Today is Thursday, July 9th, 2026.

It's 8:30 a.m.

And I call to order the financial and administrative committee.

Before we get into the business items on 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 Cunningham 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 experiencing homelessness, affordable housing, criminal justice, equity and opportunity for all, and a steadfast advocate for her community.

Would you please rise and join me in honoring her life and service to Lake County and keeping her friends, colleagues, and family members, and all who are touched by her life and our thoughts for a moment of silence?

Thank you.

Member Clark, would you please lead us in the Pledge of Allegiance?

I want to be the United States.

One nation under the indivisible liberty and justice for all.

Member Clark here.

Chair Frank.

Here.

Member Hewitt.

Here.

Member Maine.

Present.

Vice Chair Parricht?

Here.

Member Patterson.

Present.

Member Volitzik.

Great.

We are all here.

We have a quorum.

We'll proceed.

Do we have any addenda today?

We do not.

And do we have any public comments?

We do not.

Okay.

I have no chairs' remarks at this time.

Unfinished business is uh item uh 8.1.

Uh we carried over some minutes.

Do we do we have these where we're going to do that?1 we do 8.2.

Um that is an item we're still working on as we have.

Okay, so we'll need a postpone 8.2.2 examination.

Motion to approve the minutes from May 7, 2026, and item 8.1 by member Clark, second by member Hewitt.

Any edits, comments, or corrections?

See none, all in favor, please say aye.

Aye.

Any opposed?

8.1 is approved.

Motion to postpone 8.2 because they are not not attached, correct?

They're not attached, correct?

Okay.

Motion to postpone 8.2 by member Clark.

Second by Member Volitzik.

All in favor, please say aye.

Aye.

Any opposed.

Uh postponing 8.2 to the next meeting of the finance committee.

Finance committee meeting.

Great.

Thank you.

On to our new business.

Consent agenda items 9.1 through 9.35.

Motion to approve by Vice Chair Parek.

Second by Member Hewitt.

Anything we need to pull or discuss separately.

Comments or questions.

Seeing none, all in favor, please say aye.

Aye.

Any opposed?

The consent agenda items are approved.

9.36 is our Lake County Partners update.

Good morning, Kevin Konsine.

Good morning.

Nice to see you all this morning.

And excited to have a brief and hopefully interesting update as the slides are coming up.

So you've uh uh as I said last time.

Uh so it's been a really good year so far.

Um and uh which we're excited about.

So but the soundbite is you'll remember that last year was our best year ever, and through April of this year, we beat last year.

Uh in one key statistic.

Um, but you'll see some of the uh some of the new projects, new project wins uh logos here on the slide.

Uh couple of frankly, most that we've talked about.

Um one interesting one, you'll see the Fieldman group.

So that is a German optical company, like optical, like retail optical.

Um bought if uh some of you might remember there was a chain of department stores called Shopco, um, headquartered actually in northern Wisconsin.

Uh the department stores uh went under, but they part of that was also a chain of optical shops, which were uh successful.

Fieldman bought the Shopco optical.

Uh this is headquartered in Green Bay.

Um from uh they didn't really feel like they were gonna be able to find the the talent that they were looking for necessarily in Green Bay uh from a see, I don't want to insult Green Bay.

Actually, I'm a Bears fan, I can.

Um but uh uh so they're they put just the sort of C suite and senior leadership uh here in Deerfield.

Great uh great win.

Um and some other logos that you see there as we are continuing our um our push into how can we fuel housing?

So the centennial that is further development around in Vernon Hills uh around the mall.

This is phase three, maybe.

Yeah, exactly.

Um the shorewood, that's a development you've read about in Buffalo Grove.

So repurposing a uh former um was it a Mariana, former grocery store.

Let's go with that.

Um, and pretty empty retail site and a fairly empty office building, multiple owners kind of coming together saying, hey, let's do the do this thing together.

And we were able to help them.

So that'll be a multi-use residential, um, enhanced retail and some other things.

So it'd be a great, great development in Buffalo Grove.

Um, so here's our our five-year run.

So you can see that uh so from a capital investment standpoint, we are uh well ahead of last year.

Um the at 768 million.

You can you can imagine the benchmark I'm really trying to get to in this year.

Uh, and I'm pretty confident we'll get there.

Uh the job numbers will continue to tick up as well.

Um I'm gonna I'm gonna counteract all this, like, hey, we're growing and this is really great, with uh uh an interesting story in a couple of slides.

So we are um particularly on the manufacturing front, um, projects that maybe um, you know, companies kind of said, hey, there's a lot of uncertainty, let's just kind of hit pause for a second.

Um, are now coming like, okay, we can't pause anymore.

And this is gonna sound weird, but there's a little stability in the instability.

Like, all right, we kind of just need to go anyway.

And the sort of the, you know, consumer buying is still good.

Other pieces of the market are still good.

So so manufacturing investment is happening, companies going, we can't wait any longer.

We need to do this.

So um moving forward, which we are happy to take advantage of.

Um couple of stats from the uh GSEP, our regional partnership um continues to be pretty successful.

Um couple of stats here, and and this is sweated down from we get it's a it's a pretty big uh dashboard of stats, but the the ones that at least in my mind primarily matter.

I'm gonna go bottom up.

So the pro Chicago land decisions, um, the the goals 170 for the year.

We're at 70, I think it's actually at 84 now at this point.

Um, but uh so about on track, you know, call it 50%, roughly 50% through the year.

The leads created, um that one lags, but but it's getting there.

So frankly, we had to restart a bunch of lead generating activities, hence the like the trip to Germany and hosting receptions, and we hosted uh, we had a skybox at the Germany USA soccer game uh uh uh a month or so ago, and it was awesome.

We had the new CEO from Fielman, that German company that worked out really well, the the timing for that.

But in this skybox, we had a Turkish steel company, a Turkish food company, um, uh a Chinese food company, um, uh Korean, let's go with electronics manufacturer, um, and like another business from the UK.

It was it was awesome.

All of them coming and uh to look at Chicago.

Some were already here and needing to expand, but uh, and it was a beautiful day in Chicago.

Like we showed really well.

So it was great.

So continuing to show this regional partnership really works.

And all those companies mentioned, but actually probably 80% of them were in the suburbs.

Um and you can see some of the the lists of some of the regional wins uh so far this year.

So the lead number will we'll get there, but these are also it's long sales cycle stuff.

So in theory, we could feel that maybe in another year, but I'm I'm optimistic about where things continue to go.

Um more on the GCEP front.

Um the as we're framing up and moving towards uh GCEP 2.0, which will start January 1st.

So uh thank you.

We have been a uh uh essentially a fully publicly funded model to this point, with the idea being we all said from the beginning, hey, we'll go to public private, but we need to get this started.

Um so that public-private starts in January with the uh the consensus is now 40% public, 60% private.

We'd like to get that to 7030.

Just we didn't want to make the hill too steep in year one of raising the private sector dollars.

Um hopefully that this has not been ratified, hasn't been signed.

So I'm sort of uh floating this, but uh that's sort of been the been the idea.

Um we are working through kind of the contractual pieces of the governance model um to get the the contract signed.

I think we're in the final sort of you know crossing T's and dotting I's of what that model looks like.

And then we've built out an 18-month activity plan so that we can start to plan a little bit further ahead for things like trips and events and things like that.

These are some seemingly basic things that we've never really had before.

Um so pretty pretty exciting on that front.

We're also starting to take a look at um our five-year comprehensive economic development strategy, the SEDS um turns five in 2027.

So uh that time is here kind of hard to believe.

Um so uh Steve De Bretto on our team is uh is leading this effort to one, let's kind of take stock of all right, what what have we accomplished?

Kind of standards that you know, what have we done?

What have we not done?

Where do we want to go and what what does the project need to look like from here?

