Committee, circa Monday, March 16th, here at the Stewards Center Conference Room on the 7th floor.

And Item 2.0 prayer, would anyone like to offer one up?

I would more than be more than glad to do that.

Let's pray.

Lord God Almighty, thank you for this opportunity to come before you and before the people of Stevenson County and serve them on the Finance Committee.

And I just pray you help us make good decisions with regard to the county's finances, Lord.

and be good stewards of everything that we've been given to work with and I just thank you for this opportunity and the opportunity I personally have had to lead this effort for the last few years and just thank you for this time. May you bless it. In Jesus name, Amen.

Let's see. Approval of Agenda. I have a motion. Second. And a second. Any discussion on Hearing none all those in favor say aye. Aye. Motion carried. Review and approval of meeting minutes from the February 13th, 2026 meeting. I have a motion. Second. End of second. Any discussion on the minutes from last month? Hearing none. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed? Motion carried. Public comment. We need no opportunity here for public comments and we'll keep moving. Report to the committee. What?

Oh, how do I do that? I didn't have this, but I don't want to pay any bills.

There you go. You're new at this.

Okay, cash requirements of $375,977.94, manuals of $626,014.98, a grand total of $1,1992.92.

I would entertain a motion to approve the claims as presented to the committee.

So I have a motion and a second.

Any discussion on the claims?

Hearing none, all those in favor say aye.

Aye.

Opposed?

Motion carried.

All right.

Thank you for that, Dale.

And let's see, of course the committee, Diamond Brothers will be here next month again with a further update.

Adam County Administrator, you have the floor.

All right.

But the next Greater Freeport Partnership meeting is March 25th.

Beth and I met with the Friends of the Pet Group.

We went over the agreement that was before planning and development, which was approved and going to the board on Thursday.

I think the FOIA increases that I talked about last month will be continuing. We received them again for this month's updates.

So, we see that being a repetitive request. I've been working a lot with Animal Control, her employment contract.

Act, she had an RFP before committee this week and getting everything in line for the move of their facility to use the leased space, so I've been working with her quite a bit.

The department head meeting and some things that are going on this month, the wellness screenings will be April 2nd and April 9th.

The email with the information was sent out to the county board as well because that is something that if you wanted to pay to have it done, you're welcome to take part in.

We also are going to do a step program through Empower Health this year to get the employees moving and hopefully the county board has a team with that as well.

We have decided to call it Step Up Stevenson County.

There will be a virtual map that each person can track their steps and it's going to touch all the corners of the county.

So that'll be what they have on the app that you can kind of watch yourself move along the track.

Is it going to show you your progress against all your peers?

So yeah, so there seems to be a lot of positive excitement about getting employees moving and stuff and feedback and conversation around that at the department head meeting.

So we reminded everyone to get their capital asset listings up to date and to get those year end totals for the audit and things moving along for that final field work coming up.

Another conversation we had which Carrie McWright and I have spoke about is with the wellness screenings the data was showing okay you can have the app on your phone but a lot of people aren't really using the app or using it to the ability that it has.

So I had requested a short video, which she sent today, that each department head will get sent out, that most of them said they'd show it at their staff meetings to try and get people actually actively using the app, which will in turn help with to try and garner more engagement with that.

The new shredding service will probably start within the next three to four weeks.

They have all the paperwork.

They're finalizing their documents and going to let me know when they are going to come and bring the new receptacles and we'll begin.

Through the department head meeting, we also had a very similar conversation about the RX Mapper program that was approved, which is the DNA tracing for medication monitoring, things like that.

RxMapper put together a short video as well that I dispersed to the department heads to hopefully get more involvement with that as well.

What happened in the copier thing?

Did we get that nailed down finally?

There were some issues with it.

There were still kind of keeping track of a log of issues if and when they come up that have been very close conversation with them.

any questions? Yes, sir. I just had one for your request. Are they way beyond what the video meetings are that they can't look at them that way? It's a person from media who is requesting I've been doing basically everything from the month prior.

So I see it being like the actual copies of all the agreements, copies of contracts, anything that's gone through the commission, they want to be executed.

But there's been like five of them the last two months.

Where did you say they were from?

