in place, so this the only staff of the Lake County Coalition for the Homeless, which is our local COC, it is county staff.

So that application that collaborative application that I talked about is put together and submitted by county staff.

Mayland Gembra is the continuum of care coordinator.

She submits that to HUD.

Um she runs the applicate, the COC application, that funding round in coordination with all the agencies involved in the COC, but that is there is a process to that's annual submission, even though they are renewals.

And as part of that coalition, are there other government partners?

Are there municipalities or other private donors that could help support the funding?

Let's just say we decide, hey, this is an appropriate use of this fund for in a temporary basis while we evaluate other options.

Um are they just gonna expect that the county is gonna absorb the full three million or are there other funding partners that could come in here?

I don't know, speak to the coalition's expectation.

I think um certainly outside funding sources in these agencies include their private nine-for-profits.

So there is foundational support that they seek on an annual basis as part of the program budgets in general.

Um we're not the sole, or this funding is not the sole source of these programs.

Um whether or not they're gonna be successful in terms of acquiring additional outside funding, I I don't I don't know of any.

Thank you.

Thank you so much for bringing this forward.

And while it doesn't fit exactly into what was presented, I think the spirit of what you're bringing forward does, right?

We are very concerned about the current uh Trump administration leading to people who have been housed before for what has been a good reason, right?

There's permanent supportive housing, all these things uh ending up on the street.

So um and I and it's a really good question.

What's the total 3.5 million?

Oh, well, not sure that we can carry cover that.

But you know what?

We did say, or I think what the board had had said to staff was look, let's just have something for 60 days.

And so that's kind of what I don't want to say we're committing to it because it's on a case by case basis.

Um, but I I would be in favor of this.

I think this is an alignment of exactly what what we're talking about.

Um, what I did want to understand is okay.

So you put the clawbacks in there, that was great.

So this is a 60 60 day amount.

I would assume most of these contracts with the landlords are you know yearly.

So uh so they might just go month to month, and then if the program with all these lawsuits, if if the lawsuits are successful, they can transition it, or they just know we're we're at 60 days.

Yeah, I mean, the 60 day limit is in there beyond that.

If I don't know what will happen at the end of the 60 days, I think all indications are they will be successful in this in this lawsuit.

The initial rulings have been favorable toward the plaintiffs, and I even even Congress has stepped in somewhat in the FY26 appropriations bill.

They included language director directing HUD to renew some of these contracts that led to the appeal that was filed by HUD and they essentially said we need you to dissolve this temporary injunction and for us to do that.

They have made steps uh to try and renew.

So I think the expectation is these funds will come through.

Um this is really meant to be like a bridge funding for some of these cash strapped organizations to be able to commit to these programs for them to be able to go to their boards and say, yes, we want to continue this program.

The county has our back if we need to, um, but should and when this money comes through, we will return it back to the county.

Perfect.

Thank you.

So I personally think this is perfectly in line.

Um food and shelter.

It's the most basic human needs, and that's what we really want to protect.

So I'm I I think this is I'm good with it.

So thank you, Chair.

Thank you.

I agree, Member Clark.

Yeah, I I agree too.

I mean, I know from being on housing community development, I mean, the county does have a role in this, like you know, doing the applications, knows the organizations.

Like I think we are the right uh entity to look at this, and it I think it does fit in the spirit and what we want to do because it is gap funding, right?

They just need this two months to see if it comes through.

What happens if it doesn't come through in two months is I think uh beyond all of our controls.

I mean, right?

I mean, you just don't know, but it could, and it gives them time, and you and you'd hate for people to be literally lose their rent, they're on the streets just because there's like a six week funding gap.

And so this is something that I would um definitely support.

And so but but in that it is only for the two the two months, and we're not guaranteeing anything beyond that.

But um, I do think that this would be good.

So I would support it, yes.

Thank you, Vice Chair.

I just had a question on the um Dominic or or maybe Patrice when you mentioned that this is not unverified, or we can only look at verified.

I guess I would view pending litigation that's unresolved as being unverified, right?

Like we don't know.

So I would say this to me that the pol unless unless you think it doesn't, maybe we should amend the policy.

So when we're when we do have pending litigation, which I assume will be continuously happening, that that does allow us the flexibility.

Am I making sense on this or not?

Yeah, I think the discomfort here is that we would have to claw back funding.

That that's really um, you know, that doesn't come into play if it's a program that we're running ourselves.

So that was one of the complexities of this particular situation that I just wanted to be very clear with you on, um, and just make sure that you were supportive.

Yeah.

Okay.

But I am understood.

I your point is valid, but particularly because their behavior has to change with the unknown.

Yeah, exactly.

Yeah.

Member Kasman.

Thank you.

Um, I think this was in fact one of the scenarios we uh envisioned when we first were discussing this, uh, the sort of emergency reserves.

