 I'd like to call to order the meeting of the Sheboygan County Board of Supervisors for March 19th, 2019. Are we certified in compliance with the open meeting law? Yes, the agenda was posted on March 15th at 4 p.m. Please rise for the Pledge of Allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible with liberty and justice for all. Next is the roll call. 18 supervisors present. Next is the approval of the January 15, 2019 journal. Supervisor Glavin. Move to approve. Supervisor Abler. Support. Any discussion? All those, are we, okay, please vote. Motion's approved unanimously. Okay, consideration of appointment by the chairperson. Do you have Veterans Service Commission, Allen Knoll of Howard's Grove? Is there a motion? Supervisor Tistroti. I move for adoption. Supervisor Abler. Support the motion. Any discussion? Please vote. Motion's approved unanimously. Are there any presentations? None. Are there any public addresses? There are none. Letters, communications and announcements? I have two resolutions. One from Dork County Board of Supervisors regarding support for a National Estuarine Research Reserve designation for Northeast Wisconsin. That one will be sent to Planning Resources, Agriculture and Extension Committee. The next one is a resolution from Audigame County Board of Supervisors regarding support for funding the renewal of the Knolls Nelson Stewardship Program. That one will also go to Planning Resources, Agriculture and Extension Committee. That's all I have. The administrator's report. Thank you. Good evening. Good evening. It feels a little lighter in here tonight, doesn't it, Tour? Missing a few board members that we generally don't. I don't see anybody from the Plymouth Review here. I don't think Emmett's missed a meeting in the last 20 years, has he? I know our County Board Chairman, I think, is on vacation with his family. We appreciate the Vice Chairman and Finance Chair, as well as Executive Committee Bill Gehring sitting in this evening. And I do have a number of things to quickly cover. We didn't meet last month and it's a rather light agenda this evening, but I can assure you it isn't light from a standpoint of all the things going on in our organization. There's been a tremendous amount in play, but before we start, I thought we'd start on the lighter side. I just celebrated my dad's 80th birthday and my sister and I surprised him and we had a wonderful three, four day weekend and I thought, you know, there's some really milestone birthdays going on in this organization. I know Cheryl has a slide there she can put up for us or not. Charlie Conradie, Roger Distruity, Robert Ziegabauer and Tom Wagner all celebrated birthdays in the last week. And I know Roger Distruity's was a milestone, but I won't mention any of the ages except our friend Charlie Conradie. If you could go to the next slide. Charlie Conradie, turn 90. Isn't that outstanding? I know I speak for I think most of the people in this room, hopefully all of you. Charlie Conradie is a very special individual and a wonderful county board supervisor. I've learned a lot from him. I've appreciated his leadership and I certainly have appreciated his personality and warmth and thoughtful approach. And look at this evening. We got Hershey bars on our desks and it's not unusual whether it's his birthday or a holiday for him to come through the administration building and other facilities and provide candy and treats and just bring a smile to people's day. And I've often said to people I think this county board is a wonderful board full of good hearts and good intentions, very thoughtful. And if there's a leader of the pack, I think it's Charlie Conradie. Happy birthday Charlie. So I want to thank Elaine and Chris and Wendy. I think they got that cake out as quickly as we've ever done. So I appreciate the help. Thank you, Todd. And enjoy the cake while I go through a few announcements and updates this evening. So first, I was pleased to see Matt Strittmatter walk in the room. I know Matt and some of his staff as well as Bill Gehring were at a conference in Green Bay today on opioids and the opioid crisis. I did not think I'd see Matt here this evening, but I was planning on sharing with you that though Matt is new to our organization, just started as the Health and Human Services Director in November, he's already received a very prestigious award. Have you heard of the Relentless Badger Award? I think what a cool name is that, Relentless Badger Award. This was recently given to Matt, not because of the good work that he's done in this short tenure here in Boydon County, but because of the very good work he did in La Crosse, where we were pleased to scoop him up from. Every year, each of the eight independent living centers in Wisconsin choose their own recipient for the annual Relentless Badger Award. The individual receiving this award must be a champion of advocacy, someone who works tirelessly to ensure that the voice of individuals with disabilities are heard. This year, the Independent Living Centers of Wisconsin presented their Relentless Badger Award to Matt, former manager of the Integrated Support and Recovery Services Division in La Crosse. Matt's willingness to listen to people who were receiving the services brought about true change in La Crosse County. He's done good things, and in fact, he was so good and he was so persistent and he worked so hard that he is now, as far as I'm concerned, the only Relentless Badger who's a part of the Sheboygan County organization. That's pretty impressive. Thank you, Matt. I'm so glad he's here, and I know that he's got a number of good things in play, and it certainly is getting a feel for the Health and Human Services Department yet, but it was nice to hear he was at this conference today with Bill Gehring and others, and there are a lot of initiatives at Health and Human Services