It's a company, I think, that is doing this. I don't think we're the only ones. I know Jasmine said she had reached out to her peers. There was a couple others in our area that were getting the exact same requests. I had heard from a couple other county administrators.

That's interesting. I didn't realize companies could do that. I thought that was just individual citizens getting employed.

there's I mean there's guidelines but so far staying within them good all right any other yes sir talk about the VAC sending their income statement oh yeah they have been sending that monthly Adrian yeah I've got the past eight I would like to see a balance sheet also because that's going to show their cash reserves.

Income statement is good but they showed $263,000 in gross revenues with $197,000 in expenses so net income over the last 8 months of $66,470 so that's unspent revenue so it's pretty good.

That's not bad.

But that was something he had asked for, to finance what we've got budget, to make sure we're getting those over on a regular basis.

And they have been setting them up on place, but I won't request that.

Probably not a bad idea, though.

Somehow?

Well, yeah.

I think so.

All right.

Are you sitting in for Madam Finance Director, or no?

I am not.

I am just in the chair.

You're just in the chair.

Adrian did say that she's unable to make it tonight but you know updating would be pretty much the audit.

She can send out a report tomorrow if you so wish but the budget comparison is attached to the agenda but her update is pretty much working on audits.

He was reminding the county about filing the renewal for Medicaid, by the goodness of his heart, which we're on top of, even before he sent the email.

before he sent the email, but hey, that was true nice of him, heck of a guy.

It took a lot for me not to respond to that.

I knew it can come from it.

I know.

That's what he wants.

I know, I know.

Okay.

So please, if you have any thoughts for the financier, she does, you know, there are links in there, the financial calendar update and review and revenue and expense budget comparison some reports and I don't know that we need any kind of formal thing from her on the audit and she'll be back next month to talk about that, I'm sure.

Yeah.

Madam Treasurer, you have the floor.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I can get just a teeny little audit update. I was here on the weekend doing quite a few things that needed to be submitted.

So a lot of us are just submitting secondary request documents that the auditors need.

They're going to be back here the third week of April for our final field work.

So we'd like to have as much possibly done ahead of time as we can.

So we are kind of harping on all the departments to do that.

And for the most part, they have been very responsive.

So I think we're in excellent shape so far.

Okay.

So I trust everybody has had a chance to review the month report.

And I apologize to those of you for whom my report is repetitive.

Sorry, you get to hear it to myself.

I want to note that income tax sales tax receipts are steady again that's higher than typical because this month actually March is receipts we're still seeing the increases from holiday spending so February reflects November spending in terms of sales so March which I already do have the numbers for also high again but I expect them to kind of dip down quite a bit after that because you don't have that level of spending again, but in a really, really good shape actually.

So you're to date just through the month of February, two months at $1.6 million in sales and locally used taxes income taxes.

So I feel pretty good about that.

Compared to last year at this time, we're up 225,000 over the same time period.

So right now doing okay.

As of the end of February, whole county funds were down from January 31st to by $416,920, which sounds like a lot, but it's only 1.58% of our cash. So very, very, very good shape there as well. And if you go to the page that normally has a lot of yellow on it, there isn't any. I think I mentioned that when I sent the link out that there were no maturities in February, so no interest paid, although the investments do continue to accrue interest.

Right now, or as of the end of February, there were 18 investments across 10 different funds.

2.7 million matured the first week of March, and last week I made additional short-term investments of 2.9 million because rates are holding steady.

Because of the Middle East situation, looks like, for now anyway, the rate cuts that the Fed may have been planning are kind of off the table.

So, at least some of the advisors I've talked to believe that we're just going to hold steady with rates for the foreseeable future.

Does anybody have any questions about any of those?

Great.

So, again, I draw your attention to the back page, summary of everything, including those red numbers that are going to populate this page for probably the next three years until we can get those issues handled with the nursing done.

One thing I did also want to mention, you've heard me talk about personal property replacement tax. We get eight of those payments a year, and it's been steadily declining every year.

The March payment this year was $38,600. Just to illustrate the decline, three years ago in 2023, the March payment was $243,000. So that continues to be a concern statewide, not just for us.

and the value beyond obviously the dollar value of PPRT funds is it's very flexible.

We can pretty much put it where we need it and so now we have less of those flexible dollars coming in through that and that has a lot to do with the local government distributed fund which a small percentage of that is doled out to all units of local government, us included.

