 Welcome to Sheboygan County Government, working for you. My name's Adam Payne, County Administrator and co-chair of this program with Chairman Roger Distrudi. And believe it or not, it's been 14 years now that I've been Sheboygan County Administrator. And it's amazing how the time's flown. Last month, if you participated, you learned more about Chairman Roger Distrudi and his track record and years of service as a Sheboygan County Board Supervisor and now County Board Chair. This week or this month, Roger's turning the tables and I'm on the other side and in the hot seat and he's gonna be asking me the question so you can learn a little bit more about myself and a little more about the history of Sheboygan County the last 14 years. So with that, I'll turn it over to you, boss. Thank you, Adam. It's amazing how time flies in the last years since I was on the Executive Committee for my first 10 years on the Executive Committee when we hired you. Why don't you tell the viewers a little bit about that experience and what led you to the job and the hiring process at that time and were you even nervous at that time? Well, it feels like I'm on that interview table now. 14 years ago when I was asked to come in and interview with you and the four other members of the Executive Committee, I was as green as green could be. I had a Bachelor of Arts in Communications from UW-Madison, a Master's Degree from UW-Madison and I had worked at the Department of Ag, Trade and Consumer Protection for five years and then worked for a nonprofit organization called the Wisconsin Land and Water Conservation Association. So that position in particular with the Land and Water Conservation Association gave me the opportunity to work with all 72 county boards but specifically their land conservation committees. So I had a feel for county government and an appreciation for the work that county government does but certainly was green when it came to understanding the overall roles and responsibilities of what county government does. So again, I had the educational background that got my foot in the door. I also have roots from this area that made it real meaningful for me because my parents, my grandparents and in some cases my great grandparents were all born and raised in Sheboygan County. My grandmother, Toggy, who passed away a couple years ago, she had a century farm in Sheboygan Falls and my dad's parents lived in Sheboygan Falls and so I was fortunate from ages eight to 18 to work on my grandmother's farm and get a feel for this community but I can't tell you how meaningful it was for me to get an opportunity to interview and possibly come back to the community that my parents and grandparents were born and raised in. And then finally, a little bit about my family. My wife is my high school sweetheart. We both went to UW-Manusen together. She's a registered nurse, works here for Aurora and we have three children, now 20, 18 and 16 which blows me away just to say that because when I started, of course, they were all very young. And again, it was a wonderful opportunity for me to sit across the table from you and other members of the board and I was so pleased to get the opportunity to be hired. Oh, good and as many of us know, it's a great place to raise a family and that was true for you too. Why don't you tell us a little bit about your primary roles and responsibilities and how things have changed over the years since you started? Most counties have a county executive or a county administrator or a county administrative coordinator and that, as you know, is the chief administrative officer. So when I was hired 14 years ago, you hired me to be the county administrative coordinator and as the chief administrator, administrative officer, I was responsible for overseeing all management operations of the county. At that time, we had 25 departments, 1350 employees, over 200 programs and services and my role was to help pull the budget, annual budget together to co-supervised department heads because it was a shared responsibility between the committee and myself at that time and recommend ordinances, resolutions to the county board. Really, I'm the right hand of the county board. It's my job to implement the policies that the county board establishes and work with our team to get things done. In 2006, you and members of the executive committee and ultimately the full county board recommended promoting me from county administrative coordinator to county administrator and really the key changes involved with that was it gave me a little more authority. Statutorily, I'm responsible for developing a budget and leading the budget process, presenting one to the county board and now I have direct hire and fire authority of the department heads. But from a standpoint of how I operate in my leadership style, as you know and Chairman Van der Steen before you and Bill Gehring before him, I have a very collaborative approach where I try to work with our department heads and certainly our county board as a team and together we help make good things happen. And that's great because that collaborative vision and I think gets everyone pulling together and that's why for the most part things run pretty smooth and we're very grateful for your help in that. Maybe if you could give us a big overall picture of all of the organizations that the county is responsible for. For instance, we're in a building that she's building county taxpayers own. Yeah, that's one of the great things about working for county government or being a county administrator or county board supervisors, there's so much that goes on here. I mean, most people just don't have an appreciation for the breadth of responsibility that county government has. When I started, when you first interviewed me 14 years ago, I didn't fully appreciate that county government included a sheriff's department, an airport, a health and human services department, three nursing homes, land and water conservation, planning, clerk of courts, county clerk, register of deeds, a coroner. Literally there were over 20 departments at that time and it's just incredible how much county government is responsible for and how important it is to a community. I think everyone recognizes how important law enforcement is and making sure that our communities are safe and everyone certainly recognizes how important a good transportation system is. And as you know, we have a highway department and responsible for maintaining our roads in the winter and being sure they're maintained and improved in the summer months. So the breadth of county government and what we, and I mean we all get involved in is