Committee, circa Monday, March 16th, here at the Steward Center Conference Room on the 7th floor, and I have a 2.0 prayer, or maybe I'll have to offer one up. I would 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 I just thank you for this time. May you bless it. In Jesus' name. Amen.

Amen. All right. Let's see. Approval of agenda. So moved. I have a motion. Second. And a second. Any discussion on the agenda?

Hearing none, all those in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed?

Motion carried. Review and approval of meeting minutes from the February 13, 2026 meeting. I have a motion. Second. And a second. Any discussion on the minutes from last month? Hearing none, all those in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed? Motion carried. Public comment. No opportunity here for public comment, so we'll keep moving.

of course committee what just skipped over claims oh how do I do that I don't want to pay any bills yeah there you go you're new with this I am please okay cash requirements of $375,977.94 manuals of 626-014-98 a grand total of $1,001,992.92 I would entertain a motion to to approve the claims as presented to the committee.

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, reports to the committee.

Diamond Brothers will be here next month again with a further update.

Madam County Administrator, you have the floor.

All right. But next Greater Freeport Partnership Meeting is March 25th. Beth and I met with friends of the pet group, went over the agreement that was before planning and development, which was approved and going to the board on Thursday. I think the increases that I talked about last month will be continuing. We need to receive 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, she had an RFP before committee this week and getting everything in line for the move of their facility to 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 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 meeting so we reminded everyone you know 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 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 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. So 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 to the copier thing? Did we get that nailed down? Finally? There were some issues with it.

We're still kind of keeping track of a log of issues if and when they come up. It would have been very close conversation.

or working through it with them.

Okay.

Sorry.

Any questions?

Yes, sir.

I just had one for you on the FOIA 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 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 that they want to be executed.

Thank you.

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

Where did you say they were from?

Judy, Judyocracy, 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, so.

That's interesting, I didn't realize companies could do that, I thought that was just individual citizens going to be for everyone.

There's, I mean, there's guidelines, but they're so far staying within them.

Good.

All right.

Any others?

Yes, sir?

You want to talk about the VAC sending their income statement.

Oh, yeah, they have been sending that monthly.

Have I?

Adrian has.

Yeah, I've got the past eight months ending February 28th.

I would like to see a balance sheet also, because that's going to show their cash reserves.

Income statement's good, but they showed $263,000 in gross revenues with $197,000 in expenses, so a net income over the last eight months of $66,470.

So that's unspent revenue.

So it's pretty good.

Yeah.

That's not bad.

But that was something we had asked for in finance when we had done the budget to make sure we're getting those on a regular basis.

And they have been sending them on plates, but I won't request that.

Probably not a bad idea, though.

Send them out?

Well, yeah, I think so.

Yeah, I thought we should see it.

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.

Adrienne 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 audit, so.

I have a question.

What was his email from Michael?

He was reminding the county about filing the renewal for Medicaid.

Okay.

By the goodness of his heart.

Okay.

Very nice, which we're on top of, even before he sent the email, but hey, that was sure.

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.

Rick can come from it.

I know.

That's what he wants.

I know.

Okay.

So, please, if you have any thoughts for the financier, if she does, you know, there are links in there as a financial calendar update and review of revenue and expense budget comparison 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. 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 fieldwork.

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've 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 myself. I wanted to note that income tax, sales tax, receipts are steady. Again, that's higher than typical because this month actually marches 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 we don't have that level of spending again, but in a really, really good shape, actually, so year to date, just through the month of February, two months, we have $1.6 million in sales and local use taxes.

from Texas. 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, total county funds were down from January 31st by $416,920, which sounds like a lot, but it's only 1.58% of our cash. So very, in a 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 that 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?

Okay, so again, 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 vet.

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 it's $60 million taken out of it in addition to what was budgeted this year. So I don't know what that's going to look like for us.

$60 million across the whole state isn't really that lot 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 want 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 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, mentally April, so we're in good shape. The clerk and assessor on that last week to plot out the public side of the tax season, so we do still anticipate May bill mailing, June 1st due date, September 2nd due date, tax sale will probably still be pushed until November, or maybe the second week 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 everybody's taxes went up as much as mine did this year your assessment went up we don't know what your taxes look like yet we don't know I do I know what it's according to the assessment what it's going to be we you have the your tax bill is determined by your assessment minus your exemption 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 the CESFAT is going up, but we don't know what anybody's bills are doing next year. 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 test.

I have no idea.

I know that my assessment went up significantly, but 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.

The last two years we did, but townships have multipliers, not all of them.

We got you.

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 a guest 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 that's the biggest element of that property tax plan equation but it's not complete.

I was just thinking you're going to need more than one animal up there We're going to need a lot of kittens Yeah, I was telling Jogger 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 Right 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 treasurer? 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. 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 going to 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 up. We paid this stuff in the, I don't know what color you call it, like a reddish pinkish silver.

and 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 last cracks sorry madam Turner we appreciate your just kind of my object because there's probably not going to be much movement until we hear back from either the fine or remorse.