The governor's budget currently now has, I think, $60 million taken out of it in addition to what was budgeted this year.

So I don't know if that's going to look like for us, $60 million across the whole state isn't really that long individually, but just to illustrate that it continues to be a source of plugging state budget holes when it's supposed to come back to local government.

So, if there are any questions on the financial report side, I wanted to get into the collector side a little bit because we are ramping up for tax season because the state did provide final numbers to both the county clerk and the assessor well ahead of last year such that the assessor is ready to roll to the clerk on Wednesday, last year was the end of April, mid-April, so we're in good shape. The clerk and assessor I met last week to plot out the public side of this, of the tax season.

So we do still anticipate May bill mailing in June 1st due date, September 2nd due date, um, tax bill, tax sale will probably still be pushed till November, maybe the second week, um, because the clerk is required to be physically present.

She's got this election happening.

So I want to give her some time to, you know, to recover from that, accommodate her schedule a little bit.

So that's what's happening in the tax world.

One other thing I do want to mention is that the Illinois Gaming Board notified the county March 3rd that in 2025 we received almost $4,000 more than we were supposed to.

They called it a state accounting system programming error, of course.

So rather than, luckily, though, asking us to reimburse it or refund it, they're just going to carve it out of the next payment that they send us, which I expect will be the April payment. It's not a huge amount. Our video gaming budget typically has been $140,000. Last year was $143,000. So if we're on the same path, on the same path, it will not have a huge impact. And if anybody has any questions, not, I am finished.

I don't have any questions, but I will make one statement. If everybody's taxes went up as much Well, I know what it's, according to the assessment, what it's going to be.

Your tax bill is determined by your assessment minus your exemptions times the tax rate.

We don't know any of the tax rates yet.

So one-third of that equation is missing and they're likely going up because assessment is going up.

Well, according to what I am projected to sell it for, it's going to be about a 25% increase.

I mean, I know part of that is factored into a closing, but that's...

They're just making an educated guess at this point based on last year, but there's none.

I don't know my own tax. I have no idea. I know that my assessment went up significantly, So last year rates dropped, but because assessed values increased so much, you know, it's, and there are township multipliers, the county did not have a multiplier in the last two years we did, but townships have multipliers, not all of them, but I know Buckeye does.

So you know, it's, it's, we don't, I don't know what, I would love to tell you what, you know, even Ed Gass, but I can't until the clerk extends what she has.

so we know what the rates are so I know the assessments gave people a lot of heartburn a lot of us so that's the biggest element of that property tax split equation but it's not complete.

Now I was just thinking you're going to need more than one animal up there.

We're going to need a lot of kids.

I was telling Yager about it and he suggested we increase our kitten budget.

I don't know if there's enough kittens, so we'll see.

So your neighbors are going to be thanking you long after you're gone.

Yes, and the new owners, I suspect.

Why is this not, every time I go to the OneDrive to do that, then I can't get this.

No, I guess I just did it.

Anyway, anything else for the car charger?

Thank you very much. All business approval of payment prioritization of outstanding vendor claims for the nursing center.

So yes, I want to make note, if you look at the list that is attached, not much changed from last month.

There is one listed in purple that we received a settlement on that I believe we will still issue payment this week on.

and the other ones that are green that say pay next are kind of in a holding pattern because the funds with some expenses that have come up.

with some expenses that have come up with the nursing home with the sale not happening.

Those funds, until we know what happens with the fine and the other things, we're just kind of in a holding pattern.

So I think short of that one that is in purple, all those that are in green are gonna be the next batch out.

I just don't know if and when that will happen this year.

So Fresh Ideas basically wrote it off. We're not paying or we're just not paying yet?

We're not paying yet. We've had no communication with them.

Okay. So hopefully everybody gets that. We paid this stuff in, I don't know what color you call it, like a reddish-pinkish silver.

There you go.

We're waiting for someone on the purple, we're not paying blue yet, that's not in purview.

At this point, paying next, we're listed in the green, the next ones that are on the list, and then the county is being held back for last.

Correct.

Sorry, Madam Turner.

We appreciate your...

Just kind of want to update because there's probably not going to be much movement until we hear back from either the fine or more.

