 I'd like to call to order the Tuesday, April 16, 2019 Sheboygan County Board of Supervisors. Certification of compliance with the open meeting law. The agenda was posted on the 12th of April at 3.30. Thank you, John. Please join me in the Pledge of Allegiance. This is due to the flag of the United States of America, and due to the Republic for which it stands, one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all. Roll call. There are 23 supervisors present. Thank you, everybody. Approval of the March 19, 2019 Journal. Surveysar Glavin. Move to approve. Thank you, Surveysar Glavin. Is there a second? Surveysar Obbler. I'll second the motion. Thank you, Surveysar Obbler. Any questions or discussion? Seeing no lights, please vote aye or nay. The motion is approved unanimously. Thank you. Consideration of appointments by the County Administrator. Affirmative Action Commission, a reappointment. Public Library Board, Sherry Spieth. Recreational Facility Management Advisory Committee, reappointments. David Smith, David DeRus, and Mike Hyte. And Transportation Coordinating Committee, Sarah Lu-Sher. Okay, we can take them all at once unless there's an objection if somebody wants to take them individually. Surveysar Gehring. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I move to concur. Thank you, Surveysar Gehring. Supervisor Epping. I'd like to second the motion. Thank you. Thank you, Surveysar Epping. Any questions or comments? Seeing none, please push your aye or nay button. The motion is approved unanimously. Thank you. Presentations. We have none. Public Addresses. There are none. Letters, communications, and announcements. Just one resignation from Supervisor Wegeman. Dear Sheriff Raceler, it says it has been my honor and privilege to have served the residents of the 11th Supervisor District as a Sheboyin County Supervisor for nearly the past 10 years. It at times has been challenging but also very fulfilling and giving back to the community. One thing I have come to realize is how lucky the citizens of Sheboyin County have been to have the excellent management leadership that they have in their county government. However, over the last few years, I have found it increasingly difficult to participate at the level necessary to be an exemplary supervisor due to my busy business and personal travel schedule. In addition, I would like to allocate more of my time to my new business practice. I also believe in term limits. It would be disingenuous on my part to continue in the role for more than 10 years. I believe it is good for most organizations to have new blood and fresh ideas. Effective June 1st, 2019, I will resign my office and bid everyone adieu. I will miss it. Sincerely, Greg Wegeman. Thank you, John. We're certainly going to miss Greg. And we've advertised and we're looking at filling his position. And he will be, his last meeting will be the next one in May. So he will be here for that. So that is all I have. Thank you, John. County Administrators report. Thank you for those of you that participated at the Legislative Breakfast. We had a nice turnout. I think we had about half the county board in attendance. Of course, we had Senator Lemieux, Representative Katzma, Representative Orpagel, and also our federal legislators had their aides in attendance. So nice turnout from department heads, county board supervisors, Mayor Van der Steen and one or two members of the Common Council joined us. And of course, our focus was on the child welfare crisis. Matt Strittmatter, who's with us this evening and his division manager, Scott Shackelford, gave a very nice presentation on what's been happening with child welfare. District Attorney Joel Armansky followed up and talked about the demands on his office and his team and what it means for our judicial system. Then we briefly touched on seven budget issue papers. I'm going to quickly go through those seven this evening, but very quickly. And then we had a legislative update from our area legislators, followed by a round table by those in attendance. But it was something different. Normally, as you know, we get together over at the Fountain Park and we break bread. And this was more of a focus on key issues and concerns in our community. And I thought Matt and Scott and Joel and all involved did a real nice job providing our legislators with some helpful information. And some of the supervisors in the room also weighed in and emphasized some points. So I appreciate that. The Joint Finance Committee has been busy meeting across the state. There's one more meeting in Green Bay next week Wednesday. If anybody has an interest in attending that on behalf of the county, please contact Chairman Wagner. I'm not planning on doing so that day, but if someone wishes to do so, we have the budget issue papers. You don't have to touch on all of them. You can touch on one or two of them, but obviously that's your prerogative. What were those budget issue papers? This is as much for the board members that weren't in attendance, but also for our viewers, for the community. I mean, there are so many programs and services that we're involved in. So many needs in this community. As I look at Jim Baumgart and I think of the importance of natural resource