6.30, We call a meeting to order.
Welcome to everyone to the meeting of the core services committee, Wednesday, May 13th, 2026.
I appreciate everybody that's here.
First agenda item is the prayer.
Anybody want to take care of that?
I'll do it.
Heavenly father, thank you for allowing us this time to get together and work on the County's business.
Thank you for the beautiful day.
Looking forward to spring and summer.
Father, please help us make wise decisions as we work on the important business for the County.
In Jesus' name, amen.
Amen.
Can we get a motion for the approval of the agenda?
So moved.
Moved by Mr. Busker.
Second.
Second by Mr. Hadley.
Any discussion?
Seeing none, all those in favor say aye.
Aye.
Those opposed, same sign.
Motion passes.
Next 4.0 is a review and approval of meeting minutes from April 8th, 2026 meeting.
Can I get a motion?
So moved.
Mr. Second.
Second by Mr. Hadley.
Any discussion?
Seeing none, all those in favor say aye.
Aye.
Those opposed, same sign.
Motion passes.
5.0 Was approval of the claims and the total is $56,422.08.
Does anyone want to look at them?
Can I get a motion?
So moved.
Second.
Motion by Ms. Williams, second by Mr. Busker.
Any discussion?
Seeing none, all those in favor say aye.
I thought it was opposed, same sign, there are none, motion passes, 6.0 is public comment.
Anybody here for public comment?
Been interesting lately.
Okay, reports to the committee by Judge Hauser, I have not heard from and Judge.
Now last time I talked to him last month, he said everything's gone good.
Public Defender, Travis is out.
Probation, Dr. McGee is here.
Good evening.
So just a few updates.
So you have the report in front of you.
Tammy Nieman was going to, had accepted the second probation supervisor position.
However, due to some personal issues, she is not able to relocate at this time.
So in speaking with the administrative office, we've decided to move forward with that position.
So it has been reposted as of April 27th.
So if there is someone that you know of who is interested, please send them my way.
I'll probably conducting interviews maybe around the first week of June.
That position does need to be filled by August 20th or I would have to file a supplemental because it is to be done within this fiscal year.
Secondly, I have Mr. Hale here, Lamont Hale, some of you may know him.
I know Mr. Hale, you have talked about juvenile services and youth programming and I have done research and looked into different programs and really the push now is more towards the cognitive behavioral programs.
And that's what we're doing now with our thinking for a change program.
We brought in Pastor Sol to help with our adults who come out of DLC to help in that area as well.
And that's another cognitive behavioral type of program.
And with the juveniles, we had started the MRT and speaking with Mr. Hale, I thought it would be very beneficial to collaborate.
One of the things that I feel is important in this community is mentoring for our youth and in reviewing our juvenile caseload, and this is not a knock against single parents, but we did find that the majority of them, the youth that were in trouble came from single parent homes, mostly where the male, there was no male father figure.
So I'm going to let you kind of take away and talk about what we're doing.
So I got 20 Miss Counseling Services.
I'm the owner and CEO of it.
And then I teamed up with Chris.
Chris is from Rockford.
He owns Course Corrections.
He does stuff with domestic violence and substance abuse over in Rockford.
And so him and I teamed up together.
So with this 16-week Program is called Pathways Forward.
I focus on the mental health portion of it.
He focuses on the substance abuse portion of it.
And it's really just like we're sitting in here now, we'll bring up a topic.
So this week, the topic was coping skills, right?
So I asked him, have you became overwhelmed?
Right?
Everybody's become overwhelmed.
What do you do when you become overwhelmed?
What do you do when you become sad?
What do you do when you become angry?
And each person then went around and gave their story right so now is this a how you dealt with it is it an unhealthy coping skill is it a healthy coping skill which you consider to be neutral right and if it was unhealthy what do you think you could do to make it healthier right um and then young people are more I'm gonna say emotional and don't control their their thoughts per se they just look at the moment right and so teaching like looking at the moment can get you in trouble based off of the stuff we talk about right the stuff we talk about that's overwhelming them and their behaviors the students they were using someone was unhealthy and so looking at that and saying hey who else could this affect and what could have went wrong right you could have went to this person's house and you might be dead right Now, if you did, who's going to feel remorse for that?
And in this situation, the kid would be like, hey, I went there because of my sister.
So now your sister is going to feel remorse because somebody just said you did it because of her, right?
And so it's really based on what they tell us or share with us is how we approach it.
And so I could have used coping skills that I used in traditional counseling, but I'll incorporate that such as breathing techniques and, and music, you know, that stuff works, but being able to listen to them where they're at and finding out, hey, that's how we can change the skill.
Probation gets a, a report every, the group is held on Mondays from five to six thirty at the Boys and Girls Club.
