I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

Madam Clerk, please call the roll.

Kathy Wilken.

Here.

Kathy Aldensee.

Here.

Kevin McIlwain.

Here.

Ted Odendahl.

Here.

Patrick Sellers.

Here.

Okay.

We have a quorum.

I'll make the motion. Second. Second. Second. Second. Second. All in favor? Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Motion carries. The next amendment is approval of bills payable. I'll make a motion a second, please.

So moved. So moved. Second. I got Odendahl. Okay. And then we'll, um, McIlwain. Okay. Okay. Trustees, I want to bring to your attention the clerk books, uh, uh, uh, thing. I think Liz sent information over to you guys about it. Um, um, the, the, our quick books that we're using is going, I think, all the way digital, and we want to to move on and move on to do clerk books all the way, because QuickBooks really don't do well with municipal funds and things like that, but clerk books will establish just for that. Since we already have clerk books, it's just a smooth transition and we'll just start using clerk books more, well, just pretty much, yeah, phasing out QuickBooks and just start using clerk books.

All functions will be fine. Payrollers will be fine. And so we're just doing a transition all the way over to clerk books. Did you all get a chance to read this? I just was reading it. Okay. So take a look at what all she said. So how long will it take to make that transition? I don't see that in there, but Maybe a couple cycles?

Yeah, it's going to take a couple of cycles for it to get the transition.

We've got to transfer all the information from one system into another system.

But since the two systems already work seamlessly together, it shouldn't be that difficult.

But more than likely, she's going to make the transition, if I'm not mistaking, after for next year's, I think, budget, right? I'm thinking she's going to do it after next year's budget in order for us to, because I don't think you want to start a whole new system before you start you. So after we get our next budget pass, we're going to transition over to some quick books. Okay? Good. Any questions? No. That was my question. Her email is explaining.

Not enough detail, so I'm good.

Okay. Have you got a chance to look at any of the other claims and demands? I brought that one to you guys' attention, so please look at the rest of the claims and demands if you have any questions. Now is the time.

Not a question exactly, but it was interesting to me that during this period it seems like everybody pretty much had all the monies go to their housing.

Which is kind of interesting how that's different at different times.

Yep. And next time you'll probably see more Cub Foods on there.

So, yeah.

How often does, is it just the township payment, is that all in one payment per month or does it get spread?

No, we do it one payment per month.

We try and keep it as clean as possible for ordering purposes and for Liz to be able to keep up with everything.

and when we don't allow clients to bank, you can't say, well, I'm not going to use that initiative to bank up, no, that's not how it works.

So we're trying to keep it as clean as possible for all any purposes and for leadership to keep a good draft and a good eye on everything.

So anything clouded. So we're trying to keep it as clean as possible.

Any more questions on claims of demands, trustee?

No.

Seeing that there are none, Madam Clerk, please follow the roll.

Wilken. Hi, Altensey.

Hi.

McIlwain? Aye. Odendahl? Aye. Sellers? Aye. Motion passes. Motion passes. Next, this is the supervisor's report, and that would be me. I have some stuff to hand out, guys. The first thing I'm going to hand out is going to be our second disbursement from the second tax disbursement.

Thank you.

and I'll give you one for Mike this way. Okay. Thank you. You're welcome. The next thing I'm going to hand out is going to be the expenditure to budget report so the report can know where we are in our budget so far this year. You need one of these? Okay. You need to give one to Kathy. Did you give her one of those? I'm going to give Kathy one. Hold on a second. Yep. Thank you. I'll put this in your folder, too, Trustee Altensey, okay?

Okay, otherwise I can always pick it up in an envelope from Sarah.

Okay, it's fine. However you want to do it, it'll be available for you.

Okay, thank you.

As you guys are looking at that, I want to hand out something else.

I want to hand out Operation Jumpstart numbers from May to August.

These are our numbers, and I will read this as you guys.

Looking at everything. During the month of May through August 2026, reporting period, Operation Jumpstart has continued to expand its reach and strengthen its outcomes for participants seeking employment and educational advancements. I get it. Program services are focused on practical career readiness, support education, access, and removing barriers that prevent Individuals from moving forward professionally. Program impact. The program has added 51 new participants during this period, reflecting growing community trust and program visibility. 206 total program participants, 31 adults without high school diplomas, were successfully referred to the GED program, marking an important step forward toward long-term employment eligibility. Staff completed 46 resumes, job placements, and supported 10 facets for submissions, which is student loans, helping participants access both immediate job opportunities and post-secondary education pathways. GED participant enrollment will see an anticipated increase as classes resume, credential, and two individuals completed a college program demonstrating sustained engagement and meaningful progress towards economic stability. So the program is doing exactly what it's been designed to do. There are more things that we'd like to add to the program, but we will add those things once we've moved a little bit further in what we're doing right now. We want to have some more success in the program and then we'll add different, uh, uh, pieces to the program as we move forward. Any questions about anything so far? Yeah. Yes. Patrick, did you tell me again what the 46 figure was after

the 31 GEDs? 46 resumes have been completed in this time period from May to August. Yes, sir, Trustee McIlwain. We don't do a GED program, but they refer to a place that does. How long does it take to get a GED? It all depends on the individual. If you want to get it done, you can get it done.

