 I'd like to call the order the Tuesday October 20, 2020 meeting of the Sheboygan County Board. Are we in compliance with the open meeting law? Yes we are. The agenda was posted on October 16th at 2 30 p.m. Next item of business is the Pledge of Allegiance. Next is roll call. 23 supervisors present. Okay, next item is the approval of the September 15, 2020 Journal. Supervisor Procek. I move for approval of the journal as printed. Thank you, Supervisor Procek. Supervisor Obler. That motion. Thank you, Supervisor Obler. Is there any discussion? Okay, seeing no lights, please vote on approving the journal. The journal is approved unanimously. Next is the consideration of appointments by the chairperson. To Baylake Regional Planning Commission, Rebecca Clark. There's a new appointment and Edward Procek's reappointment. Supervisor Gehring. Mr. Chairman, I move to concur with your appointments. Thank you, Supervisor Gehring. Supervisor Hoffman. I would like to second that motion. Thank you, Supervisor Hoffman. Is there any discussion? There's no discussion. Please vote on the appointments. The appointments are approved unanimously. Next are presentations. First up, Brian Grunewald from Clifton Larson Allen with the 2019 Comprehensive Annual Financial Report. All right, I'm Brian Grunewald with Clifton Larson Allen. Thanks for having me here this evening. I feel like it's the first time I've been here under cover. So just want to take a minute and circle back. Focus on 2019 and the conclusion of 2019 with the discussion on the audit results. If anyone does have any questions, please feel free. To ask. Okay, this first slide, just want to give a brief recap or summary of the audit results. The first bullet point there, focusing on the audit of the basic financial statements. As you can see, that is an unmodified opinion. Essentially means that the financial statements, the Comprehensive Annual Financial Report, is complete and accurate and in accordance with our professional standards. The second bullet point there, focusing on the report on internal control over financial reporting. As a part of every audit process, we do consider the organization's internal control structure. For example, how they pay their bills, how they handle cash. Happy to report from an internal control standpoint. No issues, no concerns, no findings. And then the last item there, focusing on federal and state aid. From a federal and state aid perspective, again, no issues, no concerns. We do perform tests of compliance with regards to those dollars. We are not aware of any issues related to compliance. So certainly all good news in terms of the results of your audit. And then in addition to the audit review that CLA completes, you also voluntarily go through and have an additional review that is completed by the Government Finance Officers Association. So this is just an excerpt copy of the award that you received for excellence in financial reporting. This is for the year-ended 2018. You have applied for the 2019 award and based on our review, I fully expect that you will also receive that award for 2019, but just wanted to take a moment and congratulate you on receiving that award again. And this next slide just gives you an overview of the financial condition and certainly there's a lot of information here, but there's a lot of positive information when you think of the financial results of the county. The first bullet point there is focusing on your fund balance or your equity reserves on this. You do have a fund balance policy. I'll talk more about that in a minute. From a fund balance perspective, you continue to be in real strong financial condition in terms of how you manage and monitor those funds. Then just wanted to give you a brief recap here from Rocky Noel's perspective, whether you look at their net position or their equity, you had an increase in that of 653,000. You can also step back and look at their cash balances. Your cash balances did increase by over a million dollars. Also certainly a strong year for Rocky Noel. From a highway's perspective, there too you also see increases in your net position or your equity reserves of 2.6 million. And then another increase in your working capital. I do have a slide on that as well. Your working capital is looking at your current assets, things like cash in addition to your accounts receivable, what people owe you, versus what you owe others in terms of outstanding bills. That increased by 682,000 dollars. Your employee benefits insurance internal service fund, that did decrease the net position, the equity as well as your working capital did decrease. But that is consistent with your plan and your budget. And then the last two bullet points are just taking a step back and looking at general obligation that again, keep in mind this is as of 1231.19. I know there's been some changes or will be changes in 2020. But as of the end of 2019, outstanding general obligation debt balance of 30.2 million from a statutory reporting perspective, certainly very low in comparison to that statutory reporting limit. Your outstanding debt at the end of 2019 represented about 5.9% of that statutory debt limit. And then I also like to look at repayments. How quickly are you repaying principal? The last bullet point there is focusing on your repayment of principal over the next five years. Again, this is as of the agreements and places of 1231.19 you were scheduled to repay 78% of the outstanding principal balance. So a lot of positive financial information there. Then I just want to take a step back and focus on your fund balance and this is looking just at your general fund. I always like to look at trends in your history and clearly you can see in the graph there's a lot of information, but from an overall fund balance