Probation gets a report, what happened in the group, what was the topic about for that week, what was the topic talking about for next week, what were the attendance who all showed up and then the participation, did they participate?
So we don't go into detail with probation about what was discussed, we just move over a general view of they participated, they showed up, this is what was talked about, this is what's going to be talked about next, is kind of what we do.
Anybody got any questions?
Yes, so we're sending the juveniles to this program, correct?
What are we doing about juveniles that are kicked out of high school and to try to get their GED and stuff like that?
Is that something you work with?
So I don't specifically work with juveniles trying to get their GED.
I mean, the kids that we hear are referred to by the probation officer.
And so if they may be kicked out of school Yeah, that's a collaborative effort with the juvenile officer and other agencies to work with the families with truancy.
They come over to probation and meet with us to discuss people who are on the brink of being kicked out of school.
There's the GED program, but you know, you have to be engaged to get involved in that, but there are resources available in the community.
So they work with their juvenile officer.
I might recommend Chairman Helms, you're on the Workforce Connection Board.
There's juvenile money for Stephenson County programs and stuff like that.
You might want to collaborate with her.
Maybe she already knows about some of these programs, but you know, there is programs through Goodwill Services, I believe that pays for them for their pre-test and then they're testing and they take care of that stuff.
But there, you know, there's money allotted to Workforce Connection and, and it's no secret out there.
It's been going on for years that it's a one-parent family situation, you know, and no male figure there at the house and stuff like that.
And I won't say cyber-interrupting but I think that's why myself and Chris can relate to the kids because we both black males and they open up and talk to us and so they feel like they can relate to it.
So when I first started I was thinking that it may be some resistance because either they know me or their parents know me and they know I used to be the police.
Know me and they knew I used to be the police and like when I was at the detention center one of the kids came in this same group and he was like hey weren't you at the detention center where I worked before?
And I was like yeah he's like yeah I was lined up there.
I go okay I recognize him too so they can relate to us because we look like them right so really.
And I think that is important too because that relatability factor I mean Let's be honest, it's not there as much.
There's not a lot of diversity within the department.
But also, what is the comment that they made about probation?
Because, you know, we try all these different things, but didn't they say what they say about probation that we do too much?
What do you mean by that?
Well, probation, they restrict our freedom is basically the main concern.
They restrict our freedom.
And so does probation restrict your freedom or the things that you do cause probation to put restrict your freedom, right?
So what did you do?
Let's talk about that.
And so then they talk about what they did.
And so if you really don't want to be on probation, then you might want to be on probation.
You might want to be on probation.
I saw a couple at KFC, one of the kids went to KFC, and he had to come to the drive-thru one because this police saw me there.
He's like, hey, that guy in pieces, I grew.
And so we build connections.
So what age are you working up to?
18? 18, Yeah.
18.
Now, I know Mr. Newton that's on the board, he has a program that he's working with, too, with people, getting them prepared for jobs and stuff like that.
I don't know if you're aware of that.
I think he starts taking them at the age of 18.
So that was one of the other things we talked about was the like the emerging young adults and maybe moving into that group as well which is like the 18 to 25 year olds.
We do talk about doing that because we have a curriculum for that age group too.
Probation, the juvenile officers, Juvenile Detectives, Big Detectives, Juvenile Lawsons, okay, Juvenile Lawsons thought it might be, well they may not want to come because there wouldn't be court order, it'll be voluntary, so there may be some pushback like I don't want to attend another group.
So we have curriculum for it, it is in place right now.
Juvenile probation has more flexibility in terms of what they can order them to do than what we can can do in adult court.
If it's not specifically on a court order in the adult court, we're limited.
So we may know someone is like using drugs, but they may not be ordered to test.
So that order would have to be modified by the court.
So our particular program that we feel might be beneficial may not be ordered by the court.
Whereas the Juneau officers have more of a window to say, okay, this is what we feel you need to do.
It's more of an open court order, if that makes sense.
It's more, it's a stronger suggestion.
Is that it?
So you see progress in this?
I mean, they want to, you know, some just don't want to be helped and some want to be helped, you know.
I will say all the cues that we got has been coming, you can see a difference from the beginning and some kids aren't in the group anymore, but I see them in the community and they still remember what was taught to them.
So really I wanted to say, give them that absent what I said before of I can do something different.
I don't have to respond this way.
So I'm going to say, yeah, they've been affected by it.
What exactly is the name of your 16 week program?
Pathways Forward.
Okay.
Thank you.
Yeah.
Mr. Hale, I apologize.
I didn't even recognize you there.
And I somehow skipped over the paragraph saying you were going to be here.
So thank you for coming.
And I've been talking to the school board and accountability, in my opinion, is lacking in the school.
