PROCEEDINGS OF THE BROWN COUNTY ADMINISTRATION COMMITTEE Pursuant to Section 19.84 Wis. Stats., a regular meeting of the Brown County Administration Committee was held on Wednesday, July 12, 2017 in Room 200, Northern Building, 305 E. Walnut Street, Green Bay, WI Present: Excused: Also Present: Chair Schadewald, Supervisor Becker, Supervisor Kneiszel, Supervisor Vander Leest Supervisor Blom Supervisor Linssen; Corporation Counsel Dave Hemery, Director of Administration Chad Weininger, Technology Services Kevin Raye, Child Support Director Maria Lasecki, County Clerk Sandy Juno, Treasurer Paul Zeller, HR Director Kathryn Roellich, NEWEYE Brian Lueth, and other interested parties. *Audio & Video of this meeting is available by contacting the County Board Office at (920) 448 4015* I. Call to Order: The meeting was called to order by Chair Richard Schadewald at 6:15 pm. II. Approve/Modify Agenda. Motion made by Supervisor Kneiszel, seconded by Supervisor Vander Leest to approve. Vote taken. MOTION CARRIED UNANIMOUSLY III. Approve/Modify Minutes of May 3, 2017. Motion made by Supervisor Vander Leest, seconded by Supervisor Kneiszel to approve. Vote taken. MOTION CARRIED UNANIMOUSLY 1. Review minutes of: a. Housing Authority (May 15, 2017). Motion made by Supervisor Kneiszel, seconded by Supervisor Vander Leest to receive and place on Comments from the Public None. Communications 2. Communication from Supervisor Becker re: Brown County Human Resources removes the check box on all employment applications that asks applicants if they have been convicted of a crime. Referred from June County Board. Becker stated he d been on the board a year and a half and that entire time the County Board had spoken so many times about giving people second chances, they had opiate court, they put money towards mental health and they were always looking for ways to give people second chances and help people out as much as they could. This went a step further; it took the check box that asked if someone had been convicted of a crime off Brown County s employment application. In speaking with directors, they had 82 applications for every 1 position open and some of the most qualified or best workers may never be given an opportunity to speak to the hiring manager. Becker noted that 1 in 4 in Brown County had to check that box. In talking with the Human Resources Director, Becker would like to see this put in ordinance form rather than resolution, that way it s permanent. An ordinance was not subject to who was on the board, who was running HR or who the County Executive was, it made it a legislative policy.
Kneiszel asked for Human Resource s recommendation, Director Kathryn Roellich stated she would tend to agree with Becker, not that she knew specifically that anyone was turned away but it eliminated the possibility. The only time in the State of Wisconsin that you could consider an arrest or conviction record was when it substantially related to the position the person was applying for. The county did background checks before they made an offer of employment and HR was really the only one who should see that because they didn t want someone to be treated differently because of past mistakes. By having it there the allegation could be made that someone made a decision based on that rather than on the applicants qualifications. It put them in a position where it might be more difficult to defend their hiring decisions if anyone made a claim. Having the box potentially opened the county up to claims of allegations for discrimination. With regard to the trend in HR in other counties, Roellich felt a lot of employers and counties removed it because they did the background information disclosure. Vander Leest questioned if the box was currently on county applications, Roellich informed that she administratively removed the box after the June County Board meeting. Motion made by Supervisor Becker, seconded by Supervisor Kneiszel to send this to Brown County Human Resource and Corporation Counsel to draft an ordinance to incorporate this into Chapter 4. Vote taken. Nay: Vander Leest. MOTION CARRIED 3 to 1 Standing Item 3. Update on Facilities Needs from all Departments. Schadewald stated that one thing they needed to start doing was getting reports from departments about their facility needs. He informed he was going to change this, instead of it being a standing item he was going to talk to department heads and ask if they saw a need for changes. As they went through the next few years with the capital improvements and proposed sales tax, this was the time to start talking about 5, 10 and 15 year plans. County Clerk 4. Budget Status Financial Report for May 2017 (Unaudited). Motion made by Supervisor Vander Leest, seconded by Supervisor Kneiszel to receive and place on Child Support 5. Budget Status Financial Report for May 2017 (Unaudited). Child Support Director Maria