dollars perspective you can see a lot of consistency from 2017, 18 and 19. You've been in the 21.5 to 21.3 million in terms of your overall fund balance. The chart at the bottom shows you those balances by the different categories that we use to account for those dollars. And there is additional information or detail on pages 69 to 71 of your comprehensive anti-financial report if you do want to look at the details of that further. The one that I just want to focus on is that unassigned category that's the amount that's available for working capital and contingency reserves. You can see the fluctuation there you were at 18.6 million back in 2015 approximately 18.5 at the end of 2018 and then at 17.9 at the end of 2019. I'm going through this pretty quickly if anyone has any questions feel free to ask. So then this slide is just honing in on that unassigned category. So the county's policy is geared towards that unassigned balance how much do you have in comparison to the expenditure budget and the dollars flowing through that from an expenditure standpoint. From a policy perspective you can see the minimum and maximum defined as 30% and 15%. The red line is your actual experience for the last several years. When I look at this I think it's interesting that your actual experience I mean you're staying pretty close to the middle of your policy at the end of 2019 you're at 21%. And clearly when that policy was evaluated and designed it was meant to be a benchmark in terms of where the county fund balance wants to be you're right in line with your policy and doing a great job of managing where you're at. Then I just wanted to give you a little more history here so here we're moving on to Rocky Noel and again I mentioned working capital before this was looking at current assets versus current liabilities. When you look at this you can see the steady growth in the working capital over the last five years from 2018 to 2019 that did increase over a million dollars certainly another positive financial indicator. On that summary slide I talked about your net position as well as your past all three of these items are moving in a positive direction. And here we're moving on to the highway department again focusing on that working capital and here too as well I mean you can see the growth you can see the growth but I also like to focus on how much do you have when you step back and look at a working capital amount of 4.8 million again certainly strong from a county highway department's perspective you're ending cash balance at the end of 2019 just under 2.2 million. And here we move into the employee benefits fund again focusing on your working capital you can see the decreases for the last few years 17, 18, 19 again that's all in accordance with your budget and your plan again circling back to 2019 I know for 2020 you did budgeted use of just over a million dollars for that as well from a cash perspective equity perspective at the end of 2019 your cash balance was 7.23 million at just over 6 million so certainly strong reserves there and then I just have a couple slides that I wanted to present some dead information and again I understand this is changing here so this is as of 12.319 just gives you a snapshot of the history of what your outstanding balances have been back in 2015 you had approximately 38.6 million you carry that across at the end of 2018 approximately 36.8 and at the end of 2019 you carry that across 30.2 million dollars and one way that I always like to look at debt is when you look at the repayment of that what are your debt service your principal and interest expenses and how does that relate to the county's budget so as a percentage of your non-capital expenditures you can see that the blue line here you've been in the 10 9 to 10% range in terms of your debt service as a percentage of those non-capital expenditures ended 2019 at 9% from a benchmarking perspective, bond rating agencies certainly look at this their common benchmark is the red line there that 20% so clearly you're well below that and then as part of the audit process I mean the governmental accounting standard board has been busy they continue to be busy they did defer or extend the implementation dates of several standards so there's several more that are out there we will work closely with the county to make sure that all of those standards are properly implemented as we move forward and I know I went through that pretty quickly if anyone does have any questions that Tiffany would entertain you know again in closing you're doing things the right way from a budget perspective from a compliance perspective and when you step back and look at those financial results again I know I went through that very quickly but you're extremely positive and when you step back and look at county government one of the challenges is all the different types of activities that you have meaning your general fund, your highway your human service fund there's certainly a lot of positive financial information when I step back and look at the county as a whole any thoughts, questions, concerns? there's no questions thank you very much okay sounds good thank you so I was asked to give update plans and preparations for election day Adam and Vern asked and which I'm more than welcome to share one of the things that we've been working on is training for poll workers and I do chief inspector training baseline chief inspector training and then the municipal clerks do actual poll worker training for their needs at the polling locations because each clerk has different sites the city has the city has eight polling sites so they have different training needs than say the town of Russell which just has their their small town hall so that's been that is ongoing throughout the years as