But some people, you know, they get in it, they'll stop, they'll come back, you know, so it's the consistency that does it.

What we do here, when you come to Operation Jumpstart and we see that you have a GED, we and you and we see that you have a GED, we immediately get you enrolled into the GED program. That is the first step. We get you enrolled in that. Now, if you don't want to do that, we can't force you. But that is the first step that we push towards here is to get you a GED and then we'll move you forward. And we offer support in that throughout the time that they're there. So if they need assistance getting there, we provide bus tickets to get you to your GED class. We do all we can to eliminate any barrier for you, not being able to get there, then it's GED. So we take that very, very serious.

Yeah, I'll just ask them to see if there's like a way to kind of anticipate how many future GED graduates you might have.

Like, you know, we got five people, 10 months to do with them.

Well, I can tell you.

It sounds like that's not the case, though.

In this cycle, from what I heard, they had 10 people that were, that applied for GED.

The three showed up for the first class. So, now they won through Operation Jumpstart, but that's what the class, so you have that a whole lot. You have people sign up for it, but when the time comes, they don't show up. But if you're going to be a part of Operation Jumpstart, you're going to be a part of GED. If you don't show up to that, you're not a part of Operation Jumpstart.

Just a thought. And maybe not even something we publicized. Definitely don't recommend publicizing it to people who express interest. But just wondering if maybe would it be feasible to offer like some type of monetary or financial reward for people who do that.

You do complete it. And then by word of mouth, people will be like, don't announce it to very when you sign up. Oh, by the way, you're going to get this if you get it. But once they finish, it's kind of like a surprise. Oh, well, since you're done, you receive this. And of course, by word of mouth, people will be like, hey, look what I got for completing it. I don't know, just a thought.

You know, I want to tell you something about incentives. You have to be real careful with incentives, especially something like that. The goal is this person want to go and get a GED to get it. And if we start offering incentives for you to go and you complete, you're going for that. You're not going to actually. So and then you're talking about adding extra costs on to this program by adding a monetary incentive.

What we can offer is this, we can offer assistance with job placement once you get it. We can offer you your first, help you get to and from work for your first two weeks until you get your paycheck. We can offer extended employment assistance that way. But as far as offering any sort of monetary assistance for them going, I don't know about that. That sounds like a great idea and it could work in a perfect world. What's going to happen is you're going to have people come and just for the monetary incentive, but I want them coming because they want to come and because they want to learn it and they want to get this GED, and I understand what you're saying, when they get done, they can get the incentive, but if we start incentivizing everything that we do, it kind of takes away from them, but I get it, I get it, I get it, I get it.

Because them getting the GED is a plus.

Yes, it is.

You know what I mean?

Absolutely.

Just them getting it's a plus and so it was just a thought I mean no it's a good one it's a good one um um I when I worked at the school district there were incentives for parents to bring their kids to parenting conferences oh yeah I'm not yeah I guess yeah so so the incentive so the incentive program yeah I guess that's a slippery slope that one is just like yeah you're gonna do it just for a paycheck I guess with this one I'm thinking just achieving your GED puts that person on a positive path forward no matter what they do next because they have that GED like there's another person in society with a GED so just that alone is a huge plus you know to get that completed so yeah I mean I see both sides of it but it's just a thought I mean Patrick, I have a question Yes, ma'am Yes, ma'am Well, we had Project Prosper, we had mentors and tutors And we just, we offered to do it We didn't get paid for it or anything We offered, I'd meet a lot of my people on my lunch hour And see how they were doing How, you know, how they were going through it Does Highland, when they go out to do the GED, do they have tutors by any chance if people have questions or they're having a rough time getting through it? Yes. Good. Yep, they have tutors for GED. They have tutors for GED. Yep. Good. Okay. Any more questions? Any more questions, trustees, or comments? Go ahead. Yes.

I don't know what the metrics would be on this and so maybe Jahari would have some idea.

It would be just interesting to know in his perception in terms of working with getting people employment, what's happening to the employment picture, whether it's very steady, whether demand is increasing, going down, those kinds of things.

