 Welcome to Sheboygan County Government, working for you. My name's Adam Payne, co-host of this program with Chairman Mike Van der Steen, but you may have noticed he's not to my left. Today, we've got County Board Chairman Mike Van der Steen in the hot seat. Welcome, Mike. Good to be here, Adam. It's good to have you here. As you know, if you've been following this program or following your county government, we have 22 departments, about $130 million budget supporting nearly 1,000 employees and over 200 programs and services, a lot going on in Sheboygan County, and it requires effective leadership. And Mike has been the County Board Chairman now for one term, nearing the end of his first term. May well have a second, and certainly has a good track record to discuss. Mike, please begin by sharing a little bit about yourself and when you were first elected to the County Board. Well, I moved to Sheboygan about 1973. And after coming to the community, I got involved in some civic organizations. The JCs in particular was one that really helped me to get involved in the community. And through that, I got involved in several city committees. I ended up running for Alderman, served as an Alderman for the city of Sheboygan for four years, and then I decided to run for mayor. Now it was a six-way race, and I ended up being number three in that six-way race. So I took a year off and looked at where else I could get involved in the community. And I thought of going back to the city council, but the seat was held by a good friend of mine, Frank Walenta, who helped me in my campaign for mayor. So I didn't want to step on his toes. I wanted to have him have his chance to serve the people in that role as an Alderman. So I decided to run for County Board. And we're sitting here about 11 and a half years later. And I've had a great time being on the County Board for the term that I've been here. So move to the Sheboygan area in 1973. And your family, man, your wife, your race, two children here? Yeah, I met a local girl, Julie Bacchus, and we got married in 81. And we had two children, Robert and Katie, and they're off on their own now. Katie's in Boston, is a nurse in Boston, and my son's off for salesman down in Madison. Very good, very good. Of course, I've had the pleasure of meeting your family. I've got a wonderful family. And with the kids out of the nest, that gives you a little bit more time because it takes more time to be County Board Chair. One of the things I noticed right away, Mike, when you were elected County Board Chairman was you seemed to know everyone, the connections, the relationships that you've established over the years. And I imagine that's your work with JCs and on the Common Council, but it just amazed me how well connected you were to the community. Well, it's not only the service clubs like JCs and Rotary, which I've been participated in, but you get asked to serve on boards. I served nine years on the Big Brothers Board, 12 years on the Y Board of Governors. And in many other small committees and things like that, I've been involved in the Sheboygan Business Improvement District as a board member and a participant because I operate a business down there and manage DuBois formal wear downtown Sheboygan. And that's what really brought me to town is to open that store and run that business. So it's just been a fun time over the years, just finding myself in a great town like Sheboygan and really digging in and becoming a part of this community. Well, today we're gonna, as you know, talk predominantly about the rules and responsibilities of County Board Supervisors and what it takes and what's all involved. And I think most people, frankly, I don't even think know who their County Board Supervisor is, sadly. If you're engaged with County Government or follow this program or your local politics, you certainly know, but a lot of people don't. And a lot of people, I think, are gonna learn perhaps for the first time today just what's involved. What, in a nutshell, is the role and responsibility of a County Board Supervisor? Well, we represent on average around 3,000 people in the districts that we're elected from. And a County Board Supervisor serves as a member of a County Board of 34, but you'll serve on at least one individual committee. And your committee is gonna be running some functions of County Government. See, if it's the law committee, you're gonna be dealing with the Sheriff's Department, the jails. You're gonna be dealing with the clerk of courts, the Jim Grimm Grass Department. Child support. Child support. And so you're gonna wrap yourself around all those issues and try to set policy for County Government in those areas. So you have one of nine different committees that you might serve on. And then you'll come together to vote on things that are coming out of those other eight committees, as well as your own. And you sit down once a month as a County Board. So 34 County Board Supervisors. Correct. Nine standing committees. How does one get on the law committee versus the finance committee? How does that process work? Well, what we do every year is we ask people to list their priorities for their committee assignments. We ask them to make a first, second, and third choice. Last year when we made the committee assignments, everybody got either their first or second choice. And I think only one person on the board got their third choice. So it worked out quite well. And we try to give people something that they're really interested in working on. We don't wanna put them on a committee where they're just lost and don't wanna participate. I don't know, I got my third choice my first year on the County Board and I ended up on the Healthcare Centers Committee. And I ended up serving on that committee for 10 years and being chairman of it for the last four, before becoming chairman of the County Board. Now, again, 34 board members, nine standing committees. County Board meets once a month. Standing committees perhaps once or twice a month. So that gives you a sense of how much time is involved. But there's also time in doing homework and really learning about the issues you need to vote on. You briefly touched on some of these standing committees, the law committee, but there's, as you know, health and human services, finance, and exec is a very important committee. Of course, you chair exec. What is the executive committee? How are they selected? What's their role? Well, the executive committee deals with a lot more policy issues, some of the things that finance deals with, but it's different than the other committees because rather than being appointed, they're elected by the body. So the chairman and the vice chairman serve and then we elect three members from the remainder of the County Board