County Board - Regular Meeting

But it is 530, and so I'm going to call this county board meeting to order. Item two is invocation or moment of silence, and I will turn this over to Member Byrne.

Thank you. And I just lost my feed. My battery just died, so I don't have my feed. But in this month in which we reflect on the 250th anniversary of the United States, there is a lot to reflect on, a lot to celebrate, a lot to mourn. Let's remember as we move forward with the county's business, with the government's business, to bring everybody along together. That is how we succeed in America, is we bring everybody along. Thank you.

Thank you. Madam Clerk, if you can call the roll.

Buck Farley.

Here.

William John Frederick.

Here.

Eric Hansen. Present. William Besler. Here. Val Lehman.

Present.

Brian Leffler. Absent. Mike O'Neill.

Here.

Adam Reeves.

Here.

Jim Rogal. Absent. Natalie Roseman Mendoza.

Present.

Jeff Tompkins. Here. Andy Zebarth. Absent. Brian Bankert. Here. Corey Byrne.

Present.

Beverly Bell.

Present.

Mark Claus. Here. Leah Klein.

Here.

Alex Duffy. Here. Sean Fagan. Absent. Elizabeth Johnston.

I am here.

Okay.

All right. That gives us, I believe, 16 members present. Having conducted the opening roll call and declared a quorum is physically present, I would like to inform the Board that Member Fagan has requested to participate remotely under County Board Rule 2020 and in accordance with the Open Meetings Act. Notice was received from Member Fagan in accordance with our rules. Per Board Rule 2020, Member Fagan will be authorized to attend the meeting electronically if a motion to approve the member's electronic attendance is made, seconded, and adopted by a majority of the members of the board. May I have a motion to approve Member Fagan's attendance? Motion by Bessler, second by Bell. All those in favor, say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Motion passes. Okay. The motion has passed, and the record will show that Member Fagan is present for the meeting. Member Fagan, can you hear us okay?

Yes, thank you.

All right, thank you. All right, we'll move on to item number five, appearance by members of the public or county employees. And we do have two members tonight. First up, I will call Mayor Mark Cotty to the stand. Thank you for joining us tonight.

Well, thank you for allowing me to speak with you tonight. Basically, I just wanted to say thank you very much for considering the intergovernmental agreement between the village of Hudson and McLean County for the shortfall of the property tax, that there was a mistake made in the property tax. And it basically made 50% of the property tax a loss to the village. And to the village of Hudson, that is quite a bit amount of money. We would have had to make some drastic changes if we didn't get that money this year. So I really just want to express my appreciation for the board going out and doing this because you didn't have to do this. There are other ways by statute that you could have solved this problem. Wouldn't have been as advantageous to the village. But as the mayor of Hudson, I just want to express my gratitude that you're really fixing a problem that is not your problem. It was a mistake, and it wasn't your mistake. But thank you very much for considering this and taking care of the village of Hudson with this. It means a lot to me, to the board. I express my gratitude. everything that you've done for us and also the citizens too for the Village of Hudson by doing this intergovernmental agreement. So I just wanted to say thank you.

Thank you. And we have one more speaker, Mike O'Grady, also from Hudson.

