 Welcome to Sheboygan County Government, working for you. My name's Adam Payne, Sheboygan County Administrator and co-host of this program with Chairman Mike Banderstein. And today we're very pleased to have one of our hard-working department heads from Sheboygan County Building Services, Jim Tobias. Jim, welcome. Thank you for having me. As you know, if you've been following this program for the nine or ten years that we've had it on here at UW Sheboygan, we focus on a different department each month. We have 22 departments, nearly 1,000 employees, $130 million budget, and Jim and his staff are responsible for keeping all these buildings kept up and clean, and he does a tremendous job. So again, Jim, it's good to have you with us today. Thank you. Please begin by sharing with our viewers when you started with Sheboygan County and a little bit about yourself. I've been working here nine years now. I celebrated my 25th wedding anniversary this year. Got three kids, two of them in college, one of them graduated this past December. Mechanical engineer, 28 years experience, professional license. Grew up in Usberg here in Sheboygan County. Moved away about half my life, but came back to have my kids go through school here. Sheboygan County, it's a great place to live. Not really what you asked, but daughter recently had college kids over for the weekend, so took them to Lake Michigan. Three out of the four girls had never seen Lake Michigan. They said, this is like the ocean in Florida, we can't believe how nice this is. It's really a great place. And that's so true. Sometimes we take for granted all the good things we have right here at home, and seems like every weekend we have to travel somewhere else rather than taking advantage of what we have here. That's neat. Well, please share a little bit about the mission, the role and responsibilities of the Building Services Department. Our mission is to serve the staff, the county staff as they serve the public. We want to have clean, efficient, well-run buildings so that they don't notice us. The air conditioning is working, the roast is not leaking, we're not noticed, we're doing our job. We maintain the equipment, the elevators, boilers, pumps, cleaning staff. We control capital projects if we're replacing some equipment, building a building, and we also control our operating budget. Sometimes that's kind of difficult. Things break, we want to fix them, but if we don't have the money, sometimes we are over-abandoned for a year and make it work. And just how many buildings are you responsible for? There's eight complexes totaling about a half a million square feet. It's the courthouse and the annex, and the administration building, and then the law enforcement center with the juvenile section, the detention center where the men are jailed, our health and human services building, and then we've got an agriculture building out in Sheboygan Falls. We also have staff at the job center. We really don't have a lot to do there, but I guess we haul things back and forth. A lot of buildings, a lot of floors, a lot of offices to vacuum and garbage to be picked up, and restrooms to be cleaned, and really a tremendous amount of work. What I appreciate about your staff is you just have such good natured staff. I'm in the administration building, as you know, most of the time, and Cheryl and Mark and there's just a number of them that are just such a pleasure to work with. I'm always impressed with the cleanliness of the facilities. We go to the courthouse for our county board meetings and all the other departments there, and just things are well taken care of. So focusing on staff, just how many do you have? We've got 31 staff, 14 maintenance, 13 cleaners, and we've got a clerk, a supervisor, an electrician that travels all the buildings, not just the ones that we're responsible for, but all 82 buildings that the county owns. We also have some quasi responsibilities here at Sheboygan County. I mean, UW Sheboygan. The Veterans Memorial, I forgot to mention, we have Taylor Park just east of the mall, a little known park. The Historical Society Museum, and then part of Sunny Ridge Ramoeing Lawn, that entire Sunny Ridge campus for the people that bought this house building. I'm really proud of my staff. He mentioned how clean your building was. I think it's, they really take the initiative. It's not the usual union management relationship. They really strive to keep their buildings clean, to make sure everything's working properly. If people ask them to move things, they're willing to pitch in whatever they do. They fix things when they're little problems before it really breaks down and turns into a crisis. I'm really proud of that. They handle all the day-to-day stuff. It gives me time to concentrate more on the management, the budgets, more of the projects that often pull me away from the office. Right, and the pride show is, as you said, I think folks really appreciate. Sometimes you might take that for granted, but I always notice just how good things look. You have a very good right-hand person too, and Al Nelson. He's been working at your site for some time. Touch on Al for a moment. He's been here 30-some years, started as a maintenance guy and drew into the supervisor position, and he more or less married to the job, I think. He covers two shifts. Maintenance guys are mostly in the day shift. The cleaners are mostly at second shift. He puts himself on call during the weekdays, where we've got maintenance guy on call on the weekends. But he's often there early in the morning and late at night. He's really got his hand on what's happening in the buildings. A very dedicated individual is going to be hard to replace when and if he ever retires. Hopefully he'll never retire, but you two make a good team. And as you just mentioned a few minutes ago, I think a lot of people countywide still