Um so I I think in a number of areas we've uh we've been um pretty successful and being been able to uh keep some things going.

So uh we look in the competitive positioning, obviously, regionalism uh has been very successful.

Efforts in workforce, these are these are all partnership efforts.

These are not Lake County partners solo efforts, right?

So in the uh in the workforce, the key pieces uh partners of the workforce ecosystem are are all there.

That's the workforce department, College of Lake County, um, regional office of education.

Um can continue to do really well.

Uh the next section in the SEDs was transfer sa transformational development, um, looking at brownfield development.

Hey, Sheridan Crossing.

I'm sure many of you drive by that regularly.

Like, okay, it's big piles of dirt, but that's our that's the sign to getting us uh somewhere, which we're really excited about.

Uh, we're working with uh um city of North Chicago on kind of bringing in some opportunities for once it's cleaned up and what that can be.

Too early to talk about any of those.

Um and then other further um downtown prioritization, working with uh Mundaline and Round Lake and uh a couple other municipalities on what sort of uh as they're thinking of kind of planning or further planning and developing their downtowns, a lot of that is around multifamily uh development as well.

Um the community engagement, you're probably sick of me talking about housing.

Um you remember that, but here's where I've got a uh I think a really interesting story.

Um remember five years ago when we started talking about housing, it was kind of like uh housing, really, you guys.

Um, of course, it's a daily topic.

Here's where it's interesting.

We said so five years ago, hey, in order for us to remain competitive, we need to build more housing.

So in the last two weeks, uh we've had one, an existing employer who uh had been planning to relocate um hundreds of employees here, told us that they've had to stop that relocation because there isn't housing that there for the people that they want to relocate, either availability or what's here is too expensive, and these folks can't move.

That's a bummer.

Um not unforeseen really.

The other one is uh another company from another Midwestern state who had said, you know what, in order for us to grow, um, we're gonna need, we can't find the talent here that we really need in order to kind of kick the company to the next phase.

So they were gonna move um 140 employees here, move the headquarters, 140 employees, including a bunch of um scientists, um, would have been a great win.

We had sites in two different municipalities.

Uh they told us last week that um after they looked at the housing market, I said, you know what, our employees won't be able to afford the housing there where there isn't enough, so they're staying where they are.

So that's two big losses.

Um, both pointing at housing and the lack of housing and the cost of housing.

Those two things are tied.

Thank you.

And are the municipalities hearing, do you think that same story like Lake County Municipal League and Northwest Municipal Conference?

They so that particular story, I mean, it's pretty fresh.

So we haven't had a chance to um to share that yet.

Uh there was a municipal league event last week.

I told it wherever I could.

Yeah.

Um, so we'll continue to promote that.

We are working, I think I might have told at my last one.

I kind of sometimes forget the chronology of of reports and events.

So we hosted a speed dating between municipalities and developers.

Um we had 15 municipalities participate, and this was focused on multifamily uh development.

We had 15 municipalities come with, which meant they came with sites saying, here's what we'd like to see here.

We had 15 developers, you got to keep those even who were interested in in doing it.

Now it's too soon to have a deal as a result, but we know that there are a bunch of continuing conversations happening.

So that's good.

Um the hard part, I this is where I get impatient.

You know, I once even a project's approved, it's still a couple years out before that somebody's moving in.

And the reason why I ask is it doesn't have to be those stories, but um, you know, many of us were able to attend several of the housing lake meetings, and I know, you know, certainly other government entities are really busy.

Um, but I didn't see as many of the municipal partner, um, you know, municipalities there.

So I do I am hopeful that they understand um, as I think we are all learning, just how critical that link is between housing and economic development.

So thank you.

Yeah, so thank you for the great question.

Appreciate that comment.

Sorry, I think we have a few more on this point.

Um, so Kevin, really glad that you shared that with us.

Um, I just want to say, you know, you always bring us all good news all the time.

And I think it's important for us to understand where the challenges are.

Uh and those particular uh examples are uh really um a little disappointing, maybe not so much shocking.

But the um housing affordability crisis is also national one.

Do you have any perspectives that can say like, hey, that these two companies that they found affordable housing stock in North Carolina or someplace else, and and we're an outlier here, or is this is this really the story of the times nationally that housing is not affordable in a lot of places?

It it's really it's relative.

So what shicagoland is less expensive than New York, San Francisco, LA, um, many other markets, but we're more expensive than Green Bay or Cleveland.

Um so Texas, actually, Austin might be the only city in the country, asterisk on the only, um, that so they've not they have fairly unfettered building regulations in in Texas, but Austin built apartments like crazy, overbuilt initially, but so it took a couple extra years to be absorbed.

Their average rent has gone down like 20 or 30 percent.

Uh, because in the rental market, it really is supply and demand, like build more rate comes down.

In the for sale market, that's a more complex equation.

It still matters, but there's other factors in there.

Uh, but in rental, it really is that.

So other places that have built uh are more affordable.

Um, but it's a nationwide there is not enough housing for sure.

Okay.

Thank you.

Member Clark, then member main.

Thank you.

I remember when we got the SEDs in 2022, which it seems like yesterday in some respects and not, and uh talking about it and um, you know, about about housing.

And I remember there were a certain number of units that you know, we were like was the goal.

And is there any because I know there has been there has been at least, you know, in my in my district, my area, a relatively lot of building between Mundaline, Vernon Hills, and even even Libertyville, where I live now, is building some units.

Do we know like what progress we've made towards having the like appropriate level of housing?

Is there any kind of idea?

Because I see it and I'm hoping like, oh, here's another unit.

Like it's like, yay, we're chipping away at it.

But how are we really doing it?

It's a really good question.

We've I've got two answers.

Um, one, we did a uh story, just a uh roundup blog story, and literally Barbara called every uh municipality and kind of said, what do you have going on?

How many units is it?

What and um and kind of wrote that story.

That story said that we've got like 3200 units either approved or under construction.

Um today or at the time that might have been April.

Um the breaking down what's single family versus multifamily, a lot of it multifamily, a decent like 500 of those were affordable, which is awesome.

Um, we are hoping to implement um in September ongoing tracking is hard.

Um, so we're gonna take a swing at kind of a lo-fi system for municipalities, just tell us how many certificates of occupancy have you issued and how many permits have you issued um on a we're not sure what the frequency makes sense.

Monthly might not change enough.

So is it quarterly?

Um we're we're still just kind of framing that up, but we really want to be able to track it too.

Um, and it's hard.

Do you think any like if you had gonna be a ballpark of the 100%?

Or would you think we're at 30%?

I know I'm putting you on the spot, but I just to get a feel for just some kind of context on how we're doing.

Maybe 30%.

Okay, that's what I was thinking.

Thank you.

Um Kevin, when they look at the um house price, do you know are they also looking at the overall um cost of living?

Because a lot of those places we also talked about, like we have relatively very high property taxes in Illinois compared to other places.

So are they just saying that?

Or you know, if that came down a lot, are they still looking at, yeah, so the house is less, but they're still gonna need to come up with $15,000 a year for a property tax, and it's two in in Texas or something like that.

Does that ever filter up?

Yes and no, it's sometimes hard.

You you'll see different studies.

Yeah, and that's when you really need to pick through the methodology, right?

The really fine print at the bottom, um, which is also like I'm really interested in the fine print at the bottom.

Um, and that's where you can kind of poke holes.

Things we have less control over.

One of the stories also we heard were uh just a little sidebar that that same company who was relocating folks, they've they found some training on their part.

Initially, folks were saying, like, no, no, no, I can't afford there.

And they kind of said, Well, where'd you look?

Well, we looked in the town where you're located.

All right.

Oh, it wasn't I'm not gonna say where it was.

But they kind of said, All right, hold the phone.

We've got, you know, there's lots more.

Let's let's widen that search a little bit.