that Vice Chairperson Roger Otten and the entire Health and Human Services Committee certainly are well aware of. So thank you, Matt. Another topic I wanted to briefly touch on that was actually brought to my attention by Al Bosman. Al is a farmer. He's been a farmer most of his life. He's an educator. He taught agriculture at LTC for a number of years, and as you know, he's a highly regarded county board supervisor, and Al gave me a call, I don't know if it was earlier this week or last week, but it reminded me that last week was National Agriculture Week, National Agriculture Week. And as you know, we have an active Precom committee and a very effective extension office, and certainly a lot of good things happen with agriculture in our county, but did you know each American farmer feeds more than 165 people on average today versus 25 people on average in the 1960s? Quite simply, American agriculture is doing more and doing it better than ever before, and many of these farms, as you know, are getting larger and larger and larger. They're so important to our economy, so important to our quality of life, and in Sheboygan County alone, agriculture provides for about 8,662 jobs. 12% of our workforce, it contributes over 3.1 billion in economic activity in Sheboygan County, contributes 739 million in the county's total income, and pays, which we certainly appreciate, 42.7 million in taxes, federal, state, and local property taxes to support our communities. Farmers own 50% of the land in Sheboygan County. Actually, I think it's closer to 58%, but over 50%, so they are really important stewards of the land, and some of you may have noticed that a little bit the last week with the flooding. Farmers that are following best practices, making sure that soil erosion practices are in place, they make such a difference to our water quality and maintaining our topsoil. And again, their stewardship responsibilities are so important, and the few that don't, you can tell, you can tell as you drive through the community. So we owe our farmers a great deal of support and respect, and certainly wanted to say a few good words about national agriculture a week. Al was at the new Farm Wisconsin Discovery Center in Manitowoc County today. I didn't get a chance to join him, but I understand that it was a nice event, and if you've driven by it, it's a beautiful facility just past LTC on the left side as you're heading toward Green Bay. So if you're interested at some point in checking that out, I'm sure you could contact LTC, but that's what that new building is if you're wondering. So Al, thanks for bringing that to my attention. Highway 23, I spoke with the new secretary of the Department of Transportation, Craig Thompson today. Many of you know Craig. He used to work for the Wisconsin Counties Association. He was the executive director of the Just Fix It campaign, has done a lot to raise awareness to the importance of maintaining our transportation system, and just roll back just a little bit of history. Back in 1999, when Highway 23 was approved, 1999, when it was enumerated to go from a two-lane to a four-lane, it would have cost about $42 million. Today, it's over $150 million. Got choked up just saying that. Over $150 million today because of delays and because of a court action in 2014, a lawsuit that was filed. It's remarkable how much the cost of maintaining our transportation system goes up when we don't have the political will to follow through, get projects done, garner the necessary funding. But I am so pleased that thanks to the support of the county board and the community that's just rallied around this, the Department of Transportation did complete a new limited scope supplemental environmental impact statement, that was done or prepared in response to the concerns raised in the lawsuit. So it tackled each one of those issues or concerns. Next week is a critically important week, because if there isn't a challenge, if there isn't another lawsuit, the clock ends next week for that opportunity, and we can proceed with the project. The discussion I had with Secretary Thompson today was talking about how we come together and celebrate this success and hopefully are poised to break ground in May, certainly this summer. So next week is a very, very important week, and I hope I'm not going to be here a month from now sharing some sad news that there was yet another lawsuit. At this point, keep your fingers crossed, and be hopeful and optimistic that we're going to be able to get this project done after all these years. U.S. Customs. From time to time, I've received a call or a question from a county board supervisor of the community about U.S. Customs. Certainly the transportation, exact finance committees have been receiving routine updates, but the latest is we are now building a stand-alone customs facility just to the west of the Aviation Heritage Center of Wisconsin. So it will be a stand-alone facility. It's going to be built in such a manner where we can continue to collaborate with the Aviation Heritage of Wisconsin, potentially even connect it to at some point. But we weren't successful in purchasing that building or coming to an agreement with them, so we have now submitted plans along with our engineering consultant, Omni. We've submitted plans to the state and federal government on the first block design, and it's our goal, as you know, to build this facility by the Ryder Cup, the 2020 Ryder Cup. We have two and a half million dollars coming from the state to support this. We are working on an operational agreement with the Kohler Company to cover the staff costs associated with it until user fees kick in and can cover that going forward. And we have this in our five-year capital plan. It's been approved by the county board, and right now we're hoping to exceed your expectations and come in under the amount that