I don't think it's cold enough, long enough for the shears to chill as much off.
That's it, right there.
I truly believe in that.
It's got to be cold, you know, like.
Okay.
Here we go.
Call this meeting to order the meeting of the court services committee, Wednesday, March 11th, 2026.
Welcome to everybody.
Thanks for coming.
We'll start off at 1.0 or 2.0.
I'll take care of that.
Heavenly Father, thank you for allowing us to get together tonight.
Please guide us and give us courage to do the right thing for the County of Stevenson and we thank you Lord for guiding us.
In Jesus' name, Amen. 3.0 Approval of the agenda, can I get a motion?
So moved.
Second.
Motion by Busker, second by Hadley.
Any discussion?
Seeing none, all those in favor say aye.
Aye.
Those opposed, same sign.
Motion passes.
4.0 Review and approval of the meeting minutes from February 11th, 2026 meetings.
I would entertain a motion.
I'll make a motion to approve the motion.
Motion by Mr. Williams.
Second.
Second by Mr. Busker.
Any discussion?
Seeing none, all those in favor say aye.
Aye.
Opposed, same sign.
Okay, moving on 5.0, approval of claims.
I would entertain a motion for that.
Motion.
Motion by Mr. DeMeester.
Second.
Second by Mr. Hadley.
The claims are 100, $678,029 cents.
Do we have any discussion?
Seeing none, all those in favor, say aye.
Aye.
Those opposed, same sign, motion passes.
I will just sign this quickly and pass it along.
So I don't forget it again.
All right, let me see, none, reports to committee.
Judge is absent, Travis is absent, but Dr. McGee is right here where we need her.
Good evening.
So I just wanted to report that, thanks to Chanel's, the Tech Red, we were able to get two standing kiosks in the office.
So we now have an electronic probation check-in system.
So when the probation client comes in, they put in their name, address, phone number, who they're here to see and what they're here for.
So that has made the process a lot more efficient.
And it also helps us because now all the staff can see who's actually in the office, because sometimes you don't know.
And sometimes we think we're all clear, but we're not.
So, so far it's working out really great.
So, and it wasn't that expensive.
It's like a couple thousand for that.
And then we'll pay the first year membership is free.
And then after that, it'll be maybe around $400.
But we're trying to bring ourself up to par is something that at my last meeting, she judges a meeting we share, we go around table Lee County had adopted probation check-in system.
So I went down and checked it out.
So we were able to get that integrated pretty quickly.
So, and the clients seem to be doing pretty well with it.
Downfall, it's not Spanish speaking, but if need be, they can come up to the front check-in.
We can do a manual check-in.
We do have interpret that and we do also have, Fortunately, one officer who is bilingual, if we need to utilize her, so, I just want to say something good to report, trying to bring us up to the times.
Nice, that's good.
Can I ask a question?
Yes, absolutely.
How often do you have to utilize the bilingual employee?
Um, you know, it seems to be like a certain couple of certain days of the week where we have our intakes come down for their first time.
So she'll help out periodically with that.
Most of the officers actually do use the Interpreter, but because I didn't want it to be where we hired her and then it's like, okay, just go to her because that's not her first priority or job duties, but just utilize her as needed.
So we do have a couple of officers that just like to say, hey, come help, which is fine.
So I would say mostly when we get new clients down after they're sentenced to probation, that's where she's utilized the most.
And I know a couple of other departments have asked her to help out from time to time.
So she's definitely available and willing to help.
We just try not to take advantage of them.
That makes sense.
I noticed in the budget, looking at the budget, and we spend a lot of money on, and the court services obviously fall in all that in interpretation or in the temporary expenses.
So we'll get back very much, anybody have any questions?
Seeing that, we'll move on to Mr. Larson, State's Attorney.
Thank you.
Good evening, everyone.
Good evening.
I'm happy to report that we are down just one attorney.
We've got our previous victim and witness coordinator, Caden Goodman has gotten her temporary license.
That's called a 711 license.
It now allows her to practice law under supervision of an attorney while she finishes law school.
So we're pretty happy about that.
We haven't been this fully staffed in probably more than a year.
So it's a relief she's currently taking on juvenile abuse, neglect, delinquency and some PTRs.
We're looking forward to the county's walking challenge and I think we're going to have high enrollment in the insurance health screening coming up this next month.
Like many other places Sickness has hit our office.
We've had Sheva Lynn in Reels is at the office when I left and she was she was in their coffin.