protection and enhancement and how he has spent the bulk of his career focusing on that. And we have others in this room who care so deeply about transportation or health and human services or law enforcement. Of course, we all care about the 207 programs and services, the 19 departments that we work with. But there are priorities. And one of the most critical priorities that we're faced with right now is the child welfare crisis. It is a growing crisis that has to be dealt with. It's a state mandated area of responsibility that the county has to follow through on and to the credit of health and human services and our district attorney and law enforcement and many others. We've been doing the best that we can with limited resources. Very quickly, as I think most of you have now heard at least once, the number of children out of home care has now increased over 200% since 2012. Because of safety in homes, in 2012, 73 children were removed from their home. In 2017, 219. It is a growing issue because of drug and alcohol abuse. Parents are unable to take care of themselves yet alone their children. And it is a problem and one that we have to respond to. Out of home care expenses rose 55% from 2013 to 2017. What does that mean? In 2012 and 2013, we spent about $1 million with these out-of-home placements. $1 million. Now it's closer to $2 million. 1.86. And our Sheboygan County property tax levy that we work so hard to hold the line on has increased 56% as we have diverted resources to this growing area of need. And again, this is a state mandated service. But the state is responsible for helping pay for. And it's been the property taxpayer that's been shouldering the load. In fact, over this period of time, just the last five, six years, essentially state aides have remained relatively flat. So is this an area of concern? Yes. Is this one we emphasize to our legislators and hope they'll take up as part of the Joint Finance Committee discussions, the negotiations with the governor? Absolutely. The governor has included additional resources following the recommendation of the Wisconsin County's Association and others. Whether or not that will stay, time will tell. The second one was district attorney funding. For years we have talked about district attorney funding in this county, as we have across the state. Study after study has shown that we're short staffed. This is a state mandated responsibility. Yet the state has not stepped up to meet its obligations. And what happens is the system becomes less efficient. Victims do not get the same level of attention or timely follow-through that they should. People are not held accountable as quickly. It is a concern and a growing one. Right now, Joel and independent studies have shown that we're four and a half prosecutor short. Talk about a tough work environment. And I think Joel shared during our legislative breakfast that now most of his staff have two years or less of experience. There's been a lot of turnover. Thank goodness for district attorney Joel Armanski and the leadership he's providing. His team is doing the best they can with very limited resources and the state needs to step up. Court appointed attorney compensation. Did you know that the state public defender rate is $40 per hour? Did you know that that's the lowest in the nation? Did you know that it negatively impedes our judicial system? That it costs us more? That people sit in our jail longer because we may not be able to find a state public defender for $40 an hour? I can't find a plumber or a carpenter for $40 an hour. Worse than the nation. That's worthy of having discussion with our area legislators about. The third issue, support local control and adjust statutory property tax levy limit. This is a sensitive one as we all know. We have worked so hard in this county to hold the line on property taxes. Our track record is as good as any county in the state. On average over the last ten years property taxes have gone up less than 1% a year in Sheboygan County. That is remarkable and all of us in this room and our entire team can take some credit for that. But the caps that are in place associated with net new construction doesn't make a lot of sense because I've yet to hear anyone, anyone tell me what the association is with net new construction and providing law enforcement, providing health and human services to the neediest of the needy, taking care of our transportation system, protecting our natural resources. What does net new construction have to do with that? And unfortunately, though we've seen some improvement, I think it went up about 1.6% this past year, it's been generally below two. Inflation is at two or better. I'm not aware of any businesses or any successful organizations that year after year are able to maintain and improve and grow with revenue less than inflation. Something needs to be done about it. And it may not be politically popular or comfortable, but something needs to be done. The governor has recommended that we can raise it up to 2%. To me personally, that doesn't sound so unreasonable. Speaking of state mandates or underfunded state mandates, one of the areas that the state tries to soften that blow to county government is providing state-shared revenue. This