Supervisors to serve on that committee. So it's a little different selection process. On the other committees, the people are appointed. It's approved by the County Board. And then they all meet independently to decide on their own chairman who's gonna be serving. Now, there is a County Board rule that if there's two members or more, just up to two members that can't make a meeting before four o'clock, then that meeting has to be scheduled at four o'clock or later. So we're trying to invite people in that are working on a regular basis and not just retirees or people that have more time on their hands to participate in the County Board. And this last year, we had a loss of one of our members who moved out of the area and we're real fortunate to have four great candidates that were applying for the job from the 18th district, roughly the area around Kohler. And Mick Anick received that appointment and has been serving for the last eight months or so and been doing a fine job. He's been doing a great job. And that leads me nicely into the next question. How long is the term and when's the next election? Well, the term is gonna be for two years and we reelect the entire County Board every two years. The elections always occur in April or the even years. So that's an easy way to remember it. As you think back on, what, about 11 and a half years on the County Board and the last year and a half, almost two years now as County Board Chairman, what's changed from your point of view going from one of 34 to the chair and top elected official in the County? How has your role changed as a supervisor? Well, first of all, this year we had, or this term, we had quite a bit of turnover on the Board. We had a number of people who had served for decades who left the County Board and we had nine new people elected to serve the County Board. So first of all, we had to get those people acclimated and involved. We had an orientation session forum, which we hold at the beginning of every session. We also have a leadership forum. We encourage new members especially to go to our WCA conference, which is coming up in September and a number of them have taken advantage of that opportunity as well as some of our Board committee chairman. And so there's a host of opportunities for the people to get some good training and background so that they can fit into the roles as a County Board Chairman or a County Board member. And personally, as just you reflect on your own experience and your involvement the last eight, 10 years versus the last year and a half as chairman, what additional responsibilities have you had to take on? Well, personally, I've been getting much more involved in some policy issues, directions that we're gonna take on certain issues and working with the committee chairman to resolve some of those things that do come before the Board, lot more in the budget process, the planning process. You know, Adam, you've done a great job since you've been here and I think that two years before you arrived, we have 15% increases in our tax levy and we've really brought that into control and a lot of it's been the coordination that you've provided, but it's good to have a lot of input into that process but having one person like yourself as a County Administrator, the County Administrative Coordinator and the roles that you've served has really helped to tie everything together and have everybody answering to one person and that's been a great effort that you've led. Well, thank you, Mike. And that's very kind of you and obviously the relationship with the chairman and the executive committee and frankly our full board is real important. We've got a great team in place here. You mentioned leadership when it comes to policy development, committee assignments, the budget development, all very, very important areas that you provide a leadership role were the only County in the state that delivered two consecutive years of property tax relief. I know you and I both take pride in that. Yeah, I think we ought to give Bill Gehring some credit too. Bill was the chairman the first year that came into place and that was largely because we had sold Sunny Ridge that created the opportunity for us to deliver that property tax relief and Bill really wanted to hit a home run and be able to provide that for people and live up to the promises that we made when we said that closing Sunny Ridge would make a financial difference for their pocketbooks. That's been a great success story and we've had other success stories. Please touch on some of your recent accomplishments and things that you specifically have gone after the last year and a half. Well, right after the election and starting out as the county board chairman, I asked that these, not only our county board meetings but these TV8 segments be put on our county website. Not everybody had the cable company that allowed them to watch it. Now anybody can go to our website and see these programs. I felt it was good for communication and to get the word out to the entire county. In addition to that, we started out with an effort to combine our purchasing agent with the city of Sheboygan. We've now done that. We've survived a six months trial period and now both board, the county board and the city of Sheboygan are in the process of approving a one year extension of that and would be subsequently approved for one year extensions every year. But that has helped to bring the two bodies a little bit closer together to work on other areas too and burning continues to look for not only savings and buying power that we can get but also ways that we can work together and provide more property tax savings for our constituents. I know another area that you initiated right away was you wanted to see another round of our program evaluation and prioritization process. We're one of the few units of government that have done that and now we've, under your leadership, done it twice. How has that process worked? Well, this year we divided it up. The first year we did all programs and this year we just took a look and focused on the ones that are discretionary, ones that we really have a chance to say yes or no to and we've gone through that process and we've broken it up so that every committee has the list and their priorities within their particular area of purview and I think as we go into the budget process now we've got a good tool to use in helping us make some of our decisions because we've prioritized or ranked all these programs and the ranking was done by largely the committee chairman so we have even distribution of, I guess, stakeholders on that group that we put together. We've had a good run, we've got a good team but as you all know, our challenges just seems to heighten every year and as you look down