County Board - Regular Meeting

Commission meeting supporters.

First up, I just want to thank everybody for coming and taking time out of their busy schedules. I know we had to adjust the date and the chair and I were just talking about that. We adjusted to work around his schedule and try to accommodate everybody's schedule. There's a few people that weren't able to make it tonight. The supervisor, Harold Robinson and And Dave is coming. He's going to be a little bit late. And then I take the apology. Yeah, yes. And Ricky is that is that. So again, we tried to do our best to give the early and then we had to modify it. So I appreciate everybody was able to accommodate today. And then for some of us, we actually got to tour the human services building earlier today. So I appreciate everybody was able to join us for that. um tour this this afternoon and again we'll talk about that more as we go through the agenda so again um first item of the agenda is to do a pledge of allegiance second thing on the agenda is we're going to do a roll call and so we're going to go around the table first and then we'll head to the audience and we'll start with Jim Wallace and we'll work our way across so if everybody can follow that instructions that way it makes it easy for Jill to take a roll call and oh and well I want to thank Jill and Joe for setting everything up tonight if we give them a round of applause And dinner was provided by Melcats. Again, a new local business right here on Sheridan Road. They did a phenomenal job with their beef and sausage tonight. So again, I just want to thank them for accommodating us over here. So again, the first item is roll call. Introductions.

Mark Dorian, Chairman, County Board.

Eddie Merrill, Finance Director.

Barbara Bench, Budget Director. John Franco, Vice Chair, County Board. David Zerner, Sheriff.

Kelly Clark, Fiscal Service Manager for the Sheriff's Office.

Bill Grady, Supervisor, District 1.

Stephna, Supervisor, District 2. Laura Malky, Supervisor, District 4.

Dave Tarzan, Supervisor, District 6.

Daniel Gaschke, Supervisor, District 7.

Sarah Kirby, Supervisor, District 8.

John Morrissey, Supervisor, District 9. DAVID LOCKS, SUPERVISOR, DISTRICT 10.

GUIDA BROWN, SUPERVISOR, DISTRICT 11.

TIM STOCKER, DISTRICT 14, SUPERVISOR. JEFF COLONA, DISTRICT 16. LUKE POLLACK, SUPERVISOR, DISTRICT 17. ERIC MEADOWS, DISTRICT 18. KEITH GREE, DISTRICT 19.

ERIN DECKARD, COLUMBIA BOARD SUPERVISOR, DISTRICT 22. TAMMY CAPITO, CFO FOR HUMAN SERVICES. Rebecca Donner, Interim Director for Human Services.

Chris Walton, Finance, Public Works.

Shelley Billingsley, Director of Public Works and Development Services.

James Wallace, Golf Division Director. Greg Polk, Highways Division Director. Matt Strano, Director of Facilities. Matthew Fleming, Director of Purchasing. Brian Nunn, Fiscal Services Manager, Payroll.

Linda Magdala. Linda Magdala, Administrator, Brookside Care Center, Willowbrook Assisted Living. Dee Ferrari, Trainer, Health Officer.

Patty Hall, Medical Examiner's Office.

Bob Pitts, Chairman of the Board of Trustees, Brookside.

Katie Hanks, Head Manager, Aging and Disability.

Heather Bonas, Director of Aging and Disability Services.

Annette Howsey, Division Manager, DCFS. Pamela Condos, Director for Division of Children and Family Services. Mary Byard, Boothwell Court Intake.

Jim Peters, Economic Support Manager or Urban Child Support Manager.

Jennifer Mack, Register of Deeds.

Sergeant Chris Hanna, Director of Emergency Management. Dustin Feeney, Director of the Divisional Workforce Development. Doug Bartz, Director of the Southeast Workforce Board. Matt Lays, Assistant Budget Director.

PAMELA LARSON, AREA EXTENSION DIRECTOR. LAUREN YANNAKOPOULOS, QUALITY ANALYST FOR BEHAVIORAL HEALTH. CARRIE FOSS, DIRECTOR OF BEHAVIORAL HEALTH. JOHNNY PARKINSON, BEHAVIORAL HEALTH MANAGER.

SCOTT SHUTSY, DIRECTOR OF THE DIVISION OF LAND INFORMATION.

MIKE BASCINELLI, CIO WITH IT.

ASHLEY LUTTERMAN, ASSISTANT DIRECTOR OF HUMAN RESOURCES.

i believe we have one youth and governance member if i'm not mistaken if you would introduce yourself so everybody knows who you are uh sam sheen youth and governance finance administration i thought it was back there so um and i saw you on saturday you are sure uh making your rounds around canada county so uh welcome tonight um again thank you everybody for taking time out of your busy schedules to be here this is an important meeting this is the fourth time we've had the budget vision meeting and it's an opportunity for the new supervisors, and we have five that are joining us this year, to really get that deep dive look into the budget. Patty and Barna are going to give an overview of the successes that we've had and challenges we've had in the 25 going into 26, and then give a sneak peek and preview of 27. Now, each one of the major divisions have put together a packet for your information, and I know that I, even reading these, found some new things out and I'm looking forward to having a more detailed conversation with everybody with regards to the details that were laid out in the packet of information. And this is the first time, this is an opportunity, obviously, for the new supervisors that are here to really get to meet the new, meet the division and directors. This is an opportunity for you to ask the questions that you might not know or might not you know, thing to talk about, or you hear somebody else ask a question and it spurs more discussion. And it's really quite valuable. You know, the first time we did it, it was a little rigid or static. Everybody was unsure of what this is, but it really is a free flow of discussion of what Kenosha County, what our mission is, and then how do we fund that mission going forward? And so that's why these discussions are so valuable. And it's valuable for the team to hear it, with the supervisors together, not just administration over here, not just elected officials over here. It's everybody together to make the decisions going forward because it can be challenging. But we've done some really great things over the last four years that we're very proud of. And one of them that I mentioned was the Human Services Building. Even though it's been a little bit of challenges for our Public Works and our Human Services team, seeing it come to fruition is really quite exciting. And those that have toured this building and have seen the challenges and the deficits here, when you go look at the new building and how we've made those adjustments going forward, I know, David, Lux, you could see your place from the backside of the building. And you really talked about your neighborhood and why it's so valuable. That building is in the center of the city where the six most challenging neighborhoods are in Kenosha. And so this is where we try to, you know, bring the community together and then deliver services to people. And, you know, the human services team, when they talk human services on the go, we bring services out, but there are people who definitely need to come in. And so how we provide those services are so valuable. I know just in my own family, struggling with my mom and dad and where we go in the future, I've had to seek out services and have those tough conversations with my family. So I know if I'm having it, our residents are having that as well. So this is a great opportunity to learn from all of you what you're hearing in your districts. I know I've had several meetings with several of you over the last couple of weeks where I have some ideas where folks have some areas of concerns, but now it's a great time for our division and directors to hear as well from you what those concerns may or may not be or you like this or you don't like this. And I know that as I look over here at Chris, he already showed me the preview of the CIP. So we're already working on the budget document for for this coming, you know, 27 budget. And that's how early things start. It's like we get done with the, you know, 26 budget and we're already working on the 27 budget. So that's why these conversations are really quite valuable. You're going to hear from a number of people over the next, we'll say, hour and a half here and have you on your merry way. So at this time, I will turn it over to Chairman Nord again for him to give a few remarks.

