I call this law judicial meeting to order.

Today is Tuesday, July 7th at 1030 a.m.

In addition to being able to attend in-person remote attendance has been made available to the public via Zoom at the link on the agenda.

The meeting is being recorded through Zoom.

Doesn't look like we have anyone participating via Zoom.

May have a roll call.

Oh, we're doing, I'm sorry.

First, um, join me in a moment of silence.

Um in memory of can I read down?

Absolutely.

Um before we get into the business items today's agenda, we are observing a moment of silence in memory of our friend and colleague, Lake County Board, Vice Chair Dr.

Mary Ross Cunningham.

Vice Chair Cummingham served the residents of Lake County for more than two decades as a member of the Lake County Board.

Mary was a tireless advocate for people experienced homelessness, affordable housing, criminal justice, equity and opportunity for all, and the steadfast advocate for her community.

Please join me in honoring her life and service in Lake County and keeping her family and friends, colleagues, and all who have touched her lives in our thoughts.

Mary, please rest your rest in peace.

We will miss you dearly.

Thank you.

Stand for the Pledge of Allegiance.

Please join me.

Of the United States of America and we should say that with liberty and justice.

Okay.

Okay.

The roll call.

Roll call, please.

Member Altenburg.

Here.

Member Danforth.

Member Kinesinick.

Member Kyle.

Member Peterson.

Vice Chair Roberts.

Here.

Thank you.

Okay, Mary, we're gonna do your proud here.

Is there agenda to the agenda to is there an addendent to the agenda?

There's no agenda to the agenda.

Thank you.

No public comments.

Any unfinished remark business?

We do.

No unfinished business.

New business.

I need a motion and a second for consent agenda nine one through nine four.

Uh motion by Kanisnik, second by Altenburg.

All in favor.

Not opposed.

Motion carries.

Is a resolution accepting the Illinois Department of Human Services redeploy Illinois grant and approving the emergency appropriate appropriations in the amount of 261,360.

Lisa Wolf is joining us.

Thank you.

Hi, good morning, Lisa Wolfe for the courts.

Yes, this is a renewal of our juvenile redeploy grant, which um helps to employ two therapists for in-home uh family-based counseling as well as day reporting and after school programs.

And uh this year we'll also be utilizing the funds to um um provide uh consulting services as we introduce females into our face it program.

I oh I'm we did a motion in a second.

That was for consent.

Oh we have to do oh I'm sorry motion it's okay from uh Altenburg second by Peterson.

Are there any questions?

Seeing none, all in favor, none opposed, motion carries.

Thank you.

I'll need a motion and a second for 9.6 with the joint committee action approving contract modification number one with McDermott Center DBA Market Center of Chicago for adult residential substance use treatment in the amount of 298,601 dollars.

Motion by Kanisnik, second by Peterson.

Lisa, you're on.

Um, unlike our juvenile redeploy grant, our adult redeploy grant at this time.

We're not renewing for next year.

There is still a possibility of it being renewed, but in order to ensure that we are continuing with those services, we are modifying an existing contract with Haymarket Recovery services to provide recovery coaching for our um prison diversion program.

This is um services that we've been offering since 2013, and we will be utilizing our our um probation service fees in order to continue on these services.

So the contract you don't have a grant, and then you found money in the budget.

Correct.

Any questions?

Okay, all in favor.

Non-opposed motion carries.

9.7 is a joint resolution authorizing an emergency appropriation for the second year of two-year intergovernmental agreement between the Illinois Department of Health Care and Family Services and the Lake County State's attorneys uh for the uh continuation of the state's attorney's child support enforcement program for the period of July 1, 2026 through June 30, 2027, in the amount of 830,900.

I'm gonna need motion and a second.

Motion by Kindishnik, second by Dan Ford.

Joe.

Good morning, everybody.

I'm Joe Gravitter, Chief Deputy of uh administration for the state's attorney's office.

Uh so today we're requesting approval of the second year renewal for our uh child support um with the Illinois Department of Health Care and Family Services.

So we've had this intergovernmental agreement with them since 1985, and it covers a large part of the personnel and fringe expenses for our child support staff.

And currently the child support division handles uh about 12,000 active cases, including establishing paternity and medical support orders as well as enforcing orders for payments of support.

Okay.

Any questions?

Seeing none, all in favor.

Motion carries.

Thank you.

9.8 is a joint resolution authorizing the acceptance and execution of the Illinois Criminal Justice Information Authority, deferred prosecution continuation grant assisting the Lake County State's Attorney's Office with the enhancing the deferred prosecution program and approving an emergency appropriation of 298,760 in grant funds.

I need a motion and a second motion by Aldenberg, second by Peterson.

Joe and Air State Attorney Reinhardt welcome.

Hello, good morning.

Again.

So this is a one-year renewal grant in the amount, well, uh 298,760 that expires June 30th of next year.

It was received from ICEGA for the purposes of enhancing our deferred prosecution program.

Um, as a refresher, deferred prosecution is a postponement of criminal charges in the exchange of meeting specific conditions, uh, usually through rehabilitative services and can occur either pre-charge, which is the deflection, or post-charge, which is diversion.

Uh, these funds are being used to fund both of our um both our diversion coordinator and our deflection coordinators to carry out this work.

Well, I know this is a really great program.

Yeah.

Good morning.

Uh Eric Reinhardt, thank you for considering this.

I'll be super brief.

I spoke at uh the earlier HCS committee.

I know um we're all thinking of of Mary Ross Cunningham's family and and all of her loved ones in the community.

Uh this would be uh any, you know, any work that is helping people is is something that I know um that I know vice chair uh uh and chair Cunningham cared deeply about, so I wanted to uh start with that.

Um and then I'm gonna thank some people who do not get enough uh thanks, which are Joe Gravitter, uh uh Kelly Christie, who is behind me, uh, as well as Steve Spagnolo.

They do a lot of our grant work, and this is a continuation of a grant uh that we had previously secured that helped us uh that helped us fund uh Cameron Arroyo and Alex Sidman, who are amazing professionals, very much like Ms.

Jacoby, uh experts in the experts in these areas.

And so I wanted to thank Joe and Kelly and Steve for their outstanding work to make sure that we got this grant extended.

I will end with this.

Unfortunately, this grant only takes us through June 30th, 2027.

So you could expect to see a budgeting aspect of this for FY 2027 for half of the year.

We submitted an NPR last week regarding this topic because this budget would only this grant would only cover uh half of next year.

Well, thanks for the heads up on that one.

Um questions from anyone.

Well, I think you you know, I mean, I think we talked about this before that I don't know what you said the percentage rate of success on on diversion is pretty high.

Yeah, our programs it's in the 90s um 90 percent.

Um that's really great.

That's for all of our diversion programs.

Uh and so uh yeah, so it's even in the 90s in the misdemeanor diversion, which frankly you have a because you have more people in the program.

You have a we have uh we had 174 last year, uh, and that's uh you know, that's triple what our felony diversion is.

So anytime you take on a broader path of individuals, uh you you might see your success rate go down.

And and on a misdemeanor case, these are nonviolent misdemeanors.

On a misdemeanor case, you might see lack of success being not doing the program or testing positive for a controlled substance, something like that.

That would all be lack of success.

And um uh and then the the 90% number applies to all programs, including the misdemeanor program, including the felony programs.

Thank you.

Go ahead.

Uh I just had a quick question.

Are we unique with that program?

Are there other counties that have that program?

Or are we one of the I appreciate that question, Member Altenberg?

Uh, in fact, many uh counties uh do this.

Um Kane County has been doing it for a very long time, I think maybe 15 years now, 10 to 15 years, and they are diverting and deflecting much higher percentages than we are.

Um and I've been state scenarios for six years at this point.

