 I'd like to call to order the Tuesday April, I'm sorry, February 15th. I'm wishing for warm weather, can you tell? Tuesday, February 15, 2022 meeting of the Sheboygan County Board of Supervisors. Are we certified in compliance with the open meeting law? We are. The agenda was posted on February 11th at 4.30. Please join me in the Pledge of Allegiance. Next is roll call. 23 supervisors present. Next item of business is the approval of the January 18, 2022 journal. Supervisor Brauer. A motion to approve. Thank you, Supervisor Brauer. Supervisor Wagner. I'll second that motion. Thank you, Supervisor Wagner. Under discussion, being no discussion, please vote. All right. Next item is the consideration of appointment by County Administrator to local emergency planning committee. Zachary Wilkes Metro of Whitefish Bay representing local media. Somebody willing to make the motion? Supervisor Gehring. Thank you, Supervisor Gehring. Supervisor Wagner. I'll second that motion. Thank you, Supervisor Wagner. Any discussion? Seeing none, please vote. Are there any presentations this evening? There are none. Are there any public addresses this evening? There are none. Letters, communications and announcements? Communication we have is a resolution from Winnebago County Board of Supervisors regarding chapter 980 of the state statutes dealing with supervised release of sex offenders. I believe we've had that or a similar one multiple times so we'll receive that for information. That is all. County Administrator's Report. I think that'll some space. Thank you. Thank you, Chairman Koch for that very warm introduction. Well, welcome to the highly anticipated Sheboygan County State of the County address. I imagine everyone has been looking forward to this evening. I have a pheromone to go through so I'm going to take my mask off for this presentation. You all have a copy of the State of the County on your desk. You received it in email form and we put a pheromone of time into this like any document. It's a team effort and we try to as concisely as we can talk about some of the key accomplishments and milestones that we all can take pride in and that we all have been a part of. So I'm going to go through this not only for you this evening but certainly for viewers or people who are interested in seeing the collective accomplishments of Sheboygan County Government and the outstanding teamwork and track record that we've developed here. And my esteemed colleague and Deputy Administrator as well as Cheryl I think are going to put this up on the screen. So could the PowerPoint please get teed up and next slide please. Setting the stage as I think most of you are aware but certainly a lot of people in Sheboygan County don't recognize as we have nearly 850 employees administering over 200 programs and services working in 19 different departments with 167 million dollar budget, a budget that you adopt annually in November. Of that 167 million its property taxes, its state federal revenue, its fees, fines and forfeitures and about $52 million of that is property tax levy. In fact if you look at the slide before you up on the screen you'll see the big picture on your left the 167 million dollar budget and then you'll see when you break it would be on your, is it your left? Supervisor Jorgensen on your left is at the large 167 billion dollar graph. It's on your right. Okay well now that we're all on the same page you'll see the larger picture of all of the departments represented in their total budget and then you'll see the property tax levy broken out, the 52 million and you'll notice in some cases there's quite a difference in the over amount of revenue associated with the department and how much property tax levy is utilized. Look at Rocky Noe for example one of our four largest departments yet they're relying on about a million dollars or a little better in property tax levy. So big picture a lot going on in Sheboygan County government and most of your constituents really don't have a feel for it unless they're part of this organization serving as an employee or an elected official County Board supervisor most people really don't recognize the breadth of county government and all the programs and services all that's going on. Next slide please. So again I'm going to touch on our top 10 accomplishments milestones opportunities ahead and as you can imagine when you have as many programs and services and good work that's going on in Sheboygan County it's difficult to boil this down every year but we've been doing this for a number of years. If you're so inclined or any of your constituents are inclined you can go to our Sheboygan County website not only will you see all the departments and some information about them but you'll see our state of the county and our top 10 lists that we've developed maybe a little better than a decade now. COVID-19 you can hardly talk about the last year or the last two years without discussing the global pandemic that we all are sick and tired of and that we all in this organization been a part of trying to support our community and help keep people safe and I can't tell you how pleased I am to see the recent data. As you can see the majority of people in Sheboygan County have chosen to be vaccinated. In fact if you're 55 and older you take the cumulative vaccination levels of people 55 of age and older over 80 percent of people have gotten vaccinated. It's outstanding doesn't happen overnight took a lot of time and hard work from all levels of government but as you can see most people now have taken steps to protect themselves their family their friends their neighbors and that is going to contribute to us getting out of this this dark time. The other