Thank you. Mike O'Grady, I'm supervisor of Hudson Township. For the second consecutive year, taxpayers in McLean County are paying to correct errors made by the McLean County Clerk's Office. Hudson Township and the Village of Hudson are dealing with the consequences of that property tax billing error that never should have occurred. County officials have acknowledged the Village of Hudson taxpayers were collectively undertaxed over $81,000 due to an administrative error in the tax extension process. As a result, the village residents are being instructed to pay their current bills and the unpaid portion will be added separately on a line item in their 2006 bills paid in 2007. While some residents are probably going to be initially appreciative of a little lower tax bill this year, are going to be frustrated next year when they discover that they must make up the difference. Families and property owners who have budgeted annually for taxes will be faced with an unexpected increase caused not by a decision of local government, but by an error in the McLean County Clerk's Office. The financial impact extends beyond the under-collected levy. Additional time, taxpayer assistance, certified mail notifications, Administrative corrections and public communications all consume resources that ultimately come at the taxpayer's expense. Citizens deserve to know the total cost associated with these corrective measures. mistake and reoccurring mistakes. The issue also arises at a time when questions have been raised regarding the fiscal management of the county clerk's office. Public records indicate the office has exceeded its authorized budget by more than $400,000. Now, while budget overruns and tax extensionnaires are separate issues, both contribute to the concerns about management practices, oversight, and accountabilities. The fact now tonight that the McLean County Board is being asked to intervene financially underscores the seriousness of the situation. What began as a tax extension error has evolved into a matter involving county finances, taxpayers' confidence, public trust, and in the administration of one of government's most fundamental responsibilities. Tonight's request for an interest-free loan is not simply about the $81,000. It's about the pattern of errors and the cost of correcting these actions and the erosion of public competence. Taxpayers deserve answers. They deserve to know how these errors occurred, why existing safeguards failed to catch them, what corrective actions have been made and implemented for the future to ensure that the mistakes never occur again. Taxpayers of Hudson Township and the Village of Hudson and taxpayers of McLean County should not have to endure repeated confusion and uncertainty because of preventable administrative errors. Accountability requires more than acknowledging mistakes after they occur. It requires demonstrating effective measures that have been put in place to prevent them from ever happening again. Thank you. I appreciate your time tonight.

Thank you. We'll move on to item number six, and this is the consent agenda. May I have a motion? Motion by Hanson. May I have a second? Second by Bessler. Any comments or questions? Yes. Member Klein.

Thank you, Chair Johnson. I need to recuse myself from item E1B.

6E1B? Yes. Okay. Due to your employment with ISU. Excellent. Any other comments or questions? Seeing none, all in favor of item 6 say aye.

Aye.

Any opposed? Motion passes. We'll move on to item number 7. Oh, we're not gonna move on item number seven, because we have guests with us tonight. So part of our consent agenda was approval of a resolution for congratulations and commendations. And we do have members of wishbone here. So if you'd like to come forward.

Hi, everyone. Thank you for having us. I'm McKenna Barba. I'm the shelter director at Wishbone Canine Rescue. Today, we'd like to hand the Community Hero Award, which was created to recognize individuals and organizations that strive to improve the lives of animals in our community. It's my honor to announce the 2026 Community Hero Award goes to the McLean County Board for their commitment to building the new and amazing animal shelter. This is creating programs promoting adoption, animal welfare through rabies control, community partnerships, compassionate care, and public education. We are extremely grateful for the wonderful partnership Wishbone Canine Rescue has with Marshall and her wonderful staff at McLean County Animal Services. So far this year, we have transferred 48 dogs into our care. We'd love to ask McLean County Board Chair Johnson to come up and accept this award.

So I just want to thank Wishbone. They have been wonderful partners in this. And I gave a whole speech, which I think is on YouTube somewhere, that Marshall took. But they have been wonderful partners. And as we have expanded our animal services building, it has only strengthened that relationship. And we've seen the animal care get better, get home faster. And so Marshall, if you'd like to say anything, we wouldn't be here without your leadership and our administrative staff who made the building happens. I'm going to particularly point out Tony. Thank you, Tony. So, Marshall, did you want to say anything?

I just want to say I appreciate Tony as well. He was very helpful in this whole entire process. And now that we have the building going and running and the partnerships and relationships that we are able to pull together, this is such an amazing opportunity to make the community stronger. And we couldn't have done it without McLean County Board. So thank you as well. And I'm looking forward to all the new adventures we have with Wishbone Canine Rescue. And we'll put this out at the shelter. So thank you. Thank you.

All right, we will move on. Item seven, standing committees. First committee is executive committee. Vice Chair Rogal is out, but the committee has no items for action. So we will move on to item 7B, and that is finance committee with finance chair Val Lehman.

Thank you very much, Chair Johnston. The Finance Committee has five items to be presented for action this evening. The first, I'd like to suggest that items A and B be taken together. Does anyone have a concern with that? All right, then I'd like to say items 7B, 1A, and B include accept in place on file the popular annual financial report, PAFR, for the fiscal year ending December 31st, 2025, and B, accept in place on file the annual comprehensive financial report and single audit report for the fiscal year ending December 31st, 2025, and ISO move.

Thank you. May I have a second? Second by Member Bell. Any comments or questions for all you policy wonks? Yes, Member Lehman.