Thank you, Executive Kirkstein. Thank you for putting this together again. Now it's the fourth one or the fifth one? That's the fourth one. OK. They're so fun, you just lose track. But welcome all. I'm glad to see the ones who could make it here make it here. This county exec had pointed out this is a really special time to start getting involved. And especially, I mean, all the county board supervisors, but especially your newly elected ones. Get to many of these as you possibly can. There's a lot of education here. Because what's going to happen is you're going to get into your committee meetings when you start doing your budgets, and you'll have a little bit of background. It can be scary talking about money when you've not had to talk about money in the way that we do it. And if nothing else, you're going to learn. But you want to get involved. So get to as many of these as you can. And you're going to hear me say this later, get to as many of the committee meetings that are going through budget hearings that you aren't on, if it's at all possible. I know it's a lot of time, but if you can do that, then you start to learn a little bit more, as well as you meet more of the administration as well, and you can ask them questions. But the important thing about going to other committee meetings when they're going through the budget, or any time you go to another committee meeting, you being a supervisor can be part of the discussion. You can't vote, but you can be part of the discussion. maybe something that's really on your mind and a certain committee and a certain uh area that you want to make sure you at least are heard and maybe it'll get discussed maybe it won't but at least you got it out there and it it does make a difference so i encourage everybody to do that but certainly the newly elected supervisors and of course i believe all the chairmen of all the committees should be here as often as possible to these as well as to the other uh committee meetings, I'm sorry, to the finance administration budget hearings. So everyone get to those that they can. Now you really get to see where the rubber hits the road and where a little bit of horse trading may go on, let's just say. And again, you can be very much a part of that as well. So any questions, ask. If you have anything burning inside you, ask. If you aren't sure you should ask, ask. and then it'll all get taken care of. So get involved. It's what I told the youth in governance that I had is sitting in that meeting, not saying anything's not doing anything good for you. Certainly not doing anything good for the supervisors or who we represent if you do the same thing. So you really need to learn and then apply what you learn and you do a great job. So thank you.

So in the package you have several and I know Barna and Patty are going to start off with an overview. So there is a finance package and there's some dates in this for the new supervisors who've not been here before. So that's a great way to start it off. As I turn it over to these two.

All right, I'll kick it off here in the finance area. So at this time of year, basically we've got kind of three fiscal years that are kind of in play. 2025 just ended. We have the auditors coming in and reviewing all our work. And 26, obviously, we're in it. And 2027 is on our doorstep here when it comes to budget. So to kick it off, I'd like to give some highlights on how we ended the year in 2025. We had a very excellent fiscal year. We ended the year with just under a $2 million surplus. This included some deficits in the health insurance internal service fund, investment income, and the sheriff's office. OFFICE OPERATIONS. HUMAN SERVICES EXPERIENCED A SUBSTANTIAL SURPLUS OF $7.85 MILLION DUE TO THE HIGHER INTERGOVERNMENTAL REVENUES AND LOWER PLACEMENT COSTS. WE ALSO HAD A MATERIAL SURPLUS IN SALES TAX REVENUE, 740,000 OVER BUDGET, REALIZING $22.3 MILLION TOTAL FOR 2025, AND THIS WAS UP 8.1% OVER 2024. Public Works Department recorded a $540,000 surplus with small surpluses in each division, adding up to that. Brookside Care Center Willowbrook Assisted Living had another excellent fiscal year. They eliminated their non-current liability and continue to reduce their short-term liabilities to the sizable surplus of operating income. So as part of that $2 million surplus, the County Board approved a transfer of $3.1 million to the Human Services Building Fund. So that adds up to $3.3 million over the last three fiscal years. We're putting that aside into that fund to reduce future borrowing costs when we purchase the building outright. And we also restored, County Board approved a restoration of $500,000 back to the Health Insurance Fund that we used last year to offset some of our deficits. So after the transfers, The county's unassigned general fund balance. That's something you'll hear me talk about in reports going starting next month. So that our unassigned general fund balance stands at $26.7 million. This exceeds the county board's reserve target level of 30% of general fund expenditures. Also want to mention Gulf Division as part of the public works. They had another good Excellent fiscal year. I'm not going to say good. It was good. It was excellent. $1.2 million surplus. And that continues a trend of profit profitability and self-sufficiency toward both its operating and capital budgets. We also have maintained our AAA rating with Standard & Poor's, which demonstrates our continued fiscal accountability and excellence. We are one of seven seven counties in Wisconsin that have a AAA rating. That is important because that allows us to get the best interest rates when we go for bonds to fund our capital projects.

With that, I'll turn it over to Patty.