thing that I know Chairman Koch and I and I'm sure you keep a close eye on is what's happening with our hospitals. It wasn't long ago when the hospital presidents were calling us and saying help we need your help. We're being overrun. We have a staff shortage. Our employees are burning out. We need your help and of course Rocky know plays a role in that as do all of us. But fortunately we're starting to see those numbers come down as well. So we're all hopeful that we're getting out of the woods but I can't say enough about our public health team. They've been outstanding. They've been outstanding. Our Grossman at strip moderate all the people in public health health and human services committee the board support. It's been outstanding. There's been a lot of work done with vaccinations. There's been a lot of work done reaching out to people and there's been tremendous community partnerships. We've been working and continue to meet every other Monday with hospital presidents public health professionals emergency responders elected officials school board leaders and other community stakeholders. The work continues. We continue to work in collaboration. Proud of that effort and proud of folks like star Grossman who you may recall the Sheboygan County Chamber of Commerce selected her for the best under 40 award last May. That was a nice evening. And then just recently just last week she was nominated as an MVP of the team for public health and the good work she does. So it's nice to see star Grossman and she would say if she was standing here and their team as a whole and our organization as a whole be recognized by the chamber and other businesses for the good work that they're doing and the incredible leadership that they've shown in this community. So we're very proud of that and I want to thank chairman Koch who as you know came on in a real difficult time to take the reins as chair. And he has been a steadfast thoughtful leader. And I also want to thank the Health and Human Services Committee who obviously work so closely with the Health and Human Services Department and public health. Thank you all for your leadership. The second area that I wanted to touch on this evening was our successful rider cup. There's a transition from a pandemic to a rider cup. Of course that was delayed a year. The Kohler Company and the PGA of America they wanted to keep people safe and err on the side of caution that gave us another year to gear up and plan for this event. 45,000 people came to Sheboygan County daily to participate in this. We had 27 hours of live coverage of reflecting on Sheboygan County and even Lake Michigan cooperated. It was calm on Lake Michigan almost the entire entire tournament. I couldn't believe it. It's just beautiful. It looked like we're in California. Just beautiful. And again, compliments to our Health and Human Services Department, our Transportation Department, our Sheriff's Department and a number of county board supervisors that served on oversight committees, planning committees, all the planning with the food traffic, people save mitigation plans for COVID, all this additional planning that had to be done. It was just incredible team effort and 4,000 people volunteered just to be a part of it and help out. Just tremendous. Sheriff Corey Racler isn't with us this evening. But as you can see, his team stood where the players that at one point to snap a photo today is Corey Racler's birthday. So if you get a chance, maybe give Corey a shout out. But all of our staff really made a difference, a positive impact to help with this event. And we're proud that it went so well. Sheboygan County shine. Sheboygan County government was a part of it. Moving on. Another area that we're very proud of is child protective services out of home care reductions. You may recall Matt strip, modern others discussing this and for over 20 years, we saw a rise in protection due to child maltreatment. Very sad topic. And then break your heart when you get into the weeds on it. Kids are impacted what happens in this community. And it's real. And we saw all of a sudden all of our out of home care grow to 367 individuals in a very short period of time. As you can see from the slide up there, a trend that wasn't acceptable. What's going on here? How do we help these kids? How do we have a more stable family environment? And crystal fever and Matt strip, modern and their teams got together and talked about what can we do differently? What can we try that we haven't been trying of late? And to their credit, they substantially changed some of the services and systems that we we had in place and just tried some different approaches and reduced children being placed by 60%. To many people in our community that may not mean a lot. Sure means a lot to those kids. Crystal and Matt and their teams did a tremendous job. So we're very proud of that as one of the high success points of the past year. We want to continue to do that good work. Moving on to Rocky Noel, speaking of good work. Rocky Noel continues to maintain our five star rating. And I find that rather remarkable and that we're the only nursing home in the county that has maintained a five star rating now for four straight years. We have a number of wonderful nursing homes in Sheboyton County. But we are the only one that has maintained the five star rating. It's a credit to Kayla. It's a credit to our health and our health care centers committee. It's credit to our organization as a whole. It doesn't just have reflects on our tremendous staff and the quality of care that they provide. So very, very proud of Rocky Noel, particularly during this time when they're struggling and dealing with COVID and dealing with a