But you know, if you're from another state, you don't know that.

So they realized like, okay, we need to communicate this differently.

I won't bring up now.

We'll get back to it.

Yeah, yeah.

Let you finish, Kevin.

Right, thank you.

Thank you.

Yep.

Um so we've uh we're we're pretty proud about how the how we've done with the SEDs so far.

Um there are you know some some big things that you know we think we we haven't done.

Uh and you heard John Roberts bring up the idea of the futures council at the uh uh at the big event.

Um and then there are some things that you know weren't really issues five years ago.

Um AI is kind of the obvious one, but you know, we've talked previously about you know energy and infrastructure.

Those weren't really on our radar five years ago that are now.

So there's some things that probably need to be worked in um and and figured out a little bit.

So we're just kind of framing up.

Do we need to do a whole new one?

Is there a refresh process?

Does that make more sense?

Because I think largely it's still valid, but it it needs a little um little juzging up, maybe.

Um it's a it's a technical economic development term, yeah.

Um so broadly, we're we're kind of framing up what this project looks like now.

We were thinking maybe it needed to be a full-blown thing.

We had a call with the EDA yesterday.

We learned like, oh, actually, wait, maybe not.

Um, so we're we're still kind of, you know, still a uh pile of clay.

We're not sure if it's a bowl or a vase yet kind of thing.

Um, but we we will have uh something in the spring of 2027 for uh for the next one.

So and the process is really where the value comes in.

So that's where we're we're looking forward to that.

And there's the end of my presentation.

Thank you.

Other comments or questions?

Member main.

Yes, thank you.

Thank you, Kevin.

Kevin, on that slide that you had with um uh the five year metrics.

I just wondered if uh a line could be added.

It's new jobs retain jobs.

Could we add a line, total jobs so we see where this fits?

What what are the total number of jobs?

Because there are some losses, not your fault, right?

So I just think it'd be good to have a five year trend line of the total number of jobs that we have here in Lake County.

Yeah.

Thank you.

Member Clark.

I just had a just an overall question about now that you're moving to a public-private model, very exciting.

But how is it like a it's going to be just as a very high overview?

Is it going to be like a members pay of dues?

Like how will the private, is it people, companies contribute?

Is there just like an overall generally how it's going to be?

Yeah, great, great question.

So as we framed it up, unsurprisingly, as we got together, we took the models of our whether it's choose due page or will county CED or like county partners and kind of went, well, should we just do the same thing?

Um, which is kind of what we've done.

But um, so we've created uh two different price points.

The higher price point also includes a seat on the World Business Chicago board, which some will really find attractive.

Um at the uh we've we're also creating a regional advisory subcommittee of the World Business Chicago board, and that's so that's where uh investors will um will land.

We're also being really careful that we're not moving money from say choose to page to GSEP.

Um so we've mapped out okay, who are everybody's investors, who's not on anybody's list, you know, that kind of thing.

Um we've we've had a couple yeses, which is great.

Um we we need a few more.

Um, but there's active fundraising and really collaborative uh efforts uh among the team.

So it's literally who knows somebody here.

Well, in some cases, we all know that person, right?

All right, great.

Who's the who's the best?

All right, fine.

You do take that one.

You guys got that one, you know, kind of divvying up the sales team.

Yeah, it's good to hear it's so collaborative, especially.

I mean, and thank you for all the work you've done and everyone on this to make this really a collaborative regional effort.

I know this uh there can be some competing interest there, and it seems like it's working so well.

So thank you.

Like it it's been I will admit it's been fun.

It's been way more work than I anticipated.

Um, but uh it it it it has been fun.

I've enjoyed it.

And my term ends in December.

So I will hand the Gavel to uh to someone else.

So um, which I will both really also enjoy.

Um, but frankly, I'll miss big pieces of it too.

Great.

Thank you.

Member Kasman, go ahead.

Sorry.

Um, Member Clark started on a question I was gonna ask.

Um, as we move in, if as you move into the um public-private partnership for GSEP, is there a need to put guardrails in place to ensure no one contributor has more influence on the board?

Or is that is that a concern at all?

Um it's a good question.

Um we've kind of uh real governance will be so it's an advisory committee.

So um the the real governance will remain with the economic development um uh leaders.

And uh and we're also we're not promising exclusivity, but we're gonna try and execute on that in the you know initials.

So, hey, we've already got a banking partner and a construction partner.

Let's not go after more of those, at least initially.

Um, so I think we'll be able to to spread that.

And that board won't be huge.

Uh it won't be more than a dozen.

Um, but we will all sit on it as well, uh, as well as uh the uh CEO of Old Business Chicago.

So it's a really good question.

I think we'll be in good shape.

Great.

Thank you.

Thank you all.

Have a nice weekend.

Item 9.37 is a resolution to appoint judges of election.

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

Good morning.

With two, excuse me, to commission our election judges.

As you all know, we do this process every two years.

The list of judges is approved by the chairs of the two major political parties in advance of us coming before you.

We currently have 450 judges in place.

We do need 600 for the November general election.

That does not include the high school judges that we will use, which is usually about uh high school students, about a hundred or so.

This number, we are in a great place for that.

That will be um fairly, I don't want to say easy, but uh, we do firmly believe we'll reach that number of 600 in time for the election.

But we are able to approve those judges after this process.

Comments or questions on the item.

Member Clark.

Sorry.

I've um and it's great to see this and all the work that you, you know, you know, ClickVegan, you guys all done about you know getting new election judges and training.

So just for the training purposes.

So they're they're gonna be um, you know, today appointed.

And then do they have like um online training or there is there a training?

I just like an overview because people ask me this all the time.

Sure.

How can I be an election judge?

And what do I have to do so?

The bulk of these judges have been in place already and have been trained.

We lost only 20 judges since the last uh commissioning, and that that was whether they were elected to precinct committee positions or I think just a handful, maybe two or so moved.

Um, so the bulk of the judges have been trained, and the training process is multi-step.

There's an online training, we have an online portal where they can go in, they put in their information, they're able to access the system.

We also have in-person training.

A lot of the judges won't have to take that again.

We also focus on some judges who we feel or they feel may need retraining, and we offer retraining during this process as well.

Um, and if anybody is ever interested in becoming a judge, they can obviously always reach out to our office.

But yes, we have multifaceted training in place for all of our judges, whether new or returning.

That's good to know.

So when people ask, you know, how can I be an election judge?

Then I can refer them to your office.

Absolutely.

And then I can assure them they can do because some people, some people like online training, some people don't, depending on what your skill is.

And so to say that there's options is totally agreeable people.

Totally agree.

And we have a trainer, Jesse, in our office.

She's phenomenal.

She's been with us um since and since 23.

She develops the training program hand in hand with the provider of our um voting system.

So she does a great job.

Um, and the staff that helps her is incredible as well.

So, yes, they can do online, and we do have um in-person out there.

When would be the date they should apply by?

Like I'm gonna hand that to you, Dan Thieland.

Uh so right now, for if we're trying to train new judges, we ideally want them to sign up as soon as possible.

Uh, we have a set of trainings in August and a handful at the very beginning of September.

So we're we're nearing the point where we're almost done with training already.

Okay.

And we are out at all of the events all summer, and we do have election judge material.

And when people do come and speak to us, we do you know, try to get people on board to join the election judge team.

So there's plenty of opportunities out there.

Great.

I know it's a great experience.

And they because of all the work you all do.

So thank you.

Thanks.

Thank you.

All in favor, please say aye.

Aye.

Any opposed?

Item 9.37 is approved.

Item 9.38 is a resolution declaring that the number of appeals annually filed with the board of review creates an emergency situation causing the need for an expanded board of review.

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

Morning.

Good morning.

Um for the record, Bob Glucker, Chief County Assessment Officer, back again.