And it sounds like you're addressing that at all, which I think is, you know, you're telling these kids, if you do this, that's why you're in probation, you know?
So I think that's very important.
We're going to have the Juvenile Detention Center.
I always relate back to that, too.
Like, hey, look, I was at the detention center, there were six kids in the first degree murder.
They're going to be there for like 30, 40 years, right?
So you have opportunity to change your life around.
It's kind of up to you.
You live here, you smoke and bleed because because you didn't pass the draft.
We're in here for fighting, right?
So it's not as serious as murdering somebody.
Yeah.
So let's do something about it.
But like you said, they're making the choice from these things.
So then they're being held accountable.
That's great.
That's a great program.
And the other thing, Mr. Hadley, is if a juvenile isn't formally charged or if they have like an ordinance violation, and one of the things that we do is we'll put them in our life skills program, which is an online program.
So we'll order them to take different courses based on what type of trouble they're getting into.
So like if they may have like a disorderly conduct when they take an English management course.
So there's various courses that they can take there too.
And the PL may recommend they do something as a part of their sentence.
We don't see a lot of ordinance violations for Freeport because it's prosecuted by different attorneys, prosecuted by their city attorney, and it's fine only.
So they won't see them either in the pre-opulation.
From Australia.
So, like I was saying, each 16 weeks is a different subject.
Nice.
So, yeah.
Very nice.
What day of the week is that?
Mondays from 5 to 6.
There's the Boy and Girl's Club.
And this is paid for out of probation service fees.
Okay.
And you're welcoming visitors?
Oh, if you can let us know ahead of time, because I want to say is, because the kids are opened up and I'll just check in with Dr. McGee every now and then.
How many participants do you have?
So last, well this week we had, I think it was six.
We've had nine, up to nine, nine or 10.
Some of them got us in trouble when we had to start coming back to the group, but there wasn't a group who made it, but they removed them from the group.
So now we've got about six.
Okay.
Yeah.
Thank you.
No problem.
Yes, thanks a lot.
Okay, and we'll move on to State's Attorney.
Hi, for those that don't know me, my name is Tom Manning.
I'm one of the Assistant State's Attorneys.
Carl is out tonight.
He is at Highland Community College Leadership Institute graduation.
One of our attorneys, Alexis Heisel, is graduating from that program.
We typically have someone from our office attend.
All of those, I think the circuit clerk's office tries to be heavily involved with that as well.
That's a good program, not only to gain some leadership skills, but also just to learn about the community, establish a network with other leaders within the community.
So it's been very beneficial for our office.
As far as Carl's report, I guess one of the main positives is for following the offenses.
We closed more cases than we're open in the past month.
It doesn't seem that way being in that courtroom, it always seems like it's always busy, but It is nice to see that and really everything's going pretty well in our office right now.
So, anyone have any questions?
Are you fully staffed?
No, we're short.
One position right now, we hired our victim witness coordinator, Kayden Goodman was hired as a 7-11 student attorney.
So she's been handling juvenile abuse and neglect, juvenile delinquency and our felony petitions to revoke.
Woke.
She's been doing very well handling that.
But when she's in the court room, we have to have an attorney with her supervising.
That's the on caveat with that.
So like this week, I've been in court supervising her Monday, Tuesday, and then today as well.
We rotate off on that.
So when she becomes fully licensed, she'll take the bar in February next year, she passes and then she'll get fully licensed and sworn in in May, we still be one short.
And in May, we'd still be one short in our office yet.
Okay.
All right.
Anybody have any questions?
Almost dramatic.
I appreciate your time.
Thank you.
You're welcome.
I'm the United States Attorney, Circuit Clerk.
Chanel is absent because she is also at the graduation for Chief Deputy Clerk Brandy Malan Con, I think her name is, she's graduating from today from the Leadership Institute at Highland College.
So congratulations to her.
And also in her department, Ellen Williams is retiring June 1st.
She has 20 and a half years of dedicated service.
So congratulations to Ellen and thanks Ellen for there's all those years of service.
Other than that, we have the circuit clerk's report and I didn't see anything that anybody see any when they're there.
Okay.
All right.
Now moving on.
Youth diversion fees, this month we got $673.50 and I'm assuming that's what the balance is because we're pretty close, I'm not really sure, but we gave most of that away last month in the youth diversion fee.
So we'll start over and go from there so 8.0 is old business seeing none 9.0 is new business does anybody have anything they want to share nope okay can I get a motion for adjournment so move second motion by Mr. Busker seconded by Mr. Hadley all those in favor say aye.
Aye.
All those opposed same sign thank you everyone thank you very much.
I don't know how long we're going to have to wait to see if everything is going to work out.
Yes sir.
Are you serious?