Like I say, I have no idea of any particular metric, but it would be interesting to know what the reality is out there.

Well, I can tell you this much by being really in tune with the program, hands-on with the program. Employers are hiring. They are looking for people to work. I know Sarah Danfoss had a huge sign-up begging people.

They would even ask people who had retired to come back because they need people to work. So jobs are out there. But we need to make sure that our labor force is skilled enough to do those jobs. And that's the reality of it. And it goes beyond the soft skills to make sure you show up on time and make sure you do the job where you're there. No, it's actually physically. Can you actually do the job?

That's where we are. I know they have different trainings and orientations and all that stuff, and I get it, but where we are in the city of Freeport, we need to find a way to make sure our workforce is skilled, right? We do have some skilled people here, but do we have a 100% skilled workforce? I don't think we do. And that's going to take some work on not just Township Park, all of our parts, every entity that that wants to see people working. We need to be working together to make sure people have the skill set that these employers need so they can hire these individuals.

And so much changes as far as what's expected and how jobs are done and new things that come into jobs that people have to be trained to do that.

Right, right. Yeah, so I get what you're saying. And yes, employers are hiring. If you look on Indeed, you'll see they're hiring. And usually the Department of Unemployment, they will send us listings of people that are hiring and those places that are hiring. And not just in Freeport, in the surrounding areas.

So, there aren't places that are hiring. Yes.

Kathy made me think about something with the GED thing when she talked about tutoring.

And do we know if, okay, like, you know there's a bucket of people who just aren't motivated, they don't care, they don't want to do the work that's necessary.

So that's a bucket of people that clearly it is what it is. What happens to you happens to you.

Right.

Do we know if there's a bucket of people where they have the motivation, they have the will, but there's some type of real barrier that's keeping them from moving forward? And if there are people, if we do know people in that bucket, do we understand what those barriers are to see if there's something we can do to help alleviate those barriers for those barriers so they can continue?

One of those barriers is child care. That is a major one. We can handle the transportation. We handle that. That child care is a sticky one because they have GED classes at certain times. If you don't have a child care there, you can't make it. Sometimes you can't rely on mom or dad or brother or sister to watch the kid for you when they have to work as well.

So that's a that's a barrier. So I'm glad you brought that up. And that's something we need to look into seeing if we can find some way to help. Yeah. Good one. Good one. And it used to be the DHS years ago.

DHS years ago would help with people that were low income, get their children to daycare, certified daycare, genie's daycare over by Broadway was one that I took my daughter two years ago and DHS paid for that.

So I don't know if that's something that is still done, but DHS is really interested in, you know, people being able to get to work if they have children at home and get them into the right facility to be taken care of during the day.

The problem isn't just being able to pay for the daycare. The problem is even having an open slot to get the child in.

Well, didn't the Boys and Girls Club, didn't they have, like, daycare available for people that were going for their GED, or is that, did they have a, like, a satellite for GED there at the Boys and Girls Club, kind of?

They did.

I seem to remember something about that.

They have had it at some point. It's not a constant ongoing thing, like there isn't one right now.

Was that a grant that was the reason why they had that?

I'm sure it was. I can't tell you which grant it was, but like a lot of things, you know, there have been applications for grants for programs that haven't materialized.

One of the things that we experience in the YIELD program is in terms of talking about as far as skills needed. When we go to employers, they say, you know, you don't need a certain skill set, we will train for the skills. But the two things they need, they need the dependability, and they also need the ability to learn those new skills. And there are a lot of people who are coming out who, I think their experience with school has been school was just something to get through. It was never seen as anything that was going to be of any value to them. They just had to get through it. And so sometimes when they get in our program, it's, you know, we have to try to change that mindset and say, you know, you don't have to get through this because you don't even need to be here.

The only reason you're here is that you want to learn the skills and it's not that we're teaching them anything that they're going to take that particular skill and go to the job and absolutely use that, but we're teaching them how to learn a new skill, we're teaching them how to be familiar learning something that started out they didn't understand, you know, how to use a tool or something like that.

So that's, yeah, and that's not a simple process, I mean, because again, people come in thinking, you know, this is just something I have to get through, I haven't got the idea that this is going to give me something that's really meaningful to me.

Well, I'm just wondering if that GED program that they had at the Boys and Girls Club, if they could resurrect that, because it seems like there's a need for that, you know, and they have the daycare there, so that might be like a perfect- Well, they don't, when you say they have a daycare there, you're thinking of like Amity.

Well, Amity.

But the problem, again, is Amity doesn't have slots open.

Oh, the slots. Okay.