Lasecki informed that they were on target, personnel costs were below projections. Motion made by Supervisor Vander Leest, seconded by Supervisor Kneiszel to receive and place on 6. Departmental Openings Summary. Lasecki informed they had 2 new individuals starting on the 17 th. They received a resignation from their receptionist. Motion made by Supervisor Vander Leest, seconded by Supervisor Kneiszel to receive and place on 7. May/June Director Summary. Lasecki briefly explained the paternity establishment rate; the state issued a CPI report that required them to look at the paternity indicator coming from Economic Support and correct it. That changed their denominator, ultimately very complex. It made their numbers look like they were going down
in fact they were truing those numbers up. As long as they stayed above 90% they got no more money for doing a good job, they were still at 100% so the state was fine where they were at. Motion made by Supervisor Kneiszel, seconded by Supervisor Vander Leest to receive and place on Technology Services 8. Budget Status Financial Report for May 2017 (Unaudited). Motion made by Supervisor Becker, seconded by Supervisor Vander Leest suspend the rules to take Items 8, 9 & 10 together. Vote taken. MOTION CARRIED UNANIMOUSLY 9. Budget Adjustment Request (17 52): Any increase in expenses with an offsetting increase in revenue. 10. Technology Services Monthly Report. Motion made by Supervisor Vander Leest, seconded by Supervisor Kneiszel to approve Items 8, 9 & 10. Vote taken. MOTION CARRIED UNANIMOUSLY Treasurer 11. Budget Status Financial Report as of May 31, 2017. Treasurer Zeller informed that they were at 92% of their revenue projections already as the conversion of rural property really picked up this year. It will be a good number at the end of the year. Motion made by Supervisor Becker, seconded by Supervisor Kneiszel to receive and place on file. Vote taken. MOTION CARRIED UNANIMOUSLY 12. Discussion and possible action on the sale of the following tax deed parcels located in the City of DePere: Parcel WD 207 2 1 at Patriot Way Bdr RR in the City of DePere. This item was brought back from last month, it was a unique parcel. Zeller informed prior to the last go around, they put it up on WI Surplus and got a bid at the minimum price. Two weeks prior he sent this out to all the adjacent property owners and the railroad. Since the last meeting, one neighbor had contacted the Treasurer s office after Kneiszel s initiated contact with the City of DePere. It was an interested party that would like to purchase it but Zeller believed they should put it back out for sale through their auction method and notify all adjacent property owners again to give everyone a shot. Kneiszel felt that was a really good idea, he didn t know if municipalities when they got these letters had a grasp of what was happening or pay attention to what the situation was. He would have thought that someone in Economic Development might have called the recently developed business property owner adjacent to it. His point of view was they should be interested in this because it could be a problem down the road with a nuisance. He talked to the Building Inspector who knew the property owner and he went and talked to him and he had no idea but stated he could use the property to extend his parking lot. Kneiszel felt ideally they needed to get it in the hands of someone who could use it and be responsible for it. Zeller informed that the Appraiser they used couldn t find any comparable to match up against this and wouldn t do an evaluation so they started out with the assessed evaluation of $200. Zeller informed he did not want to get involved in splitting the parcel up. Zeller will bring this back to the September meeting, he briefly explained the process he had to go through to move forward. Motion made by Supervisor Kneiszel, seconded by Supervisor Becker to follow the Treasurer s recommendation and put it up for sale. Vote taken. MOTION CARRIED UNANIMOUSLY
13. Discussion / Action Approval to release Request for Proposal (RFP) For Banking Services. Zeller informed their department had been working on this for the last month. He provided background and briefly spoke to the RFP in the agenda packet material. They had to put this out for bid now, it was essentially the bank for Brown County and all the services they provide. Zeller informed there was a scoring determination on this and in that determination they put weights on certain portions of the submittal and there was one that they needed to change because the percentages didn t add up. Motion made by Supervisor Vander Leest, seconded by Supervisor Becker to approve with the change under Attachment B: RFP Scoring, Item 2: Scoring Methodology, Item 4: Net Cost, should be changed from 25 points to 20 points. Vote taken. MOTION CARRIED UNANIMOUSLY Human Resources 14. Budget Status Financial