Yeah, I just want to call out a quick note that this year's audit is thankfully on time. That was an effort in part due to a lot of folks coming together. Some learnings from last year have been put in place. So just wanted to call out all of the work that was done from the team at CLA, all of the work that was done through administration, through in part with the project manager, Sanford Hess, who's been helping with the ERP system, calling out the treasurer's office for being an impeccable partner, as well as the work of the office of the auditor and so many others. I know I'm forgetting some, but it's just a celebration that this was able to be done on time this year. and looking forward to continuing to learn through the process and make sure that it's even smoother going forward, knowing that there are some road bumps with ERP learnings, but this is an exciting moment.

Thank you. Any other comments or questions? I just want to, for those who did read it, and there is a lot of jargon in there when you read it, but what they determined was that there were no findings, and that created an unmodified, clean opinion. Those are all technical terms, but in layman's terms, this means that our financial statements fairly present the organization's financial results, positions, and cash flows. This is the type of opinion that's provided when an auditor believes that the fiscal statements give true and fair view of the organization's affairs for the accounting period. It is considered the most favorable outcome in an audit report, and so I would just want people to understand when they look at that, The technical terms can be very difficult to kind of like muddle through, but I just want to make sure people understand that the audit came back clean and that they gave us the best opinion that they could as far as the report. So I will leave it there. Any other comments or questions? Seeing none, all in favor of item 7B1A and B, say aye.

Aye.

Any opposed? Motions passed. We'll go back to Member Layman.

Thank you. I'd like to, similarly with A and B, I'd like to suggest that we take C and D together. Are there any concerns? Seeing none, we'll go ahead and take 7B, 1C, and D together. That includes the request approval of an emergency appropriation ordinance amending the McLean County fiscal year 2026 budget for the tort judgment fund risk management services. This requires a two-thirds county board approval pursuant 55 ILCS 561003 as well as D, the request approval of an emergency appropriation ordinance amending the McLean County fiscal year 2026 budget for tort judgment fund jail medical services also requires that two-thirds board vote and ISO move.

Thank you. May I have a second? Second by Member Farley. Any comments or questions? Seeing none, all in favor of items 7B, 1C, and D, say aye.

Aye.

Any opposed? Motion passes. One more item.

And the final item for finance is 7B, 1E. That's the request approval of an intergovernmental agreement for temporary financial assistance. And I so move.

Thank you. May I have a second? Second by Member Klein. Comments or questions? Seeing none. Oh, we do have one. Yes, Member Layman.

Thank you very much. I just wanted to call out and thank Mr. Mark Cotty, the president of the Village of Hudson and Hudson Township Supervisor, Mr. Michael Grady, for their presence and their partnership and their willingness to be a great partner and accept our apologies for the issues that have caused a concern with the taxpayers there. So it's great to see opportunity to be able to make things right and it's great to continue to have great partners in our community to work through things with.

Thank you. Any other comments or questions? Seeing none, all in favor of item 7B1E say aye.

Aye.

Any opposed? Motion passes.

All right, thank you very much. We don't have any other items to be presented for action this evening, presented for information. We have our general report found on pages 12 through 18 of the unapproved minutes packet. And I also just want to give another quick thank you to administration and very specifically Ms. Dreyer. One of the things that each committee received this month is a brand new quarterly report. This quarterly report is being able to give each committee budgeted number versus actual spent at this particular juncture in the year and we know Ms. Dreyer did a lot of tireless work to make this very first one happen and I think this will be a wonderful step along the way to make sure we've got clear communication and expectations for our budgetary needs going forward. So thank you very much administration of Ms. Dreyer.