I'm going to be praying that if this thing goes to a referendum then it will get done because it's time, it needs to happen.

Any questions on that?

Do you need any other advice from this or this is just more of an informational?

Since those that were queued to pay next were approved last month, I think it's just kind of information at this point.

I just, we probably won't see a change until we hear about the fine from the state.

Okay.

All right.

Any questions on that?

I have none.

So, okay.

Moving on, new business approval of participation in national opiate distribution settlement agreement with six remnant defendants.

And you are going to fill us in on what we're doing here, correct?

So this is, I believe the last one.

This came out of nowhere, more unanticipated revenue to the county.

Wonderful.

We love unanticipated revenue.

So yeah, looks like the other ones and when we found out about this one, like you said, we had no idea it was coming.

So what is, is there an amount we need to approve or is there anything we need to do with this?

Authorized the County Board to vote, to authorize me to sign the agreement to enter into the settlement.

We have no idea how much we'll get.

So I would entertain a motion to approve this as submitted.

I have a motion.

Second.

And a second.

Any discussion?

Seems like a no-brainer.

Okay.

All those in favor say aye.

Aye.

Opposed?

Motion carried.

Okay.

Okay, committee chair reports, finance. I have no necessary reports. I think you guys have seen everything seem to be going pretty smoothly.

I had hoped originally that I would be able to finish my term when we decided to make a move, but it has not worked out that way.

So, this will be my last night as the committee chairman of this committee.

the moving trucks coming on Friday so to move the big stuff but we won't actually be completely exited out of the cold place probably until the end of the month but for my work and such that I do during the day I've been having to go to Chicago you know typically three days a week maybe four and that extra 40 minutes one way it's going to be a big deal for me and it's just something that had to happen that I plan on finishing my career with this Company that I'm at.

It's been a good transition, good gig and it just, it's just, it's hard in a lot of ways, but I very much appreciate it working with you all and hopefully I'll be missed a little bit.

I mean, you know, I would say I'd be gold the last time, but God has a different, you know, I, for whatever reason, he hasn't let us stay in one area for very long.

Ever since leaving the first time in 2006, so he's had an on-plan for us, but I believe that's his plan, so I'm going to roll with it.

We appreciate everything you've done for this committee and for the county. You'll be missed for sure. So good luck in the future.

I always try to be honest and upfront and do the best I can. That's what I know. I think that's how much you do.

I wish I would have held my temper a little bit more, especially on the nursing center committee.

Hey man, there are certain people in this life that have figured out how to push my buttons.

I don't get that very easily. How about administration?

Thank you Chairman. I agree you've done a great job and appreciate all the hard work you've done for the county. So administration, we don't have anything moving forward to next Thursday's meeting.

We had some discussion about taxes and elections that seems to be a revolving theme around here.

And then Nate was working on moving more servers and getting more of those online and trying to coordinate it with the folks on the fifth floor so he didn't slow down their work there.

there, so I didn't believe everybody's doing a great job and I really appreciate that each Wednesday or once a month there, so that's all I have.

So nursing, it was a very short meeting.

We had 71 new residents, or 71 residents at the facility.

I know the report said 69, but it went up from then.

They had their annual survey, they had eight tags.

Hopefully we're staff education and there will be some dollar corrective actions for the survey.

They had four new nursing hires and the agency hours are still very, very low.

So hopefully no agency hours comes in a couple of months, but other than that, that's it.

They seem to be doing a good job.

It seems like the employees are happy from everything we hear.

Census?

71.

This is a union of the new orders, which still haven't heard from.

That's the oddest part of it. It doesn't make any sense.

Mr. Bush told the property and safety to the UNHCR.

We don't really want to discuss much except for emergency management.

We've been through a lot of training.

Over the hour, we will report that we had a committee interview with Thomas Heispel.

Kuzinski. Okay, I'll go with that. He's going to start tomorrow as the coroner. Okay. But he will come on permanently in November at the election to go with. So, that's it. Good deal.

Dr. Dale, Court Services, nothing new and exciting, Mr. Larson, the state's attorney is still short one attorney I think he said, but they've managed with missing four, but they're busy and things are moving ahead, everything seems to be going good.