needed for the different poll workers to meet the need one need that came up town of Greenbush needed a couple two to three poll workers for November and that need was splashed out there to a lot of groups and that need has been filled thankfully the minimum on election day just so if you were ever asking which you probably never did the minimum poll workers needed on election day is three so you can open the polls they always typically have twice that they have different shifts throughout the day but the clerks do a great job at keeping that number up there so since April that hit everyone as you know at this level but the municipal clerks and the municipal boards to try to get enough PPEs cleaning supplies and what not in very short order the elections commission through the state was able to provide a lot so since April a lot of fine tuning took place at the municipalities gearing up for August which was a great practice run if you will for what we're going to see in November and plex glass partitions similar to what we have here a lot of PPE cleaning sanitation supplies that came from the state, masks, gloves hand sanitizers sanitizing wipes sanitizing spray bottles paper tolling, alcohol wipes additional signage for the distancing and what not pens, everyone was using pens that the voter could just take with them and the vast majority of that came through the elections commission I'm sure it was through a federal cares act granting mechanism but and then in the interim the local municipalities just stepped up and filled the void where there were specific needs one wanted more gloves than another so they just went and found those out by themselves so absentee ballot delivery started September 16th I don't know if a lot of you know that it starts very early for a federal election for overseas and military voters they have to the ballots get sent out 47 days before an election so my office, the municipal clerks they've been working since September 16th actually on the November election so let's see some of the things they did to increase elector access a lot of the towns added a drop box where there wasn't one in the past city of shabuagan added a larger drop box west of me library so you can drive through with any absentees there's additional office hours I know that the city added some Saturday hours which they've never done in the past so each municipality stepped up and tried to get even more access because they knew the tidal wave of in person absentee voting in general was coming because of all the talk about the distrust with the postal service so today was the first day for in person absentee voting there were lines at the city all three cities town of wilson town of shabuagan and so it's interesting because they were coming today to avoid the lines that they thought are going to be there which is kind of ironic so with that and with the increase in the media you're getting inundated in your mailbox from parties the political parties, legal women voters other entities that are encouraging everyone to vote absentee and so some of the clerics think they're going to have 50 to 60% of their voters already taken care of before the polls open on November 3 so November 3 they're going to be busy this week and next week for the two weeks of in person absentee but on November 3 the poll locations are going to be kind of light kind of like a typical April election which is a good thing but the numbers are still up there which is also a good thing because they're going to be at home like they did in April it caught up people off guard because it came so quick a lot of people didn't have time to vote absentee or thought they didn't have time to vote absentee so this time people were voting absentee some of them voted so early absentee they didn't remember and they're coming in to vote again because they voted absentee so long ago which is kind of funny they're not trying to vote twice intentionally so we'll lighten the load at polling locations on election day cyber security has been important also with a lot of this misinformation campaigns that are out there at any level so we are it's a free service that we have through the EIISAC it's the elections infrastructure information sharing analysis center and they send tips and best practices frequently and they have call-ins that we can take advantage of but I'm able to forward those to the municipal clerks so if they have an in-home office which many of them do they can follow these best practices when you're working out of your home for cyber security so the last thing I wanted to touch on was just a quick absentee versus mail-in a lot of people here in the radio watch TV it's a national show so they're talking about mail-in voting we don't have mail-in voting in Wisconsin you can ask for an absentee to be mailed to you and you mail it back but that is not the equivalent of what you're hearing in the media as mail-in voting mail-in voting like the state of Oregon there is no polling location on election day everything is absentee every registered voter gets a ballot sent to you that is mail-in so when you hear that just realize Wisconsin doesn't have that so in summary we have 28 municipal clerks there's two elections already under their belts during this pandemic lots of practice they're all very confident that this is going to go very well those two under our belt we've had no complaints COVID related pandemic related from any municipality now there might have been there might be complaints out there but none have come to the clerks and none have come to me which is great that means the electors are very confident and feel comfortable and safe when they're going to the polling locations and the clerks need a pat on the back because they are all making sure they're getting a lot