I think um it's in line with with what we were talking about.

I think it was an example at the time.

I think also um the county not only has obviously a human responsibility toward our residents, um, and that is obvious.

I mean, people in permanent supportive housing, which is what this the new continuum of care rules are about, would be on the street.

That's why I mean it's only 170 or so people who are on permanent supportive housing.

That's how hard it is to get.

Um, and that's because these people would be literally homeless, and many of them have been literally homeless for a long time.

We work with them and finally get them into permanent supportive housing.

So these are people who would be on the street otherwise.

There is obviously a moral imperative here on the part of the county, but there's also a financial imperative.

If they aren't in this perna supportive housing, which costs a whole lot less than a human being on the street, dying of exposure, um going into the emergency room because of uh hypothermia.

Um the cost for having someone be homeless, if that's what we're caring about right now, is the finances.

Um, we would be if we didn't do this, there would be a lot greater even financial cost to Lake County.

Um, the social service and it would be one that the social service agencies that rely on this money would bear.

So I think um not only is it in line with our initial reasoning behind this, it gives uh our our partners flexibility to hopefully enter into these leases.

Um HCDC vets all the people who apply for our funding.

Um that is all scored by county staff.

So that is a county process, even if it isn't the county board's process.

Um, and I think um look, any social service agency as far as clawbacks, if they end up getting the funding from somewhere else, I don't think they're gonna mind paying us back.

What this will do is prevent leases from not being renewed.

Prevent people from being on the street because of the uncertainty.

If you're a small social service agency, you can't just go out on a wing in a prayer and sign a lease and commit to to housing this individual.

If you don't have compensatory funding to back it up.

So I think um it all the examples that we gave, one of them was the health department's um not need not wanting to fire people because a grant is uh discontinued one day, and then another court decision happens and that grant is restored.

Um, this is the same kind of volatility, except it's people on the street.

So I'm I'm very supportive of this, obviously.

Um, and I hope uh I hope the committee approves it.

Thank you.

Thank you, Member Kasbin.

I appreciate you mentioning the HCDC process.

That's exactly what I was wondering about when I asked that question.

So that's uh really helpful for you to illustrate that.

Appreciate it.

I think um we're hearing that the committee is supportive of the use of this fund for this purpose.

I hope administrator Sutton, you won't hesitate to come back to us if you have other gray area questions in the future.

Just working through this the first time.

Uh you know, it's um important that I I get a sense of um the boundaries and comfort.

So I really appreciate the guidance, and I'll begin working with Dominic to get this started.

So thank you very much.

Thank you.

Anything else for the report?

Okay.

Uh, you're back in the room.

Um, Cher, can you vote?

I can.

Okay, great.

Yep.

Okay.

Motion to go into executive session to discuss a personal matter and to review closed session minutes by member Clark, second by Vice Chair Park.

Roll call, please.

Uh member Clark.

Hi.

Chair Prank.

Hi.

Uh Vice Chair Park.

Hi.

Um, Chair Hart.

Aye.

Motion is approved.

We're going into executive session.

We are back in regular session.

Item 11.1 is committee action authorizing a reclassification of position 29052 in the division of transportation from engineer salary grade 10 to senior engineer salary grade 12, and an increase to the base pay of the incumbent to the minimum of the new pay grade.

Motion to approve by member Clark, second by vice chair Parek.

All in favor, please say aye.

Aye, any opposed.

Item 11.1 is approved.

11.2 is committee action approving the FNA committee executive session minutes from March 5th, 2026.

Motion by Member Clark, second by Vice Chair Perek.

All in favor, please say aye.

Aye, any opposed.

Motion is approved.

Member of Marx.

Member Clark.

I do want to bring back my art thing.

So I think something for us to think about when we're looking at the wins of property in Libertyville, um, when we're looking at doing our landscaping plan, every time I drive by the corner, I think we don't have much public art, but it's important that we invest in the arts.

It doesn't, it's even that that much money, but it would be a nice corner.

So I just want us to think about it.

And maybe I don't know if I need like a staff time to think about it.

Could I have staff time to think about it?

Two out the two hours, just to think about it.

Just think about it.

Sandy gets to vote.

Stay time to think about art for Libertyville campus.

On the corner, just to think about it.

Consider more broadly, even here.

I mean, yes, where we have kind of a presence, uh, I think up to two hours is a starting point.

For public art, yeah.

And it would be looking at potentially Libertyville or here.

Yes.

And especially with our anniversary.

Thank you.

And I think just we have a sculptor here in not to say we would necessarily use that sculptor, but who has a show right now with Dunn Museum.

It also doesn't have to be a five million dollar sculpture.

It can be who knows.

Could be an artistic garden design.

There can be lots of different ways to do that.

Good idea.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Good suggestion.

Great.

Any other comments?

We're adjourned until next week.

Thank you, everyone.