So I I take accountability in terms of trying to ramp this up faster.

There are barriers in our ecosystem on this point.

And so I'm going to work much harder to overcome those barriers.

Um I think it's a really important way to help people and to work on our docket and to work on our docket overcrowding so that we can focus on cases uh with victims so that we can give them the services that they need.

Uh almost none of these cases have victims.

Uh there might be a few, a criminal damage to property, and and we always consult with the victims before we do a diversion.

Uh, and we usually almost always have their buy-in.

So you could have a property victim on a few of these, but but none of these are violent cases.

And I think our courthouse resources, our judicial resources, our state's attorney resources should be spending more time on those, you know, on those cases.

So remember, these will let the rehabilitative step occur first, and then there's a dismissal of the case.

It also means that the public defenders are able to get their people into treatment.

And frankly, spend less time reviewing uh reviewing uh discovery because we're not asking them to plead guilty.

Defense attorneys should spend a lot of time uh reviewing discovery when you're asking them to plead guilty.

If you don't ask them to plead guilty, they can spend a lot less time on it.

And so uh this program needs to be ramped up and it will be a uh big priority uh in the in the next few years.

Well, and hopefully it um helps people from not doing the crime again and ending up in jail.

And this program didn't exist until six years ago.

No, it it existed in a very small existed in a very small way.

That's the judicial uh diversion program, which we are very proud to partner with them on.

The program has tripled uh since I came to office over the last six years, but it didn't triple right away.

Uh it only tripled because we had the ICG grant and the MacArthur support, because sort of like what you saw in Safe Storage, you cannot do this work without great staff.

And Cameron and Alex are great staff.

And so these programs cannot run without staffers.

And so we finally staffed it to correctly in 2024 and 2025.

And so I think that's why we're seeing the increase.

Okay.

Thank you.

Any further questions?

Seeing none, all in favor.

Um motion carries.

Thank you.

9.9 is a joint resolution authorizing a renewal of the state attorney's violent crime victims assistant grant program awarded by the Office of the Illinois Attorney General for SAFE.

Excuse me, for state fiscal year 2027, and approving an emergency appropriation amount of 130,200.

I need a motion and a second motion by Aldenberg, second by Dan Forth.

And Joe, you're on again.

So this is a one-year renewal grant with a grant period of July 1st through June 30th of 2027.

Our office has been receiving this grant since 1990, and it funds the majority of salary and fringe for two domestic violence victim specialists.

Currently, both of these victim specialists are handling roughly over or a little bit over 200 cases.

So this division the division is definitely among the busiest in the state's attorney's office.

And so this grant just helps to offset those costs to ensure that the uh that this important work can continue to be done.

Thank you.

Any questions?

Seeing none, all in favor?

Aye.

Motion passes.

Thank you.

Thank you so much.

Tax is 9.10, and we have a um annual update by our sheriff's department.

Sheriff Eidelberg and uh Chris Cavelli.

Okay.

Good morning.

Morning.

Good morning, everyone.

My name is John D.

Eidelberg, Sheriff for Lake County.

Good morning, members of the committee, and everyone in attendance.

Before we begin, I'd like to take a moment to acknowledge the passing of Chair Mary Ross Cunningham.

We all know she was a dedicated public servant who cared deeply about Lake County.

She served with pride on this very committee for many years.

On behalf of Lake County Sheriff Office, we extend our deepest condolence to family, friends, and all who have the privilege of serving alongside her.

She will be greatly missed.

Thank you for the opportunity to be here today to provide a brief update on the Lake County Sheriff Office.

I'm happy to report that in 2025, we noted violent crime is down, gun violence is down, fatal overdose are down, and many of our initiatives and partnership with our justice partners played a significant role in these accomplishments.

Over the past year, our team have remained focused on mission of protection our community, supporting those we serve, and continue looking for ways to improve our service.

Today we will highlight some of those accomplishment initiatives and results we have achieved in 2025.

The next statue is uh supervisor of safety.

It talks about enforcing all the laws of the state throughout the county and within the municipality, enforcing ordinance, regulation of traffic, safety on public highway.

The next one is talking about our statutory authority to serve and execute returns of all warrants, processing orders of judgment in the county.

And then the next would talk about our authority of power to patrol Lake Michigan from the north of Lake County all the way south down to Lake Cook Row.

And then also one of the responsibility of the sheriff is to maintain security of the courthouse and jail.

And the last thing I want to talk about is that as the sheriff, we're responsible to make sure we are attending someone from the sheriff department, court security attending all the courts, and maintaining security within the courthouse in the buildings.

Just one thing to mention to emphasize what the sheriff said is, and I know a lot of the members here fully understand this, but a lot of people at home in the community don't understand is that the sheriff is a very unique position in the community, more so than a municipal police department because they have a lot more responsibilities assigned to them through statute, uh, including those that the sheriff mentioned, uh Patrol of Lake Michigan, execution of warrants and process is obviously huge, custody of the jail conservator of the pieces, the sheriff mentioned.

So uh, and essentially what that means is any law and or any village or municipality that exists or unincorporated area, if there is no police department, the sheriff is responsible for providing policing services to those areas.

And then, of course, uh, as the sheriff mentioned the jail and the courthouse security as well.

It's a question on the warrants.

Uh and I don't know if you have this answer, but of the warrants that are issued, uh, how successful are you in um executing that?

So we will kind of go through each of the divisions if that yeah, if that's okay.

I think it might answer some questions.

Uh but we'll kick it to Chief Klaus for no so uh we just had our uh national uh accreditation audit in June.

Uh that included the jail and our medical uh through the NC CHC uh medical and received 100% and the jail on all mandatory categories was 100%.

Uh our staffing as of last year, we interviewed 113 individuals.

We hired 34, but we had 24 resignations.

Uh we're starting to trend in the right direction.

Uh as of two years ago, we were sitting at close to 60 open slots, uh, having a tough time getting under 60.

Now we're maintaining we're currently at 44 vacancies, and we continue to stay close in the 40s, and we have a lot of people applying.

Uh in 2026 already, we've hired 19.

We have 61 candidates that we've interviewed, but hiring 19, we've also had 13 retirements and resignations.

Uh we have created a new K-19.

And uh we are actively recruiting at job fairs and the community events around.

We do stuff at CLC with the criminal justice classes where we sell uh send representatives out there to talk to the individuals that are taking criminal justice courses to advise them of possible careers and corrections.

And we uh solicit online for positions through the blue line blue line and uh hiring websites like that.

And and just to touch on the accreditations portion real quick, that I mean that is a really big deal.

These are outside nationally recognized institutions that come in and check, they look at every policy, every procedure in the jail.

They'll interview randomly correctional officers that are in the facility to ensure that they are meeting the highest standards.

So not just the minimum, but what's the highest?

And uh those those are a really big deal.

They were just here, as the chief said in June, and they were very impressed with what they saw.

We expect their report, I think within the next couple of months.

Yes.

Uh our average daily population was 597 last year.

Uh the cost to housing inmate is 167 a day.

Uh we booked in 6,094 people last year and released 6,070.

Uh we've served almost 540,000 meals throughout the year.

Uh we've transported uh 11,400 inmates to court proceedings, and we've transferred 353 inmates to IDOC.

Uh with our admissions with those uh individuals that were booked in.

We've had 5,0131 people that entered the facility with some kind of medical conditions.

Uh nurse treatment visits, the nurses did 33,321 visits uh for inmates for varying medical conditions.

Uh the nurse sick call visits, they did 2,452.

Uh withdrawal monitoring visits, which is individuals coming in that have some kind of alcohol or drug withdrawals.

Uh the medical staff did 8,757 visits.

Uh we had 609 medical emergency responses in the jail.