I thought this was my last visit, but unfortunately the last visit, but unfortunately, um fortunately, nine of the townships have already come through with their assessment numbers for tax year 2027.

Um, very much appreciated.

The actual due date is until the 15th of July.

So that's allowed us to get started.

Uh, first publication will start this year, the early part of uh end of July, July 23rd.

I think is the first ones that'll be hitting the uh hit in the newspapers and uh property owners mailboxes.

This is a um requirement that we're doing here today by the uh Illinois tax code.

Um we always need um alternates in order to be able to handle the volume of appeals we have on an annual basis.

We actually do this a little bit early so that we can also, just as the clerk finished up, start our training to make sure that all these people that are interacting with people as they come in for a property tax appeal are prepared to do so.

Thank you.

Uh member Clark, did you want your motion to also include the resolution appointing additional qualified alternate members to the board of review?

9.39.

Yep.

So both items.

Comments or questions on the declaration and the appointments.

Seeing none, all in favor, please say aye.

Aye.

Any opposed?

9.38 and 9.39 are approved.

And then Chair Hart, before Chair Frank, before I turn around and leave, um, I just make a soft introduction here.

Um, I brought up the candidate elected for the chief county assessment office today.

Um, his name is Nate Hurst.

He's um been a member of the board of review for the last 10 years.

Um, I actually recruited him back as an alternate lots of years ago.

Um, I'm um hopefully he'll be appointed without any problem next Tuesday at your full board meeting, and he has my full support behind him.

Thank you.

Congratulations and welcome.

9.40 is presentation of the fiscal year annual comprehensive financial report and countywide audit by Baker Tilly Good morning, Chair Frank, members of the committee.

Um very delighted to um present to you Jason Coyle, partner from Baker Tilly, who is here to present the results of our fiscal year 25 audit and answer any questions that you might have.

All right.

Well, thanks.

Good to be with you.

Been with you the last several years, and we'll repeat this again.

So you have a very long financial statements, and I'll keep my comments relatively brief, but as Gina said, happy to take any questions.

So just a kind of quick reminder of what the purpose of our audit is.

So you hire us to come in to audit the financial statements of the county.

So we apply our audit tests to all the financial information to allow us to put our opinion on your financial statements.

And that the purpose of that opinion is so that somebody can pick up your financial statements and know that they can rely on the information in your financial statements to be materially accurate.

So they could feel comfortable making a financial assessment of the county.

So you continue to issue your financial statements, what we call on time, which is within the six months, which is a trend you've had now within the last several years, which is fantastic that you're able to continue to do that.

The county, as you know, is a large and complex organization.

So being able to pull everything together within that six month window is challenging, frankly.

And congratulations to Gina and her team to be able to continue to do that.

So the financial statements you issue is what we call an ACFAR, which stands for annual comprehensive financial report, which really goes above and beyond what you're required to do.

There's more information in them than you're actually required to have, which is great.

I congratulate communities who do that, who continue to show that level of transparency of your financial operations.

I'll just go through a couple sections of your financial statements just so you're aware of them.

The financial statements start with what we call transmit a letter, which isn't audited, but it does provide the reader a little bit of a background of the county and how you're made up.

So if someone's picking up your financial statements for the first time, doesn't know much about Lake County, it gives you a little background of the county.

Right after the transmitted letter is our opinion.

So that's really what you hire us for.

It's a multi-page opinion.

Um there's a lot of words in there, but like I said, what it really means is that somebody could rely on the financial information uh to be materially accurate.

So all the rest of the information in the 200 plus pages is county financial information.

Only those pages come from Baker Tilly.

Um, right after our opinion is a section called management's discussion analysis.

And again, I know everyone doesn't want to read 200 plus pages of financial information, but I always encourage governing body members to read the MDNA, the management's discussion analysis.

It does a great job of kind of highlighting what went on during the year.

There's some pie charts in there, for example, that make things really easy to see.

So, for example, there's a revenue pie chart that shows about a third of your revenue comes from property taxes, and the rest of your revenue comes from a lot of different areas.

So a very diverse revenue source.

Um, also a pie chart as to where your expenditures are going and just a little over 50% of your expenditures, as you're probably aware, going to health and human services and law and judicial.

So that makes sense, but it kind of puts it in a little nice pictoriform.

Right after the MDNA is where we get into them, what I call the meat of the financial statements, the basic financial statements.

Uh so the first one is called the statement of net position.

And this is probably something you only see once a year in your audited financial statements, not what you're going to see in your monthly board packets.

And this is where we take all the funds of the county and put them into two different columns.

One is called uh proprietary funds, which is or business type activities rather, which is your public works, and the other one is all the other activity put in there.

Um, and we also put on information that you only see once a year, like all of your capital assets, so your buildings, your cars, things that you can't spend, but things that are of value to the county.

Uh, and then we put on your long-term debt, any any long-term liabilities.

Again, those aren't incorporated into your monthly fund financial statements, but they are incorporated here.

Um, and the one thing I always talk about is pension liabilities, because in Illinois, pensions generally speaking are not well funded.

Um, you have two pensions, um, IMRF and SLEP SLEP being for uh sheriff employees.

Um, both are run in the same manner and run by IMRF, and you're fortunate of that because they're very well funded because of how they're run.

IMRF, your IMRF is funded 98% as of the end of 25, and SLEP was funded 90%.

So in the grand scheme of Illinois pensions, you're sitting in a very good spot with very well-funded um pensions.

Um, overall, your net position, which is when you take all the assets, including your buildings and things like that, and reduce it by all of your liabilities, is at 1.7 billion dollars.

Now, 60% of that's tied up in your capital assets, things you can't readily spend.

And about 278 million is what we call unrestricted.

That's kind of what's left over.

Um, when we look at your funds, um, a couple pages in, your general fund is your primary operating fund.

Um, and so that fund saw an increase in fund balance for the year of about 14.4 million dollars.

So um went up during the year.

And one of the things I always like to look at is what is your fund balance to your expenditures in that primary operating fund, at least the unrestricted fund balance, things that aren't set aside.

And you're you continue to be about 56%, which is a a good place to be from to make sure that you have some reserves.

Um then overall your governmental funds increased by 5.8 million dollars.

And I think last several years I've been here, though those fund balances have continued to increase overall.

Your public works fund is a little bit different than the rest of your funds because it's generally meant to be self-supporting.

And we look at the operating income there, and it is self-supporting.

Your operating income of $2.5 million and overall saw a $7.9 million increase in that fund balance.

So again, that fund is supporting itself, which is important.

After those basic financial statements, there's notes of the financial statements, which can be important.

What I really like is at the very back, there's a section called the statistical information, which shows 10-year historical trends.

So I find that that is sometimes the most useful.

And I encourage you to maybe take a peek at it.

You can see what are the trends over the last 10 years from your revenues, your expenditures, your your debt, your your tax levies, things like that.

Um, you know, just gives you an idea of where you were and and where you might be going in the future.

Um outside of the financial statements, we also take a look at your internal controls.

We don't provide an opinion on your internal controls, but we do evaluate them to allow us to plan our audit.

Uh and I'm happy to say we don't have any recommendations related to operational controls.

Um AP payroll, um, revenues, things like that, everything um was functioning as we expected.

We we did have one minor recommendation related to year-end accruals, um, which didn't result in any material transactions though.

Uh, and the county's continuing to take a look at how they can improve their internal controls around that, though.

So that's really the end of my prepared remarks, but happy to take um any questions you might have.

Chair Hart.

Thank you.

Not a question.

Just thank you so much for such a really robust overview.

And of course, I want to take an opportunity uh to thank Regina and Patrice and your whole finance team uh for the excellent work that you all do.

Um, it is so great to hear that we continue to be in an excellent financial position and that our pensions are well funded.

And um I I just want to say how grateful I am to get to work with a government that is just so prevent professional and conscientious on our um on our monies that we've been entrusted with.