of phone calls prior to what are you doing and all the clerks are stepping up and making sure that all of their electors feel safe so I guess if there's any questions I don't need to take up too much time so you can go and vote absentee what is the procedure for tabulating the absentee ballots on election day all right so Kurt Brower votes absentee whether it's in person or male he sticks it in an envelope and it goes back to the clerk either in a drop box or in person you still put it in an envelope and hand it to the clerk or clerk staff on election day Vicki's work in the polls and they take that envelope they state your name and address state your name and address just like the voters standing there voting in person so they state your name address slice the envelope open sometimes they slice the ballot in half and have to remake it but then that gets sent through the tabulator so on that I'm glad you mentioned that some of the municipalities three actually stepped up and bought another tabulator just to process the absentees so they can have three or more poll workers at that machine just processing the boatload of absentees that they're going to have on election day so that all starts at seven nothing's changed with there were some bills trying to start that earlier nothing's happening for November 3 but they state your name and address because there are observers there that are listening and they have a list from their party or whatever group they're there for and they are checking you off their list so that's why they actually physically say your name and address just like you were there in person any other questions great thank you John you're welcome next are public addresses we have none letters, communications and announcements two ordinances sorry resolutions the first is from Brown County Board of Supervisors requesting the state senate reconvene to address 13 water bills passed by the assembly we'll see that for information I believe that multiple times and lastly I have one from the Winnebago County Board of Supervisors supporting pending legislation to amend hearing timelines for juveniles taken into custody we'll send that to health and human services that is all now it's county administrators report thank you Mr. Chairman good evening it feels anti-climatic to touch on the 2021 proposed budget this evening they're on your desks and normally the budget would probably be the absolute foremost topic on our minds I mean it supports 850 employees working in over 19 departments administering over 207 programs and services from A to Z the law enforcement, health and human services and airport planning and resources the county clerks office you name it and yet it's not foremost on our minds it's not but it is so nice to sit here year after year and hear a positive report about our overall financial performance isn't it for the newer board members here this evening perhaps you haven't heard our auditor provide that report in the past but I can tell you that it's not uncommon to hear a terrible report like that and it's because of it's because of our team Finance Chair Chairman Gehring Finance Committee that does so much of the heavy lifting with the budget year after year all of the committees everyone who has a role in developing a budget and making sure we're holding one another accountable to work within those budget parameters when I think about the department heads here I couldn't be more grateful and proud of our team their track record our track record is outstanding second to none in this state as far as I'm concerned and I hope everyone when you hear a report like that well it's another report another day at the office but our track record our financial strength is effectively made to serve this community and do so in a fiscally responsible matter it matters it's important and I hope you all take some pride in that because you're all a part of it the proposed 2021 budget that's before you it's a $150 million budget of course about $51 million of that is direct property taxes the rest is state and federal revenue fees that we receive private income that we receive at Rocky Knoll but it's a $150 million budget of that $51 million property tax levy of course that's the area that our community in particular is very concerned about they want to see property taxes kept in check they elect you to be fiscally responsible and provide services but keep those property taxes in check what we've been doing what we've been doing when the proposed 2021 budget you're looking at a 1.5% increase 1.56% to be specific we're capturing the net new construction through new growth and development in the community through our homes being valued higher we're capturing that and that is what we're utilizing to continue our operations 1.5% increase if you look at the tax rate it's actually going down, it's going down 26 cents from $5.22 this year to $4.96 next so on a $100,000 home for example your property taxes will decrease approximately $26 in fact the 2021 budget reflects the fifth consecutive year that the property tax rate has gone down or will go down fifth consecutive year so of course we want to see property tax rates kept in check it's nicer to see them go down certainly up but where the rubber meets the road is with that ongoing levy the operational levy and what's been happening there if you look at the last 10-12 years on average just over a 1% increase a year there aren't many businesses or households that have operated with a 1% increase in revenue a year so I'm proud of that and it's again it's a reflection of our team and our collaboration and what Bill Gehring and Vern Koch and Roger Distruity and Thomas Wagner is a very effective budget process by the time we get to this point everyone has had an opportunity for input