Uh we had 440 psych visits and we have a on-site dentist that's seen 770 inmates last year.

And just to define those that are booked and things of that nature, when a municipal police department arrests somebody on a misdemeanor charge, they're able to bring that person to their local lockup, process them, and release them on with pretrial conditions.

Let's say they arrest somebody that's going to be held on a felony charge.

They'll bring that person in to first appearance court.

And if a judge remands that person to detention in the Lake County jail, that's when the booking process is initiated for us here at the sheriff's office.

Now the sheriff's office being uh part of its own jail.

Uh, if we have a misdemeanor offender, they'll be brought into the jail processed so we can collect fingerprints, photograph, and then release with pretrial conditions or held until a judge uh detains them to the Lake County jail.

Uh one of the areas that's very important to the sheriff is inmate programming and re-entry services.

Uh we provide a comprehensive range of evidence-based programs designed specifically to reduce recidivism, support recovery, improve employability, and promote successful community reintegration.

We have only over 20 programs that have served over 700 inmates.

Uh, some of the programs that we have are education.

Uh, we do have GED preparation.

An inmate can get their GED while they're in custody.

Uh classes that they do take regarding GED in the jail can be done at CLC.

So we have a partnership with CLC when it comes to our educational uh programs.

One of the areas that we're really proud of is the workforce development.

That's an employment readiness training that uh we do inside the jail to help people with different job opportunities, simple things such as filling out an application, how to interview, things like that are went over, and uh the inmates are prepared for that.

We have a lot of recovery and mental health, as a lot of the inmates that we get inside the jail have some kind of substance abuse or alcohol abuse problem.

And the amount of mental health issues that we have just increases every day.

That's one of uh our hardest areas is dealing with uh mental health issues inside the jail.

But we do ANA, uh peer support programming.

Uh we do have referrals if someone's receiving treatment inside, where our program director, Gabe Cruz will work with task and some of the Nakassa and some of the other agencies in within the county to ensure that when individuals are released, if they have a problem that they can go to these areas and continue with their treatment.

Uh we do offer life skills such as anger management and financial litter literacy literacy.

Uh one of the big things now, and it's been very popular amongst the inmates is we've been doing parenting classes.

Uh that was always big with the female inmates, but we have now started offering that to the males, and we've been getting a lot of uh requests.

We currently have uh one of those parenting classes that just started.

Uh Gabe.

Uh probably within the last week.

We just had a graduation a few weeks ago, and we just started up another class.

So, but yeah, there's uh a lot of demand for that.

Uh we are doing a lot of re-entry services.

Uh program manager Cruz does a lot, like I said, with Nakassa.

He does a lot with Lake County and Waukegan to find housing.

Uh, we do a lot with the VA.

We actually have uh VA programming that the inmates can do on the tablets that they actually talk to a VA rep and they fill out paperwork and things like that nature.

Uh the VA provided us a tablet for the inmates to do this uh this uh service.

Uh we do a lot of uh family uh reunification resources, things like that.

Uh and then we do have uh a lot of multi-phase chaplaincy services in the jail.

Uh we have religious reps that are on site every day that walk around representing all the faiths that talk to the inmates.

Uh the sheriff's goal is to ensure that everyone that's in there is given the tools and resources that we deem necessary to improve their outcomes and to reduce recidivism and give them the tools they need when they go back into the community.

And one of the things we also offer with Gabe is he contact the inmates and asked them is there any particular program or anything that they interested in that could facilitate or help them uh to reduce recidivism.

And if we can accommodate those type of training, we do accommodate that.

One other thing that separates our jail from any others is direct supervision.

Do you mind just touching on that on what that concept is?

One of the direct supervision is a man is a management style, the way the jail is uh operated.

The main component that differs from other facilities is that the officer is actually inside the housing unit with the inmates.

They're not behind glass, behind doors, behind bars.

They're actually in the housing unit with the inmates.

This gives the officer a chance to develop a rapport with the inmates.

They can uh they can detect problems that you wouldn't be able to detect sitting outside a door.

They have more interaction.

It's it's a much better system.

It's it's safer.

Uh the problem is is that it's staff intensive, as we can see where we have issues, takes a special individual that'll go into a cell with 60 individuals, and you have you know all walks of life in there.

You can have someone that's in there for a DUI, and then another person that's in there for a murder.

Uh and the officers are in the housing unit with them directing them daily.

So I have a question.

The inmates that are in McHenry, are they getting offered the same uh services?

McHenry, they are offered this, they are offered the same programming.

Uh McHenry is uh accredited as well.

They just had their accreditation.

I don't know what their score was.

I know that they passed their inspection, but McHenry is accredited.

McHenry runs a different style.

They do not run a direct supervision facility.

They run a podula remote, which is basically the officers on the are on the outside looking in.

And I only asked because those are those are Lake County defendants in McHenry County.

So they won't get this.

Maybe not.

They're provided programs there.

They have they have programming, they receive the same medical treatment.

Uh Wellpath, who has the contract in Lake County has the contract in McHenry.

So there's a continuation of care that has been seamless because of that, but they receive all the same stuff.

Yes, McHenry is accredited.

They follow all the standards that we do.

Uh the programming we might offer employee reading readiness, they might provide CDL career orientations.

I mean, there might be differences along there, but they have programming that the inmates are entitled to and everything of that nature.

Thank you.

Okay.

Jumping into uh the law enforcement division here, and I promise this won't go more than a couple hours.

Uh so on our law enforcement side, um, we're accredited through the Illinois Association Chiefs of Police, Illinois Law Enforcement Accreditation Program.

So we go through uh every few years, uh, same as the jail does where they come in, they review our policies, ensure they're the to the highest standards.

They test those policies based on specific situations that our staff have responded to, and then they'll talk to staff as well and basically conduct random interviews to ensure that they know the policy and they're well versed in it.

Um law enforcement side consists of our patrol division, criminal investigations, court security and support services with about 294 sworn and non-sworn employees.

Um we'll start with court security.

Obviously, that is a division that uh many of the board members see as they travel around uh this building.

Our court security division is responsible for ensuring the safety and security in every open courtroom.

Currently there are 41 judges.

So if there are 41 open courtrooms, there has to be a court security officer or a deputy assigned to each of those courtrooms in order for the judges to be able to conduct business.

Then in addition to that, um, so that that includes here down in uh Waukegan, so our our civil court section, criminal court uh, and family courts, and then our branch courts and our juvenile courthouse as well.

Um we also staff the entrances uh of the criminal court tower here in Waukegan as well as the administrative and civil side.

Um last year in 2025, we opened more than 7,000 courtrooms.

Um, so that could be, you know, 50 one day, depending on afternoon call, morning call, uh, and uh maybe 60 the following day.

It just all depends, but over 7,000 in the year, they responded to over 2,000 calls for service.

So this could be uh an individual that might have a warrant that appeared in court, an individual that's uh uh creating a disturbance in a courtroom.

But in addition to that, one of the services that the sheriff has authorized our court security division to do is is respond to any issues here in the administrative building.

So this way you have somebody that's on scene during business hours uh that's uh sworn to uphold the law and can step in if there's a situation that arises, say uh on the third floor at the state's attorney's office, versus uh having to call 911 and potentially wait for Waukegan to arrive, which is I I know it keeps employees feeling safe.

Um court security, over 518 individuals were remanded.

So those are individuals that came in for a court hearing, uh, and the judge for whatever the case might be decided that they were going to be taken into custody and remanded to the jail.

So our court security officers in those courtrooms will handle those and took 212 individuals into custody on outstanding warrants.

Um just like anything else, it's uh in in every sector and of whether it's government or uh private business, staffing can fluctuate.