Our new victim and witness coordinator has been out for a couple of days and I think our office manager was under the weather for a while also, but we are persisting.
The post-New Year trial season is starting to cool off.
We had three Pretty big trials in February and then into the beginning of March, which is, it's a lot of work for everybody, but we've gotten through them and moving forward, we're expecting that the trials will be spread out a little bit more, which makes them much more manageable.
You've got my statistics, I'd be happy to answer any questions anyone may have.
Do we have any questions?
I just have one.
Was there a trial Monday night late?
There was a lot of cars around the courthouse when I came to the Monday meeting.
I'm just kind of curious.
Not this Monday.
It was last, a week ago from this Monday was the last big trial we had.
Well, something was going on down town for us.
This is not a trial.
I mean, it's probably a good thing then.
Yeah.
All right.
Thanks.
Thanks, Darrell.
Moving on Good evening, you should have my report if you have any questions, let me know.
I also attached our Aleo flyer, it's something new that we're starting which is Illinois Legal Aid Online, it's a website that has a lot of information for legal questions and forms that they can fill out and also forms that it's kind of like an interview, they to go through and ask a question and depending on how you answer it, then it takes you to the next session.
So we're going to work with them.
We had our first day at March 5th.
Unfortunately, we did not have any customers for that day, but I'm hoping we will get some customers.
The navigator that is coming lives on Freeport and she's able to do her own work also.
It's in the law library.
I had sent the information out to the judicial partners, Voices, the Senior Center, FACC, a few other places to get them out.
If you know any money or any place where we can let people know about that, let me know.
Okay.
Do they, they have to do it at your office?
They can't get into the, let's say from home.
Anybody can get on the website.
Okay.
It's a website that you have access to the counties.
It is a link on ours, or you can just go to their website.
Got it.
Yeah, I'm not an attorney, so we're not given legal advice, but it's a navigator to walk them through or show them maybe where they can find answers to their questions.
Okay.
Did we use that?
Wasn't there used to be an organization called Prairie State Legal Service?
There still is.
They did lawyers in the library in town for a while.
They haven't done that for years because of some funding and shortage of attorneys.
We are working with a couple local attorneys to try to get that back going.
It's just taking a while.
Yeah, they do some stuff and that a whole lot of stuff and they are in record.
Okay.
So they don't help Stephenson County as much.
I know a while years ago, they helped with some expungements and maybe some evictions I've seen them come out here.
Okay.
Any other questions?
Thank you.
I'll move on to use diversion fees this month or last month we have $565.44 added giving us a total of $10,506.74.
So we've got our budget and amount covered.
I was going to ask George if we had anyone fill out an application yet.
Just one.
One so far.
Okay.
They're due by April 1st?
Yes, first, yep.
I'm going to have to make a few calls, maybe.
I don't know.
It would be interesting to know how many people even hear about it.
I've told a few people.
Okay, yeah.
In the past, I've reached out to some of the area schools, maybe I'll do that again.
Okay, all right.
Right.
Oh, but no, there's no old business.
So we'll move on to new business.
And we'll rely on Chanel to cover this.
It's approval of the Socrata, is that right?
Socrata.
Socrata, okay.
Dashboard contract with Gooden and Associates.
Yes.
Gooden and Associates is our CMS funder.
That's our case management system.
We already or I already do quarterly reports that I report to the AOIC quarterly.
This is a dashboard that they are requiring.
It'll take all the data and more data than I'm reporting now and they can and get a report at any time.
So they don't have to wait for the quarterly reports and then it will be, I believe, made public also.
So what this contract is, is just establishing that the state had given us already a grant.
I can't remember, this has been going on for a few years.
The state gave us an initial grant of 12,000 to help pay for it, but now there's a yearly fee and the contract to be signed.
That's, if that is, I'll look at it, thought it looked okay.
And this is the budget expense?
Yeah, I have money and visas and stuff.
How much is it going to cost you?
$2,004.
That's probably annually?
Yeah.
Yes.
Okay.
Well, I would entertain a motion to pass this motion to approve both of my minutes for Hadley seconded by Mr. Meester in discussion.
All those in favor say aye.
Aye.
And Jeremy.
So let's move by Mr. Busker, second.
I'll do a second.
Okay, second by Ms. Diddens.
All those in favor say aye.
Aye.
We'll just pull the same sign.
Thank you all very much.
Short and sweet.
You can.
All right.
Why don't you start the budget policy.
Well, then I'll probably first assume that will be in April.
And Do you want me to do a next one, Bill?
Okay.