workforce shortage and all the challenges that are going the way of our health care providers. Very proud of them. And I want to thank a health care centers committee chair Jackie Veldman, again, our health care centers committee, our finance committee and county board for the additional resources you provided to increase wages for our CNAs for our housekeepers for the additional resources that you've allocated from ARPA and another state grant to improve the residential rooms and just make some real improvements there. And I like this last photo because I recognize a lot of those people even with the masks on. And usually when you walk into Rocky Noel, that's not how you see them. They're busy as ever, helping the residents and doing the good work that they do. But we've got some really wonderful, caring, goodhearted people there. They deserve, they deserve all sorts of accolades. Next slide, please. Facility enhancements. I mentioned Rocky Noel, you'll see that we are in the midst of upgrading the residential rooms. And one of the positives of having a lower census there right now is we are able to completely clear out some of the halls, some of the corridors at Rocky Noel and redo the rooms are getting a complete facelift, whether it's bathroom fixtures, toilet, toilet sink, mirror, all the walls, which was block wall like many of us probably have in our basement, or you'll certainly see in the detention center, all of that's being painted over and to look more like what we would see when we walk in our front doors. It's really going to be a nice enhancement for the residents. We also are in the midst of planning for alternatives to incarceration at the detention center. Tremendous, tremendous initiative that's in play and that the county board has supported. And Corey and his team have already taken some pressure off the detention center doing some things differently. But we're hopeful this is ultimately going to save taxpayers millions and millions of dollars rather than adding bricks and mortar to lock people up at the detention center. We're trying to work with people and help them rehabilitate and become productive members of society. So I appreciate the good work that's going on there. I want to thank Rob Ziegelbauer, who really has been helpful with not only supporting things like this, but a number of facility enhancements also include what we're doing at the Taylor Museum, what we're doing with supporting our bookworm gardens. And Robert, if you're not aware of it, Chairman Ziegelbauer serves on the Sheboygan County Historical Board. And I know some days he may enjoy that more than others, but that is another county asset, a very important one. And he's identified some opportunities for improvement there. So we appreciate your leadership there, Robert. Highway 23. We've mentioned Highway 23 for 30 years when it was first enumerated. And we thought it was going to get done. And it got delayed. And it got delayed. And finally, the past year, Highway 23, the work was done to make it a four lane rather than the two lane. It's safer. It's going to help with economic development. And our community wanted it. Businesses wanted it. Our state legislators, to their credit, stepped up the past few years to help support that. The Wisconsin Department of Transportation stepped up. And our planning and conservation department as well as our transportation department really stepped up to help see that through. We don't do the expansion of Highway 23 for as an interstate, but we will help maintain it. But we did assist with the old Plank road trail extension, which will now go from the city of Sheboygan to Fond du Lac. So a very important investment in our community. And I want to thank you to acknowledge Supervisor Tom Wagner for his leadership on this. Tom was chair when Highway 23 still seemed to be kind of hanging in the balance and wasn't really getting the attention that we knew it deserved. And he gently pushed on our area legislators and we made contacts and we roll letters to the editor. And I credit Supervisor Wagner for helping bring some more attention to it. And as you know, it's now done and Fond du Lac will continue on their portion in the year ahead. New educational facility at the Sheboygan County Marsh. Look at that photo. That's actually the Kohler educational facility at the Sheboygan County Marsh. If you haven't been out there, that's it. It's beautiful. The YMCA kids and families for generations to come are going to enjoy this. They were still using that old donated Sargental trailer that's been there for like 40 years. What an amenity for our community. What an investment for our community. I can't think the Kohler company enough Sargental and many other businesses that stepped up. The friends of Sheboygan County that helped raise funds and leverage funds to see this through. Of course, the county board provided funding as part of our five year capital plan. All those dollars were leveraged to get this done. Trees from the very site were used to help support it. It's beautiful. So we'll have an open house this summer, but so many people stepped up to help see this to fruition. And Supervisor Keith Obbler, who chairs the Planning and Resources Committee and was a friend, friends of the Marsh member as I was years ago when we built the tower. Keith, are you still on the friends? He's nodding, yes. I mean, so Keith's been doing that for a lot of years now. It took all of these people coming together and working collaboration to see it through. And it's going to again, it's going to serve this community and kids for generations to come. So we're very proud of it. We'll see you again probably late summer, early spring for an open house. And I'm