Uh right now we have an FTE authorization of 32 full-time officers.

Years and years ago, there was a transition to create part-time positions.

That was great at that time.

It's it it it doesn't, it's not ultra helpful for us right now.

Topic for another time, but uh uh we we work diligently to staff those courtrooms.

So as of today's staffing, we have a deputy chief assigned to that division, two sergeants, two sheriff's deputies, and those deputies, what they do is they'll handle more of the complex investigations, things that maybe if there is a uh uh a threat made against a member of the judiciary or even a county board member, that's going to be assigned to what we call our court emergency response team.

They're the grade one deputies.

And then we currently have 27 full-time court security officers uh working on filling five vacancies and eight part-time officers.

But in the past five years, that 27 number of full-time is is higher than we've had, so trending in the right direction there as well.

Uh civil process, again, this is uh a mandated division of the sheriff's office by statute.

Uh this is an extremely busy division, uh, believe it or not.

And a lot of uh our deputies don't even realize how busy it is until they're assigned to this division.

Uh it's staffed by a sergeant who who shares some responsibility, five sheriff's deputies and two administrative clerks.

And they handle the enforcement of body attachments, evictions, mental health writs, and and mental health writs are very unstable uh conditions.

It's basically a judge issuing an order to take an individual uh for all intents and purposes into custody who is experiencing some type of mental crisis.

Um our coast team, our crisis outreach and support team, they assisted all of those, which is really important.

Um these are having been on a number of these myself, the least favorite thing a sheriff's deputy could have to do because you have an individual who does not believe um that they need any sort of treatment, uh, but we have a judicial order where we have to enforce that.

So very delicate what we've learned and and transitioned to is taking our time, slowing it down, de-escalating, doing it the right way.

Can I ask you a quick question, Chris?

Yes.

Um, in terms of this number, the 7700 for 2025 and the 6353.

So if we look at years past, is does that number keep going up every year?

Can you talk about that a little bit?

It is increasing.

So uh year after year, uh there is an increase in number of court orders and and court orders served.

So that number is 7700.

So you think about it, there's five deputies out there that are responsible for those 7700 attempts.

So they're doing between 20 to 40 a day trying to serve paper.

Now that's all inclusive of everything they serve, not just them the mental health writs are probably in the 20s.

Um why do you think the numbers are going up each year?

It's it's a number of factors.

Um there's there's there's factors with more summons being issued to individuals to appear in court.

Um evictions always fluctuate depending on economic conditions.

So there's there's just there's a number of factors every year that change things, but there has been a trickle up uh year year over year.

And it's both criminal and civil, not just criminal.

So it's actually this is all civil.

So body attachments are civil, evictions, all of these are in the civil category.

They're not serving warrants.

These are just civil processing.

Yeah, and you're the only one that does that for Lake County, right?

Yes, that is correct.

Yeah, so that's a statutory responsibility of the sheriff.

Okay.

So our records division, this is another area where we've seen drastic increases in their workload.

Um our record section is uh extraordinarily busy uh with administrative uh work on a daily basis.

Um in 2025, they processed 7,580 written reports from our staff.

So that's deputies taking uh a police report or corrections writing a report on um uh a major incident in the jail that may have happened.

And that doesn't include the supplemental report.

So let's say you have a a robbery or a homicide, a significant crime.

There's one report taken, but there could be 50 supplemental reports from detectives and uh evidence technicians at the scene, crash investigators if it's a major crash.

So you're dealing with I would say upwards of 20,000 written reports a year when you include supplementals.

And then in addition to that, this team fulfilled uh over 6,600 records requests, and these come in through many of our judicial partners.

So the state's attorney's office, DCFS, DCFS, the coroner's office.

Um every one of these requests come in, they get processed uh to ensure we have we don't duplicate the work if it hasn't already been done.

Uh they pull the data, they pull the information.

Sometimes it requires redaction.

Generally, when it's another government requesting the information, you don't have to quite redact as much.

Uh, but that doesn't include our our FOIA.

That was an additional 4,279 uh in 2025, which is up 135% from 2024.

And already the first half of 26, it is trending even higher than 25.

So that boy is just for the Oh, I'm so sorry.

How many employees do you have per four?

So right now, as we sit today, we have a record supervisor, three and a half records clerks, four vacancies, and one FOIA officer.

Yes.

One.

One.

Okay.

Come on.

Are those just FOIAs for the sheriff's office?

Yes.

That's for the sheriff.

Yes.

So we we lead the entire county in FOIAs.

Um we get the most.

So there's there's always in and we work uh with the legislative committee.

I mean, there's always some legislative pushes to try to um, for example, you might get AI sending FOIA requests, um, which can be a problem for all of us in government.

Um there's there are some things that have been enacted where we can respond to ensure it's an actual human.

If we don't get a response back within a certain amount of time, we can null that FOIA request.

But uh every FOIA request takes significant time because of redactions, especially in law enforcement.

And the philosophy, as you all know, behind FOIA is to release the information.

It's not to withhold.

We have to consider every document we have as a public document, even if it's a police report.

Um, even if it's going through criminal prosecution, that might not be a reason to withhold an entire report in full.

So there's portions that we do have to go through and redact.

Now that's just the written report, and then we have video from our body worn cameras, squad car cameras, fixed cameras, extremely labor intensive.

Additionally, they'll fulfill they fulfilled 55 subpoena requests and took fingerprints for 168 people.

And generally those are guardianship ordered through the courts.

Um they don't include if if somebody's applying for a job here at the sheriff's office.

It would include if if it's a school district and they're sent to the sheriff's office to have their fingerprints taken.

Uh warrants, orders of protection, another extremely busy division and a statutory division of the sheriff's office as well.

Umrants uh were issued and assigned to us to hold in 2025.

So essentially what happens is uh whether it's a sheriff's deputy or a local municipality, if they go in and obtain an arrest warrant on an individual and it's approved by a judge, that warrant is then brought to the sheriff's office for entering into the computer database and filing.

So we physically hold the paper copy of the warrant.

Um there are some changes that happen with the law enforcement agency's data system run by the Illinois State Police.

They've upgraded, but that upgrade has cost uh us to have to put in a lot more work into what we enter into the computer database.

Um what may have taken five minutes a few years ago takes between 20 and 40 minutes, depending on what uh who the individual is, how many tattoos they have, descriptors, charges.

Uh it's it's a significant lift on our part.

Um in addition, those warrants have to be validated uh every year or so.

So somebody has to physically ensure that the warrant still exists and validate it, go into the system and say, yes, this warrant is still validated, because if you don't do that, it gets purged.

So then you would have uh no knowledge, somebody is actually wanted on a warrant.

So that is extremely extremely labor intensive.

Um our warrants division conducted over 220 extraditions.

So essentially that's if um let's say somebody in Boone County is picked up on a lake county warrant.

It's our responsibility to go pick them up and bring them to Lake County.

Um eighty-eight of those were outside of Illinois.

Um where we have a service.

Let's say it's in uh Oregon where uh somebody is arrested.

It's it's very likely we're gonna contract that out to a service to have them brought back.

Uh if it's in usually a collar state, generally we'll send our team out to go pick them up.

There's also time limitations on those.

Uh so if they're not uh extradited from that location within uh a five-day period, uh then that agency where they're being held has to release them.

So it's it's crucial that we we go and extradite the individuals.

So we're the the clearing house also for orders of protection that are issued in 2025.

There are over 3300 orders of protection issued, uh and that includes firearm restraining orders.

And when those are filed, it is up to this division here to get those entered into the system.

It's also up for us to serve those.

So it's a sheriff's responsibility to serve an order of protection.

And how we do it at the sheriff's office, because time is of the essence if somebody uh obtains an emergency order of protection.