helps fill some of those voids. Did you know that state-shared revenue has not increased since 2003? Hasn't increased since 2003? In fact, it was reduced in 2004, 2010, and 2012. And the argument in part is, well, state-shared revenue is kind of a general pot. And from a state perspective is the accountability there. Maybe we should just be providing the funds for that particular program or service. Well, that makes some sense. But if you're not providing funds for a particular program and service, whether it's mental health or child welfare, whatever it may be, state-shared revenue really comes in handy. And it certainly hasn't kept up with inflation. In fact, it's gone down. The governor's recommending a 2% increase. I feel for these legislators, because I imagine everybody's coming to them with their handout and asking for more. But I doubt there are many entities with the track record of county government and the growth that we've seen, the demands we've seen for services, needs in our community that can make a more compelling case that at least a cost-of-living increase would be reasonable. Nursing home rates. Last two. Number six, nursing home rates. We are so fortunate to have a five-star facility. Kayla Clinton, our nursing home administrator, very, very bright, wonderful person. And has she put together a nice team out there? And of course, we're always seeking to improve. We're seeing trends start to go up now for people needing long-term care. A number of years ago, as many of you know, we had three nursing homes and more county-owned and operated beds than anyone in the state. Now we have one facility. And we want to maintain it. And we want to continue to provide the best care in Sheboygan County. But I can tell you, it's very difficult to do that when Medicaid doesn't ever increase or increases less than inflation. We're struggling to hire and retain good people out there. Our CNAs and nurses, the CNAs in particular, shout out to them. They're working for 13, 14, 15 bucks an hour. They can make more processing cheese or working at a fast-food restaurant. That's not right. Because these folks are taking care of our parents and grandparents. How do we hire and retain good employees if we can't provide a reasonable wage and we need more Medicaid funds to do so? Medicaid under funds Wisconsin nursing home facilities by $78 per resident a day. Do you know that? According to a national study, Wisconsin currently ranks second worst for Medicaid nursing facility reimbursement rate in the country. Second worst. Are we okay with that? Rocky No Health Care Center in Wisconsin is nearly 400 nursing facilities are facing closures or financial loss. Something needs to be done. People need to step up. And then finally, transportation funding. Well speaking of stepping up the county board debt, the sales tax revenue has been, as President Trump would say, huge for Sheboygan County. I mean huge. Greg Schnell, our transportation directors here tonight, we're now taking care of 30 miles a road a year. It's just been wonderful, not only for Sheboygan County, but for the municipalities that we work with. But it's one piece of the pie. It's one piece in the puzzle. The state has to step up with transportation funding. And frankly, it's probably one of the reasons why Governor Walker is no longer Governor Walker. He didn't step up and provide adequate transportation funding. Governor Evers and our legislature, I think all fully appreciate and know that more funds and more of an investment needs to go into our transportation system if we're going to be fiscally responsible. So that was the seventh and last budget issue paper that we developed. And of course, there's so many other areas of concern or sensitivity throughout the county, but we tried to be focused. And we're hoping that our area legislators will help lead and bring some attention as other counties are doing across the state. So I appreciate the work you do to raise awareness. This is not a time for us to sit on our hands or presume someone's just going to do it. I challenge you respectfully as our county board and individual supervisors. Pick up the phone. Call our legislators. Ask to meet them for coffee. We've got wonderful area legislators, but I encourage you to talk to them. I know some of you do. I think more of us need to do that. Highway 23 is looking to do a break ground here in May. That's awesome news. And that, again, was an area where the county board, Chairman Wagner, our transportation committee, stepped up and brought additional attention to it. And at this point, everything is looking really good for that, as you know. In your packet this evening are two resolutions that you'll be asked to take action on. And if you read resolution number 28, authorizing the finance committee and finance director to balance over budget department accounts. And then if you read the whereas, are now therefore be resolved that negative variances in the departmental appropriation units of salary and benefits, operating expenses, interdepartmental charges and capital outlay are hereby authorized that we're balancing that. This has been obviously approved, recommended by the executive and finance committees. But if you read that alone, you