Thank you, Member Layman. We'll move on then to item 7C with Health Committee Chair Corey Byrne.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Health Committee brings no items for action today. A couple quick updates. This was a light month with Health Committee, but we will be back in August. We've occasionally profiled a local health care provider in our community, and next month we are pleased to welcome Bridge to Hope Counseling, a new private practice focusing on serving the LGBTQIA plus community and neurodivergent communities in the Bloomington Normal Area. The Behavioral Health Coordinating Committee through the Board of Health has issued a new request for proposals for behavioral health services. The window opened last Friday and will afford up to $1.8 million in funding. And that window closes at the end of August. So if you are a local provider, please bring your ideas. We'd love to help pay for them. So far this year, this program has awarded over five million dollars in funding for mental health and criminal justice initiatives in McLean County. This program is robust, it is streamlined, and it is ready to fund your projects. I'm very pleased to announce that the request made by McLean County this past spring with our government partners in Washington DC has moved on to the next step. We are now on step three of about six, bringing in over seven figures to help fund a decaying water infrastructure project in our district. Several more steps do remain, but we are pleased at this project and at the progress of this project. And lastly, please do remember to wash your produce under warm or under cool running water and cook it to a temperature of 158 to prevent cyclosporosis. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you for that reminder. We all want to stay healthy this summer. So move on to item 17. That is just yes. One more thing.

Yes, Kimberly. Yeah, I just wanted to know if I could make a comment or at least bring something to the attention under the health committee.

Absolutely.

Thank you. Oftentimes, you hear the challenging stories or the stories of where something goes wrong in county government, but I just wanted to take a moment and call out somebody who's gone above and beyond in county government, specifically somebody who works for the health department. A constituent reached out to me. and brought up a concern that they were having. They live here in McLean County. They have business outside the county. It had business to do with the health department. And that particular county's health department was really meeting them with a lot of resistance. They weren't giving them the resources. They weren't giving them the support and the answers that they needed to be able to conduct their business. So this person reached out to our very own health department. and our health department went above and beyond. Really just made sure that this particular individual and that his business that's taking place outside of the county had what they needed to be able to make sure that their customers were safe, were taken care of. I just wanted to give a really big thanks to the Director of Environmental Health Division, Tom Anderson. Tom Anderson is somebody who has just been called out as really being an impressive member of this community. So thank you for the opportunity to call that one out.

Thank you. Any other comments and questions for health before we move on? All right. Item 7D, Justice Committee. Vice Chair Rogel is still absent, and so we will turn it over to his Vice Chair of the Justice Committee, and that is Member Rosamond Mendoza.

Thank you, Chair Johnston. We have five items for action tonight. So 7D1A, we have request approval of a subcontract subaward DCFS grant agreement between the Children's Advocacy advocacy centers of Illinois and the county of McLean. And I so move.

Thank you. May I have a second? Second by Member Hanson. Any comments or questions? Seeing none, all in favor of item 7D1A say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Motion passes.

Back to you. Next, 7D1B is a request approval of a violent crime victims assistance program grant agreement between the State of Illinois Office of the Attorney General and McLean County Children's Advocacy Center. An ayes will move.

Thank you. May I have a second? Second by Member Farley. Any comments or questions? Seeing none, all in favor of item 7D1B, say aye.

Aye.

Any opposed? Motion passes.

7D1C, request approval of Violent Crime Victims Assistance Program grant agreement between the State of Illinois of the Attorney General and CASA of McLean and Logan Counties. And I so move.

Thank you. May I have a second? Second by Member Bessler. Any comments or questions? Seeing none, all in favor of Item 7D1C, say aye.

Aye.

Any opposed? Motion passes.

7d 1d Request approval of the violent crime victims assistance program grant agreement between the state of Illinois office of the Attorney General and the McCain County State's Attorney Nice. I'll move.

Thank you. I have a second second by member Farley comments or questions member O'Neill Can you turn on your mic for the record I Need to abstain from this vote. Okay. Thank you. Any other comments or questions? I Seeing none, all in favor of item 7D1D, say aye.

Aye.

Any opposed? Motion passes with one abstention.

All right. Finally, 7D1E, request approval of a sponsored project research agreement with Illinois State University, and I so move.

Thank you. May I have a second? Second by Member Byrne. Comments or questions? Yes, Member Klein.

Thank you, Chairperson Johnson. I need to recuse myself from this vote.

Thank you. Thank you for noting that. Any other comments or questions? This is the work that we do to track recidivism and how well our programs are doing to minimize that. So I'm very grateful for the work that's being done here. All right. Then all in favor of item 7D1E say aye.

Aye.

Any opposed? Motion passes with one abstention. All right, we will move on. Oh, we're going to finish with the general report. Sorry.

We have no items to be presented for information. You can find the general report in the minutes.