Uh, we push those, they're processed in our civil warrants division, and then they are pushed to our patrol division to serve.

So every day our patrol will take a stack of order of protections that were issued.

We divvy them up to our deputies depending on where they're assigned that day, and they begin their service attempts.

Um they're also entered into the database.

So if they happen to have a law enforcement encounter outside of the sheriff's office, uh a local municipality can serve what's called a short form to put them on notice.

Um, but it is our responsibility to continue and serve them with their summons and and the entire order.

So that is the the crux of of what this division does.

Uh our crisis outreach and support team.

This is a team that Sheriff Eidelberg expanded.

Um, this is a really important team to us, and they do a tremendous, tremendous job.

Uh one of the things that um Sheriff Heidelberg did a few years ago was expand it to six municipalities as well.

Um so there's seven agencies together uh that that work in this unit.

And it's a deputy sheriff and one of those six partnering agencies that are teamed with a clinician.

Um and they do two things.

Um they will respond to mental health crisis calls in progress because what we've learned over the years is we need to spend time on these calls.

Uh it's not something 20 years ago, it was a rush.

Let's get the call solved, get back in service.

If somebody has to be arrested, they have to be arrested.

We've completely done a 180 on that and and realized individuals in mental health crisis, it's not the same.

Um, you know, they're not necessarily in control of of what they're doing in that moment.

And so what we've taken is the approach of slowing it down, uh, using our our um crisis intervention team skills and resolving the situation.

The goal obviously is no force.

We don't want to have to use force in a situation like this.

So when you don't push um and you don't make it time being the priority, you're in a much better place to resolve it.

And coast, they're able to do that, especially with the clinician.

Um so they can extract our first responders, our deputies and the local municipalities that are part of this group, extract them from that so they can go back to answering emergency calls, and this team can spend time.

So we partner uh with the independence center in the living room wellness center as well.

And I know this is not within 25, but I do think it it bears mentioning that we were the recipient uh coast uh at NACO for the innovative county programming uh that strengthens public safety, public service delivery and crisis response systems.

So huge accomplishment uh to be recognized on on that national stage.

In 2025, we hit our 75th, 7500th referral to the program.

And so how that works is let's say there's a deputy that responds to a call at at two in the morning and coast isn't working.

Uh but they the person isn't an immediate threat to themselves or somebody else, and they haven't committed a crime, but that deputy thinks, you know what, they really could benefit from a coast officer talking to them, providing them some services, letting them know what exists.

Um they will refer it to Coast.

Coast then goes and follows up.

So last year in 25, there were 1,100, just over 1,100 mental health submissions and positive contact was made with 800.

So that's that's a really high success rate, and it's a really good thing.

And what our coast officers would tell you is that a lot of these individuals they interact with, their families get to know them, the individual who had the crisis gets to know them, and they become trusted.

So they become somebody that um those that may be going through a crisis can reach out to directly and get services and have that trust built, again, reducing enforcement and and creating a situation where we can get them the resources that they truly do need.

Go ahead.

Yes.

Great question.

So I know you guys are bringing some social work type people on your calls.

Is that we have we been able to increase that a little bit?

And is that going well?

I've heard it's going well.

Yes.

So that that is part of the coast program.

We right now do have a position open for a clinician that we are working on filling.

And I know Jim has been working with finance and HR on that as well.

That will help us tremendously.

But we still do have one clinician that does go to these calls for service.

And that's that's what a big help of this program is that you have somebody that let's say they just don't want to talk to somebody in uniform or somebody in law enforcement.

We get that we can step away, still be present if if we need to get involved, but let that clinician lead those conversations.

And it's been super successful, especially with those calls in progress.

And the clinician knows about the different programs or resources that's out there to help these people navigate the water that they're going through right now.

Thank you.

Member Kasman has a question.

Yeah, I'm a member right.

Forgive me, it's been a couple years since I learned this, so I can't remember what the training is called, but there's that the specific kind of training that you can get to that a deputy can get to work with to identify people in mental health crisis.

And and it's um usually what is it?

Yep.

C CIT is the chair mentioned, crisis intervention team training.

And so that's a 40-hour course uh that we not only put our deputies through, but the sheriff put all of our staff through.

Because you might have somebody in mental crisis that's walking into the lobby, and we want our receptionists to know what that looks like, how to de-escalate that, our correction staff because uh many of the individuals in custody are suffering with uh mental health issues.

And so they can respond to that in an appropriate way and more leveled way, and that really gives different skills.

And in fact, all deputies coming out of the police academy now that are newly hired, that's mandated training, which is a great thing.

Uh two separate questions.

Uh really happy to see the progress made on the jail staffing.

I think that was the goal that we are all aligned on, and probably gonna take some more time to get to where we need to be, but the progress is encouraging.

I'm happy to see that.

I'm just curious on those who you're still losing um through retirements or resignations.

Is there a common thread?

Is there a factor that's uh causing us to lose that number?

Or is that you know, just what you would anticipate normal attrition to be?

Well, there was a mass hiring in the early 90s.

I was part of that when the facility opened.

So that was 32 years ago.

So we're reaching that time period where these individuals are retiring.

The biggest factor is really aid-based retirement.

Uh that's one of the problems, yes.

Uh, we spoke a little bit about direct supervision.

It's a tough sell to get an officer to go in there and spend eight hours with, you know, uh the inmates.

It's it's pretty uh burdensome.

So some people just aren't made to do that job.

They come in and think that they're gonna be able to do it, and for whatever reason, they're like, this just isn't for me.

So we're always gonna lose a certain percentage to individuals that uh aren't just can't do the job.

But the main thing right now has been the retirements.

Okay, helpful to understand.

Thank you.

And just one additional thing.

Some people entering the corrections profession, they're doing it because they want to get more into the law enforcement side.

And one of the things our mirror commission did was change their rules.

So if uh we have a correctional officer in good standing, uh, just as an outside police officer, they can go through a lateral process to keep them here in Lake County versus look elsewhere and leave the sheriff's office and go work for a municipality or a different county.

So really just trying to be innovative and try everything we can for retention.

So if the goal isn't to stay in corrections, at least hopefully keep them here with us.

And the follow-up on your question, sir.

Um, like anything else, we're hiring, they go through the processing and they go down to the academy, they graduate, and then they get here and they realize, hey, direct supervision, me being in a pie with 60 people is not something I'm comfortable with.

Then they can go to another department where they have a different type of supervision where they're supervising the inmates on uh watching them on cameras versus being here behind with the inmates.

So we have lost some people transitioning over to other sheriff department in correction.

Okay, thank you.

Uh real quickly, my second question, Chair is related to the um health data.

You had a slide that said the number of visits for each of the different um nurses and behavioral health and dental and things like that.

And for us to understand that uh, you know, the contract and the the expense related to it, I think those numbers are useful for us.

But I'm curious, does the vendor provide any sort of health outcome data?

Like, do we know, hey, we fixed this person's dental issue, or um, you know, we got them stabilized on their asthma or diabetes or whatever.

Like, do we have that kind of reporting from them?

Well, every one of these uh visits uh will be a positive result where the situation was resolved.

They're they're responding, but we have monthly meetings with uh Wellpath where they provide all the st statistics as into the individuals who receive treatment.

But uh short answer, yes, medical does keep track of all the outcomes with uh so these are.

So WellPath does provide health outcome data for for their visits.

Yes, they would get that.

We would get 100 visits, pay us for 100 visits.

Pardon me.

I'm just trying to understand.

Are they reporting on there on their impact?

Or are they just saying, hey, we did a hundred visits, pay us for a hundred visits.

Like because in health care generally, and at our health department or any other provider, you would want to not just be paying for the service.

You would want to see that you had an impact on the on the patient.