As Barna mentioned, we're dealing with three fiscal years, so he just talked through the highlights of 2025. In 2026, we're currently working with the external auditors. They've been doing field work for the past several weeks and they're continuing to audit our financial statements. Financial statements should be ready by the middle to the end of July, which time will bring us forward. We're working on the 2027 budget manual and preparation of documents for rollout. We actually rolled out the budgets last week, so divisions are starting to work on their budgets now. We're beginning work on our rating agency presentation to S&P that will be at the end of July to get a rating that we expect will continue to be AAA moving into our bond sale, which will be in August. And we're also working on our capital financing for 2026. So in the 2026 budget, there were things that were identified that we would borrow for. But at this time of the year, we go through to see where those projects are. There may have been things we didn't borrow for from the 25 budget that we're not moving forward yet that are now moving forward. So we would borrow for those things. But there may be things that are on hold in 26 that we're not going to borrow the money until we need it. So we do that evaluation at this time to come up with what exactly we are going to go to sale for. We'll bring forward the authorizing resolution or the set sale resolution in July and go to sale in August. For 2027, obviously, the new Human Services Building is something we're all looking forward to. It has been a long time in coming and has been challenging at times. Yes, there you go. Well, in my mind, it's still the 31st of July, so I can live in my bubble. Positive developments against sales tax. At this point, appears to be trending well in 26. We only have three months of collections in, so we have no way to trend anything, but we are performing better than expected. So that's a good thing. Utility payments and circuit court. Investment income is holding steady. We have an improved outlook for Kenosha Sheriff's Office. We worked at length with them last year in developing their budget. AND THEY SEEM TO BE PRETTY MUCH ON TRACK. AND AGAIN, FOR 2027, WE'LL BE ADDRESSING HEALTH INSURANCE COST INCREASES AND WAGE COMPETITIVENESS AND RETENTION PRESSURES AS WE LOOK AT THE 2027 BUDGET.

OKAY. IF YOU FLIP TO THE NEXT PAGE, THIS IS THE GENERAL FUND REPORT.

This is the 2025 year-end summary, so this is a little more detail than I gave before. So the way that this report is structured, the top part shows all items that were positive towards the general fund. In the middle there, those are the items that were causing decreases to the general fund, the negative things, and it kind of has the statistics at the bottom. So starting at the top, human services operating surplus, $7.85 million. Brookside operating surplus, so we used 1.5 million of that surplus to reduce their noncurrent liability and that flowed into the general fund. We had a $740,000 sales tax as we noted. Public Works had a $540,000 surplus. Treasurer's revenue surplus of $325,000 mainly due to a large agricultural use conversion revenue. having to do with a number of properties that were converted for solar farms and that sort of thing. We had surpluses in two of our internal service fund insurances, liability insurance, and workers' compensation. And then we had some surpluses on circuit court, county clerk, and register of deeds. On the bottom part of the page, we had deficits and sheriff's operating expenditures, 4.28 million, WE HAD HEALTH INSURANCE DEFICIT OF 1.652 MILLION, SHERIFF'S OPERATING REVENUE DEFICIT OF JUST OVER A MILLION DOLLARS HAVING TO DO WITH FEDERAL INMATE HOUSING REVENUE. WE HAD GENERAL FUND INVESTMENT INTEREST REVENUE DEFICIT OF 975,000. WE HAVE A TAX DELINQUENCY RESERVE, AND THE ESTIMATE FOR THAT INCREASED by $790,000, so that's a draw on general fund balance. There's $300,000 that we use every year as part of our budget to fund various things that is reserves, so that comes as shown here. There's some miscellaneous items, and then vacancy, we are almost spot on there, just $90,000 difference than what our projection was. AND THEN THE ITEMS THAT WERE APPROVED BY THE COUNTY BOARD, 1.1 MILLION TOWARD THE HUMAN SERVICES BUILDING FUND, 500,000 BACK TO THE INSURANCE FUND, AND THEN THE FINANCE AND ADMINISTRATION COMMITTEE ALSO APPROVED A CARRY-OVER OF 15,000 OF STAFF DEVELOPMENT TO THE COUNTY BOARD. SO THE BALANCE OF THE REPORT HERE SHOWS THAT OUR 17, THE GUARANTEED the county board minimum requirement for our unassigned general fund is 17%. That's the 15.6 million. And the amount that we're over that bare minimum of 17 is just over $11 million. So with the transfers that we did, we added 373,000. The last percentage is we want to be over 30%. That's where the rating agencies like us to be. So when you add in the $1.5 million health insurance reserve to the assigned general fund amount, that puts us at 30.7.

Can I ask a question? Number one, the human services operating surplus. Yes. THAT DOES NOT IMPLY THAT THAT DOES NOT IMPLY THAT THAT DOES NOT IMPLY THAT WE DID NOT PROVIDE SERVICES WE DID NOT PROVIDE SERVICES WE DID NOT PROVIDE SERVICES TO PEOPLE IN NEED, CORRECT? TO PEOPLE IN NEED, CORRECT? TO PEOPLE IN NEED, CORRECT? CORRECT, OKAY. CORRECT, OKAY. CORRECT, OKAY. AND THEN THE SHARE OF AND THEN THE SHARE OF AND THEN THE SHARE OF OPERATING EXPENDITURE, OPERATING EXPENDITURE, OPERATING EXPENDITURE, THAT'S OF $4 MILLION, THAT'S OF $4 MILLION, THAT'S OF $4 MILLION, THAT'S PRIMARILY OVERTIME?

THAT'S PRIMARILY OVERTIME? THAT'S PRIMARILY OVERTIME? OVERTIME WAS OVERTIME WAS

medical expenses and pharmaceuticals related to that, and then groceries.

And then could you explain, is the general fund primarily made up of sales tax?

General fund is literally the bank account of the county, and that's why the rating agencies want that.

Where does the funding come from for the general fund?

With the budget, tax levy is the offset. That's how we balance it.

Thank you. Barna, could you just explain for the new supervisors the vacancy line as well? Because again, that might be one of those that isn't really described very well.

Yes. So as part of the budget, we have roughly 1,100, 1,200 employees. Of course, not everybody, every position will go fully staffed 365 days a year. So there's going to be some turnover here and there. And so what we do is we do and we have an estimate in the budget for 650,000 for countywide. So on this report, it showed that we are $90,000 off of that overall. Obviously, lots of contributing factors to that, but it's prudent to build that into our budget.

Oh, Supervisor Kirby, I think. And if you could turn off your mic if you're not speaking so that I could kind of tell who wants to speak. Supervisor Frankel.

OK, thanks. Barna or Patty, just for the benefit of our new supervisors, can you give them an idea of how much money we saved by having that AAA rating? I know I've asked you this before. I don't know if you have it memorized permanently now.