sure from time to time maybe we can have some meetings out there. Collaborative approach for American Rescue Plan Act funding. This is going to be a tremendous focus on the year ahead. Back in August already we identified and established six community engagement task force to provide us input on how these dollars are going to be invested in the community. As you recall, the nationally there was 1.9 trillion. The state received 2.5 billion. Sheboygan County 22.4 million. Half of that we have in house. The other half will be coming this summer. As I mentioned, we established six task forces to get input, engage people, get their ideas and recommendations. Affordable housing shared by Don Hammond, who is currently the chair of the Sheboygan County Economic Development Corporation and Gary Dullmas, the former chair. Behavioral health and crisis response shared by Kate Baer, who is the executive director of United Way and Matt Strupp-Modder, who we all know as our health and human services director. Broadband shared by Chris Lewinsky, our IT director. Child care shared by Colleen Steinbroker, the last team wrong, and Gina Kovalee. I'm very fond of her. I need to work on the last name. She's been with United Way for years and she's wonderful. Child care, as I just mentioned, transportation. Derek Mink, believe it or not. It's how that last name is pronounced. He works with Ed Procek over at the city, does good work on transportation, and then workforce development, Diedra Martinez, who as you know is the executive director of the county chamber. They all step forward in our chairing or co-chairing these task forces. Some of them work for us. Some of them are volunteers. So we had to work thoughtfully and patiently with all of them because the vast majority of the people participating are volunteers. Believe it or not, on the affordable housing task force, 17 organizations are represented. Behavioral health and crisis response, 18 organizations are represented. Broadband, 11 organizations are represented. Child care, 14 organizations are represented. Transportation, 13 organizations and workforce development, 19 organizations are represented. You will not find a county in the state who has engaged more people and sought more input than Sheboygan County on how we should invest these taxpayer resources. Not one. We're proud of it. We're leading and everyone involved on these task forces deserves such credit. We also have a number of county board supervisors assisting with this. Kurt Brower and Henry Nelson on the affordable housing task force, Vern Koch and Bill Gehring, Behavioral Health and Crisis Response, Jerry Jorgensen, Al Bosman and Bill Gehring, Broadband, Child Care, Rebecca Clark, Transportation at Project, Workforce Development, Robert Ziegobauer and Charlotte Nannick. Thank you. Everyone volunteered to participate and provide input and listen and learn and engage. Of course the county board will be making the final decisions and we've got some work ahead of us. But I'm very proud of the fact that we reached out and sought input and engagement and I think we're going to have some wonderful recommendations. In fact I know we're going to because I've seen drafts and I've been meeting every month, month and a half or so with the chairs for check-in and it's it's been phenomenal. So on your desk is a high-end draft timetable of the steps ahead. Periodically a board member will reach out and say well what's next and this should give you a good flavor for what's coming up next. Of course this is subject to the change of Chairman Koch and the Executive Committee whom I report to obviously but we've put together some proposed steps going forward and the next one will be a March 3rd, March 3rd Executive Committee meeting that will be held here in the county board chambers where the six task force chairs and co-chairs will share their report and recommendations. So those of you that are interested can participate either in the room if space provides or virtually which will be encouraging most people to do so we're not too tight in here right. March 3rd coming up. From there the Executive Committee is going to be reviewing and ranking prioritizing these reports and recommendations and ultimately it'll likely be referred I presume to the Finance Committee and the full county board is going to have an opportunity obviously for input and you will be making the final decisions so that's a snapshot for you. Two more remaining replacement of the asphalt plant not a topic that necessarily may get some people jumping out of their seats but when you have 450 miles of paved roads to 152 bridges and recognize that the transportation system is essential for our quality of life you also have to recognize that behind all that asphalt has to be the materials and the tools to make it and we have an asphalt plant that's going on 35 years old we discussed this at our leadership forum certainly the Transportation Committee has discussed this a number of times but very pleased that the county board supported this initiative we're going to be replacing it and we're going to be paying for it with our half percent sales tax which as you recall goes all to transportation or we share it with some of our municipalities and we provide some direct property tax relief with it so it's working out well and I want to thank and acknowledge supervisor Roger Distruty for his leadership on this issue there isn't a board member with all respect there isn't a board member that knows more about transportation that Roger Distruty and I think I know he's our most senior experience board member now his leadership know not only as a former chair for transportation but his leadership with the asphalt plant is