So thank you.

No there comments or questions.

Yeah, thank you.

Echo what you said, Chair Hart.

And you know, you don't you don't land in uh in a healthy position without good policy guidance and planning, which um you know the the team at the county and and this board have done for over the past several years.

So great.

Thank you.

Thank you for the updates.

Anything else?

Okay.

Uh that's 9.4.

9.41 is a resolution authorizing a line item transfer of 210,000 dollars and emergency appropriation of 884,295 and 69 cents in the project expense match fund 781, and a reduction in the budget of 2,651,444 and 66 cents in the stormwater management fund 212 to close out all PEM activity and fund 212 and properly account for all PEM activity and fund 781.

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

Uh thank you, Chair Frank.

I uh want to introduce myself, Gina Tuzak, Chief Financial Officer.

I should have done that with the last uh item.

Uh before you today is um what I would call kind of the um the cleanup of um what we had in fund 212 when we created uh when the board approved the the PEM fund 781 back in April, um which accounts for um the fund the PEM revenue and all the activity related to the DCO partners.

Um at that time, the um information was put into the fund uh with regards to um existing projects, and now what we're doing is kind of looking at what's in fund 212 and what needs to be removed from there since all of that related DCEO activity is really now occurring that that is unrelated to um grant reimbursement is occurring in fund 781.

So there's kind of a bunch of cleanup items going in there, and this entry and this uh proposal in front of you is to um kind of put those uh border walls around fund 212 and fund 781.

Okay.

Thank you for that uh additional explanation.

And then going forward, uh, you know, that sort of project match uh process still continues, but those funds will be in it in a different location going forward.

Correct, correct.

So this removes the activity from the levy fund.

Right.

Director Wilford, anything you want to add?

No, well stated, thank you.

Okay, thank you.

Comments or questions.

Seeing none, all in favor, please say aye.

Thank you for that uh additional explanation and then going forward uh you know that sort of project match uh process still continues but those funds will be in it in a different location going forward correct correct so this removes the activity from the levy fund great director Wilford anything you want to add no well stated thank you okay thank you comments or questions seeing none all in favor please say aye aye any opposed item uh where are we 9.41 is approved 9.42 is a resolution authorizing an emergency appropriation of foreclosure mediation fund 251 revenue and general fund 101 contingency expense in the amount of 27756 and 17 cents and approving a transfer of said funds motion by member hewitt second by member clerk thank you so this um for foreclosure mediation fund was created as part of the fiscal year 2025 budget um previously this activity was in fund uh 101 and it was created uh for creating um an environment where there can be some consistency in reporting um consistent with the supreme court requirements with regards to um these uh revenues and related funds so what this um is doing is taking uh the what I'll call kind of what was what would have been the opening balance the the revenues previously related to foreclosure mediation and brings them into that special revenue fund okay and this important because these are restricted use funds correct we have to have a separate place for them okay correct got it other questions comments member Clark when I was reading this before too so in the future is it just gonna go there or is it always going to be this process where it goes to the fund 101 do you know I mean like yeah since it's restricted like will so will we have to keep doing this or will it just be going to that fund uh going forward and starting in fiscal year 25 the revenues go directly into that fund okay so it it's it's not gonna go into 101 this is just kind of getting what was in 101 relating to this uh fund when it was created getting it into that fund so it's part of the fund balance good thank you other comments or questions all in favor please say aye aye any opposed 9.42 is approved 9.43 is resolution authorizing an emergency appropriation of eviction mediation fund 261 revenue and general fund 101 contingency expense in the amount of 110,568 dollars and seventy five cents and approving a transfer of said funds motion to approve by member hewitt second by member clerk thank you so this is pretty much the same scenario with regards to the eviction mediation fund 261 that was also set up as part of the fiscal year 25 budget this is just moving the the net revenues associated with the activity of eviction mediation that was in fund 101 moving it into the special revenue fund comments or questions seeing none all in favor please say aye aye any opposed 9.43 is approved 944 is your director's report great thank you um I first I want to just open by saying that I'm very pleased to announce that our budget team uh led by Michael Wheeler did receive the GFOA award government finance officers association award for the distinguished budget presentation that was recently awarded this week so we're very proud of the work that's done by uh Michael Wheeler and uh Vernesha Lawrence and of course overseen by uh administrator Sutton on the budget uh so wanted to bring that to your attention um the the second item I have on here is with regards to uh fiscal year 25 closeout we had the audit results so um kind of in tandem with that what I have in front of you is a summary and the detail of all of the line item transfers that were approved under the authority of the CFO and fiscal year 25.

Now these items were brought to you during the closeout process every month I would bring you the line item transfers that were being approved to get the close out completed and get the uh financial statements audit ready and so what this does is consolidates it so you have one view of all the items um that were uh approved under the CFO authority um fiscal year 25 had a lot going on when you look at the the totals uh one thing I'll point out is almost half of it 13 million dollars is what we call CIP construction and process uh which is really just moving funds from an unallocated management center to the dedicated projects that the board has approved so that's that's um almost half of it and then of course you might recall that we um with the time that the fiscal year budget 25 was approved the comp study results uh came in but due to the timing the um the comm study budget was put into uh general operating expenditures this was all discussed with the board um and so some of the uh transfers relate to uh moving that those sell the salary associated with those comm study changes from uh GOE to the individual departments um so those are some significant items there was uh certainly a lot of activity in fiscal year 25 but hopefully this wraps it up with the LITs for last year happy to take any questions that you might have thank you director uh I just want to say sorry CFO I just want to say that the GFOA recognition um feels routine to us because your team earns it every year but I just want to also thank and congratulate the team because this is significant and it should be celebrated.

There was uh certainly a lot of activity in fiscal year 25, but hopefully this wraps it up with the LITs for last year.

Happy to take any questions that you might have.

Thank you, Director.

Uh I just want to say, sorry, CFO, I just want to say that the GFOA recognition um feels routine to us because your team earns it every year.

But I just want to also thank and congratulate the team because this is significant and it should be celebrated.

So congratulations on that.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Other comments or questions.

Member Clark.

Actually, a question.

So I was looking through because it is significant the amounts.

So just so in my head, so this has all been approved, and these are all things in our budget.

This was just like moving it to the right accounts, correct?

Like, so it's um it's like we all had the money one, this maybe one on one or whatever.

And then this is just like where we're allocate, you're allocating it.

Yeah, it was all part of the budget.

And some of it is reallocating it from like general operating expense to a specific department's budget.

So it's it's kind of moving things around so that at the end of the year, all of the expenses that were incurred could be paid.

Could be bounced.

Okay, thank you.

Seeing no other comments or questions.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Item 9.45 is a resolution authorizing a contract with Chem Wise ecological pest management of Elk Grove for pest control for Lake County facilities and the estimated annual amount of 27,000 with renewal options.

Motion to approve this item by Vice Chair Park.

Thank you, Carl.

Second by Amber Hewitt.

Carl, are you gonna hand out reading glasses?

Yes.

Thank you for saying that.

Third item.

I'm sorry, I just wanted to get take it right now.

Uh good morning, Carl Carrar, Director of Facilities and Construction Services.

Uh, what I handed you is actually for my director's report.

So just pause on that.

And yes, it is an eye chart, which is why we're not putting it on the screen.

Uh, so this item is uh contract for pest control services here at the our county spaces, the spaces that facilities and construction services manage.

Uh it is part of our annual operating operational budget.

Normally we wouldn't bring a 27,000 contract to uh to the committee here for your approval.

But uh you had questions last time that we talked uh about pest control services.

And uh we we do expect this to push beyond $30,000.

So it just with additional services throughout the year.

Uh so some of your previous questions that we had, uh, one was uh were measures put into contract to protect species of animals not intended to be harmed.