THE MOST RECENT ESTIMATE SINCE WE WENT AAA IS WE'VE SAVED OVER A MILLION DOLLARS IN INTEREST. THAT OBVIOUSLY DOESN'T INCLUDE THE 2026 BOND ISSUE OR NO ISSUE, BUT IT'S BEEN AVERAGING ABOUT $200,000 A YEAR. SORRY. OKAY. I'LL REPEAT THAT. WE'VE SAVED OVER A MILLION DOLLARS IN INTEREST We've been saving about $200,000 a year. So that million dollars does not include our 2026 debt issue because we haven't issued that yet. But it's been a significant savings over the time. Thank you. Supervisor Grady.

Thank you. Just a question to our finance director. When we take a look at the general fund, having a substantial, a healthy general fund is a good idea, correct? It's kind of like money in the bank, so to speak.

It is.

So when we take a look at the related issue of bond rating, how significant is our general fund asset to the ones that do the rating of Kenosha County in terms of buying debt? How significant is that? Will you just comment for us, please?

It's very significant. When we go, when we speak with the rating agencies, our general fund balance, our percentage is one of the things that they look at. There are several things. And one of the things that happens when we go to rate the rating is we get a rating report and then we provide that to the board. So they highlight various things in there, but the general fund balance is one of those things that they highlight. There are a couple other things that they highlight as well, but this is one that we know that they're looking at. That is why a few years ago our target went from 25% to 30% because we had been able to get to that point and sustain that point, and the board understood that the rating agency really would like to see us at about 30%, so they were comfortable in changing that target.

Right, and I think that addresses the follow-up question. Moving from 25% to 30%, is that a good position for us now? Are we going to be happy maintaining a 30% ratio?

It is. It's a moving target, so it's a percentage of our general fund expenditures. So every year our general fund expenditures goes up. So it's not that we're budgeting to have a surplus, it's that we're conscious throughout the years to be careful to make sure we're staying within budget so that we can stay within that range. We have been very fortunate that you mentioned, Supervisor Belsky mentioned the human services surplus, that that is not something that was budgeted either, but there are pockets of of things that you don't know are going to happen. Revenues that occur that aren't budgeted because they're not expected, but at the end of the year, there's a pocket of money and the state says, all right, we're going to split this up and you're going to get X amount. That's not something that we could predict. So we didn't. Placements can swing from one end to the other. Many years we were in deficits in placements because we had many placements and the budget didn't sustain that. But fortunately this past year, we did not have that situation. So it can swing very, very quickly from one extreme to the other.

Well, thank you for the explanation.

The other thing that I had about the importance of the general fund balance, I've been around long enough. It's going to be another month or so. I've been around 27 years. So I remember when our reserves were so low that we were sweating making payroll. So that's not a position where we want to be. So that's why this is very important to be able to withstand a large downturn in economic. This is what protects us for that.

Worst case scenario.

I'll add a little bit to that. Part of mentioned economic downturn. So when the pandemic hit and everything was going crazy, we knew our sales tax revenue was going to drop. So obviously we were looking at all different facets and all different things to figure things out. But the one thing that we would say to each other so that we could get some sleep was we have significant general fund reserves. If we have to draw on them, we can draw on them. It's not the ideal, but that's what it's there for. So we were very fortunate. Sales tax revenue did dip, but only for a couple of months, and then it rebounded and things turned out okay for the year. But those are the kinds of things. The unexpected, no one expected that, and yet we were prepared for it.

And then, Patty, can you just highlight one more, or maybe the human services $1.1 million for the new building, the Human Services Fund. So that could be used for the new supervisors who are not familiar yet with the project over there, which Shelly will give an overview, but then you'll just ask high level about the 1.1.

The way that the Human Services Building project is structured is when we move in, we will lease for five years. Shelly will touch on that. At the end of the five years, we will purchase the building, so we will issue debt at that time to purchase the building. What we've been trying to do since the project started is build some funds in this human services building fund so that we can borrow less. There are two uses of the funds. There are some things that are not being funded through the building of the project, the furniture, the architect fees. I'M SURE I'M MISSING SOME OTHER THINGS, IT EXPENSES THAT WE'VE JUST BEEN PAYING FOR OUT OF THAT, THOSE RESERVES THAT WE HAD. AND SO, THIS 1.1 IS 1.1 LESS THAT WE WOULD HAVE TO BORROW.

I got a red light down there, but your husband.

With interest rates still relatively high, what impact do you think in August when we sell our bonds on the open market is going to have in terms of interest rates impact that we're going to have?

I mean, I don't know if Barna has a view on this. We haven't really talked this through and we really haven't talked it through with Ellers. Interest rates are lower than when we issued that last year. However, where we kind of thought they were going to go down a little bit further, they didn't. So I don't know. One of the things that our financial advisor, which is Ellers, tells us is the market anticipates what's going to happen. So if the market's anticipating a rate decrease, we may see that in our rate when we issue debt. But if the market's anticipating a rate increase, even though it hasn't increased yet,

it may impact so i would like to say we're going to land where we landed last year but i don't know that for sure uh supervisor frank from town of randall's out selling bonds now and they're estimating ellers estimate for us it's much less than the county around like over 2.7 million it's about three percent they're estimating right now so it's pretty good stuff

The other thing I'll mention too is our financial advisor, Ellers, also then reviews our past bond issues and if there's an opportunity to refinance that and for us to save money, we'll be looking at the Brookside debt issue for the remodeling of the building of the addition. So we'll be looking at that to see if we can save money doing it that way as well. So the last sheet I'd like to go through is the budget calendar. So as I noted last week, we kicked it off by sending out all the budgets to the divisions. Leading up to that in April and May, we are developing payroll materials, updating the templates and preparing the instructions and the guidance for the departments. So during June and July, the departments will be developing their operating and capital budgets. And that includes submitting pricing requests and identifying any new positions or position classifications. And then everything will be due back to finance in late July. So then in early August, the administration, a budget team and the division leadership will then will meet to review all their proposed budgets. And then through August and September, our budget team will be working closely with departments to refine the budget requests, incorporate updated revenue projections from when they initially were made, insurance costs and capital improvement plan information to make sure that the budget is fiscally responsible, balanced and aligns with all our county priorities. At the early part of September, we'll have a similar session to this having to do with our capital budget. We'll have a review, kind of a mini A SNEAK PEEK AT WHAT OUR CAPITAL BUDGET MAY LOOK LIKE IN OCTOBER. IT'S NOT COMPLETELY DONE, BUT AT THAT POINT IT'S PROBABLY, WHAT, 90% DONE PROBABLY AT THAT POINT. SO THEN IN LATE SEPTEMBER, THE BUDGETS GO BACK TO THE DEPARTMENTS. WE KIND OF WORK THROUGH ANY LAST-MINUTE ADJUSTMENTS. AND THEN THAT FIRST TUESDAY IN OCTOBER IS WHEN THE COUNTY EXECUTIVE PRESENTS TO THE COUNTY BOARD OUR BUDGET. And for the next two to three weeks, each department will go before their oversight committee and go through their budgets, explain the ups and downs and requests. And then the last week of October is when then all departments, divisions, public officials, and their budgets then come before a finance and administration committee. And we grind through every one of those through Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday nights. And then Thursday night we do a kind of a catch all of anything that was left over. We look at the capital financing plan to make sure that that's in place. And then we look at the budget resolution. The budget resolution is a document that includes additional administrative policies and things. So we'll go through at that time any changes that we're requesting of the county board. Excuse me. Then the following week, it'll go to the county board. It'll be, they call it the first reading. This year, that'll be the Wednesday of that week, November 5th, because Tuesday will be an election day.