You'd want to know the you achieve the outcome.

And so that's a pretty common thing in health care to look for outcome reporting.

So if that's not part of our contract, I would just suggest it would be something useful for us to consider.

I would have to refer to Jim.

I we don't pay per visit like that.

Yeah, it's the information that we're provided at our Mac meetings.

There is some outcomes on it.

Um, but basically it ends after the visit.

So we don't we don't mean we've explored looking at other options.

Um like right now, one of the things that we're looking at is the Medicare 115 plan, but that's kind of been um set to the side um because of government regulations and stuff like that.

We are looking to expand it so there's a continuity of care once somebody um leaves the facility.

But with the Medicare um plan, one of the issues is you have to start that 30 days before inmates released, and we don't always know when an inmates are going to be released.

So we didn't add anything to the contract.

It's not it's not normal for most counties that outsource that to be a component of the contract.

So I think what you're asking is are there meetings to learn the outcomes of uh procedures, what happened in the jail and Chief Klaus, you have a monthly meeting.

Yes, and we meet weekly to also that goes over um what medical is doing, who they've treated, what those outcomes are.

So it does seem that there is reporting going on.

I mean, not to speak for you, but I think that's kind of what you're doing.

There's also reporting on pharmaceuticals as well, not only medical visits, but we also have an analysis of what inmates are the 10 sorry, the 10 most expensive inmates on on uh pharmaceuticals.

Um, same thing for any outside services um like hospitalizations.

One thing that um has that has been very beneficial is we actually did bring on-site uh dialysis when it made financial sense.

Not only were we saving money uh instead of sending people out, but then it was offers.

We're also able to reduce our overtime.

So instead of having officers go out with somebody for dialysis was contained within the jail.

We brought physical therapists on site that were the medical is um instead of signing people out for physical therapy.

Um so we have made a lot of progress with our jail medical provider and providing and caring for the inmate more within the uh facility than having to send everybody out for different services.

And that's just an add-on.

So we will look into that information for you.

And if there's that information, we will provide you with that information, sir.

Thank you.

Yeah, I'm just I I'm not asking for a new report.

I'm just curious like what they're providing you.

And I have a lot of confidence in the care that your team provides, and that you're making sure that the inmates in your care are getting the services and the health care that they need.

That's not what I'm questioning.

But I will just say, you know, we've all seen stories of people held in really horrible conditions in federal uh detention and immigration services.

People are not getting the care they need.

But you know, you could have a uh a contracted vendor said, I gave you a band-aid and they're gonna count that as a visit.

I know that's not the case here, but the outcome reporting is useful to understand hey, we're we're getting people what they need.

So just real quick, one thing that might put your mind at ease a little bit is during our monthly meetings.

We go over the grievance report.

There's a list of all grievances that inmates are able to put on for a medical provider.

Most of them are you know very minor in detail, but we do review each one in uh every month.

So if you have, you know, right now we have 600 inmates in the jail.

Um last month, I think there was four grievances, and they were all very minor.

So we do everything.

And they do grieve everything, trust me.

Um so I mean, there are there is reporting, um, and I'd be happy to go over anything with you without violating any type of HIPAA.

But I mean, I could, you know, I'll be happy to sit down with you whenever.

Appreciate it.

Thank you for this.

I can invite anyone to come in.

I will give a tour to anyone.

I offer it all the time.

I'm obviously biased, but I think our jail is amazing, and I'll show it off to anyone that would like to come in.

I think we've all visited that.

Yeah.

And I I don't think um, you know, you're not questioning their ability.

Just if if you could get that report, maybe we'd all like to see it if that would be yeah, please forward it to this committee.

We'll do that.

Thank you so much.

Thank you.

And if you do visit Chief Klaus, we'll let you out.

Or not.

Um, okay.

So moving on to our community engagement and school safety team, another very important unit to us.

Uh, right now, staff with a lieutenant and two sheriff's deputies.

One deputy is assigned full-time as a school resource officer at the CLC Tech Campus.

Any school resource officer we have goes through above and beyond trainings uh and how to positively engage youth, interact with youth.

The whole goal is all about making those connections and bridging those gaps at a younger age.

So they know law enforcement is there for them, uh, not an adversarial uh situation, or or to uh be arresting them or citing them for minor infractions in the school.

That is not at all our philosophy or or what our people do.

Um and then we have one part-time deputy assigned to the Beach Park Middle School.

Um in 2025, we had 103 reports uh that were taken or investigations conducted between the two schools.

That could be uh maybe uh a fight that occurs in a school, and and our school resource officer is asked to get involved, or potentially uh a student that might have brought some uh illegal substance in uh where we're getting involved in those, or potentially a threat to a staff member or a threat to another student.

They're there on hand.

Uh it's extremely beneficial uh for them to have be familiar uh with those schools, with the students, with the staff, because that again, that trust is so important, that trust is already built, uh, and it helps them get to the bottom of what's going on and the root causes.

And and often as we know with kids, it it obviously it isn't always and generally is not about bad behavior.

There's something else going on in their life, and and the goal is to try to figure out what that might be.

Um over 330 community meetings, events, fairs, outreach uh events, uh, our community and school resource team uh partook in.

They also hosted an eight-week community police academy, uh, very similar to um what uh the county did here for their their independence academy.

And I know we'll talk about it next year, but super proud of them.

They're just getting back from uh receiving their two national awards from the uh National School Resource Officers Association, first time in history that congratulations that our team has received that.

So we're really excited about that.

Uh homeland security.

We have one director assigned to this team.

And basically they are our bridge to uh our our municipal partners, our federal partners, both receiving information.

They work very closely with EMA.

Uh in fact, their office is out there at EMA.

Um, and it's this is all about holistically keeping the county safe, uh, whether that's doing uh site inspections of uh uh houses of worship, schools, businesses that are looking to ensure that uh their exteriors harden or what can they they can do on the inside to keep uh their members or their staff safe.

Um they're out conducting those reviews, over 200 partnerships that we have that uh he is actively maintaining, um receiving that intelligence, and then he vets it.

He looks at what is coming in, maybe uh at the federal level, does it apply to us in Lake County?

If so, it reaches the right people, which is very beneficial for us.

Um, and then he's also an instructor, so he teaches instant command school, uh, which is uh a necessary component for law enforcement or the fire service or even private institutions also put their individuals through ICS if they're gonna be on an emergency response team or emergency management team.

And uh so over a hundred individuals he's helped uh with that as well, get through that training.

Moving on to patrol, as you all very well know, the county population is 714,000 plus, over 444 square miles of land, 924 square miles of water.

Um we have that unique responsibility of providing that public safety on Lake Michigan, our inland waterways.

We'll talk about the marine unit in a second.

But essentially uh who we are serving, we serve about 19 to 20 percent of the Lake County population as a sheriff's office.

This is just our patrol division.

Obviously, our other statutory divisions serve all of Lake County, uh, from corner to corner, every community.

Uh, but our patrol division is serving about 134,000 people, covers about 200 square miles, and it's about 45% of Lake County when you look at it on a land basis.

They're the 24-7 uh division, uh, three different shifts we have right now.

They operate, uh, they work five, they're off two, then they work five, they're off three, they work eight and a half hour days.

Um on each shift, we have a lieutenant assigned as a shift commander, three sergeants that are assigned as your your frontline supervisors, and between 25 and 30 deputies when we're fully at full allocation.

Um the county is divided into five patrol districts for the unincorporated areas.

Um, you have three to the north, north of 120, and then two to the south.

Um there are two deputies assigned to each of those patrol districts, and they are responsible for covering our unincorporated areas primarily.

And then we have our contract communities uh who uh contract with us to provide a deputy.