doing this community a great service so we appreciate that and then finally strong fiscal condition you recall in the executive committee hired me 23 and a half years ago that we had two consecutive years with double digit increases in the property tax levy and in the tax rate I think one year was 18 percent double digit significant increases and part at the time what contributed to that was building the new detention center but as I reflect back on that and reflect on what we have accomplished over the last 10 20 years there haven't been any double digit increases your track record fiscally is second to none it's outstanding all of the investments that you've made in this community all the people that we serve all the people that reach we reach out to and strive to lift up all the difficult work as a law enforcement officer a social worker or caring for the neediest of needy at Rocky Hill all the things we do at somehow year after year the county board passes a budget that on average the last two years 10 years has been about two percent remarkable just remarkable I think sometimes in the organization we kind of take that for granted kind of used to it you passed a 1.14 percent property tax levy increase for this year 1.14 percent and again you look at the last 10 years 1.22 percent I misspoke I said two percent a minute ago 1.22 percent has been the average property tax levy increase in this county for the last 10 years I'm proud of it proud of you proud of this organization that is an outstanding fiscal track record and it reflects on every single board member and it certainly reflects on our department heads and our leadership team our finance director our finance department staff we work together in collaboration or things like that don't happen if you just look at what's happened in the last year and there's too much detail here it'll be shared with finance committee next week and I think next month I'll focus a little bit on the fiscal performance of the year but I can tell you once again we have the vast majority of our departments working within their budget parameters that you approve that you enact I just met with Jim to to beast today he's our building services director Jim is the most long-standing department head that I hired him hired him uh 22 years ago going on 23 he's the most senior department head every single year Jim produces a department budget that meets the parameters established by the finance committee and every single year he ends the year working within those budget parameters I don't think there's a department head with a stronger track record than Jim to beast and he will tell you what price is going up and all the variations that's difficult to do and may be more so going forward but he does outstanding work our fine finance director Wendy sharnan she's tough she's strong she's a complete man of her roles and responsibilities and when we work with all the department heads and go through their budgets following the guidance and the expectations of you as a county board all the results speak for themselves so if you look at just the past year almost in every instance departments have once again worked within their budget parameters or come in with positive variances we're looking at about a 2.5 million positive variance in the general fund we're looking at a positive variance at health and human services and transportation and rocky Noah would be the one that stands out where we're struggling but thanks to the cares act funding and the ARPA funding they too will end the year without a negative variance that impacts local property taxpayers if we didn't have the ARPA funding and we didn't have the cares act funding and the other resources that have come from the state and federal government local property taxpayers would be picking up the difference I wonder if that's what they want tend to doubt it debt service we're leading the charge there the county board years and years ago established an approach where we would only bond so much of a year or every two years and we've stayed true to that guidance of the county board and the finance committee so we're seeing our debt service go down next slide please if you compare in contrast to other counties you can see that we're leading the pack our debt service per capita is much lower than Eau Claire Fond du Lac, Lacrosse, Manitouan, Marathon and Ozaki wasn't an accident it's because of the thoughtful fiscal approach of the county board next slide please every now and then batteries run out as I was going through this two page summary of a hundred and sixty seven million dollar budget and 207 programs and services I found myself starting to underline every time I mentioned a entity an organization a department that we worked with take the time to look at this do that you will see in just about every area in order to accomplish something we're working with others to get it done throughout as I you know summarize this this slide here I think Shaboydon County has a track record where the county board and department heads and our team as a whole we work together in a respectful thoughtful manner challenge one another but we strive to work together and it's worked I look at our heads of local government most counties don't have an established heads of local government comprised of all the chief elected officials of all their municipalities we do get together with them once twice a year more or less depending on what's hot in the community and through that we've built consensus for things like supporting the half percent sales tax heads of local government supported it so did the Shaboydon County Economic Development Corporation that's made up of over 35 businesses on the board a couple