the road, what do you see as some of the bigger challenges facing Sheboygan County? Well, first of all, there's the economic situation. We're having a lot of companies that are laying off employees, some that are picking up and moving to other areas or closing that's really distressing to see that. We're asking people to pay the same taxes as last year in many cases, they just don't have the ability to do that and that's hard so we're trying to hold the line in the budget process to keep that as minimal of an increase as possible for our constituents. Some of the other challenges we have are challenges that the state gives us. They've had a very tough budget process and they've got a world of hurt in their budget and we have to absorb some of that. The economic downturn in our pension plans, we have to pick up the difference in that pension plan by our contracts with our employees. We're in the process of renewing a number of our contracts with employees and we're looking at at least 2% increases for the coming year. So it's gonna be difficult to absorb those and it's hard to be in a position. We had a real long discussion on the county board just to approve those 2% raises but unfortunately we're covered by the meat arbolat and we don't have much of a choice because if we can't reach an agreement then it goes to arbitration and we could get stuck being a much higher rate of increase to the employees. So we have some great employees but the process doesn't always allow you to do what's maybe best but we've got to live with it and make it work. You mentioned economic development and as you know we're both on the same page with the need for greater leadership by Sheboygan County in enhancing economic development opportunities and investing in our infrastructure and doing other things to create more jobs here. We both have heard all sorts of support and accolades for the county getting more engaged. And one of our more recent success stories that folks certainly have heard about if they've read the paper or have been following it is Morgan aircraft. What's happened with Morgan aircraft? What's the status of Morgan aircraft? Well Morgan aircraft is a homegrown business that started in Usberg and they've got a need concept for a vertical takeoff plane. They've proved the concept in some scale models and now with the lease that they have with Sheboygan County they're gonna be building a hanger in an office space so that they can put their first full scale models into production and get the approvals that they need for this plane. If they're successful with all those steps Sheboygan County has a chance to have 13 acres of land under one roof as a aircraft manufacturing facility here in Sheboygan County. Just a unique really huge opportunity and we've done everything we can to work with Brian Morgan and the team that he's assembled at Morgan aircraft to make this happen. Now, we've made some improvements out at the airport. We'll be putting not only site preparations into the project but a high capacity well in a reservoir. And if you look at the downside for Sheboygan County we're probably putting infrastructure into our airport many years before we needed to but in light of the economic problems we've had there's a lot of communities that would just kill for the opportunity to bring in a business like this. And so it's not a completely done deal but we've had the first significant step taken by both parties to work together in the development of their aircraft manufacturing facility at the Sheboygan County airport. We're also working with the community at large. LTC is working on a program to train people and the technologies that they're gonna need to be workers out at Morgan aircraft. So it's been a community wide effort. All the people that are all the communities or municipalities that are part of the sewer system agreement they had to agree to certain things. So everybody's played a role in the city of Sheboygan and allowing us to connect to the sewer and allow them to get water. You know it's been a group effort. If you ever sense for a moment that your County Board Chairman wasn't engaged well I think you got a different feel for it right there. It almost sounds like you get in the airplane and fly it. Chairman Van der Steen has been very engaged with the entire process. We've inked a 50 year lease now with Morgan aircraft and really inked that before they're locked in and have the final financing package they need to break ground. They're very close. We're very encouraged and as Mike mentioned we're not building a bridge to nowhere. If Morgan aircraft is not successful we're all that much more ready for the next opportunity that comes along. So it's a good thing and along with Mike I wanna give kudos to the Transportation Committee and Mark Winkle who's Chairman of the Transportation Committee our Airport Director Chuck Mayer, our Highway Commissioner Greg Schnell certainly the city, the town. As you said so many people were involved pulling together to make this happen. That's right. And then going on with other economic issues you know we played a role or attempted to in the Thomas Industries situation but there we saw an industry decide to leave the community that was hard to take. And to that end we are currently working with LTC and the city of Sheboygan and the Sheboygan Development Corporation now the Sheboygan Economic Development Corporation to seek a grant to establish a business incubator in the city. Right now the building that we're looking at is the old polar wear building. If we're successful in getting that grant we hope to use that as a way to grow some more industries that they could become a Thomas Industries in the future. But we've got to assist that effort. So pretty broad overview but one that I hope gives our viewers a better appreciation for all the areas that a county board supervisor can get involved in. I mean if you have a passion or interest in public service I think one of the wonderful things about being a county board supervisor is whether it's economic development or health and human services or law enforcement you name it. There's an area that you can contribute and you can make better things happen in your community. You've touched on the time involved, the number of meetings, the committees provided a nice high end overview but if people want to learn more about what it takes to become a county board supervisor or frankly if they just want to provide input on our budget process and have ideas on how we can do things better what steps should they take, what would you suggest? Well, first of all it's good to get to know the entity a little bit and there's a couple of ways you can do that. You can start out by attending any committee meeting that you want to. They're listed on