may not fully recognize that Sheboygan County owns the buildings here at UW Sheboygan. We don't operate the place. It's operated by the state, and they've got excellent leadership here as well, and in fact just received an award for some very good work that you and your team was a part of. Please share, you know, what is that relationship here at UW Sheboygan with Sheboygan County? That's kind of an odd relationship sometimes, is the county owns the property 77 acres. We own the buildings. I believe there's nine of them, roughly a quarter of a million square feet. And the state operates them. They pay for the teachers. They run the programs. They educate mostly Sheboygan County residents, but they also have the maintenance manpower. They're state employees. We give them the lawnmower. We pay them some money for maintenance, painting, recarpeting, building little offices, whatever. They pull that out of county funds. We recently re-ruffed part of this building, in fact, as part of my project, but because it's county owned property. And that award, I'm very proud of that. The Library of the Year award it was for the Acuity Technology Center was built on the freeway side of the campus, kind of made a new front door. People can see it from the freeway. It really brought a lot of technology. The award was more for their staff and their programs, but I really think that it's the building that's feeding their enthusiasm, and it's getting more people in the door. They mentioned in an article that they've gotten so many more people coming to use the space. It's much more attractive space than where they were located in a ground floor previously. If you haven't checked it out, if you haven't been to the UW Sheboygan in some time, your UW Sheboygan, please come on out here and take a look at it. It was, I lose track of time, but I think it was five, six years ago that we had a wonderful relationship with the Bratz family in Sheboygan County and UW Sheboygan and put on this beautiful science edition. And then another partnership between the local, state, and private sector, Acuity stepped up and provided $1.8 million for the Acuity Technology Center here, which again is this beautiful library that leveraging those funds with $4.2 million from the Sheboygan County Board and again the outstanding staff assistants here from the employees here at UW Sheboygan. As Jim mentioned, they received the Library of the Year award statewide, which again reflects well on UW Sheboygan, Sheboygan County, and the community as a whole that made such a great investment. And Jim was the key person who provided the oversight for that project and all that work that was done and I did a tremendous job, Jim and his team. So we appreciate it and I'm glad you take pride in it. We all do. With that, I'm going to transition to Chairman Van der Steen, who wants to get in-depth a little bit more of some other projects you've been involved with. Mike. Yeah, Jim, in addition to the maintenance that you do on all of the existing buildings, you are an integral part of what happens in the planning and the organization of many of our capital projects. Jim touched on UWS here. There's been two major building projects recently. But what other projects have you been involved in in the past in Sheboygan County with these major capital improvements? As you mentioned, the Broad Science Building and the QT Technology Center are the most visible examples. But I am involved in most of the construction projects. Anything to do with buildings in Sheboygan County. We recently did somewhat minor remodeling, but it was quite a bit of loose ends that needed to be taken care of and coordinated. We consolidated departments. We moved real property listing down into the Treasurer's Office, had to expand that space somewhat. Then we moved a land and water conservation from our building in Sheboygan Falls to the planning department because they work on a lot of the same types of things and it's really working out that they're located close to each other. That will allow us to get rid of a lease space that we have in moving the Aging and Disability Resource Center to our building in Sheboygan Falls. We replaced boilers, we replaced roofs, stuff that people probably don't really see compared to the big building projects. That consolidation you talked about is going to help us save some real money going forward. It's about $190 to $200,000 a year. We'll see if going forward on things with those entities in their new homes. Could you tell us a little bit about what current projects you have on the books that you're looking to tackle next? We recently completed expanding a fire alarm system at the Card House. We're going to be expanding the morgue back to their 1933 space. That requires relocating the veteran services area from the Card House to the annex right behind the Card House still at that same ground floor level so hopefully they won't, they'll still be easy to find for all our veterans to access their services. As I mentioned, we prioritized, had a program where we replaced air conditioners and roofs on a prioritized basis before they become a crisis. People can't sit in their desks because the roof is leaking. We tried to get a program where we logically replaced things ahead of time. That's taken quite a bit of my time and we intend to continue that in these next couple of years. We also have some exciting things that we had at Eagle Scout, Chris Wheeler, Son, Steven donate some landscaping to our agriculture building. With your help, we've got the rotary donating $40,000 of playground equipment this coming September at Taylor Park. Again, that's a small park near the museum just east of the mall. Hopefully that type of equipment will really make it an attractive park. A big thing that we're doing right now is replacing the software control system that manages our heating