So, and Highland, I mean, there are other places that do the GED besides Highland, but Highland has a really good ongoing program.

Through the Y, right? It used to be, didn't it?

I don't really know. It could be in coordination with the Y. I don't know that.

Okay. Good discussion.

Absolutely. Any more discussion? I see your wheels turning.

He never says that about me! Any more discussion on anything I presented? Okay, well, the next one, this is the Assessor's Report.

And I have nothing new to report, and if you have a question for me, I'm happy to...

How did your consultations come out on your property evaluations? Did they...

On the commercial ones, you mean?

Yeah. So we did the gas stations and the hotels this year with the appraiser and we'll be raising most of those. Plus we're also looking at the majority of the commercial in the office and the ones that we have sales on that we can prepare. Commercial is getting revalued for the most part this year with what we haven't already did last year.

Okay. Question for a matter. I saw, I just saw a glimpse of I didn't really pay attention to the date, but either this happened or was upcoming one of Cabello's assessment meetings?

That happened I think last week because I wasn't in town for that, yeah.

I know he's done those more than once. After those, just wondering, does your office get a lot of phone calls based off of that? And if you do get phone calls, is the content of those calls with misleading information? Are phone calls legit questions or does it sound like there are calls that are based on hearing information?

So we haven't gotten too many phone calls the last two years. The first year they did it, the county and my office got wind of it. We contacted Cagala and we showed up at the meeting. The county assessor couldn't be there at this meeting nor could I be there at this meeting but the county treasurer had planned on going. I didn't hear how that went.

The first year, the county assessor and I were there and volunteered to answer quite a bit of questions. So we explain what we do as far as assess values and not your taxes because they tend to spin it that if you want to get your taxes lowered and that's not what people are appealing.

They are appealing their assessed value, not their tax bill, even though the state calls it appealing their taxes, and that's what Cabela has, his group has kind of hung their hat on, even though the county and I have tried to explain to them that it's not taxes that are being appealed, they continue to choose to use that verbiage because that's how the state of Illinois refers to it because you have the property tax appeal board which you're not even if you go to the state level you're not appealing taxes and they will tell you that if you have an actual hearing so but yes all right thank you so they're and the verbiage is confusing people.

Yeah, the first year that they held one, there was someone that was present that felt she thought she was there to get her taxes lowered and she was giving Mr. Cabella a piece of her mind in the doorway during the presentation because she felt she was misled on why she was even there and was hoping to get the tax bill lowered. Gotcha. Okay. All right. Thank you. That's all I have. Okay. Well, the next order of business is public comedy. Public comedy. Trustees. No, trustees report. Next order of business is trustees report. Trustees, I'm sorry. Well, I have something to share. On Thursday, there's going to be a volunteer fair at the Farm Bureau from 10 to 2. Different volunteer groups are going to be there and the intent is to get more people to volunteer and sign up. So of course Pretzel Pickers will be there and there will be other groups there too so everybody's invited. It's a free event. So come on and have some pretzels.

Okay. Does that mean you're going to provide pretzels? Yep. Pretzel pickers are going to have pretzels there. All right. Just little mini bags because we don't have the funds for big pretzels. So we're going to have some mini bags. So, yeah. I know you guys were like getting all excited about, oh, hot pretzels. Yeah.

My husband loves this.

Cheese dipping sauce?

Yeah.

No.

Just a small bag.

Just a small bag.

One per customer.

Would I put you in on the airplane?

Yeah.

Anything else, trustees?

Trustees report.

To report.

Okay.

I guess the next little bit is public comment.

Any public comments?

Just to...

State your name, please, for the record.

Good. Hi, guys. I'm here. Going along with the conversations you guys were having, the Y does have child care. However, it is very hard to get into. I have my daughter goes there. It took us about six months to get her on a list to get in there. So they're not going to basically have something open for somebody that's maybe just taking a GED class maybe at night. Going along with that, though, anybody that does End up getting their GED. There's a lot of openings at the school district for paraprofessionals, plus monitors, plus monitors, things like that. So if we can get more people through the programs with the GEDs, with the programs that you guys are offering, hopefully we can lead them towards that direction because our kids need the people involved in their lives. So thank you guys.

Thank you. Any other public comments? Any events covered for the town? Seeing that there is none, I'll entertain most to adjourn until Tuesday, September 8th, 2026th at 4.30 p.m.

So moved. So moved. I need a second.

You take Kathy as a second. Okay. We got two so moved, so I'm just taking Kathy as a second.

Yeah, because he said it first. All right. All in favor? Aye. Aye. Any opposed? Aye.

Motion carried, meeting adjourned, thank you all