really important for a community. Particularly our health and human services department and taking care of the neediest of the needy in our community either. So it is a pleasure being county administrator because you are always learning about different areas and always in a position to problem solve and leave things better than you found them. When you first started 14 years ago, what were some of the main and key challenges at that time? Well I can recall pretty clearly when you and at the time Dan Lemme you interviewed me and I think Jim Gilligan and Bill Jens were on that executive committee as well and Bill Gehring I think that was the five members. And at that time there was two predominant concerns expressed to me. One was we've got to get our property tax levy in check. And these are all good people with conservative type mindsets but literally the two years before I was hired the county board had two consecutive increases in the property tax levy in the range of 15%. Two years 15% increases which is unheard of. I mean it may have been a little bit more common back then but in our last decade it's unheard of. So the board was looking for someone to provide a leadership role with the budget process and help again achieve their goal of holding the line and working with department heads effectively to deliver a more modest budget. And one that again wouldn't have those kinds of increases. The second area that the executive committee asked me a lot about was nursing home operations. And at that time and as many of our viewers may recall we had three nursing homes owned and operated by Sheboygan County. The Comprehensive Healthcare Center, Sunny Ridge and Rocky Null. And in total we had over 700 beds. We had more beds than any other county in the state and we were owning and operating more nursing homes than any other county in the state. So one of the other challenges that the executive committee asked me about was what do we do to get our arms around our nursing home operations and reduce our scope and streamline so we can afford to be in this business. And so that was a key challenge. So really out of the gate those were the two. Getting our property tax levy in check and tackling the nursing home operations to make sure that we could afford to continue to stay in the business. And after we did some stabilizing what steps did we take to keep that levy on a par where we wanted it to be? Well I'm very proud of this and I know you are and I know the board as a whole is and it's not rocket science. It truly isn't. Through collaboration and teamwork my second year on the job so 13 years ago after getting a feel for the organization and how our budget worked and at that time all the departments really worked as separate silos and they were all kind of preparing their own budgets and department heads were evaluating themselves and we really strove to pull everyone together and I went to the board. I went to the county board chair and the executive committee and the finance committee and ultimately the board and said what's your goal? What do you wanna achieve? Are we gonna hold the line with the property tax levy? Are we willing to increase it, reduce it? What are we gonna do? And the board would establish a goal and then I'd work with the department heads to deliver and the way we would deliver is we would develop targets for every single department that they would have to develop a budget and achieve that target that would help us ultimately achieve the goal that the county board established. And in the first year or two, it wasn't the smoothest process. It was new to the department heads and new to the board and out of the gates sometimes the department head would come to me and they wouldn't have hit that target and I'd say thank you but you need to come on back but as the years went on, it is now such a well-oiled machine. Every year we make improvements, every year we refine the process but everyone knows what's expected of them. The board establishes the goal, the finance director and I through the support of the finance committee and you and the executive committee establish the targets. Department heads know they're expected to achieve those targets and the results are such that nine of the last 12 years the county board reduced the property tax rate, nine of 12 years and four of the last six years the county board has reduced the property tax levy and chairman Roger Distruity and former chairman Mike Van der Steen and the county board is the only county board in this state that has reduced property taxes for the last six years. So we've done all right. We sure have. I think some of the things that I recall is that helped us get to that point. You mentioned that we were working in silos. I think sometimes the committee and the county board committees were working in silos. And I think one thing that was very helpful that you and the executive committee initiated at that time was the leadership forum where we all could get together and talk about those things, the big picture and get away from that my committee and this is what we should do. Well, there's other things that are important and along with that the Pepsi committee if you want to explain that a bit I think that was very helpful. Excellent, excellent point and good memory. When I started right away I asked board members, department heads, well what's our mission? What's our vision? What are our guiding principles? We didn't have any. So the county board got together for an annual leadership forum and established a mission statement and a vision statement and guiding principles all of which we've had since and are plastered all over our buildings throughout the county. We've had an annual leadership forum every single year since where the board gets together for nearly a full day and talks about our fiscal outlook and the challenges ahead and how we work together to address them. So that's been very helpful. As you said, the program evaluation and prioritization process. I get a kick out of people in government. I don't care what level, state, federal, local level who talk about when they run for office well, where you've got to make changes. We've got to cut programs. We've got to cut the fat. You hear all this rhetoric all the time but how many people, how many units of government at any level have actually gone through the heavy lifting and taken a look at every program and service they have and evaluated them and prioritized them. Very, very few. And to the credit of the Sheboygan County Board and our department heads, we haven't done it now once but twice. And it wasn't our idea. Actually it was one of the good