Uh very specifically, the contract called that out.

Uh it called for humane trapping and or prevention in various like countabilities with minimal environmental impact.

And that the contractor has stated within their actual submittal and bid to us is that they have prior they prioritize non-chemical control measures uh with targets with products that are targeted for the specific pest.

Uh and that it doesn't go beyond uh beyond that uh specific species and uh and they use it according to the manufacturer's directions.

So they put it, they do the correct amount out, and then it's targeted to whatever they're they're looking for.

Uh furthermore, the contractors' technicians are trained, they they to uh apply the treatments to pest harborage areas and entry points while avoiding unnecessary exposure to beneficial insects, pollinators, and some of the other critters that are out there that are good really good for the environment and aren't harmful to other wildlife pets or people.

Uh so yes, there are measures in place to protect the other different different animals out there that we don't want to harm.

Um other questions that you had was uh where are there more humane ways of capturing and removing rodents?

So unfortunately, this past year we learned a lot about this.

Uh last winter we had a rodent problem with a lot of sightings, numerous sightings around the area.

Uh and it really turned out to be with our investigation the kind of a perfect storm of holiday parties, unsecured lobby uh food sources, and some really uh sudden weather change that went from warm to cold and uh those the mice came inside.

So some of the corrections we made were very obvious.

Try to keep them out, uh secure uh entry points.

So we sealed them with the help of the contractor working at the time to identify some of those entry points.

We sealed those as best we could.

Those were overhead doors, small cracks in the masonry, those sort of thing.

Uh we also provide a direction to departments on controlling the food within any kind of holiday party or just in in general.

So they're they are very supportive of that.

So they can if they have a gathering or a party or something like that, the food will be out.

They do seal that right away and then either uh put in a trash uh that we empty every afternoon, or they go ahead and put it in a secure uh refrigerator or something like that.

Uh and then of course the lobby uh contractor has changed.

Now all the food is actually in a contained refrigerator unit.

So that is a much better way of controlling everything down there.

Uh means of control, more humane means of control.

What we learn about the mice is uh the sticky traps are actually the most humane way of taking care of them.

Uh their little bodies apparently need to move.

So if you restrict them, they actually expire very quickly, as opposed to uh some of the other ways of trying to get rid of mice.

Uh baiting is very effective for nests of mice.

Uh sounds bad, but uh they actually cannibalize themselves.

So it's uh it will take out the whole nest.

Uh and it's actually based on weight.

So when we do when the contractor does baiting, it's based on the weight of the mice.

So even if a larger animal, cat or dog or whatever else consumes the mouse, they may get sick, but they won't die from it because of the amount of poison that the is used.

So I'm sure you have some more questions, but I wanted to do that follow-up with you on that.

It's kind of an unseemly of the pests that you think about that in our spaces, but uh again, we have a new contract coming on.

We look forward to working with them to continue to control some of the the issues that we have here in our buildings.

Dr.

Crair, appreciate the follow-up.

So thank you for that.

Comments, questions, member Maine and member Clark.

Um, you know, they have goats that go in and eat invasive species.

Has anyone had like small herds of cats that they allow to run through for a weekend?

I know when we had a dog and now we have a cat, the mice, the mice were gone.

So there's a business opportunity there.

Um and uh yeah, thanks for thanks for for all that work.

And yeah, those tiny rodents, when they get in a trap, I know people do research when if they're just in a cage, um, voles and stuff like that, shrews, they'll just die overnight because they have to eat, they have to eat so much.

So um a lot of good work.

But I think I really like honestly your investigation, because it is human behavior that causes so many problems.

And it makes me think of when um 25 years ago they were looking at the issue of E.

coli on the beaches, especially in Lake Forest, and they thought it was a a sewer system issue with INI.

And it turned out when we investigated the sources of the E.

coli, which I won't tell you how they do that.

But anyway, it was um seagulls.

It was seagulls on the beach, is what they found.

So they were gonna do this great big um infrastructure.

And it turned out it the infrastructure was fine.

It was just um seagulls, and people had to take care of their trash and they had to not rake the beach up so much.

So that was a lot of time, but we can find things that change our behavior to eliminate some of these issues.

So good job.

You member Clark.

Yeah, thank you.

That I think those were lots of questions I had.

So you answered them.

That was great.

And I really appreciate you taking the time to look into this because you know, you do hear stories about like you know, a cat eating a mouse and then the cat dies and things like that.

So it's good to hear that any kind of poison or bait would be appropriate just for the rodents for the mice and things.

Um and also the prevention part, right?

Prevention is probably 80% of pest control.

So I'm glad to hear there's a lot of that going on, you know, with that things too.

So my I have two questions.

What well one is the glue traps.

I'm still like, I just, you know, but I will I guess have to defer to you.

I just you just I mean, I see like I can see like snapping them.

It's other than having to sit there and like gnaw off their little arms while they're trying to get out of the glue.

But um, if if if they say it's humane, I just I just do worry.

Everything I've read is the glue traps are not humane.

But so I just want to say I'm still concerned about that.

And and having other things could get trapped in the glue traps too.

I would assume like other small, I guess maybe we're trying to trap them too.

I don't know.

So the glue traps still make me a little nervous.

So if you could kind of keep an eye on it to see how it goes with that, and if it is trapping other things and if there's a faster way to dispatch these uh mice than just having them stuck and try to get out of the traps.

Um, but my other question is about about spraying.

You know, it talks about spraying for pests.

Do we inform employees?

Is there like signage or anything that says, hey, this area was just recently sprayed for whatever bugs or whatever, um, so that people can know.

And do we make sure it it doesn't like travel on to maybe like you know, if I left my sweater in my chair and somebody sprayed right there, it maybe I didn't realize it got on that.

So do we have anything just to make sure people are aware of that?

So two parts for the sticky traps.

The good thing is while we only caught a handful of mice less last winter, we didn't catch anything else.

Uh so that's good.

So that the concern about six-legged critters uh that wasn't a problem.

We don't have that issue here, which is great.

Uh, as far as spraying and and really going after specific pests uh one that's very rare.

And when it does happen, we work with the department specifically about that.

And yes, if it has to be cordoned off or sectioned off for a bit of time, we we work with them very specifically, that's very specifically on that.

And that's uh that's that's been a very rare occurrence that happens.

Oh, those were good, it's rare.

And people, okay, so people would know that there was spraying.

Absolutely.

Okay, great.

Thank you.

Thank you for that.

Member of Alitic.

Thanks.

Just a follow-up, and thank you for all that work um and research.

A follow-up on the um so what I had been concerned about, or I think what one of my questions last time was about specifically like mice who take a certain kind of poison, it makes them want to go seek out water.

They often go outside and then they get eaten by larger birds.

So you had mentioned cats and dogs, but um, does it specifically also talk about birds?

Uh I, you know, honestly, we didn't talk to the contractor about birds uh eating the the animals.

Uh we I will curious if that if that portion control also applies to not then affecting or killing.

I mean, I understand there might be some illness, but killing it is based on weight.

Uh so if the mouse would consume it, and a larger bird comes in, it sh it may have an impact on the bird, but it shouldn't kill them.

But that is again, I'm passing secondhand information on from Orkin, and that's what they that's how they expressed it.

So they they were really focused on larger animals, whether it's a larger rat or a cat or something like that.

But yeah, but that that's a question that uh I did not ask for a bird.

I'd be curious to know.

Thank you.

Thank you for the uh follow-up and the updates.

Any other comments or questions on this item?

All in favor, please say aye.

Aye.

Any opposed?

8.45 is approved.

Sorry, I got stuck on a page.

8.46 has a resolution authorizing an agreement with HDR Architecture, Inc.

of Chicago to provide architectural and engineering design services for multiple facilities, capital improvement projects at the Lake County Administrative Tower and Core Tower Campus, in an amount not to exceed 38,500.