Maybe it's it's 16 hours a day, maybe it's 24 hours a day, depending on the community and the agreement uh that we've reached with them.

So our those that are assigned in our unincorporated patrol districts, that's their main focus.

The benefit, um, and I know we've we've talked about it when contracts have come up.

The benefit that it is to us to have these contracts is it it puts extra people on the street.

So if let's say there's an emergency that's happening in Ingleside, um, we can send our Volo car there uh to quickly respond because our district cars might be up in northern unincorporated Antioch off of 173.

So it's it's it's a give and take and it's it's very beneficial to us.

So in 25, um, there were over 170,000 calls for service that were entered by our deputies.

Now that's both responding to emergency calls.

That also includes things like business checks, school patrols, uh going out and walking around a fest.

Um, but that that is a lot uh for our small but mighty team.

Uh our technical crash investigations team uh investigated 25 fatal or near fatal traffic crashes.

Um that that's that's a heavy lift.

Um it's a team of between five and six that will respond to those terrible uh traffic crashes and conduct a full investigation in reconstruction, and that helps us in criminal prosecutions.

If there is somebody that violated uh the criminal law and is is going to be held accountable for their actions, but it also answers a lot of questions for the families that are impacted to get that thorough investigation.

And it's everything from speeds, directions, and and at fault, and again, if there's a criminal component.

Um is if the DUIs are going up or down.

Or staying the state.

I would say over if you look at it over a 10-year period, DUIs have decreased.

Um, you know, there's a little fluctuation year year by year if you're looking at it, but overall they've decreased.

And I think a lot of that is um the messaging that goes out around uh uh holidays and and every other time, and the fact that you know somebody can pick up their phone and order an Uber and get a ride and not risk number one ending somebody's life or a $10,000 DUI.

So it you know it's a good thing.

Now, in a lot of our fatal crashes, substances are commonly involved.

Um, and and that's where we see the damage very frequently.

So go to Marine Unit.

Um 2025.

So the the chain of lakes, which we patrol and and the board has been very supportive of, uh, is the busiest inland recreational waterway in the nation per acre.

Um it is very heavily used.

Now, it is definitely less than it was probably 10, 15 years ago, but it is still very busy out there, especially on the weekends, holidays, things of that nature.

And and our team works very closely with the Illinois conservation police and have really done a great job out there uh bringing alcohol use and operating a boat to lows that we haven't seen um in a long time.

And again, I think that's that presence out there.

Um the Marine unit, they can um make contact with the boat operator at any time just to ensure they have the proper equipment, are following the Coast Guard regulations and boaters out there, they know that.

And most of your experienced boaters on the chain would tell you they try to stay as far away from those rental boats as they possibly can because a lot of them are inexperienced.

And then our Lake Michigan boat with your support has been in full operation.

We cover up to about 40 miles out.

Now it we're not going that far out.

That would be a pretty dangerous situation for our staff.

The Coast Guard will come and support if you know you're talking about something that's 10 plus miles off of the shore.

However, our staff is equipped.

We work very closely with the Coast Guard out there, very closely with our fire departments in rescue situations.

They've been so successful.

You've probably read about some of the success stories they've had where a couple kids that were on paddle boards, no cell phone, uh somehow ended about a mile, mile and a half offshore, had no idea that they were getting pulled further and further out.

And we happened to spot them and were able to load them up and bring them back to the pier.

Um situations like that where they are undoubtedly saving lives.

Um they responded to 85 emergency calls for service on all three of those waterways that chain the river in Lake Michigan last year, conducted 192 stops, and conducted 232 inspections.

And those inspections aren't gotcha type inspections.

They're really, they're trying to educate the boaters uh and those that are operating a boat or own a boat into what kind of equipment they need.

Um, because we saw the very sad and tragic situation that just happened in Geneva Lake in Wisconsin, and um, you know, I think they did everything that they they could from the reporting that's been out there.

But the lake, Lake Michigan and the chain, it can turn very scary in an instant with the weather and and just the conditions.

Uh our canine unit, which uh you all have been extremely supportive of and we're extremely proud of, uh had a very successful 2025 canine Duke, as you know, retired.

Uh right now, uh, or in 25, we had 10 fully operational canine teams.

Eight of those were multi-purpose canines.

Those are the canines that can really do just about anything.

Um go look for somebody that's missing, endangered, uh, potentially sniff for uh contraband drugs, uh, illegal substances, um, and and and provide various protections.

Then we have the explosive detection canine, uh, which is a great resource, one of very few in the region.

Um they are very frequently used at major community events, the Lake County Fair, they go out and they sweep any major event where we're requested by a municipality or even our regional partners uh just outside of Lake County, we'll send them and provide that resource, and it it's very helpful.

Or when you get, you know, a bomb threat that comes in at a business or a school, we'll send them out and and let them do their thing.

Uh and then our electronic detection canine also does such an awesome job.

And they work very closely with the state's attorney's office, canine electronic detection canine, and they are looking for hidden electronic contraband, very often uh used in child sexual abuse situations where they have found a lot of hidden contraband.

People will hide it anywhere.

And as we all know, a thumb drive can be tucked away just about anywhere.

These these dogs can they pick up on that scent that's used to make electronics and solder it, and they can find it just about anywhere.

I didn't believe it until I actually saw it happen.

It's it's it is.

Umine team and all had 485 deployments last year, located 35 individuals uh trying to conceal themselves from an arrest or were missing and endangered.

27 discarded or hidden firearms.

That's obviously a huge number.

Um sometimes if somebody is is running and they have a firearm, they'll throw it so they're not caught with it.

And our dogs can pick up on that scent and find those.

You know, what we don't want happening is uh a horrible tragic story of a kid finding it and and uh it being uh uh discharged by a child or anybody else.

And then community uh demonstrations.

That's really important to our team, getting out there, talking about our dogs, talking about what they can do, what they they do on a daily basis.

They participated in 59 different uh community events.

Our 911 comm center in 25 fielded uh close to 40,000 911 calls, 83,000 non-emergency calls uh for a total of just shy of 123.

And then they're the kind of the keeper of those 170,000 entries we talked about uh for patrol because on their screen, they're they're either updating it, providing information to our deputies responding to a call, uh, or they're monitoring what our deputies are inputting if they're self-initiating field activity there in the street.

Um staffing last year was a director, three supervisors, three assistant supervisors, and 21 telecommunicators.

Criminal investigations, uh very important function of our organization, and I promise we're getting towards the end.

Um in 2025, there were over a thousand criminal cases that were assigned to detectives.

And these are either um serious violent uh offenses that uh still need additional follow-up that patrol couldn't conclude to no fault of their own.

They just need some sp uh specialized resources to come in, or a case where a deputy might take a report and they just don't have the ability to follow up on it because it might require a subpoena, a search warrant, or some more in-depth investigation.

It resulted in 193 arrests in 2025.

There were three homicides, all three were cleared uh with the arrest of the offenders, a hundred percent clearance rate in 25, which is it huge.

Uh absolutely exceeds national averages.

Our child exploitation unit rescued five children from ongoing sexual abuse.

Obviously, that is that's that's massive.

It's saving five lives and arrested 13 for disseminating child sexual abuse material.

Our criminal investigations division takes the lead when a firearm restraining order is obtained.

Um and this is when there's a situation that our staff have responded to, our deputies have responded to, where uh it appears based on the circumstances there are firearms at play, and those firearms need to be uh kept in safe housing for the time being, and whoever the the individual that is either a suspect or the offender in the incident um uh denied access to those firearms until a judge has a chance to review and and make a final determination on it.

These are very labor intensive um because you're you're going into a situation with a lot of unknowns.

Um and uh as you know, the law changed, uh Karina's law became law uh as well recently, and that is uh when an individual can uh seek a search warrant um uh in order of protection court.