you designated in the plan. So progress is being made. We have a focused site plan, and we intend to deliver. We certainly hope we can. I wanted to move a little bit into the state biennial budget. I don't know if you had a chance to review the materials. I forwarded you from the Wisconsin County's Association. They did a tremendous job summarizing that budget, and in short order. I've since had an opportunity to go to a presentation in Madison last week and near Appleton. Governor Evers was here for a brief roundtable with some local officials, and so I've had a chance to pour into it a little bit. And I don't recall if I shared this with you in February or not, but one of the key areas of concern we have is with child welfare. In fact, I consider it one of our top priorities, if not the top priority, taking care of our children. And as Matt has shared with the Health and Human Services Committee, and as I think I may have shared with you previously, but I'm going to share it again, just four quick statistics. The number of Sheboygan County children remove from their home for safety reasons and placed in out-of-home care increased over 200%. What does that mean? Well, in 2010, 52 children were removed from their homes because of their safety. In 2017, it went from 52 to 219 were removed because of their safety and well-being. The cost of out-of-home care placements for these children increased over 500%. Well, what does that mean? Well, in 2010, it cost us about $290,000 to care for these children and place them. In 2017, $1.9 million. Where's that money coming from? Well, state children and family aids received by Sheboygan County has essentially been flat during that period of time. So we've been shifting and reprioritizing and putting more property tax levy to support these areas of responsibility. Without question, the opioid epidemic is a tremendous driver to this increase. Drugs, alcohol, mental health, all of this is contributing to the safety of our children and the services we need to provide and the costs that are escalating. So there's some good news. The Wisconsin County's Association recommended as part of the state biennial budget that $30 million of new revenue be provided for counties to provide these services. And the governor's allocated $15 million. Yes, it's half of $30 million, but it's money that we haven't seen for quite some time, and it would be very helpful. So we're pleased to see that the governor's budgeted additional dollars to help with child welfare in Sheboygan County and throughout the state. Medicaid expansion is also in this proposed budget. Now, that's been a little bit more controversial, as I'm sure many of you are aware, but now most states are capturing it. Most states are doing so. There's a bit of a track record there. And if Wisconsin captures it, that frees up $320 million of state general purpose revenue. $320 million. I can recall years ago there being a push in Wisconsin that we weren't getting enough federal money return to us, that we were paying out more than we were receiving. I see some of you nodding, particularly for transportation, but any federally funded programs. We were paying out more that was coming back our way. Well, here's an opportunity to capture $320 million to help over 80,000 people get health insurance as well as help with mental health services, crisis intervention services, nursing home funding, areas of need. And personally, I'd like to see the politics come out of that discussion and look at the track record. If other states are doing it, I think we need to seriously consider it as well. Juvenile corrections. The governor's budget proposes returning 17-year-olds to our juvenile justice system. That will have costs. That will have implications. And in his budget, he says there will be some sufficient appropriation to reimburse counties. I don't know if we've ever seen that before. Whatever it costs, we'll cover it. Based on my experience, and I think most of us who have been in county government for a while, generally speaking, the track record isn't real good at the state for offering to do something or requiring us to do something and following through on the funding. But if this goes through, obviously we'd like to see the dollars associated with it so it doesn't go on taxpayers' shoulders, property taxpayers' shoulders. Shared revenue. I think Jim Baumgart, back when he was senator Baumgart, or assemblyman, back in the day, shared revenue used to be a means of funding or helping support unfunded state mandates. Programs and services that they require us to administer, but the dollars don't keep up with it. So they would provide a pot of state-shared revenue to help soften that. You may recall at some of our county board leadership forms. It's been two decades, and rather than it going up, it's gone down. Yet our unfunded mandates and the costs associated have definitely gone up. So for the first time in a long time, the governor's proposed a 2% increase for state-shared revenue. I'm not holding my breath just because for the last two decades it hasn't been increased, but can county government make an argument that we're definitely putting more and more pressure on the shoulders of property taxpayers to fill these unfunded mandates? Absolutely. Judicial system. I'm encouraged with this, and I presume the law committee and certainly our district attorney, Jola Maske, is really happy about this. The governor's budget increases funding for assistant district attorneys and state public defenders. So I'm hopeful that that will continue to be supported as we go through the process. A couple more. County conservation and clean water. We see more funding for conservation practices and clean water initiatives than we have in a long time. And from my point of view, I think that's a good thing. If we don't have clean water, a lot of other things