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

Uh, good morning again.

Uh so this design was programmed as part of our fiscal year 26 capital budget.

Um, this is a kind of an alteration to our our program that we've done in previous years.

Uh we have changed to a two-year program where we'll program design in year one and then construction or renovation in year two, and we'll execute those in year two.

Uh so the specific projects for this are the 10th floor, this floor restroom, and the lobby area that can continue those design design elements that you see on a second through the ninth floor.

Uh the admin tower basement restrooms.

This is an elevator lobby as you come in.

Um, underground parking and plumbing.

We have stormwater drains down there that need to be adjusted and and we've got some issues down there.

The court tower has some underground stormwater issues that we need some design issues on.

Uh and the court tower has some falling ice issues on County Street, uh as we get snow and ice, it when it melts, it we have to shut down the sidewalks in the in the uh uh winter time.

So those are design elements that are part of this contract.

We worked with HDR and previous designs that actually did the upper floor here.

Uh and that's why we have that uh good relationship with them and they know our buildings and they know these buildings specifically.

Comments or questions.

All in favor, please say aye.

Aye.

Any opposed?

9.46 is approved.

9.47 is your director's report.

All right.

Uh so before I get into the job contract, one item of note is the uh we do have the Great Lakes or Naval Station Great Lakes Halsey Village demo project underway.

Our contractor is out there, the purchase order's been issued, uh, and they are moving forward with uh really the preliminary stuff.

The groundbreaking is set for Monday at 10 a.m.

So uh if you haven't got the invite, we'll make sure we get that to you.

Uh so part of the attachments, we have the presentation on the agenda item for this, as well as the the spreadsheet.

Uh I realize it is an eye chart, uh, but it there's a lot of information on there to include the the supplier, which is the contractor, and then the subcontractors and amounts that are that are there.

But I will run through the presentation here.

You've seen this before.

You've seen this presentation before I do this quarterly.

It is the second quarter, not the first quarter.

So the three contracts we have are AGAE contractors.

It's a five-year contract, started last year.

We are in, we have we're in the second year and we have three potential renewals remaining.

Contract values, or as they stated up there, we did increase it to $4 million of additional capacity per year per contractor to for the U.S.

Navy demolition project.

We're here because we have a policy in place that directs us to be here.

We do the annual execution report and a quarterly status reports.

Three types of contracts are up there.

This is one of them job order contract.

So go through the data very quickly.

It's a summarization of that spreadsheet that you have in front of you.

So the value of the job orders carried over from last fiscal year is 211,000.

The number of job orders per fiscal year we have so far this year, 20.

15 of them are over 30,000 and two of them are over 350,000.

There's a caveat to that.

We'll hit next.

The value of job orders awarded per fiscal year so far.

We have 3.57 million with an average of 178,000 per job order.

The US Navy demolition project, uh, we have a purchase order for 10.98 million dollars, but we're tracking it as a reimbursement because it's not our funding.

So we don't have it on this one, but we will include it on the next one.

As uh actually in future reports, we'll just have it tracked separately because it is a unique uh agreement.

Uh so the value of local and minority owned and women-owned business participation per fiscal year.

Uh so far it's $2.5 million, uh, which is $71.4% of all the contracts.

And again, that is of that $3.5 million.

Um, so 40% of that is minority owned, and 2.4% is women-owned subcontractors.

Uh again, as I know noted previously reports, this is all self-reporting.

It's not an official uh program that the county is running.

So with that, I open up to any questions that you have.

Okay.

Thank you for your time.

Thank you for the updates.

9.48 is a resolution authorizing participation as a member of the Illinois Emergency Management Mutual Aid System Response pursuant to an intergovernmental agreement for the establishment of a mutual aid intergovernmental service agreement.

Motion to approve by member Clark, second by member of Olizik.

Good morning, Dan.

Good morning, everyone.

Uh Daniel Eder, Lake County Emergency Management.

I'm the manager.

Um, this is a peer-to-peer mutual aid agreement.

I do want to mention for the record, um, when it comes to big events like the Kinkiki tornado a few months ago, we did have an EF1 tornado, 140 mile an hour wins and six-inch hail.

And it takes a lot of peer-to-peer support to come in.

And when we do that, that's done through the Illinois Emergency Services Management Association, IESMA, that's our state peer-to-peer association.

So for the record, um, I am also the president of IESMA.

So I have no personal or professional benefits from this, but I'm happy to wear both hats and answer any statewide questions as well.

So as I mentioned, this is a mutual aid agreement, peer-to-peer uh local governments that have an EM program.

So our county uh would be uh a potential signatory, a municipality that has a plan or liaison.

So all of our 52-minute municipalities can also sign on to this.

Um, it's an essential piece when really streamlining mutual aid support county to county or between our partners.

So McHenry calls at two in the morning, they can we can help them.

Like I mentioned, we helped during Kinkakee.

Uh, we had a national event in 2022 where assets kind of came out, people and assets almost instantaneously.

So it's been a really good network.

Uh, it also partners with groups like MABIS, which is our fire mutual aid, ILEAS, which is our law enforcement, and IPW MAN, which I know is brought up a couple days ago committee, which is our public works mutual aid.

Um, I did want to mention we've had an agreement since 2009.

The reason I'm here today and the reason why I ESMA is bringing it forth to update all agreements.

In 2009, drones weren't really used or established.

So a lot of this is language updates and better liability.

Um, though I will mention from the local standpoint, we've had this reviewed by our state's attorney's office for liability.

We've had risk look at this.

There's no concerns, and this is a standard statewide agreement.

So the agreement you're seeing here is the same as all the hundreds of agreements that are signed across the state.

So I will also mention this is voluntary.

So in a require it's a request.

So when needs are when come for an event, we just had one a few weeks ago.

A request is put out.

So it is voluntary.

There is no cost for this particular agreement.

And as I mentioned, it's really an update.

Uh and as I said, if they become bigger agreements, we we as I ASMA also work with IEM of the state emergency management agency and coordinate those bigger efforts.

So happy to answer any questions you all have.

Thank you.

Thanks for the background and thanks for your leadership on the on the board, of course.

We think it's important, like that your home county is a participant if you're in a leadership role there.

Um I have two quick questions, which is you know, does this agreement provide the basis for any sort of like resource information sharing?

Like so when McHenry calls at two in the morning, like you said, do they know what resources we have available, or is that almost like they're like, hey, we need X, Y, and Z.

Do you have that?

It can be both at times.

So I have taken the 2 a.m.

call from a neighboring county for do you have a shelter?

Do you have uh COTS or things like that?

So we do get the phone calls, but in the ideal state statewide, if that two in the morning call happens, they're actually calling to Logan County uh to a dispatch center called MCOM and MCOM is our central hub in the state.

Uh so I'm putting on more of the asthma hat here.

And uh, and so we have some of those resources, or we'll put a call out for people.

So, for example, in Kinkakee, they really honestly the biggest thing they needed was a peer.

So their director needed someone like myself.

So we put it out to all the peers as more of a formal request that way.

Sometimes they're they're requesting a generator, for example.

And right now there's generators in all of the regions across the state.

They can call at two in the morning.

MCOM has the list of those.

And just for this uh board to know, we have three of those generators actually on our campus.

Um, so we are one of the hubs for the generators.

So there are assets like that.

Uh ITEX trailers, which are communication trailers, unified command posts, which are the big command vehicles.

Some of those uh are tracked and actually uh tracked when they move out of an area.

So that way we don't bring an asset uh or request an asset that is sitting in another county.

So some, but it also sometimes it's just pick up a call because oftentimes when McHenry may call us, we may have that generator, but oftentimes we want that call because you say, What else do you need?

How else can we help?

And oftentimes we find there's a kind of that more continuum of care of support that sometimes they may need a COT, but we have a couple of resources that maybe they're not aware of.