Well, I'm going to be praying that if this thing goes to a referendum, then it will get done, because it's time, we need to happen, so, anyway, any questions on that? Do you need any other advice from this, or this is just more of an informational?

I mean, 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, you 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?

Correct. So this is, I believe, the last one of the six running. The six running out of nowhere. Yeah, yeah. Nice. More unanticipated revenue to the county. Correct. Wonderful. So. We love that. So yeah, it looks like the other ones and when we found out about this one, like you said, we had no idea it was coming, so. So what is, is there an amount we need to approve or is there anything What do you think we need to do with this? Just authorize 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. No. 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. Carry. Okay.

Okay. Committee chair reports, finance. I have no necessarily reports. I think you guys have seen everything seems 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 truck's coming on Friday.

So, to move the big stuff, but we won't actually be completely exited out of the whole place, probably for 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 is going to be a big deal for me, and it's just something that had to happen.

I plan on finishing my career with this company that I'm at. It's been a good transition, a good gig. It's hard in a lot of ways. I very much appreciated working with you all. Hopefully, I'll be missed a little bit.

Oh, yeah.

Yeah, just a little. I mean, you know, I would say I had to go the last time, but God has a different, you know, for whatever reason, he hasn't let us stay in one area for very long ever since leaving the first time in 26, 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. Still good luck in the future.

Always try to be honest and up front and do the best I can.

That's what I know.

I think that's how much you do.

Wish I would have held my temper a little bit more, especially on the nursing side of the committee.

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

I don't get mad very easily.

How about administration?

Thank you, Chairman.

I agree.

You've done a great job.

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 thing around here. And then Nate was working on moving more servers and getting more of those online and trying to coordinate with the folks on the fifth floor.

So he didn't slow down their work there So I believe everybody's doing a great job And so I 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. Mostly were staff education. And they already submitted all their 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 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? Good deal. 71. Does it a union? Nope, still haven't heard of it. That's an odd, odd, the oddest part of it. Doesn't make any sense. Mr. Bush, public property and safety.

Troutman Miller, too, really discussed with me, except for emergency management, been through a lot of training, over, I will report that we did, we had a committee interview, Thomas Heispel, Krasinski, okay, I'll go with that, it's going to start tomorrow, as the coroner, Okay. But he will come on permanently in November after the election is over. That's it. Good deal. Dr. Dale? Court service is nothing new and exciting. Mr. Larson, the state's attorney is still short one attorney, I think he said, but they managed with missing four. They're busy and things are moving ahead.

Okay. Everything seems to be going good. All right. Planning development, we got a nice note from our tenant at Mill Race Crossing that's farming that, planning to continue with that, sent us his money, and he sent us some pictures showing how the property looks, and the young man's 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 in trying to come up with some zoning policy on that before something like that comes our way or we want to go.

And then last, Mrs. Baker and I toured a building here in town, 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 all new inside, a 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, 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 that were something that we could look at, we just took a look at it because I was made aware that that property was potentially available.

It's about 12,000 square feet, I think It's 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 future. The exterior is new.

list prices 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 to look at.

My two real comments for you, one is more on the data center thing, that the company I work for is 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 micronuclear, and if you hadn't heard, I just wanted to make sure you were 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 if they're going to put a data center in at this point because there's so much, you know, they're sucking so much off the grid that they don't.

It just takes a lot of power to run the things.

Mr. Diddens is all excited about nuclear.

I am.

The other county issue.

Hold on a sub, why couldn't you do that for a building?

The other issue we're looking at as we look at our area and as we look at what we do 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 effectability because it would one small data center would consume as much water as this city does.

A lot of coolant going on.

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.

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 date, but I've got his talk somewhere stashed away in my work notes, so I'll see if I can't get you something on that.

Chairman Helms, I'm sorry, Chairman Helms at our meeting when we were talking about the mini micro plant, said they use an awfully lot of water also.

Yeah.

So, that was a very active.

Yep.

They come into play.

And then, the new building sounds very interesting.

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

and 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 was it was 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. That's part of the property. 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 like all our department has here to see what it would look like to it. Sounds like something that you looked into. Sure. Could I back up one step? Sure.

back to court services. Georgia, at the meeting, did they say we had one application for the youth diversion?

So far, I've received one, yes.

So if you know of any group that I have a 501c reading that could use some of the youth diversion funds, we have $10,000, which is what we budgeted, and we've reached that level, so we just need some people to apply for it.

Okay. What's the satellite? April 1st. It has to be in Georgia's office by April 1st. So I just want you to get that out there. There you go. Who else here is on public work? Anything you can think of? I'm 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 still plowing and then we had some conversation about the animal control contract and the move that George probably mentioned. That was pretty much it, I think, and then Dale's got some lighting that's 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, I'll forget it.

I'll forget it.

No.

That's one thing I don't have to do.

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.