a regular basis as in our website and sometimes in the newspaper that that would be a way to begin to understand what happens in county government. For me when I was gonna take that step I went to many of the finance committee meetings that time they met at eight o'clock in the morning and worked for me to make those meetings and I knew from my experience at the city that there's a lot of important things that go through the finance committee and gave me a way to start getting in touch with different issues. So you might look at that. The other opportunity is occasionally we'll be looking for people to serve on a committee. We have a committee of people that are working on a five year plan for the library system and occasionally there's other committees that are appointments that are available and express your interest in that. That's a nice, easy way to get a little bit of participation in, get to know who some of the players are. There's a Friends of the Marsh Committee. There's different opportunities like that. And then to start to come to some of the county board meetings. And like Adam mentioned, we will be having a hearing for the budget and we'll be really interested in the input that people can provide. Normally that's a very short hearing session and it would be great if we had more input from people to assist the supervisors in that. But those are some baby steps that you can use to try to evaluate and become familiar with the county operation. And then if you feel confident you can take out your nomination papers. Those will be available around the end of November and you have all of December and the first couple days of January to circulate those and get 50 signatures. And then the elections will be on the first Tuesday in April. Very good. Now if someone is thinking, hmm, I have some interest in that but not real certain who my county board supervisor is or the district that I fall in, how can they get more information on that? Well, they can always call the clerk's office or they can go to our website. There's some great detail in there and you can see who has served in that position and you can check their track record, their voting record will show up on their page and you can also see the layout of the district and make your decision maybe from that. We only have a few more minutes remaining but you just made a very important comment about the budget. I think it's arguably the most important policy document that the county board passes because without the budget the programs and services don't get implemented. You're in the midst right now of developing the 2010 budget. It'll be voted on in early November, finalized in early November. This program's gonna be broadcast I think perhaps in late September or through October. If someone has again ideas on a program or service that they've participated in, they've observed, best way to provide that input, I assume first and foremost would be contacting their county elected supervisor. Sure, that would be number one. They can always contact you or I at the administrative offices up at Sheboygan County. And just bring those ideas forward. You don't have to see the public eye but we're looking for those ideas. And if you have something you think we should look at we'd love to take a look at it and see if it has merit. As you all know, generally speaking we always have that competing demand or pressure of maintaining or enhancing programs and services or adding new programs and services. Yet people want their property taxes kept in check and certainly I can empathize with that position. So we're striving to do both. It's not easy, particularly when we've seen literally billion dollar deficits at the state level that have fallen down to the county level to really problem solve and deal with. So if you do have ideas on our programs and services particularly how we can be more efficient or effective we certainly need to hear those ideas. And we're always asking our staff to do more as well. And they have, we've got a good team in place as was mentioned. No budget's easy but this budget because of the other challenges we've had with the state pulling away a lot of the funds, some of the money that we've got to make up in the pension funds has been one of the most difficult that I've ever seen in the 12 years that I've been involved. It's not gonna be a pretty one when it's done and we are gonna have some layoffs and there will probably be some services that are cut and hopefully there's things that people can live without. So to summarize it with one question as you think about your tenure as county board supervisor and my hope is and I'm sure yours is that it's gonna continue. What do you find most rewarding about being a county board supervisor? Well, it's just being involved in the process. I mean, people can complain about their tax bill but it takes a different type of attitude if you dig in and look at everything that they're doing and then try to really cut out something that everybody can live without. I really enjoy the process of collaboration and working with people. Adam, you've been a great collaborator in the years that we've spent together in the office and I've been serving as chairman and even prior to that. I've always looked for things that we can bring together and I think we've stepped forward and initiated some things with the city of Sheboygan. At least we're saving half of Bernie Romer's salary as a purchasing agent this coming year and we're looking for other opportunities to again try to get more out of less and make things work as efficiently as we can. Well, I appreciate your time today and jumping in the hot seat at short notice and thank you for joining us today and I hope that you picked something up from the presentation today and learn a little bit more about your county government and the roles and responsibilities of board members. A lot of good people with good hearts and intentions with a little pay trying to make this community a better place and as we've discussed and I hope as you have observed we've got a pretty good track record in place and we intend to continue it. So please don't hesitate to get involved or if you want to contact chairman Van der Steen or your county board supervisor or myself let us know what your ideas are or constructive criticism, we always welcome that. Next month we're gonna have our planning director with us. Mr. Jim Holbert, perhaps a member or two of his department a lot going on in the planning office as there's always a lot going on in Sheboygan County and I just like to close by saying personally just how proud I am to work for Sheboygan County and people like chairman Mike Van der Steen and our board, we have a good team in place. Thanks for supporting it, thanks for joining us today.