things about attending professional conferences and interacting with your peers. There was an administrator in Eau Claire County and Marathon County. They had gone through this process. We learned how they did it. We improved upon their process. And I think it was in 2005 and 2009. I lose track of time but for two consecutive years now we have, or two times now we have looked at every program and service we have. We've evaluated them. We've ranked them. And that's been a good tool for the County Board and department heads to use when we have limited resources. What can we afford? What can't we afford? What are the priorities? And what was interesting about that process is you go through that and at first everyone's like, well I can't establish priorities. All these programs are important. All these services are important. Well we know that's not the truth. Not everything is created equal. And there are priorities whether it's law enforcement or health and human services or taking care of our infrastructure. And in some cases the Board has made some tough decisions including privatizing Sunny Ridge in order to hold the line on property taxes and be able to sustain critical programs and services that this community relies on. And from time to time we look back at that and we always have that prioritization list to look at when we do have to make some of those hard decisions. And then there's mandated and unmandated programs that pretty well decides if it has to be in there or not from federal or state standards. You mentioned healthcare centers. That was a very emotional time and a lot of people were involved with that. And would you give us a little snapshot on the process of from three down to one now and how did we manage that? What was your view on that? We could do a whole program on just this discussion. I can recall my dearly departed grandmother, Bernice Taghi, said to me when I was interviewing with you 14 years ago, why would you want that job? All they ever do is talk about the nursing homes and nothing ever seems to get done and it was very controversial, very emotional. And to try to boil it all down to a snapshot we had three nursing homes and the oldest was the Comprehensive Health Care Center. And I mean old to the point where the standards today that are expected in a nursing home facility, the rooms for example at the Comprehensive Health Care Center were about the size of closets when you look at today's standards and the codes. It was a grand old building. It served a lot of people. At one point it was an active farm which allowed the residents there to work and grow some of their own food, what have you. But ultimately it aged, it no longer met code. It was a breaking down. And we decided, and when I say we, the board ultimately that we were gonna close that facility and put an addition on it, Rocky Knoll. And for the most part that decision, I mean it was emotionally charged but I think most people recognized yes, this building, this facility, it served its time and it's time for a new state of the art facility and that's what we put on at Rocky Knoll. Ironically, within a couple years of building that $10 million addition at Rocky Knoll and I think that was back in 2002, 2003. Sounds about right. The state changed the laws or the rules of the game and said now we want more people that generally were always committed to institutions to have opportunities to be at home, to be served more in the community. And so a number of other opportunities presented themselves were now, not only was comprehensive healthcare center not needed, even our addition at Rocky Knoll wasn't needed to the extent it was anymore because people were being served in the community. So now we use that space for rehabilitation and other critical care nursing home needs at Rocky Knoll. Fast forward another three, four years, we get to 2007, 2006, 2007 and the county board is besides themselves because the property tax levy to subsidize our nursing homes went from about a million dollars to $6.1 million. And the board is thinking to themselves, we like owning and operating Sunny Ridge and Rocky Knoll but our census continues to go down. People are choosing other alternatives, assisted living, living at home longer, whatever it may be. So we don't have the demand for our service and the subsidy to operate these facilities is going through the roof. So we had public hearings, informational sessions, put together an ad hoc committee to study it. And again, long story short, after a lot of emotional appeal and concern, the board in 2007 chose to privatize Sunny Ridge. It is still operating as a nursing home today, as you know, but that reduced the cost associated with nursing homes significantly. And today, we have one facility in Rocky Knoll, beautiful facility in Plymouth. It serves a diversity of individuals and the subsidy associated with it is under a million dollars. So we went from 6.1 million a year to under a million a year and that has allowed us to stay in this business. Cause a lot of people may not be aware of it but county government does not need to be in the business of owning and operating a nursing home. Most counties don't, but there's a lot of history here and certainly there's a lot of care in this community. And if we can continue to own and operate Rocky Knoll and afford it, if we can afford to do so and provide good quality care, our hope is we can do so for a lot of years to come. I know that was certainly one of our biggest challenges over the years. What do you see the next big challenge or some of the things that are creeping up that we have to tackle in the next few years? Well, as we know, we're in the people business and we're in the problem solving business and there's always new challenges ahead of us and probably right now, one of the key challenges for Sheboygan County government like many is holding the line, maintaining the critical programs and services that we're responsible to provide. As you alluded to earlier, most of the programs we administer were statutorily required or mandated to do so. We're mandated to provide good law enforcement. We're mandated to have a circuit court system. We're mandated to provide a clerk of courts. We're mandated to have a register of deeds. Many of the programs that Health and Human Services for the needy were required to provide by the state. That's all fine and good. Good programs, good services, it's important to our community. But what hasn't been so fine and good is over the years, the state has reduced their funding to county governments. And as they've done that, we've tightened our belt, we've streamlined, we've