And then November 5th or 6th, which will be a Thursday. Oh, 4th and 5th, yeah, I get the days mixed up there.

But in any case, it's going to be on a Thursday, and that's the date in which we would go FOR BUDGET ADOPTION. SO IT'S A PROCESS THAT STARTS IN APRIL, MAY, AND GOES ALL THE WAY THROUGH NOVEMBER.

TODAY'S KIND OF KICKING IT OFF.

WELL, THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR THAT OVERVIEW.

OH, OKAY, SUPERVISOR KERPE. AND FOR ANYBODY THAT'S NEW TO THE FINANCE COMMITTEE, WHERE YOU SEE THAT START AND END DATE FOR THE FINANCE HEARINGS, You're there every day between that. So just block the entire week off.

It is very intensive week, that is for sure. So again, thanks for the overview. Any other further questions for Patty and Barnett? Oh, Supervisor Morrissey.

Let's go back to the general fund for a minute. So just so I understood correctly, I would recommend roughly a 30% fund balance to maintain our AAA. I realize it's floating. And then on the $26.7 million that we have in there, what is the interest rate we're getting on that and how is it invested so everybody understands where we keep that $26.7 million?

Some of the $26.7 million is in the LGIP. We need to have a certain amount of money that's fluid enough for us to move back and forth to pay bills. But we do have a significant amount invested with Dana Investments and a variety of agency and treasury bonds, treasury notes, mortgages, things we have geared as interest rates have gone up. As the lower interest rate items matured, we've invested in higher interest rate items and we've tried to set that up so that they're longer term items to secure that interest rate for a longer period of time. We've been averaging close to 5% UM, AND THE LAST TIME IT MIGHT HAVE BEEN CLOSER TO 4.75.

ANY OTHER QUESTIONS? OKAY. ALL RIGHT. WELL, THANK YOU VERY MUCH FOR THAT OVERVIEW. I APPRECIATE IT. I'M SURE YOU'LL BE BACK UP WITH OTHER QUESTIONS. OKAY. AT THIS TIME, I'M GOING TO TURN IT OVER TO DIRECTOR BILLINGSLEY TO GIVE AN OVERVIEW OF TWO PROJECTS. AND AGAIN, WE HAVE SEPARATE HANDOUTS ON BOTH OF THEM. JUST, AND I DON'T KNOW WHICH ONE YOU'RE GOING TO START WITH TONIGHT.

the current Human Services Building.

Good evening. Just like to provide an update on the Kenosha County Human Services Building project and share the journey that has brought us to where we are today. The project represents far more than just a construction of the building. It's an investment in the future delivery of human services throughout Kenosha County. When completed, the facility will provide a modern, efficient space that brings together a wide range of services under one roof, including public health, aging and disability, veteran service, economic support, child support, behavioral health, children and family services, the job center, and several other important community programs. This project has required the collaboration of many partners. Partners in Design Architects has led the design efforts. CMA has overseen construction management activities. Bear Development is the building owner during the initial lease period in which Patty had talked about, and county staff from Human Services, Finance, and the Department of Public Works and Development Services. We all have worked closely to get the process to ensure the building meets the operational needs of our residents and staff. Construction is now in its final stage. Significant progress is made throughout the building with mechanical, electrical, plumbing, HVAC, walls, ceilings, flooring, millwork, and finishes largely completed in most areas. As you see from the progress percentages, the majority of the building is nearing substantial completion, and the vision that began as drawings on paper is quickly becoming functional workspace and service center. Like many complex renovation and reuse projects, the Human Services project has encountered significant challenges that required additional to address environmental conditions associated with a former dry cleaning operation previously located on the site. During demolition and construction activities, additional unforeseen conditions were discovered, including deteriorating roof decking, structural deficiencies, lead-based paint and other building components requiring further evaluation, design modifications and remediation efforts. The project has involved extensive review and administration of proposed change orders, contract interpretation issues, constructability concerns, and schedule impacts. Throughout the process, the county has worked closely with the design team and project partners to evaluate requests for additional compensation, maintain project momentum, and ensure responsible stewardship of taxpayer funds while protecting the county's contractual interests. More recently, an independent building enclosure review identified a number of concerns related to the installation and integration of exterior envelope systems, including air barriers, waterproofing components, insulation, membrane terminations, curtain wall, and weather resistant elements. The review concluded that several observed conditions do not fully conform to our contract documents, manufacturer requirements, or accepted construction practices. Counties currently awaiting CMA's detailed corrective action plan and proposed repair methodologies so that appropriate remediation measures can be reviewed, verified, and implemented prior to project completion. These efforts are intended to ensure long-term performance, durability, and integrity of the facility before it is occupied and placed into service. From a financial perspective, the project remains a significant investment in our community. Through the end of May, approximately $31.4 million has been committed towards design and construction, while approximately $2.5 million has been expensed from the contingency funding for some of the challenges that I just described. We continue to closely monitor project costs and work through outstanding issues to maintain financial accountability. As we look ahead, our focus is transitioning from construction to occupancy. County staff have developed a detailed 437 item Gantt chart to coordinate the relocation of staff, furniture, technology systems, records, and specialized equipment. Additional contractors have been engaged to assist with moving services, furniture installation, and laboratory and clinic equipment commissioning. Our tentative schedule anticipates moving activities beginning the third quarter of 26 with occupancy substantially completed by the end of that quarter. Finally, I want to recognize the many individuals and organizations whose dedication has made the project possible. Thank you to Kenosha County Board, Human Services Committee, Public Works Facilities Committee, County Executive and Administration Office, Human Services Leadership and Staff, Department of Public Works, Finance, Information Technology, Partners in Design, CMA, and everyone who contributed to this effort. It really did take that huge amount of a team to get this done. This project has required tremendous teamwork, preservation, the project's program, I can't tonight, and problem solving. We are excited to be approaching the finish line. I know Rebecca and I are and look forward to opening the facility that will serve Kenosha County residents for decades to come. So thank you everyone.