equipment, our air conditioning equipment, trying to really reduce our energy use. We've created an energy team. We've got one person from every building that we're responsible for to try and brainstorm, get their staff involved in saving energy, get those lights turned off when they're not in the room, and try and think of other ways that we can save energy. That's real important with the way the cost of energy has been going up and it really affects their budget. If we look at the courthouse and the admin building complex right now, there's an awful lot of construction going on around that building. Could you give us a little bit of an idea of what's actually happening and how long we're expecting this to go on before things get back to normal? That's a city project. They had flooding at the intersection near our administration building, so they're replacing the storm sewer. As long as they tore up the road, they're going to replace the sanitary sewer and then they come back and rip it up again and they're replacing the water main. Unfortunately, it surrounds the courthouse almost completely. It's making access to our building, especially administration building now during tax time, that it's just hard to get through. There's lots of equipment going back and forth. The roads all tore up, like you said. Hopefully, all the underground stuff will be done in the next week or two, and then they're going to start on the paving. By the time we're through September, all the painting on the roads and the curb and the sidewalks and everything will be replaced and that equipment will be out of there. It's going to get a little bit worse in the near future, because when they pour the concrete, they're going to pour all the streets at the same time. Anybody accessing the courthouse should really come off of Penn Avenue, use our alley south of the law enforcement center. Anybody that wants to access the administration building should really park north of the administration. A lot of times, there's some sidewalk that's tore up. You're probably going to have to walk on people's grass or something, but it's a very inconvenient thing that we're trying to work through, and hopefully it will be an improvement for the whole area. Well, thanks for all the notices that you're giving everybody, at least in the county, and the paper's been doing a good job of letting people know about this. During tax time, our treasurer set up several different places where people could pay their taxes, so they didn't have to enter that area to try to work around all the construction. Earlier in the conversation, you mentioned something about the Bookworm Gardens. Could you tell us a little bit more about that project and where it's located? Bookworm Gardens is a nonprofit, private organization that's building a two and a half million dollar garden right here on the UW-Shabuigan campus. If you come past Lutheran High School, it's up at the top of the hill. They're going to have different gardens based on book themes. Their administration building is going to look like Hansel and Gradle's Cottage. It should be a very big attraction for not only Shabuigan County residents, but statewide. They've gotten, I believe, over half their money. They've recently started. They had a groundbreaking ceremony a couple weeks ago. They're getting donations from all the local community high school shop classes to build their little buildings for each little garden. And they're doing it the right way. They're putting aside some money from everything they get as a donation for perpetual maintenance. They want this to last long after the leadership has passed on. And it should be a great attraction for Shabuigan County. I agree, and it's going to be neat to have it here at the campus. And some of the facilities that we have here that are maybe under utilized during the summer months, that'll be a nice shoulder season for them when they're at their peak season with the gardens. Going back a little bit to some of the capital projects, could you tell us a little bit about how those projects are bid out and selected? Anytime there's a project like a replacement project that's over $25,000. We're required by our own ordinance to build, to bid that work out. If it's a smaller project like the remodeling that was recently done in the administration building, I might draw that up, write a specification for the low, and then bid it out in the papers. But traditionally we hire an architect or an engineering design firm to draw detailed plans and specifications about everything that's supposed to be done. We bid it out by advertising it in the local papers. And each contractor has that same detailed set of plans, so they should have apples to apples bids. They're all bidding on exactly the same amount of work. And we open those bids at a public property committee meeting. And it's often worded, typically it's worded to the lowest bidder. Occasionally there's a bidder that we've had problems with in the past, that maybe it's, we go with the next. We're required to go with what's cheapest for Sheboygan County. And then you mentioned the property committee. Could you tell us a little bit more about how you interface with that committee and other committees? Almost of the work that gets done in county government goes through one of our nine standing committees. But give us a little insight into that. Yeah, I basically report to the property committee. Anything that's going to be remodeled or relocating departments gets approval by the property committee. And we meet twice a month for an hour, two hours, depending on whatever it takes. Oftentimes they'll send me to the finance committee to ask for more money. Something, like I said earlier, things break. We fix them, something big breaks and we didn't plan on it. It's not in our budget. We go to the finance committee and get some approval for some more