think, well, geez, how are we doing? By law, we have to balance that out at the end of the year. The big picture is in the whereas above the therefore be it resolved, we've got a $3.9 million positive variance. Once again, collectively, our departments delivered and worked within the budget parameters that you establish as a county board. Some of the key areas that contributed to that positive variance was transportation complex, just building that. Greg and Jim to beast were able to keep were able to exceed expectations by nearly $900,000. $900,000 that we didn't spend that we otherwise had budgeted to do so. That falls to the bottom line, positive variance. Interest revenue. Wendy, our finance director always does a nice job being conservative with that. Well, conservative to the tune of $556,000 more than what we budgeted, positive variance. The Penn sale that Aaron Brault and the county board supported, that contributed $400,000 to our bottom line. And then health and human services with all the needs they have because there's so many different pots and different cycles, there was a positive variance there as well, which we're probably going to tap into more in the year ahead. So overall, nearly a $4 million positive variance. So I wanted to put that in perspective. The other item that you're going to be asked to act on tonight, which was again, carefully reviewed by the finance committee and the executive committee, both unanimously support and recommend that we continue a revolving loan fund of some type. And just very briefly, if you looked at that, it can look a little complicated. What we're buying out, how does this work? So very briefly, the state is shutting down our revolving loan fund. They're doing that across the country. And it wasn't because Sheboyin County wasn't making good use of it and didn't have a good partnership with our Economic Development Corporation, but because across the nation, there were some challenges with it, they're shutting it down. They said, we're not going to provide this program anymore. In fact, I think there was maybe a lack of some oversight at the state or federal level with this. So what are our alternatives? Well, the best alternative we have is to buy that program out and continue it on. And that's what the County Board Finance Committee and Executive Committee is recommending to you. So how does that work? We have a number of loans that are out right now through this federal program is revolving loan fund. We've got about 300,000 receivables cash on hand, in pocket. And then we've got another $1.3 million of loans, receivables coming our way. If we buy that out, if we cover that cost, we can retain those funds as project dollars for the county to invest in different projects, whether it's Rocky Null or other areas of need that the County Board determines. So if we take $1.3 million of fund balance and cover the $1.3 million in receivables that we still have coming our way, that covers that cost. It defederalizes those dollars. And then that allows us to hang on to that $1.3 and the $300,000 in cash. So a total of $1.6 for projects. Then, after it's defederalized, as these receivables actually come in, that provides that $1.3 million to use to provide loans in the future. So, bottom line, if we use $1.3 million of our county fund for the county to invest $1.3 million of our county fund balance to buy out this program, we'll have $2.9 million available to us for projects and a future loan program. And it is the county's direction or county's prerogative on how we set that up and how that will work. So bottom line, $1.3 will have $2.9 million available. We'll be coming up on May 22nd. So please, if you haven't already, mark your calendars. We'll again go through our county financial results, debt service. Wendy always does a nice job with that. We'll talk about our 2020 budget process. Tom Wagner has already reached out to WCA. Kyle Christensen, our WCA Director of Government Affairs is going to give us an update on the state budget. And perhaps any progress, our budget issue papers have made. So we'll have Wendy Coney, Bernie Vetrone, our Director of Criminal Justice Treatment Services for Out of Game. Wendy Coney come and talk to us about alternatives to incarceration and approaches they've taken in their predominantly their pre-trial approach that really alleviated the pressure on their jail. And we're very interested in learning more about that. So we're studying that. And then we'll have updates from Greg Schnell about the needs and Ask Matt Strip-Moder to also touch base with us again on child welfare crisis and any new information there. So with that, thank you for your time and attention. Back to you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you, Adam. Okay, consideration of committee reports, Executive Committee, resolution number 28. Regarding authorizing the finance committee and finance director to balance over budget departmental accounts, recommendation to adopt. Mr. Chairman, I move for it. Thank you, Surveyser Gearing. Oh, 28. 28, right? Yep. Surveyser Tristruti. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I'll second the motion. Thank you, Surveyser Tristruti. Any comments or questions? Seeing no lights, please push your I or NA button. Motion to approve unanimously. Thank you. Resolution number 29. Regarding supporting the return of just 1.5 million of community development block grant funding to the state of Wisconsin and authorizing the use of just over 1.3 of unassigned fund balance to fully fund the return payment to the state recommendation to adopt. Surveyser Gearing. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I move for adoption of resolution number 29. Thank you, Surveyser Gearing. Surveyser Abler. Support the motion for adoption. Thank you, Surveyser Abler. Any questions or comments? Tom, do you have? Yes, I do have a question. As we were listening to County Administrator Payne talk about this this resolution, I just wrote down a note saying does the 1.3 is that returned from the 2.9 million to the unassigned fund balance as part of this? Adam? Thank you, Tom. Seeing that 1.3 is taken out of unassigned fund balance when that 2.9 comes back which that's what I interpreted does 1.3 get put back into our fund balance? Excellent question, Supervisor Effing. Excellent question. Yes, we did build the proposal such that going forward when we're providing loans and we receive receivables and interest we have the discretion on how we want to set that up and it is our intention to pay back the fund balance that we're using to draw down these funds and buy out the program. So the short answer is it is our expectation to set this up in such a manner where we can ultimately pay back the fund balance. Thank you for that and I will be watching you know as little as I know about finance one thing outside of so thank you very much for that information. Thank you, Supervisor Effing. Supervisor Broula. Thank you Chairman Wagner. I'm just wondering where who are we loaning this money to that we're getting receivables back on it? Another good question. Thank you and there's a lot to this. The Revolving Loan Fund has been a fund we've had in place for some time and we're generally loaning those dollars to start up companies or companies that maybe are struggling to get a loan from the bank. It's an advisory committee that has some bankers and other professionals on it supported chaired by Wendy or Finance Director support from the Economic Development Corporation and then ultimately the Executive Committee makes the final decision. So it goes to individuals that might be struggling to get a loan from a bank and this is the difference with them being able to start their company or grow their company. Going forward we would anticipate that that would continue but we will have as a county a little bit more discretion on how we set that up. For example, in the past when we've provided a loan one of the expectations from the federal government is you have so many questions that are working forward or just some criteria that we may or may not be that enthusiastic about. Going forward we have the ability as an organization to set that criteria up ourselves. Does that help? Yes, thank you. Thank you, Surveysia Brulla. Any other questions? Seeing no lights please wish your aye or nay button. This is approved unanimously. Thank you. Resolution number 30. Regarding requesting increased funding for site reforms for Wisconsin's Child Protective Services System recommendation to adopt. Surveysia Gehring. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I move for adoption of resolution number 30. Thank you, Surveysia Gehring. Is there a second? Surveysia Ziegelbauer. I'll second that. Thank you, Surveysia Ziegelbauer. Are there any questions or comments? Surveysia Repping. Again, on this one just so I understand that we are requesting the funding and reforms for this from the state. Is that correct? Yes. Thank you. Any other questions or discussion? Seeing no lights please push your aye or nay button. Motion is approved unanimously. Thank you. Ordinance number 15. Regarding amending shoreland ordinance in section 8, Town of Sherman recommendation to enact. Surveysia Ziegelbauer. I'll make a motion to approve. Thank you, Surveysia Ziegelbauer. Surveysia Gehring. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I will second that motion. Thank you, Surveysia Gehring. Are there any questions or comments? Surveysia Baumgart. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. Two things. One, it lists on ordinance 15 as no one in opposition. It's down at the actual ordinance. You'll find that there is one opposition mind and so if they would make the correction at some point. And the reason why I oppose this is a deal with the cheese facility that makes cheese of course and we have lots of cheese. Over the years apparently they've been putting their affluent 20% of it. Pretty clean water for washing and at the hearing 80% affluent that the engineer or the owner suggested would not be the best to drink. So it obviously had some impurities in it. And rather than allow them to continue putting it in a ditch next to the facility, it said they had to clean up their act and so they had a couple of options. One of them was to ask the county to use their right away along one of our highways down to the to the Milwaukee River and to put in a pipe. I think it's a 15 inch pipe but the size is not quite real important and allow this material