Report for May 2017 (Unaudited). Motion made by Supervisor Becker, seconded by Supervisor Kneiszel to receive and place on file. Vote taken. MOTION CARRIED UNANIMOUSLY 15. Turnover Reports. Motion made by Supervisor Kneiszel, seconded by Supervisor Vander Leest to receive and place on 16. Department Vacancies Report. Motion made by Supervisor Vander Leest, seconded by Supervisor Becker to receive and place on 17. Worker s Compensation Reports. Roellich informed they had 3 cases that may go to hearing. They were in the process of evaluating them as to whether or not they wanted to proceed to hearing on those cases or if they wanted to look at another sort of resolution. Schadewald stated that when they got to Dept. of Administration, the idea of having a Risk Manager, workman s comp was pretty well connected. Motion made by Supervisor Becker, seconded by Supervisor Kneiszel to receive and place on file. Vote taken. MOTION CARRIED UNANIMOUSLY 18. HR Director s Report. With regard to the Benefit Program information in her report, Roellich informed that she had sent out an email (attached) to all county employees to help them better understand how benefits and insurance worked. Next month they will be bringing forward a resolution for the Human Services professionals that agreed to the CPI for their base wage bargaining. She submitted a draft for Chapter 4 Revisions that they can discuss next month, giving them time to review. In addition to her written report, Roellich informed the county recently had an IRS Audit and one of the issues identified was, late 2016 employees were offered the opportunity to receive a cash payment of half of their banked sick leave. By offering it as a cash payout to one person and especially when someone didn t take out the cash payment, it was still considering constructive
receipt and should have been counted as income tax. According to the IRS, everyone was in receipt of that income. The ones who opted out weren t going to get paid until later but the taxes applied when they made the offer. They had 40 employees who did not take advantage of the offer and as a result the county was required by the IRS to pay income taxes on behalf of the employees for $34,375.53. She questioned if the committee had any opinions on how to handle this moving forward. The options were to have Brown County pay, which had to be done as part of the audit; Request reimbursement from employees by deducting the tax liability when the non taxed benefit was used, which in turn corrected the problem; Have the county and the employee pay half; or deduct it from their available sick pay. Schadewald came from the point of view that if Administration made a mistake, it was hard to ask employees pay. Kneiszel stated that if they let it go certain people will get an additional benefit because the county paid their taxes for them. Vander Leest stated that those employees would have had to pay them anyway, so it was only fair that they paid their fair share like anyone else would. Weininger noted that was only if they would have used it but not if they roll it into their health insurance when they retired. The range of what people owed was $47 $2,413. Schadewald asked HR and Administration s opinion, Roellich felt that the county made the mistake and should cover the costs, Weininger stated this was something he was concerned about and the county did cut the check because it was a decision made unilaterally without having Administration sign off on it therefore it would be hard to go back to the employees to ask for them to pay for something based off a mistake, it was hard. Their plan was to just absorb that loss. If the committee wanted to change the policy on that, it was up to them. Lastly, Roellich informed that today she received a request to renew their critical illness and accident policy insurances. They were for employee benefits and entirely voluntary and at no cost to the county. There were zero increases on their rates for next year. A brief conversation ensued with regard to using other vendors. Motion made by Supervisor Vander Leest, seconded by Supervisor Becker to receive and place on Department of Administration 19. Budget Status Financial Report for May 2017 (Unaudited). Motion made by Supervisor Kneiszel, seconded by Supervisor Vander Leest to receive and place on 20. Budget Status Report Levy Funded Departments as of May 31, 2017. Weininger informed that the Medical Examiner s office may be tracking high due to autopsies and the contract with the ME hadn t been paid out yet and may be off budget. Motion made by Supervisor Vander Leest, seconded by Supervisor Becker to receive and place on 21. Budget Adjustment Log. Motion made by Supervisor Becker, seconded by Supervisor Kneiszel to receive and place on file. Vote taken. MOTION CARRIED UNANIMOUSLY 22. Review and possible action on Chapter 2 of Brown County Code of Ordinances.