funds. It also includes me returning a lot of times to give them a status report about where we're at. Occasionally I'm involved more as an engineering consultant at our healthcare center, so I'll go to the healthcare center's board, our health and human services board. And once in a while, the transportation committee for things at the airport or our law committee for things at the jails. Sounds like you're a busy man, Jim. With that, I'll turn it back to Adam for some questions about our 2010 budget process. Well, as Jim and Mike certainly know, we're in the midst of our 2010 budget process. Every year seems to be more challenging than the last, particularly this one though, because we're losing some, well, over a million dollars of revenue from the state. And of course the county board once again has established an aggressive goal, and I think an appropriate goal to try to keep property taxes in check. Jim, you'll be developing the budget for the building services department. And as you've just touched on, you shared some of the very important projects in the past that we've done and projects that you're currently working on. As part of our 2010 budget, we developed a five year plan. We looked down the road. What are some of the more significant projects that you have planned here ahead? The biggest projects would be adding onto the jail or the adult detention center, as we call it. It's a huge project, it's going to take a lot of my time and a lot of contractors. All at once, the highway shop is intended to be relocated more centrally in the county. That's going to be a few years down the road, but we're already starting to plan for it. And I've got the smaller projects like roof replacements, air conditioning that I mentioned before. There are also big plans out at the airport. I'm not all that involved except my electrician does some work out there. Exciting things happening out there. And with the five year planning process, some folks might wonder, well, how does that work? I mean, you just talked about a detention center. And we're not going to be breaking ground on the detention center in 2010. I'd be surprised if we're going to be putting an addition on even in 2011. But we've got funds built in and plans, as you said, or underway that we may have to put an addition on sometime within the next five years. How does that work? How do we go through the county board process to make sure that they're comfortable and ultimately support those type of projects? And the instance of the detention center, the sheriff department knows what his population is doing and he knows that pretty soon the jail's going to be full in years out. And like you said, this is a five year plan. So we're looking out to 2015. What sort of things might we have to spend money on? How can we prioritize them so we're not overspending in one year and then not, we're trying to even it out, even the effect to the taxpayers, reduce how much we need to borrow. We come up with a detailed estimate about what that addition might cost and realizing that the architect needs to be designed the year before. We break ground in one year and that's going to be a big building. It's going to take a couple years. So we spread out what that's going to entail. And we communicate that to the supervisors. It goes through a variety of committees and ultimately the county board votes and approves. Of course, the following year we look at it again and that could reshuffle things in the out years. Excellent. Good overview. We only have a couple of minutes left and as you reflect back on your nine years here, working in the building services area, started as the deputy director or assistant director. Now you're the director. And as you look five, ten years ahead, what kind of changes do you envision happening to your department? What kind of challenges do you envision? Changes would be technology. As we get more and more sophisticated, our controls on our equipment, the biggest challenge as we mentioned briefly before is the utilities have almost tripled since I've been here. It's now grown to a third of the building services budget. We need to get a handle on how much we're using just to keep track, keep pace with how fast the rates are going up. And we'll be spending a lot of time. There's always new technology and lighting and we're always reevaluating should we be replacing the lighting or should we wait. New equipment to control motors, the elevator controls, all things to and we're constantly trying to put the emphasis on energy. Well, very good. We sure appreciate your planning and the work and your diligence over the years. And as you said, you've got an exceptional team and they reflect well on the county as a whole. So thank you for joining us today, Jim. We appreciate it. Thanks for having me. And thank you for joining us. If you've followed us the last 30 minutes in this discussion, that means you must take some interest in your county government. If you have any suggestions for how we can become more efficient and effective, whether it's in the building services area or any area in Sheboygan County, please let us know. Chairman Van der Steen, the county board as a whole is striving to hold the line on property taxes. We've had a pretty successful track record. But when you have utilities triple in nine years and gas prices double in five, there are a lot of financial challenges that the county has to absorb that we have little to no control over. So we can certainly reduce programs and reduce services. But I think as most of you know, there generally aren't a lot of people asking for programs to be reduced or eliminated. More often than not, they're asking for more. So please let us know a few of ideas or suggestions on how we can be more efficient. So until next time, on behalf of Mike Van der Steen and the Sheboygan County board, thanks for joining us.