really don't matter. So I'm pleased to see some initiatives there. One of them is dealing with all the lead pipes that we're hearing about, more and more in Milwaukee. But I can assure you, we have a lot of old homes in Sheboygan County that have lead pipes as well that pose a danger to families living there. And then finally, broadband expansion. I don't have the full picture of this yet, but the governor's budget increases broadband expansion by nearly $40 million, one of the largest increases we've seen. And as you know, there's a tremendous amount of interest in providing more consistent broadband services countywide. And I've heard from the business community on this over the years as well, depending on where that business is or where that school district is. Sometimes that service and the interruptions and the speed isn't what it needs to be. So I'm hopeful this may be a real good investment for our state and for Sheboygan County. So those are just a few quick highlights. If you haven't had a chance, I encourage you to go through that PowerPoint presentation that I forwarded to you. And then I also encourage you to attend our next Sheboygan County legislative breakfast. As I mentioned, Matt Stripmoder, who's in the house, he is going to be providing, along with Scott Shackelford and Joel Armanski, a presentation on our child welfare crisis. And give you not only a feel for what's happening across the state, but what's happening right here at home and that we've got to do something about it. I'm going to prepare some state budget issue papers after the executive committee gives me the clear green light to proceed with what we're going to focus on. There's so much in the budget. Of course, we need to boil it down to six, seven, eight top priorities. Area legislators will be there to give their round updates and then we'll have a round table. And this is going to be held. This is going to be a unique one. We're going to hold it at the Health and Human Services Building from 8 to 9.30 on April 8. So again, this is for the county board, department heads. We've also invited the city common council and mayor because they generally meet right after us and we see this meeting going into their timeframe. So I think they'll have an interest in these areas as well. And lastly, in the back of the room, would our new veteran services officer, Todd Richter, please stand and be recognized. Todd was working in that office for the last four years as an excellent command on the roles and responsibilities of the veteran service office program services as well known in the community with the veteran service organizations and just moved with his coworkers out to the aging and disability resource center co-located there. I think we're going to see some nice synergies, collaboration there, and it even improve our services more to veterans and their families. So thank you, Todd. And thank you, Mr. Chairman. Consideration of committee reports. Executive committee resolution number 26. Regarding carryover of unexpended 2018 appropriations to 2019 recommendation to adopt. Supervisor Wegeman. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I will recommend adoption of resolution number 26. Supervisor Testrodi. Thank you, Mr. Vice Chair. I'll second the motion. Thank you, Supervisor Testrodi. Is there any discussion? Please vote. The motion is approved unanimously. Resolution number 27. Regarding authorizing first restated intergovernmental cooperative agreement in the ring of fiber system recommendation to adopt. Supervisor Testrodi. Adoption. Supervisor Abler. Motion. Supervisor Glavin. Any discussion? Please vote. That motion is approved unanimously. I hand the gavel over to the supervisor. Resolution is introduced. Resolution number 28. From the finance committee. Regarding authorizing the finance committee and finance director to balance over budget departmental accounts. Refer to the executive committee. Resolution number 29. From the finance committee. Regarding supporting the return of just over 1.5 million of community development block grant funding to state of Wisconsin and authorizing the use of just over 1.3 million of unassigned fund balance to fully fund the return payment to the state. Refer to the executive committee. Resolution number 30. From the health and human services committee. Regarding requesting increased funding and oversight reforms for Wisconsin's child protective services system. Refer to the executive committee. Resolution number 31. From the human resources committee. Regarding reauthorization of self-insurance status for workers' compensation. Refer to the finance committee. Resolution number 32. From the planning, resources, agricultural and extension committee. Regarding participating in snowmobile AIDS program, years 2019 to 2024. Refer to the law committee. Ordinance is introduced. Ordinance number 14. From executive committee. Regarding adopting state municipal records retention schedule. Refer to the finance committee. Ordinance number 15. From the planning, resource, agriculture and extension committee. Regarding amending shoreline, shoreline ordinance in section 8, town of Sherman. Refer to the executive committee. Ordinance number 16. From the transportation committee. Regarding establishing speed zone on County Road PP, town of Sheboygan. Refer to the law committee. And ordinance number 17. From the transportation committee. Regarding establishing speed zone on County Road F, towns of Lima and Linden. Refer to the law committee. I have been informed that I made an improper referral. The resolution number 32 should have gone to the finance committee. Sorry about that. Next we will have adjournment. Supervisor Bemas. I move we adjourn. Supervisor Glavin. Second. Please remember to push your I button before you leave. And the handheld. The handheld remote. Oh, we got it. We are adjourned.