So helpful.

Thank you for that.

Um, my second question, Dan is is there any similar agreement for like cross-border resource sharing?

Is uh is there anything that we have in place with like say Kenosha County in the event of emergencies that we could provide mutual aid to each other?

Yeah, this gives us that cross-county agreement.

The cross-state agreement is where the emergency management assistant compact comes in, emac, and that has to be governor to governor.

So in the event that we have a large statewide request, um, there can be an emac request, and that's where we can provide assets out of state.

But that is one of the challenges to be very transparent, is it's an imaginary border with Wisconsin when it comes to resource sharing.

And but we do coordinate on plans, partnership.

We provided resources even on the our family citizen center plan for when they did things like the RNC or events up by them.

So um we uh we do partner with them, but uh primarily these are this agreement is for Illinois entities, though we can go out of save, yeah.

It's not as seamless, right?

So it's not as seamless.

This makes it seamless to go across to McHenry or DuPage or but uh the Emacs is that yeah, that's a neck piece.

So if Kenosha wants to call you, they have to call Governor Evers who has to call Governor Pritzker who has to contact if we're gonna move if we're gonna move an asset, but to share a plan to share that type of stuff.

We we've trained together, we've exercised together.

We had uh Wisconsin and uh and Illinois did a big communication exercise uh Illinois Beach State Park two years ago.

So we we do partner with them, but if someone wants a generator to go across the border, that's a much more complicated process to your question.

It seems like there's an opportunity to improve that, given that we're essentially one community.

Yeah, okay.

Thank you.

Thank you for that.

Member Clark.

Yeah, thank you.

And thank you for your for all your work and leadership on this too, because it's obviously it makes a lot of sense.

This gives a lot of support to so many areas, and it makes sense.

Like not everyone needs to have a generator everywhere.

So or things like that.

And so does this also include like training, like is there like training like elements throughout this?

Is it resource sharing and training?

If I can take off, if I can put them take off the lake county head and put the IESMA head off, this agreement's more for the mutual aid and the support.

And there are there's an actual committee, a subcommittee uh that that actually plans all this out and builds mission support teams and packets.

So whether you want like someone like myself that's a similar peer to go sit in an EOC and we get another set of eyes, or you want a formal damage assessment team, there are subcommittees with IESMA that actually build those out.

And then we do credentialing and task books and things that are tracked to those.

When it comes to the ASMA side for training, we do a yearly training summit.

So we had a couple hundred people just in April here.

We did our first lobby day at Springfield where we had everybody go and talk to some of our representatives.

Um, and we bring in local, state, federal partners.

We had a couple of former FEMA administrators.

So yeah, that is one of our biggest things we try to do with IESMA is uh provide a yearly training summit.

Uh, we're trying virtual training summits as well.

I've done lunch and learns before, just even some myself before I was in this leadership role.

And then just for example, we'll send out hey, hey, we know it's uh been extreme heat.

Here's some planning tips and tricks.

So the peer-to-peer, it's an education and support hub.

So IESMA has a support hub, but we're also very unique where the chiefs of police have an association and they have Mavis, which does mutual aid where I ESMA is kind of both a little bit.

So but for this, this is more just the agreement that we can seamlessly move assets with better liability with a faster uh support.

And and and then if we had a federal asset or something that got to a declared declaration, there could be additional reimbursement too, which I didn't mention.

So thank you.

This is something very fascinating.

Thank you.

Other comments or questions for Dan.

All in favor, please say aye.

Aye.

Any opposed?

Item 9.48 was approved.

Thank you.

Item 10 is county administrators report.

Very brief, uh chair.

There uh just a couple new faces with us.

This this uh that have been accompanying us in the last couple of um committee meetings.

I just wanted to introduce a couple of folks.

Marcy Johnson uh is here supporting us and uh all the the support uh in a support staff role based on some of the things that we're working on with staffing challenges, and then um Israel Gigos is here as well.

He's an intern from uh through workforce development program that is going to be supporting the county administrator's office over the next number of months.

So uh you should see them around, but I at least wanted to give them an opportunity to say hi.

Anything else?

That's all I have.

Okay.

Do we have executive session today?

We do.

Okay.

Uh motion to go into executive session and discuss a personnel matter.

Motion by member Clark, second by member Balitic.

Can we please have a roll call on this item?

Member Clark.

Chair Frank.

Hi.

Member Hewitt.

Uh Member Main.

Hi.

Vice Chair Parrick, Member Peterson, and Member Velitzick.

That motion is approved.

We'll head into executive session.

We are back in regular session.

Item 12.1 is committee action authorizing a reclassification of position 46029, employment specialist hourly five to a work-based learning coordinator, salary eight with one-time increase for the incumbent to the minimum of the new grade.

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

Any other comments or questions?

All in favor, please say aye.

Aye.

Any opposed?

12.1 is approved.

Member remarks and comments.

Member Maine.

Thank you.

Thank you, Chair.

I I just wanted, I'm not sure if other people have been receiving, I bring this up under finance because it's related to emails I've received about the chief county um assessor's office.

And um uh I have followed up and um I don't know if other people have been getting these emails from someone saying, hey, the Tyler system is illegally collecting information from people and putting it at the chief county officers um doorstep, shall we say?

And um I would say um requesting strongly slash demanding um public meetings.

And um I I have followed up.

The chief county assessor office has given detailed responses to this person, but I'm still getting a lot of emails.

And um, I did bring it to the attention of our county administrator and the chair of this committee since the county assessor's office reports here.

And I just thought it maybe it could be helpful.

I think they had a few words in case other people on this committee.

Maybe you have been getting these emails, but if you start getting these emails, it would be helpful for you to not everyone go back to birth and find out what's happening on this.

Yeah, appreciate you bringing that up.

And I just want to follow up to say, you know, we always take questions of this nature seriously.

Yeah, right.

We're gonna hey, we're gonna look into this and find out.

The answer is, you know, as we have been told by the assessor many times, there what their process is and what information they use and and how it's housed and collected.

And some of the assertions in those uh questions are just not accurate.

And so I really appreciate you bringing it up to to remind folks about the information we have about our process.

Chair Hart.

Thank you.

And I was copied on uh several of those emails and also appreciate um Bob Glukert's response to the individual.

Um it's really, I think about true role, right?

And also senior homestead exemptions and things.

No, that's okay.

Um, and I know this board had received a presence, pardon me, this committee had received, and this is a while ago.

So there was a flurry of people saying, wait, why what is happening here?

Well, you can't have both.

And then the other thing is double checking how many people actually live at that address.

And so there's been some senior freezes that um Bob Glukert's office has really had to double check.

But I think he did a great job.

I think uh member Maines, um, yeah, I think you had said, hey, why don't we follow up with this person that you know, whatever.

I I think was good.

It's just um one of those things, it's property taxes we talked earlier, are high and and really important.

People pay attention to them.

And at the same time, we need to make sure that we follow the law that senior freezes are um really contingent upon what the uh household income is, you know.

And if you've got somebody who's also living in the house uh who earns a salary, you can lose your senior freeze.

So anyway, thank you.

Remember me.

Yes, thank you.

And thank you, Chair, for yeah, it was the true all true role.

It's just like if you want, if I forget my friend's address and I go to Google and I put it in, it'll pull up all this stuff.

All this information is publicly available.

You might not like that, but it is it is publicly available.

So there's nothing true role is not going into our private databases or anything like that.

They're getting all publicly available information, and there's a lot of publicly available information out there.

So thank you.

And uh thank you.

Uh it's thanked Bob, Patrice, Chair Frank for for your time just to I can get back to them, maybe put it to bed.

Thanks for bringing it up again.

Any other member remarks or requests?

Seeing none, we're adjourned.

We'll be back here on July 30th.

Thank you, everyone.