consolidated, we've privatized, and we're getting to a point in our organization where there's not a lot more low hanging fruit. Most of what we're doing now, I think the public is really expecting us to continue to do and continue to do well. So our challenge continues to be we have to continue to gain efficiencies, work smarter, make tough decisions about what we can afford to do and can't afford to do. But the revenue side of the equation is becoming more challenging and it's predominantly becoming more challenging because right now the state has a one size fits all property tax levy cap on all units of government, on all counties. And though you and I and most board members relish the challenge to hold the line on property taxes and we've got the track record to prove it, we have delivered, we have been frugal. What's ironic is because we've been frugal, we're now almost being penalized for that because we're not able to raise property taxes beyond net new construction. So the short answer to your question is our key challenge right now and in the years ahead is how do we maintain our roads and infrastructure, provide law enforcement, provide health and human service programs to the neediest of the needy when essentially our revenue to do so is been held flat or continues to go down. Big challenge. I know the county board, the makeup of the county board members has changed over the years and actually it's become more diverse. And yet there aren't a lot of challenges to some of those offices or any local office. Why do you think some of those, what are some of the reasons that's the case? It's a great question. I think part of the reason why the county board hasn't had a lot of competition is because they've got an outstanding track record. They're doing a good job. Tell you what, if I'm on the Sheboygan county board and someone's gonna run against me, I hope they've done their homework because the Sheboygan county board has a fiscal track record second to none and we are providing quality programs and services. So part of it may be someone is reluctant to run against a board member because they're doing a good job. But it's more than that. It's the fact that people don't want the scrutiny of being an elected official and the attention that comes with that. It takes time, dedication. You gotta do your homework. You really have to care. And though a lot of people care, I don't know if a lot of people have the dedication or time to put into running for office and what that requires. I mean, you and I both know full well when we have county board meetings or committee meetings, they're all open to the public. Everything's very transparent. Yet we have so few people participate at those public meetings. Predominantly, because they probably have better things to do or if it doesn't impact them directly, they're not worried about it. But we're very fortunate to have a very diverse county board and what I've seen over the last 14 years is it's gotten more diverse and from my standpoint, I think our board right now is strong as I remember it during my tenure. It's a lot of very good, thoughtful, caring people. And I can tell you, if it wasn't, people, some viewers might be thinking, oh, he's throwing all this good smoke to his board. But if it wasn't a good caring group, I mean, as a whole, if it wasn't good caring people, I wouldn't wanna work here. I wanna work for people that care and wanna make their community a wonderful place and our board does that. We're all part-time supervisors and this isn't our full-time job. What have we done to try to make all the supervisors and the county board supervisors more successful? You mentioned earlier your annual leadership forum. I think that's a great opportunity for the board to spend a full day together, get to know one another a little better in a less formal environment than a county board meeting. They break bread together. We go through the programs and services. You have an orientation for new county board supervisors whenever a new supervisor is elected and we'll see maybe two to four out of 25 every two years. We go through that orientation with them and that's part of my job. I mean, not only are you a mentor to new board members or to your colleagues, but those board members rely on me and other department heads to help them be successful, get them the information they need, make sure that if constituents contact them and they need some follow-up that we get that done for them. And you mentioned a lot of things that we've done over the years in your 14 years of service. What do you think is the most rewarding thing that you have done during that time? For me, what drives me is working with good people to help make good things happen. We have so many good people working for Sheboygan County, whether they're on the county board or their staff at any level who really care about this community, who really care about the people in this community. And we have example after example, whether it's helping people in health and human services and individual that really needs a helping hand or the $100 million that we all help pull together to clean up and restore Sheboygan River and Harbor, that'll pay dividends for generations to come. But what drives me personally is I know I am surrounded by good people who care, who work hard and want to help make good things happen. And when I'm part of a team or whether I'm leading an effort or just part of a team or following through on something you want, when I'm part of a team that's striving to make good things happen, that gives me immense satisfaction and it makes me proud. And I'm proud to work for Sheboygan County. That's great to know. And I have the same feelings and we're all pulling together and I think we're doing the best that we can for Sheboygan County. And as you mentioned, I feel we have a good track record and a lot of things were very, you were very pivotal in making those happens that happen. And for the County Board and the taxpayers, I thank you for your service over the years. Thank you. And I could mention next month, our guest is Greg Schnell, the Highway Commissioner. And it's going to be very timely because it's getting close to the construction season. There are two seasons in Wisconsin, winter and construction. So we want to let the viewers know where some of those things will be happening in the county, not only on the county roads, but on some of the state roads that we travel. And we'll ask him some of those questions and the other inter-workings of the Sheboygan County Highway Department. And with that, thank you for being with us this time and looking forward to next week.