hundred county wide the 35 businesses like Sargento and Kohler and Master Gallery and Bemis and Johnsonville they all supported it as well we work together our county chamber wow they stepped up with the pandemic and sharing information Dietra and her team wonderful work United Way I had the privilege of serving on the United Way Board for about 15 years Matt Stripmoder is now on the board do they do good work all the organizations that United Way supports many of which we're working now on the ARPA task forces tremendous work state and federal agencies sometimes that can be a little tougher but when I look at the Shaboydon River and Harbor and a hundred million dollar investment that we made what 10 years ago it all starts to support people pulling together to get that done and our area legislators I don't know if I've ever had more empathy for our area legislators than I do today when I say that I have a lot of respect and consider Representative Terry Katzma Senator Devin Lemieux Representative Tyler Warpoggle I consider them friends for one of the few counties that have a legislative breakfast where we can interact with them and check in with them we don't always agree and they don't always follow up on things maybe the county wants but they're good people and two of them in the past Devin and his dad Dan served right here on the county board as I like to say this is a pretty good pretty good place to learn about local government and working in partnership and pragmatically together to get things done somehow we lose a lot of that at the state the federal government but I empathize with them more than ever before because of the state a divisiveness right now in our politics and just what's happening it's like I've never seen in my tenure something and they're certainly feeling it but we're fortunate to work with a lot of good people next slide so that concludes my remarks I hope that you may have taken something away from the state of the county and if you need any additional information or you're ever asked from your constituents for additional information don't hesitate to contact myself our deputy administrator Elaine Krause any of our department heads as I said earlier I'm proud of our organization I think our team is strong they care and I thank you for the time this evening thank you mr chair thank you administrator pain next is the consideration of committee reports executive committee resolution number 33 regarding carry over of unexpended 2021 appropriations to 2022 recommendation to adopt supervisor gehring thank you mr chairman I move for adoption thank you supervisor gehring supervisor Wagner thank you mr chairman I'm second at motion thank you supervisor Wagner is there any discussion seeing none please vote this is approved unanimously next is resolution number 34 regarding initial resolution authorizing seven million one hundred ninety five thousand dollars general obligation promissory notes for capital projects recommendation to adopt supervisor gehring thank you mr chairman I move for adoption thank you supervisor gehring supervisor distruby thank you mr chair all second thank you supervisor distruby is there any discussion seeing none please vote supervisor project sir motion is approved unanimously and resolution number 35 regarding resolution providing for the sale of seven million one hundred ninety five thousand dollars of general obligation promissory notes recommendation to adopt supervisor obler move to adopt please thank you supervisor obler supervisor gehring thank you mr chairman I will second that motion thank you supervisor gehring is there any discussion seeing none please vote that motion is also approved unanimously thank you with that I shall turn the gavel over to vice chair zygbauer good evening to you all the motion is introduced resolution number 36 from finance committee regarding awarding the sale of seven million one hundred ninety five thousand dollars general obligation promissory notes pursuant to rule 13 is anticipated that a motion to withdraw as proposed resolution will be made by a majority vote to board votes to pull the resolution subject to immediate action supervisor gehring thank you mr vice chairman I move to pull for immediate action thank you supervisor gehring supervisor prouder I will second that motion thank you supervisor prouder supervisor bosman should the poll is approved unanimously sorry first to uh enact supervisor obler move to adopt please thank you supervisor obler supervisor wagner thank you mr thank you supervisor wagner is there any discussion seeing none please vote this is approved unanimously resolution number 37 from human resources committee regarding a reauthorization of self-insurance status for workers compensation resolution number 7 37 will be referred to finance resolution number 38 from transportation committee regarding granting easement to wisconsin public service carp for shaboying county memorial airport resolution number 38 will be referred to executive ordinance is introduced ordinance number four from the executive committee regarding amending section 1.04 of the county code to update qualifications of county board supervisor candidates ordinance number four will be referred to human resources ordinance number five from human resources committee regarding amending base scales of certain county positions ordinance number five will be referred to finance ordinance number six from the law committee regarding amending chapter 38.29 regulation of emergency alarms ordinance number six will be referred to executive supervisor distruty would you help me thank you mr vice chair and move to uh adjourn thank you supervisor distruty supervisor hoffman I will second that motion