Planning and Development, we got a nice note from our tenant at Millrace Crossing that's farming that, wanted to continue with that, sent us his money and he sent us some pictures showing how the property looks and the young man is doing a great job, we spent some time since we've had some area people getting letters about potential places to site data centers, We're looking a little bit at what we want to do. Do we want to be involved and trying to come up with some zoning policy on that before something like that comes our way or where we want to go.

And then last, Mrs. Baker and I toured a building here in town of the Old True Value building that's owned by Newell as a potential place to take our offices.

and that's a great building. It's an all new inside place where the board could meet plus other meeting rooms for other staff if they wanted to use them. The inside is the center is all open. It could be made however you wanted it.

Right now it's all in cubicles and Newell is wanting to sell all of the Furnishings as well with the building if there were something that we could look at. We just took a look at it because I was made aware that that property potentially labeled. It's about 12,000 square feet I think.

about 12,000 square feet, I think I told you 112 on the phone, it's about 12,000 square feet that has a new roof and it's already set up with a great IT room, cooled and ready to go and the building is set up to be an easy building to add technology to in the in the future. The exterior is new. List price is like $3.50, but there are some other things that could be considered down the road. So just an interesting stop along the way if we want to be in our own building. Something totally different.

My true comments for you, one is more on the data center thing. The company I work for was very heavily involved in that.

When I was down there in December, we actually had a data center expert guy come in and give us a talk with the sales group.

And one of the things that they're looking at doing because of the power consumption these guys have is they're looking at, there's a new technology out there for what they're calling micro nuclear.

And if you hadn't heard, I just wanted to make sure you're aware of that if you weren't to look into that because that's, they really need to be able to generate their own power that they're going to put a data center at at this point because there's so much you know they're sucking so much off the grid that they don't um this just takes a lot of power to run the things but Mr. Diddens is so excited about nuclear I am either way or see other county issues we have on a sub why couldn't you do that for a building you know uh the other issue we're looking at is as we look at our area and as we look at what we do here here is the massive amount of water that one of those centers consumes is concerning at times seriously depending on where they're located today is an affectability because it would, one small data center would consume as much water as this city does in a day.

A lot of coolant going on.

A lot.

Yep.

So those are just some things that we're trying to look at.

I would sure like to be able to connect with whoever spoke to you to speak to you.

I'll look that up and see if I can't get you that information, Steve.

That was December and I can't remember the day, but I've got his talk.

Somewhere sash away in my work notes, so I'll see if I can't get you some on that.

Chairman Helms, I'm sorry, Chairman Helms, I have a meeting when we're talking about the mini micro-unicor plant. He said they use an awful lot of water also.

I'm going to come in to play.

The new building sounds very interesting.

I wonder if you should offer some of the department heads that used this facility and other facilities a chance to go walk through it.

This just happened.

It actually happened after our committee meeting or we would have probably done more with that because I'm not trying to exclude people.

I wanted to see, first of all, something, I don't want to waste people's time either.

Is it something that's worth considering?

And as I look at that building and at the size of the building, I think it would be a building that fits our needs.

Plus, it comes with, I don't know exactly how many cars, but a very good sized parking lot as well.

It's part of the property.

So, and it's all on one level.

So, Handicap Accessible has two entrances, so as we look forward to moving on with discussion of that, I'm sure you'd like to, you know, all our department has here to see what it would look like.

Sounds like something that should be looked into.

Sure.

Could I back up one step back to Court Services? Georgia, at the meeting did they say we have one application for the youth? So far I've received one, yes. So if you know of any groups that have a 501c reading that could use some of the youth diversion funds, we have ten thousand dollars, which is what we budgeted, and we can reach that level so we just need some people to apply for it.

Okay. April 1st has to be in George's office by April 1st. So I just want you to get that out there.

Who else here is on public work? Anything you can think of?

Trying to think. Roads are unposted. That's a good thing. They were cutting a lot of brush and I'm sure they're out snow plowing and then we had some conversation about the animal control contract and the move that towards Greenwich. So I was pretty much in I think and then Dale's got some lettings going on that he had a whole list there. So things will hopefully be happening here when the weather gets better. And if you haven't turned in your yellow sheet yet, don't forget it.

All right, Mr. Bush, I have a motion to adjourn. Do I hear a second? Second. Okay, you got a second. Any discussion? All those in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed? See you Thursday.