Weininger spoke to the recommended changes in which the committee briefly discussed; Weininger noted he will be bringing this back next month in ordinance form. Motion made by Supervisor Becker, seconded by Supervisor Kneiszel to receive and place on file. Vote taken. MOTION CARRIED UNANIMOUSLY 23. Resolution re: A Change in Table of Organization for the Department of Administration s Risk Manager, Buyer, and Purchasing Clerk Positions. Weininger informed he had been keeping a buyer position open, he felt they could absorb that position and still provide quality service to county departments. He was taking the Admin Clerk and merging it with the Buyers position duties, by doing that they could eliminate the Admin position. They will then have two buyers that will be able to support themselves. They will have greater depth, understanding and knowledge on that position and with that savings he d like to take $7,000 and increase the Risk Manager position, who oversaw Risk and the Purchasing Department. The problem was that they offered it to two people and they turned it down due to pay. The other applications coming in were $90,000 $100,000 for Risk Manager. They could go with someone who was not experienced and train them but with Risk, he didn t think they would want to do that. The former employee Barb West was a great employee who ran the Risk Department very well and to bring someone in who didn t have that skillset could cost them a lot of money in the long run. This person s job was to prevent additional liability and work with departments to look at claims and question why things happened. He believed it was a critical position within the county. They were saving roughly $42,000 with these changes. There was a calculation that was miscalculated so an amended resolution provided (attached). Motion made by Supervisor Vander Leest, seconded by Supervisor Kneiszel to approve with the amendment. Vote taken. MOTION CARRIED UNANIMOUSLY Motion made by Supervisor Becker, seconded by Supervisor Kneiszel to suspend the rules to take Item 24a prior to 24. Vote taken. MOTION CARRIED UNANIMOUSLY 24. Director s Report. NEWEYE s videos were up, live streaming was working out good; however the feds required closed capturing whether they live streamed or posted on the internet. Everyone that was a public entity because they were considered a Title 2 organization fell under ADA requirements. Hemery stated they could meet the FCC exception but under ADA they look at your budget and the cost of compliance and in this case they look at the county s budget as well as all of the municipalities that contribute. Weininger informed there were 4 options: The numbers NEWEYE Brian Lueth projected was roughly $59,000 per year to closed caption the meetings, in addition there was a onetime equipment cost of $40,000; The second option, it was still $59,000 but they believed through NEWEYE as a non profit, they may be able to get a local vendor to discount it. The equipment if all the other municipalities joined in and used their broadcast and livestream, the county s costs would be about $10,000 so their real cost for the first year would be $69,000 and potentially up to $59,000 each year and that was if NEWEYE organization continued to function as an entity; Thirdly, Brown County would have to turn over all of its equipment to NEWEYE and that would make them an official non profit and it wouldn t have to be captioned because technically it would fall under a Title 3. A non profit would experience an undo financial burden. Weininger stated it would be very simple for Room 200 and NEWEYEs current equipment, the problem was the chambers at City Hall that the county and city shared. Weininger had a Cable Commissioner s meeting tomorrow to discuss this further; and the Fourth: If they didn t do 1 of 3, Corporation Counsel would have to order an issue to pull all the videos down so they were in compliance. With regard to the budget, Weininger informed they were a lot better than where they were before.
Early August he ll have what their net new construction or equalized value was. If it was better than what they were anticipating they will be in a much better position. Right now there were departments that were directed to make cuts to basically fund the increase in health insurance. The increase in health insurance was roughly a million short due to extra claims they weren t anticipating. The real cost of health insurance increase was roughly about $3 million, of that the employee paid 12%. The levy funded departments had to come up with roughly $2 million, the nonlevy funded departments had to come up with roughly $6 million. He briefly ran through the numbers they had and the direction they gave department heads. Motion made by Supervisor Becker, seconded by Supervisor Kneiszel to receive and place on file. Vote taken. MOTION CARRIED UNANIMOUSLY 24a. Update on Sales Tax and Room Tax Ordinance. Schadewald informed he was looking for an update on how long the tax was going to last. Weininger provided a handout (attached), Corporation Counsel David Hemery informed that statue specifically stated that if they repealed the sales tax, the only date they had was December 31 st of that year. They could terminate it earlier but if things were paid off until they were already into the 5 th year, it would have to run through the 6 th year through December 31 st. If things were paid off sometime in the 5 th year by March, they could end it on December 31 st of the 5 th year. The reason was, all merchants had different machines and software and it had to be programmed to charge taxes and it took time and that s why the state required the 120 day notification and it could start on the first of a fiscal quarter but could not end on a fiscal quarter. Weininger stated that the statute specifically stated December 31 st. He added that at the end of the day, it really depended on what the flow was. Weininger provided the committee with an update with regard to a timeline and responsibilities for moving forward. Motion made by Supervisor Becker, seconded by Supervisor Kneiszel to receive and place on file. Vote taken. MOTION CARRIED UNANIMOUSLY Other 25. Audit of bills. Motion made by Supervisor Vander Leest, seconded by Supervisor Becker to audit the bills. Vote taken. MOTION CARRIED UNANIMOUSLY 26. Such other matters as authorized by law. None. 27. Adjourn. Motion made by Supervisor Kneiszel, seconded by Supervisor Vander Leest to adjourn at 8:26 p.m. Vote taken. MOTION CARRIED UNANIMOUSLY Respectfully submitted, Alicia Loehlein Recording Secretary