that wasn't appropriate to put in next to the plant to be appropriate to put into the Milwaukee River and so as we do with Lake Michigan sometimes when there's an overflow the solution to pollution is to let in the Milwaukee let the affluent overrun into the lake which is not a very good thing to do and in this case to allow the affluent into the Milwaukee River not as drastic as the overflow in the affluent and the Milwaukee overflows but nevertheless I didn't feel any good conscience that I wanted to vote for the solution to the solution but I voted no. Thank you Mr. Chairman. Thank you Survisor Baumgart. We'll make note of that in the minutes correction that you asked for. Survisor Bosman. I'd just like to add the information we were given at the transportation committee when this came to our attention because of the fact they were using the road right away was not that it was but the water discharge from the Adelway facility comes out at a temperature that was deemed too high to put into this creek which feeds into a trout stream so their recommendation was to go with this piping to go into a larger body of water where they felt the temperature difference wouldn't be a critical factor. Thank you Survisor Bosman. Any other questions or comments? Survisor Epping. Thank you again. Based on comments of Supervisor Bosman here if this facility doesn't have this ability to divert this what would they do? Anybody want to answer that? Supervisor Bosman. You can determine Adelway company has been there a very long time and they've gone through a series of different mechanical to try and deal with this warm water that they have to use for cooling purposes they dry this, they dry the whey powder the whey concentrate into a powder and it's used in food it's used in your protein shakes your bodybuilding proteins and different things it has a lot of uses it's used for different things you have to cool down this whey that's coming in at 140-150 degree temperature and get it down to a point where they can dry this product so water is used in what we would call a plate cooler to get rid of that temperature difference and get it down to where they can deal with it and most of this water you're talking about is strictly cooling water but once it's used they have to keep it moving down through the system so it's my understanding that we're basically returning very clean water back into the water system but the temperature is a little higher than they'd like to see going into a tributary of a trout stream Thank you, Supervisor Bosman Supervisor Baumgart Thank you very much there are of course as Supervisor Bosman mentioned there are a lot of ways of correcting the fluent and holding bonds and other things would have been options too and without question the cooling of the water was one of the issues that they had dealt with but to infer that the material was clean and I don't want to put words in his mouth but the fact is that at the hearing that I was at the engineer or the owner indicated that 80% of the material that was going down was not necessarily what he would suggest anybody would drink now the dilution process makes it certainly more palatable and I have no question that it does what they've decided that they should correct the affluent I just don't think necessarily that they've looked at all avenues they took the inexpensive one by using the county right away and to cool the material and then to put it in the morgue river so now I understand this is going to pass I just want to make sure that people understand that it is not necessarily a simple way of solving the problem it is one of the ways that they are trying to solve the problem thank you thank you Sue there mom Gart surprise there Nelson thank you chairman Wagner I was also at the same hearing that Mr. Baumgart was at my understanding is that either way the same amount of outfall ends up with the Milwaukee river the only question is how it gets there and the temperature that it gets there at and the solution they've recommended is to have the pipe go along the road and in that way it will reach the Milwaukee River which is a larger waterway than the small creek that it's going into now and therefore it would the temperature regime would be as different but the water the I mean you can characterize it as the effluent and you can characterize it as maybe not as clean as the 20% that is just used to change the temperature but it might meet any state requirements in terms of effluent so I don't see a problem with this thank you Surveyor Nelson any other comments or questions seeing none please push your I&A button this is approved of 18 I 4 name 3 absent 0 abstains thank you everybody frankly that's why I love the county board because that discussion was very civil very illuminating and just the appropriate way to discuss something so kudos to everybody involved and I realize I have a bias but I really do love the county board for that reason I'll be perfectly honest and I get to say those things once in a while I'm going to take advantage of it so thank you ordinance number 15 31 we already did that one sorry about that consideration of committee reports finance committee resolution number 31 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2