everyone has an opportunity to ask questions to make suggestions to seek refinements so thank you for your work and I encourage you to review the document if you have any questions please don't wait till the last meeting the next county board meeting the input, certainly questions can be raised at that time the department heads will be available we're going to want to do that in a safe manner but if you start reviewing this and you have any questions don't hesitate to contact me don't hesitate to contact finance director Wendy Sharnan don't hesitate to contact one of your peers on the board who you know is on that oversight committee let's get your questions answered on your desk is a news release next week is really when we formally introduce the budget but again I encourage you to review it when you have an opportunity please review the budget and my compliments to everyone involved who helped prepare it what is on our minds of course is COVID last week I was so grateful to be able to take some time off and go on an elk hunt with my dad my 81 year old dad we went out west went to steamboat Colorado we've never done this before never spent a week together before driving out back and of course he's hunkered down with COVID my parents I think like many of our parents grandparents many of us in this room perhaps we're being very cautious and he was skeptical about going it was a last minute opportunity for both of us to spend some quality time together and we were going to be in the car alone out in back we were going to be hunting in the wilderness pretty safe opportunity to take a trip if you're going to take one right and on the way out of course we had to stop at gas stations we didn't go to any restaurants we packed all our food and sandwiches and took that all along we had one overnight stay on the way there one overnight stay on the way back and everywhere we stopped everywhere we had to you know interact with people throughout that trip just about everyone I saw was wearing a mask when we stopped at the hotels they were very careful about cleaning off the front desk when we stopped handing us a pen and telling us to keep it or wiping it off when we returned it you could just tell people were mindful and of course that gave me some comfort and gave my dad some comfort but I'll readily admit though we had a wonderful wonderful father-son trip I felt a little guilty about leaving Sheboygan County when we're seeing the kind of increase that we're seeing in COVID cases and knowing that our public health staff were all hands on deck dealing with this all the contact tracing that's going on our nursing home and just everybody and when I returned of course the first meeting we had Monday Chairman Koch and I and Stark Grossman our public health officer our corporation council our health and human services director our health and human services public health information officer we all got together and we talked about what's happening I mean most people should know what's happening you go to the daily update on our website if you're watching the news community most people should know what's happening COVID spiking our hospitals are seeing more and more patients and it's putting increasing pressure not only in our hospitals but our nursing homes our assisted living facilities our businesses our families our schools our places of worship everybody is feeling more pressure community spread is occurring now at a level that none of us are comfortable with we come here and look at the precautions we're taking bless everyone's heart for being part of the solution the precautions we've taken in Sheboygan County for months make an appointment masks required social distancing over 240 of our 850 employees are working remotely from home we've all been trying to do our part to keep one another safe our community safe but even all those best efforts we now have COVID in our detention center we have COVID in the clerk of courts office we have COVID in the district attorney's office family court commissioner office building services department Rocky Noel transportation HR at least half of our departments now have employees that either contracted the virus or have been in contact close contact with someone and it had to quarantine it's impacting all of us including our essential workers who we rely upon to respond to emergencies or keep the detainees where they need to stay it's impacting all of us and every day it seems like we're talking about contingency plans and back up as I was listening to the county clerk give a nice update here a few minutes ago I thought to myself what if he and his staff get COVID the week of elections what's our contingency plan there some of us oh I won't be that sick I can work from home really is that what happens to everybody we know better don't we so we are constantly talking about contingency plans back up helping one another we have to have correctional officers we have to have nurses and CNAs and people caring for our elderly it is challenging I see our HR director with us tonight Dennis who I think he I think we hired what hired you in February Dennis airbots I mean he just got thrown into this and I think some of you have heard me say this before but Dennis did a remarkable job his first 6-8 weeks working with our team working with Corporation Council and myself and others reviewing all of our HR benefits and and how we are going to handle this that people are out and FMLA and vacation and I mean all sorts of refinements were made and he continues to work closely with departments to help with this contingency planning and being sure we have back up our public health staff I have said this a number of times but it they are absolutely remarkable what they are dealing with absolutely remarkable right now good lord