Now, today we went and toured it. For those who have seen it now and those who had seen it previously, does anybody have any questions for us, especially those that just got to see it today, now that Shelly's given that overview and to the new supervisors? I have a question. All right, David. No. Okay. Oh, oh.

First of all, I want to say great job to all the staff and the finance department. I know this hasn't been easy. I know that the original contract FOR SOME OF US IS NOT WHAT WE WOULD HAVE LIKED IT TO HAVE BEEN. I THINK SR MILLS IS GETTING A REALLY SWEET DEAL. AND OF THE 31 OR 33 MILLION, HOW MUCH IS SR MILLS RESPONSIBLE FOR? OR IS THAT COMING STRICTLY OUT OF OUR BUDGET?

I DON'T KNOW EXACTLY WHAT YOU MEAN WHEN YOU SAY RESPONSIBLE FOR, BUT SO

we will eventually be buying from them in the five years is that $19.7 million that's on the graph.

Okay, because it's now at that $19 million, will our monthly rental payment be higher? Is it forecasted to be higher?

Higher than?

It was, what, $526,000 a month, I think, a couple years ago. Do you recall?

I don't recall ever. PUTTING TOGETHER A MONTHLY PAYMENT?

IT WAS APPROXIMATELY ESTIMATED TO BE 500 AND SOME THOUSAND A YEAR.

A YEAR?

AND IT IS HIGHER THAN THAT BECAUSE THE AMOUNT THAT THEY'VE HAD TO BORROW IS HIGHER THAN THAT BECAUSE THE PROJECT COSTS MORE.

OKAY. DURING WHEN WE REVIEW BUDGET, I'D LIKE A LITTLE MORE THOROUGH INFORMATION TO WHAT WAS ORIGINALLY COMMITTED TO AND THEN THE DIFFERENCE THAT WE'RE PAYING NOW. BECAUSE LIKE I SAID, I TRULY BELIEVE THAT staff and financing have done an incredible job for what was inherited, the contract that was inherited. And I would just like a full understanding of accountability for CMA managing this project. And it seems like we've had a lot of issues that should be identified going forward. But thank you.

And I know Shelly and the team, both, you know, Public Works and Finance are working closely to keep the dollars and cents in every invoice that we get, sometimes more than I've ever imagined that it was going to be just over, you know, a light switch or an outlet, which, you know, we have, it's night and day between this project and then the courtroom project. Granted, the courtroom project is much smaller scale, but, you know, there are some ECONOMIES OF SCALE, WHERE, YOU KNOW, THAT'S REALLY BEEN THE CHALLENGE THAT I HAVE SEEN AS WE'VE MOVED THIS PROJECT FORWARD. SO THANK YOU, SUPERVISOR BELSKY.

I WILL JUST ADD, I DON'T KNOW IF YOU WERE REFERRING TO, THERE WAS, BETWEEN THE CMA AND THE CONTRACT, THERE WAS NEGOTIATIONS AT ONE POINT FOR SOME OF THE BUILDING ISSUES THAT AROSE THAT THEY DID CONTRIBUTE TO ROUGHLY HALF A MILLION DOLLARS TOWARDS THAT SHARE OF IT.

Okay, but we still have outstanding. Do we have an outstanding agreement? Shelly, you had said something about there's still invoices. So is that to be assessed by us and CMA to say, hey, this stuff should have been put in or you should have been responsible for this? Because it almost seems like some of the project management issues are on their side. We shouldn't have to pay for that.

Yeah, we're still in discussions a lot internally to talk about WHAT DOES SOME OF THEIR CONSTRUCTION MANAGEMENT PLAY INTO THE FACT THAT THERE ARE SOME ADDITIONAL CHANGE ORDERS? THERE'S A COUPLE ITEMS THAT WE HAVE PUSHED BACK ON THEM, AND THERE'S SOME ITEMS THAT ARE STILL COMING UP. SOME OF THE DEFICIENCIES THAT WE'RE FINDING OUT RIGHT NOW, WE ARE PUSHING BACK 100% ONTO THEM. SO WE'RE STILL IN THAT NEGOTIATION PHASE.

WE SHOULD KNOW MORE, I WOULD SAY, IN THE NEXT MONTH. OKAY, CAN I JUST, I WANT EVERYBODY TO REALLY UNDERSTAND This contract, this agreement was inherited and they've had to deal with a lot of changes internally at CMA with SRMLs. And so really give a lot of credit to the staff, the county staff that has been working on this diligently. So when you hear change orders, it isn't that we're putting in niceties to have. There must have, that should have been identified in my opinion. So again, thank you for a great job.

That's right. Supervisor Clooney.

Is the bare accumulated expenditures, is that what the sale price will be?

If we were to buy it right now as the building as is, yes, that will be closer to that $32 million number that's being thrown around. The entire building itself is closer to $42 million, but as Patty kind of alluded to, uh in 2031 at this point now the bomb the resolution to come forward for the bonding which is a lot of the purchase price is not to exceed 33 million which is reduced by some of that human services fund any other questions all right i would if i could sure i just want to clarify that between the 32 and the 41

We did receive a grant from the state, the neighborhood investment grant for almost $10 million. So those expenses, they float through us because we received the grant. And we needed to time those expenses so that those were paid out within the grant period. So the overall cost may be 41, but 10 of it keep from a grant.

I just want to clarify though, this isn't one of the grants that was originally split half and half with SR Mills? Yes, all things were to be split.