And those those are very high risk as well.

Very important, very high risk uh and very labor intensive because it requires a lot of uh uh pre-workup before we just go into somebody's home, somebody's domain and uh search for firearms.

We have to figure out what the crime is all about, who's involved, who's in the home, what are our risks.

Uh because again, when we go into these situations, we don't want to have to use force.

That is that's never something that our staff want to do.

And pre-planning is extremely important.

Um so conducted 29 of those.

Uh another initiative that Chair Fidelberg started was uh the collection of revoked FOID cards or CCL cards.

So the state police, when somebody has their FOID or CCL revoked by the state police, they send a notification out.

Now that is a program that's run by the state police.

However, once we get that notification, the sheriff has directed our criminal investigations division to go make contact with those individuals and actually physically take it uh um have a conversation with them, not go in and demand it, but go and actually make that contact, take it and send it to the state police versus waiting for more of a voluntary compliance.

And it it takes that FOID out of their possession and and hopefully prevents them from obtaining a firearm if they're not allowed to for whatever the reason.

Special investigations group, um, huge group for us.

Uh 2025 was another record year for them.

They're the only uh high-intensity drug trafficking area funded group in Lake County, uh, and actually nationwide.

They're one of maybe two or three that are run by a sheriff's office.

Normally they're run by the feds.

The feds have entrusted us to run this group, which is speaks volumes of of the sheriff's leadership and their leadership in this division.

So it's run uh with support from DEA, FBI, ATF, NCIS, Department of State, and then we have 12 local municipalities that are part of this task force with us.

Um probably the most important fact is they rescued six victims of human trafficking last year.

Um that's you know, it's it's one of those things that the public's eye is becoming more aware of.

It's a real thing.

It's happening everywhere, including here in Lake County, and they are a dedicated group, work very closely with the human trafficking coalition and the state's attorney's office uh on these investigations and rescued six victims.

Um arrested a hundred drug traffickers last year, seized more than seven million dollars worth of of drugs, which uh just would have been flowing through our our streets otherwise.

And that's over 50 pounds of powder fentanyl, over 16,000 fentanyl pills, and we all know how deadly those are, uh 37 pounds of cocaine and more, and 90 illegally possessed firearms.

So they're really working the long-term uh investigations uh when it comes to human trafficking, drug trafficking, or gun trafficking.

Those numbers going up or staying the same.

They also fluctuate.

They had been going up and up and up.

Um, and then last year, as far as the drugs go, a little bit of a dip.

Um, but as far as the firearms go, those that remain consistent, human trafficking recoveries, uh, that skyrocketed as well.

So 20 more slides to go.

Thank you.

Thank you all.

We uh we really really appreciate the opportunity to present.

And uh, you know, we're we're very, very proud of our staff and and the work that our teams are doing, uh, the collaboration we have with with our our members of the board and and with uh our colleagues in county government and municipal.

So thank you for everything and yeah, take any questions you might have.

Remember Peterson has a question.

It was amazing.

Thank you.

I learned I thought I knew a lot.

I learned a lot more today.

Do you put any of this information on your website?

We do, yes.

And no, you can't put all of it.

Yeah, I get that.

Because I don't think the average public has a clue of everything that you do.

I I really don't.

Yeah.

And and this was absolutely amazing.

And I thank all of you for your service.

It's was great.

Thank you.

Thanks, Member Peterson.

Thank you very much, member.

Thank you.

And I totally agree.

It was really interesting.

I'm sorry I have to go, but I did want to ask um I thought that your numbers were really interesting in the very beginning about the medical, how many people really require um medical interventions, and I had jotted it down.

I think it was 82% of the people who come in.

If if I'm looking at number of people that you've booked and the number of people who require uh medical appointments, it's like 82%.

And then it was like 6.5 visits, essentially on average per client.

So what an enormous number.

Um, and it does make me think like well path.

I can't remember how many millions we spend.

Um you spoke to it, uh, Jim, about um, you know, legislation that's in process.

If some of these folks are pre-trial, right?

So they're most of them are pre-trial, and yet they can't, and they might be on Medicaid or Medicaid or Blue Cross Blue Shield.

Who knows?

But we pay for it out of um county taxpayers, right?

Out of their pocket.

So I am interested, and I I don't, you guys wouldn't I I can't imagine that you would look at it because it doesn't make sense for you to do that.

But I'm always curious.

Um, I recall years ago, some of the providers in the jail were actually providers who worked at the Lake County Health Department, but also had a role uh uh as being hired by um it wasn't Well Path at the time, it was another company.

So I've always just sort of wondered, and several people are going to NACO.

I'd be interested in um are there counties out there that actually work with their county health departments to county jails, excuse me, work with their county health departments to provide some of those services, thereby giving them maybe an easier time and easier way to move from the jail to um health care when they leave the jail, right?

So anyway, I thought it was an excellent presentation.

Thank you very much.

Um, and appreciate all the work your your team does.

Well, thank you, Chair.

And uh, you know, everybody who comes into our jail being arrested, we have what we call is the intake by a medical groove, people by substance abuse and drugs.

And a lot of people that believe it or not, are not honest with us.

Okay.

Right.

And like a couple hours after they've been processed, our correction officers are making around, and there's someone seizing.

And then they go on to withdrawal or having a drug issue.

And those are is what the chief just talking about, those are those calls that we deal with people to get them the treatment of health that they have, and that also spike with the medical uh issues in our jail, and that our staff is dealing with day to day, and most people don't think anything about it.

But that's what they deal with each and every day.

Right.

And and may I just follow up on I'm just thinking about the health department piece, and I may not be recalling this correctly, Sheriff, but I remember during COVID, we wanted that provider to give COVID shots to anybody who wanted it in the jail, any of the clients in the jail.

And I think there was a problem because the contract didn't say um, you know, COVID vaccination or whatever.

And so they were like, sorry, you'll need to pay us more if you'd like for us to do that.

But there we were with the Lake County Health Department with the vaccines, but because we didn't have this uh I agreement or whatever, what have you, I just remember it being an issue.

I I believe I recall it being an issue for um for the department and keeping your officer safe as well as the people who wanted those vaccines.

Yeah.

So thank you.

Thank you, Chad.

And that's something that one we could look at when we're in NACO to see if there's somebody else doing that.

And thank you.

This has been a go ahead.

Oh, I'm sorry.

That's okay.

Um, I just wanted to say what an excellent report.

You guys are amazing.

We're so lucky to have such a diverse department that does so many different services for the county and does it well.

And you know, we're very fortunate.

And please come to us, you know, and let us know.

I know the hiring is getting better, but it's still a problem.

And please come, you know, come to us if we can do anything to help in these various areas.

We really want to be uh, you know, supportive and and help you brainstorm if there's anything we can do to uh for you.

Thank you very much.

We appreciate that.

Thank you.

Well, thank you.

I just want to say thank you for coming and presenting.

It's been very enlightening.

Enlighten.

Enlightening.

Enlightening.

Um, yeah, please come.

Please come more often.

And um, yeah, give us an update.

I look forward to that information that um member um my brain today.

Um Frank wanted to have.

So thank you.

Um we'll do, Chair.

Thank you.

Can I add one last thing?

Well, it's really I'm adding one last thing because it's for Mary.

I'm just gonna say no.

No, we're gonna say that.

Okay, never mind.

We can give that at our next meeting at our county board.

We're gonna leave, thank you.

I appreciate that.

Um, okay, thank you so much.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Um, is there a county administrators report?

No.

Oh darn.

Is there an executive session?

No need for executive session.

Any remarks or requests?

Seeing none, this meeting is adjourned.

Our next meeting is July 28th, 2026.