are they inundated with calls and people who have contracted the virus and doing the tracing and we are losing the battle we can't keep up many counties have already stepped away from it because they can't keep up we are still trying contact tracing is important it is just a remarkable time and again I am grateful I am grateful to be surrounded by a county board that cares I am grateful to be surrounded by department heads and staff who really are dedicated who really care we are so fortunate to board in county but it occurred to me as I was driving back last week and I think the sheriff put something out in Facebook and I asked my assistant to look at that a little bit more today and I would like you to reflect a little bit on what were you doing 18 years ago on October 11, 2002 when one of the deadliest crashes in Wisconsin history occurred on I-43 I bet as most of you if not all of you in this room can remember that day maybe remember exactly where you were just north of the Ozaki Shibuya County line a multi-vehicle crash involved 50 vehicles some of you may have known people involved or family members of people involved caused by a low visibility, foggy skies just one of those days that we could periodically have happened here hopefully we never see it like that again 39 people sustained injuries that day and 10 individuals lost their lives we had emergency responders go out to that accident scene some of them had never seen anything like it in their lives some of them needed counseling it was horrible what if that happened today what if that happens next week are we ready to respond like we did in 2002 are the hospitals ready for that number of people to come rolling into their emergency rooms or their ICUs do we have the staff resources at present approximately 80% of our ICU and medical surgical beds are occupied 80% well that's a once in a lifetime accident happening again well let's just look at day to day two car crashes happen every day sadly people are hurt every day people have strokes and heart attacks every day I was looking at the ambulance calls demand continues to increase in 2010 there were 4,224 ambulances dispatched between 7,400 and last year in 2019 9,469 ambulances were dispatched to people in crisis on average about 25 ambulance runs a day are we ready are hospitals in good shape do they have the beds and the staff resources to meet that need I think if the hospital leaders were standing here before you right now they would say we're not ready yet we can help people as needed we can move resources around we still have some beds available no panic we're okay we're at 80% today we could be at 100% a month from now how many ICU beds does Sheboygan County have in total everybody know 12 we all have different views different political views we've heard a lot of feedback from Brian Hoffman when people call in we all have different viewpoints which is good which is healthy and we all have different points of view on COVID some of us in this community this country this world are taking it very very seriously in my opinion as they should others, well I'm healthy I'm strong most people it doesn't impact that bad most people recover maybe they don't take it quite as seriously they know it's real they're tough and then there still are some that still think it's a hoax or made up I don't know where they're coming from but there still are people who absolutely they just don't care I trust if there's one thing we all share in common in this community every single one of us every single one of us is none of us want to see our hospitals overwhelmed none of us want to see our hospitals overwhelmed because if it's our children or our friends or our parents or our spouse or whoever it may be when that ambulance comes to that door that emergency responder comes to help we believe they're going to be taken to a hospital that's going to be able to care for them and have the beds and the staff resources they need to take care of our family and our friends and our neighbors and our residents we all expect that I'd like to introduce Star Grossman who you all know very well Star has been our public health officer now throughout this incredible challenging time and as I said Star and I see her one of her co-workers Amanda with us today they have just such wonderful people working public health I've gotten to know them like I never have in my career over the last couple of decades and I asked Star if she could give us a recap of where we're at today obviously this is so incredibly important I could give the recap I'm going to feed up with the PowerPoint Star alright Mr. Chair I'm going to turn it over to Star and then she'll conclude thank you Hi everybody thank you so much for having me today to just give you a little bit of an update about where we're at thank you Adam for for this introduction so I'm just going to go through a quick update about what our current picture looks like so everyone can be aware of what we're seeing locally at this point a little bit about what our health systems are experiencing and our northeast region is experiencing some of our outbreaks that we're seeing and some action steps that community members can take so just a quick kind of recap if you've been following along we have been seeing a large number of positivity across the state of Wisconsin the active cases to date are the highest that we've seen in Sheboygan County we have 890 active cases at this point we did see an additional 200 over 200 cases come in today positive cases and that does not include KMCI cases I know we get asked that a lot so these are just new positive cases that we've gotten today this is the highest that we've seen for sure locally related to positivity in one day and then our local hospitalization today was at 26 so