So we really only saw $5 million. Towards the construction of the building, $10 million was spent towards the construction. Upon sale is when that split will occur.

Okay, just so everybody understands the original agreement, SR Mills got half of the grants THAT WE APPLIED FOR AND RECEIVED FROM THE STATE. AND I WAS AGAINST THAT BECAUSE IT SHOULD HAVE GONE ALL TO US. BUT IT IS WHAT IT IS.

OKAY. AND THERE'LL BE FURTHER CONVERSATIONS. AND AGAIN, I CAN'T WAIT FOR EVERYBODY TO BE OVER THERE AND BE NEXT YEAR. HOPE TO BE IN THE COMMUNITY ROOM HAVING THE SAME MEETING NEXT YEAR. SO, AGAIN, And now we'll turn it over to Shelly again, and she's going to give an overview of the courtroom restoration project.

So the purpose of this project was a little bit different. It's been to restore the courthouse to the level of historical accuracy so it honors the legacy while ensuring it remains functional and accessible. The restoration has been guided by historic preservation standards and the recommendation of preservation experts. The project includes a restoration of original architectural features. Excuse me. Sorry, getting a little cold. Decorative finishes, furnishings, lighting, stained glass elements and other historical details that had defined the space for decades. At the same time, we have carefully integrated modern building systems, accessibility improvements and technology upgrades necessary for continued public use. The project required a strong partnership and recognized Kamozi Construction for managing and coordinating the work, historic services for their specialized restoration craftsmanship, many other contractors that were in the building or in the space throughout the construction, and the many county departments that have supported the project. Together, these partners have worked diligently to preserve the courtroom's historic character while maintaining quality schedule and budget objectives. I'm happy to report the significant progress has been made. The project is entering its final stages as well. Historic cork flooring installation is underway. Restoration and refinishing efforts continue throughout the courtroom and the courtroom furniture is tentatively scheduled to be reinstalled next week. The restoration of the judge's chair is nearing completion and approved restoration treatment has been developed for the judge's bench bench deck to preserve existing materials while maintaining its historical integrity. Additional work included the installation of custom window shades and draperies, stained glass panels within the newly restored window assemblies, and completion of the exterior window replacement project. One of the many restoration elements has been the recreation of the historic courtroom clock. Using historical photographs and descriptions, a new granite clock face and hands have been fabricated and will operate using modern clock mechanisms while preserving the appearance of the original feature. Mechanical system commissioning was completed with final adjustments underway. Painting and finished work will continue through the end of June and IT and audio visual upgrades are scheduled to be completed in July. Based on the current schedule, we anticipate returning the courtroom to service in the beginning of August. From a financial perspective, the project continues to perform well. As of the end of May, approximately $6.1 million has been invested in design and construction, and the project remains in a strong financial position as we move towards the completion. THIS RESTORATION WOULD NOT HAVE BEEN POSSIBLE WITHOUT THE SUPPORT OF THE COUNTY BOARD, PUBLIC WORKS, THE COUNTY EXEC'S OFFICE, THE COURTHOUSE STAFF, PUBLIC WORKS AND FACILITIES COMMITTEE, FINANCE, IT, AND NUMEROUS COMMUNITY PARTNERS AND DONORS THAT INCLUDED JEFFERES FAMILY FOUNDATION, CLOSS CONSERVATION TRUST, TAWANI FOUNDATION, KENOSHA FOUNDATION, AND THE MANY PRIVATE CONTRIBUTORS. As we approach the project completion, we are not simply renovating a room. We are preserving an important piece of Kenosha County history. This investment ensures future generations will continue to experience and appreciate a space that reflects our heritage, civic pride, and commitment to the public service. Thank you.

Shelly, thank you for that overview of the project. I have gotten a sneak peek, but it was a couple months ago. and really has come to life. There were windows that were installed because the project actually was under budget. We went ahead and actually did the windows to make sure that we didn't have to go back and touch the courtroom when we do the windows and the other parts of the courthouse. Because again, touching plaster and spending so much money on it, we wanted to make sure that if we had the additional dollars that we could make sure that those got done as well. And that was working with the county board chair and sharing that additional information. So it really has come to life. And I know that the folks that have seen it are quite impressed by the work that has been done in the craftsmanship in this project and really just was top notch. So I can't wait to to show it to everybody. It will be open before the grand opening. We have scheduled a grand opening for October 3rd, but I know that the judge will be in the chambers and utilizing the chambers before that date. So please be sure to put that on your schedule. I don't know if we have a time yet on that event, but I know that the date has been selected. So again, does anybody have any questions for Shelly or finance with regards to that project? OK, alright, so thank you very much. The next item up on the agenda is to go through some of the other bigger areas. And I know the sheriff is here and I'm going to turn it over to him to give an overview of his budget package. And I appreciate him being here tonight.

Thank you.