Thank you. Thank you. All right, moving on. Item 7E, Property Committee, and that is back to Member Lehman.

Thank you, Chair Johnson. The Property Committee has one item to be presented for action this evening. 7E1A is the request approval of the amendment to the EE-CBG grant and ISO move.

Thank you. May I have a second? Second by Member Duffy. Comments or questions? Seeing none, all in favor of item 7E1A say aye.

Aye.

Any opposed? Motion passes.

Property committee has no other items to be presented for action this evening. We do have our general report, which can be found on pages 19 to 21 of the unapproved minutes packet. Thank you.

Thank you. Moving on to item 7F, and that is land use transportation committee. I'll turn it over to Member Klein.

Thank you so much, Chairperson Johnson. Land Use and Transportation Committee has no additional items for action. Everything was taken care of in the consent agenda. But I would like to point out as just an announcement to everyone that the Ecology Action Center is again hosting a household hazardous waste collection this year. They had to miss last year, but we are back on for August the 22nd. If you'd like to register yourself to donate, which it is required, it helps them to plan for dealing with the quantity of materials that they'll receive just go to the website hhwmclean.org, hhwmclean.org. And the deadline for that is, I believe, 5 p.m. on August 18th. So I'll bring this back up again in August. But please share this out with your constituents. Old barrels of paint and fluorescent light bulbs, this is the time to clear out your barns and your garages.

Thank you. All right, we'll move on to item 7G, and that is the county administrator, Ms. Taylor. Thank you, Chair Johnston.

I have no items to present to the board this evening. For items for information, I will share with the board that the budget meetings with department heads are well underway as we move into budget season. Things are going well so far. We're about a third of the way through our meetings with departments.

Thank you. Moving on to item eight, other business and communication. Yes, Member Hanson.

Just want to point out a really awesome event happening this weekend. The McLean County Museum of History is opening their brand new exhibit, More Than a Game, A Community History of Baseball and Softball. So if you love America's pastime, come learn about its history here in McLean County. It's a really awesome exhibit. I've seen all the work that has gone into it, and you're sure to enjoy it.

Did you want to make a plug for the event on Saturday?

Yes on Saturday from 6 to 8 there will be activities out on the museum lawn. Fun games to be had. And then it goes right into movies at the mural which will be showing a leak of their own. But Saturday is entirely free admission to the museum from 9 to 8 p.m. So yeah come and check it out.

All right. What about any other business communications for the good of the community. I will say that I had the honor of being at a press conference with Heartland and our partner Connect Transit. They are they were kicking off we're getting ready to kick off a new line as part of our expansion of rural transportation. And this is something that they are doing. It is particularly geared at students who want to come to Heartland all the way from Pontiac down to Heartland Community College. It will be. a morning route. It will pick up at 7 o'clock in Pontiac and it will stop in Chenoa, Lexington, Tawanda and be at Heartlands Community College by 8 a.m. They will have a reverse route that goes at four o'clock so that students can come if they only want to do two days. They can get a full day of classes in for a semester and then they will be able to kind of get home. The buses are equipped with Wi-Fi so they can do homework if they choose on the way to and from campus. This is a line that will also be available to residents. It is not just for students. So if they want to catch a ride in Tawanda, Chenoa, Lexington, if they want to catch a ride into town, They can if it's a limited service, but it's a service that we're expanding absolutely to increase opportunities, to increase connections with our counterparts outside of Bloomington Normal line. So very excited about that. As you see, we do have quite a few of our furry friends who are looking for their forever homes on the screen behind me. We continue to really enjoy the new space that we have. how well the animals are thriving there, and that just makes them that much more adoptable. We've seen an increase in our volunteers. I'm going to keep plugging for more volunteers to come and enjoy the services, enjoy the animals, and help them find their forever homes. If there are no other communications... There is another communication. Member Layman.

I'm so sorry. I just wanted to give a quick heads up and a reminder that Saturday, July 25th from 4 to 10 p.m. is Bloomington Normal Pride Fest downtown Bloomington. It's a family friendly event. There will be a drag show. There's live entertainment, local artists, lots of food. It's a wonderful block party. Encourage everybody to come out.

Absolutely. Any other hands? I'm going to miss. Nope. Seeing none, I say this meeting is adjourned.

Thank you.