that number is also continuing to rise pretty quickly as you can see this is our hospitalization so in July we were averaging 2 or 3 people in the hospital at a time and you can see now in October we're seeing much higher numbers of people hospitalized that's not a surprise as we see more cases we'll see more people hospitalized at the state level when you look at the data about 5% of people become hospitalized if they're positive so as we see more and more cases we'll probably see more hospitalizations so we have to prepare for that and do what we can to try and decrease the spread so that we can protect our hospitals and protect the beds that we have in our community this is a question that gets asked quite a bit so I just put that in here put it in here related to KMCI we are experiencing a large outbreak at KMCI the positive cases from that outbreak are starting to decline so we're not seeing as much positivity there as we were but even without KMCI by KMCI's numbers our average case rate is over 800 cases 854.8 per 100,000 without KMCI so when you look at the Harvard Institute model anything over 350 cases per 100,000 over a 14-day period is cause for concern it points towards a widespread community transmission so these numbers here are concerning because we're seeing such a large increase within our community the large spread community transmission indicates that it's more likely that you're going to get it when you're out in the community grocery shopping or whatever the things that you're going out in the community to do because there's so much going on in our community your risks are higher when you go out related to our northeast regional healthcare capacity so the state releases data by region our hospital systems are in the northeast region and so when we look at the number of hospital beds in use at the 923 we had about 78% of hospital beds in use within our region and now we're at 79 with 86% of our ICU beds used if you look at the southeast region which is the other region that's on the direct side of us we're kind of right on a border of two different regions we're looking at close to 90% of those beds being in use so when you're looking at healthcare systems you can't just think about what's going on at our local hospital you have to look at the region because there's a lot of things that happen if we need to transfer someone out if our beds are looking full and we need to move a patient to another location there has to be another location to move patients too so we're looking at our regional capacity to see you know how does that look what's going on with that so we are seeing some increases in regional bed use across both regions so just to update about our 7-day rolling average so we've been looking at what is our rolling average for positive cases that are hospitalized locally so when we look at that 7-day rolling average when you look at where we were a couple months ago we were like averaging like I said about 2 cases per day in the hospital now our 7-day rolling average as of 1017 was 9.14 positive cases per day so we are seeing that increase quite a bit the ICU use for COVID positive patients has nearly doubled the medical surgical beds needed for COVID positive patients has nearly tripled so we are seeing quite an increase locally as Adam mentioned about 80% of our local beds are currently occupied and that's with all of the patients that we're seeing within the community not just COVID patients but that's everybody so impacts to our hospital system we've been having a lot of conversations with our hospital system about what does this increase in positivity mean for your system like what is the qualitative measures that we don't necessarily know about that are happening behind the scenes that make an impact so some of the things that have come up just so people know the length of stay for a COVID patient is typically longer than what they see for other infections and so they can have a bottlenecking or like compounding effect for hospitalizations because people might stay in the hospital longer as COVID cases increase in the community it becomes more difficult to discharge patients to alternative care sites that they can go to as Adam mentioned we're seeing COVID in lots of different places so we see it in long term care facilities assisted living facilities home health agencies who might have cases of COVID and so that impacts large people to places where there isn't COVID because we don't those places that are experiencing COVID don't take admission so then that can limit or kind of lengthen stay in that way as well higher volumes of COVID positive patients can make it complicated to transfer patients out and we talked about that a little bit with the regional capacity changing from the northeast region, southeast region if those beds are full then it's harder to transfer patients so those are all pieces that we have to keep in mind when we're talking about hospital capacity and then as I said 90% of our hospital beds are in use within the region so those are two pieces that we're monitoring all of those pieces put together we're monitoring really closely so I know we've talked a lot about how many beds are available and that is just one piece of the picture so we're trying to work with our hospital systems and we talk with them regularly to see what's going on in their system and to support them and we know that it's going to take action from everybody to support our hospital systems and to support the community members that are most vulnerable so some of the things that we're asking the community to do and this is nothing new I think that we've been kind of shouting this from the mountain tops for six months now but we'll go we'll keep shouting the Wisconsin Department of Health did issue some orders around this but we're encouraging people to follow those emergency orders related to limiting public gatherings so it just came out recently physically distance from others at least six feet away from other people wear a mask don't gather with people outside of your hospital if you can help it limit outdoor gatherings to 10 people or fewer self-monitor for symptoms so if you are feeling sick stay home consider getting tested if you're symptomatic and we are increasing testing capacity or trying to increase testing capacity in our community we did open up the National Guard testing site last week that was our first week doing it and it was much busier than we anticipated we were able to use up all of the tests that first day and the second day so we're excited about that and then stay home if you test positive if you test positive don't go to work and watch for communications from public health if each of us take that like personal action it's basically saying to our health care workers and the people at our hospital systems that you care enough to stay home to cancel the slumber party to not go to the sporting event that is a high five to that nurse that's working in the ICU because we need those spreads to be available and the more that we can help together spread the more we can protect those vulnerable populations and keep them out of our hospitals community actions so this was also in our October 8 update when we sent out this action alert that came out we worked collaboratively and put out an action alert with multiple health systems and some of our business partner community partners to just say that we are taking this seriously and these are some of the actions that we're recommending and we continue to recommend those actions so certainly businesses should be following the WEDC guidelines promoting opportunities for remote work which I'm really thankful to work for Sheboygan County they as an employer have really stepped into this remote work as an opportunity and it's been a real blessing for our staff in public health as well so I'm thankful for that to the extent possible limiting person to person contact when you're doing bars, restaurants hospitality so encouraging curbside pickup and delivery options so when you're making personal decisions for yourself instead of going out to that restaurant order ahead of time, pick it up at the curb those are little things that you can do to make a big difference require masking and face coverings don't go to large gatherings and don't hold large gatherings limit any kind of gathering to 10 people or fewer if possible and then concerts, festivals sporting events, all of those events are not really recommended at this time because we have such high numbers we do not want to create an event that is an opportunity for the germ to be spread to other people so those are the actions that we're really recommending and really hoping our community will lean into and as we've seen things ramp up so much over the last two weeks it becomes so important for us all to kind of rally around these issues together and be part of this solution so I appreciate the opportunity to share kind of where public health is at what we're seeing locally and then how that corresponds to actions that everyone can take so thank you so much for that time thank you star and we move on to consideration of committee reports executive committee resolution number 15 regarding authorizing the issuance and sale of $4,166,000 of taxable general obligation refunding bonds committee recommendation to adopt Supervisor Wagner thank you Mr. Chairman I move to adopt resolution number 15 thank you Supervisor Wagner Supervisor Obler I'll support the adoption of resolution 15 also thank you Supervisor Obler is there any discussion we could use a motion to amend Supervisor Tostrodi thank you Mr. Chairman I'll move to amend the resolution by replacing the original resolution with the new revised version emailed by the county clerk clerk's office on October 16th thank you Supervisor Tostrodi Supervisor Gaye thank you Mr. Chairman I will second that motion thank you Supervisor Gaye is there any discussion just waiting for it to be typed in properly voting on the amendment correct okay then all those in favor of the amendment against please vote the amendments approve unanimously okay and now we will be voting on the original resolution number 15 as soon as it is typed in properly okay please vote that resolution is approved unanimously okay thank you for your patience resolution number 14 regarding reaffirming membership in Wisconsin Bay workforce development area consortium and approval of amended consortium agreement recommendation to adopt Supervisor Dam thank you Mr. Chairman I will move to adopt resolution 14 thank you Supervisor Dam Supervisor Nelson second that motion thank you Supervisor Nelson under discussion no discussion please vote that resolution is approved unanimously hand the gavel over to the vice chair okay all resolutions introduced resolution number 16 from planning resources agriculture and extension committee regarding approving joint development agreement with onion river solar LLC for utility revenue sharing resolution number 16 will be referred to transportation ordinance is introduced orange number 4 from human resources committee regarding increasing compensation of pay ranges for non-bargaining unit personnel and implementing across the board wage increases for 2021 ordinance number 4 will be referred to finance ordinance number 5 from the law committee regarding modifying fee schedule of medical examiner in chapter 96 ordinance number 5 will be referred to finance I'll kindly ask Supervisor Distruty to begin the next order of business thank you Mr. Vice Chair I'll move to adjourn I will second that