I'll start off with a couple of highlights and accomplishments that we're currently having this current month year. So as many of you know, one of the newer county budget providers may not be aware of some of these things. So I'm going to go not too much detail, but you may ask some questions. Axon Technology, the Sheriff's Office completed a major public safety technology upgrade. We entered into a 10 year partnership with Axon. This initiative replaces outdated equipment with next generation Taser 10 devices, upgrades our body worn cameras to the Axon Body 4 platform, and establishes a fully integrated digital evidence system. These improvements enhance officer safety, transparency, and operational efficiency within providing long-term, excuse me, while providing long-term cost savings through bundled pricing, technology refreshes, and price locked guarantees through this contract. We expanded our school resource officer program. Sheriff's office added two new school resource officers through MOUs with the Salem Lakes and Silver Lake school districts. Both officers began serving full-time in January In addition to that, partnership with the Village of Salem Lakes will fund increased summer patrol staffing. They're providing that deputy coverage on first and third shifts, June through September, when those schools are out for the summer. The beauty of that is the officers, the deputy sheriffs that will be the school resource officers in those schools will be patrolling the neighborhoods where their students live. So that was always something that I wanted to do when I was a SRO. Officer Wellness Program, we've realized some great success with that. Services continue to see strong participation. Since January, we've had 132 annual mental health wellness checks. They've been completed, along with multiple critical incident debriefs. Unfortunately, we've had a violent beginning of the year. As well as emergency responses from our mental health care providers have been great. The peer support team has also been very busy. They've provided approximately 50 hours of one-on-one support time with staff since March, reinforcing our commitment to the mental health and well-being of our personnel. I'm very happy about those successes. Some of you know about this, some don't. We started, we entered a contract with the Sheriff mobile app. This app works for sheriff's agencies, police departments, other public safety entities. But the development of this new app is currently in process we're expecting it to actually go to launch within two months the app will provide residents with convenient access to sheriff's office information addiction recovery services excuse me the resources for that emergency notifications push notifications through your cell phones and detention related services proving the communication and public access to important county resources actually there's about a dozen icons on the front of this app on the main page and they will be able to take folks to all different resources in the county. So overall, these initiatives reflect our continued focus on modernizing technology, strengthening school and community partnerships, and supporting employee wellness and improving our public access to services. For 2027, our priorities, I'd like to provide an overview of the Sheriff's Office budget vision and the key priorities that we're guiding our planning for this. Our primary focus is maintaining public safety, as you all know, by responding to emerging threats, supporting our workforce, and ensuring that critical infrastructure and equipment remain reliable and effective. First, one of our most significant initiatives is the creation of a dedicated ICAC unit, or Internet Crimes Against Children Unit, within the Detective Bureau. A number of online exploitation cases involving children and teenagers continues to grow. Our office continually receives tips and referrals from several different sources. That includes other agencies, federal agencies, and Department of Justice. Establishing this specialized unit will allow us to proactively investigate offenders, pursue criminal charges, and work closely with our community partners and our DA to protect vulnerable youth. To support this effort, we're requesting two additional detective positions. These detectives will provide investigative capacity, training, technical expertise and case management necessary to address these increasingly complex crimes in a timely manner. These crimes are very time intensive. Second, continue to face significant staffing and retention challenges within the Detentions Division. Retaining qualified staff is critical to maintaining safe and effective operations within our jail facilities. As part of our budget planning, we will review compensation levels compared to neighboring agencies. and incorporate recommendations from the recently started RFP on the staffing study that you voted to put in the budget last year. Our goal is to improve retention, reduce turnover, and maintain adequate staffing levels to support uninterrupted public safety.

Excuse me. I'm drying out. Capital investment.

We are prioritizing several important capital investments, The detention facility kitchen, which has been on our conversations many times, the equipment requires continued repairs and upgrades as equipment ages and reaches the end of its useful life, experiences more frequent failures. We're also maintaining our vehicle replacement cycle through the annual purchase of outfitting 13 patrol squads. In addition, ongoing investments in patrol equipment, including officer safety items, communications technology, radios, and tactical resources. necessary to ensure the deputies have the tools they need to serve the public safely and effectively. Potential budget impacts. As we look ahead, there are several factors that are going to require close monitoring. Some of you are aware, obviously, some aren't. New federal regulations from the FCC will reduce inmate phone commission revenues beginning in 26, and that's already in effect. While current revenue trends associated with the housing of U.S. Marshall inmates are expected to offset those impacts in the near term, we are evaluating the potential financial effect on the 27 budget where our revenue has gone down from the FCC telecommunications changes. We have had a higher population of U.S. Marshall inmates, so we have more revenue there. Fuel costs. This was Mr. Nordegren brought this up last year, and here we are. Fuel costs also remain elevated compared to historical averages. We're continuing to monitor marketing conditions and assess whether adjustments are going to be necessary in future budget cycles, which is likely. We talked about this with the current administration not knowing what was going to happen, but obviously with what we're dealing with in the world right now, I would expect fuel costs to go up, and Kelly has done an analysis on that for us as well. Overtime. Remains an important consideration as we work to ensure sufficient staffing levels in both patrol and detention operations. Maintaining adequate staffing is essential to providing continuous public safety services throughout the county. And finally, another common denominator, inmate medical costs continue to be an area of our focus. We continue to work closely with our medical provider to evaluate pharmaceutical utilization and outside medical expenditures to improve cost efficiency while maintaining appropriate standards medical care. To date, we're at nearly $80,000 in pharmaceutical credits. That's by going through with our medical provider with some of the overages on medications they're able to return. In summary, this budget vision centers four priorities, protecting children from online exploitation, strengthening employee retention, maintaining critical facilities and equipment, responsibly managing future financial challenges, These investments will help ensure the Sheriff's Office remains prepared to meet the evolving public safety needs for our community.

Thank you, and we'll take questions, obviously.

Anybody have any questions for the Sheriff? Oh, Supervisor Lux.

Yeah, I just had a question. So when you talk about the Sheriff app, what exactly is going on that app exactly? If you could explain a little bit more into that.

I can, and I should probably do this There you go. There's there's I don't know. I don't have the image with me. I should have brought a picture for you. I apologize. It's just a normal screen like your cell phone. There's there's nine icons and there's three more across the bottom and we choose what goes on there. So it's in development right now. But I can tell you that we have a tip line. We have opioid and drug addiction services on there, which will be linked to behavioral health. We have a lot of jail access stuff because that's one of the main things that we receive, requests for information on what's going on in jail. So all those types of links. But I'll email you a copy of what's going on there. Sure, absolutely. I sent the whole board.

Sheriff, can I just follow up? So I have downloaded when you brought this to my attention, both Dane County and Dodge County already have that particular service. You can, and Lake County actually, so you can download the three different and take a look at what the apps are and how they utilize them. They all are similar, but a little bit different. For instance, Dodge County actually has a where you can go put your child's information in there. So if you have a missing child, you can easily share that with the sheriff's office right away with the current picture. So again, there's inmate rosters. There's other services in Dodge County. You can find a tow truck.

So our safer program will be on there for the children. Supervisor Morse.

So Sheriff, on the kitchen repairs, do you have a cost of what you anticipate that's going to be?

I don't because this is an evolving thing. We've done repairs. We're always doing repairs and we have to go back through and make sure because some of the equipment that we think isn't going to break or has some more longevity does go. Kelly can tell you the exact dollars, but we just repaired this incredibly expensive fryer of some kind. It was humongous. And the costs are substantial, so I don't have a number for you or a particular item that we think is going to break in the near future.

Yes, my thought was, is this something that we could outsource? I don't think we have kitchen staff anymore, right? Is it something that can be? Bring it in, though. And again, we're responsible to pay for it. It would be cheaper to outsource that perhaps than we actually use.

We actually use vendors with their mark.

They have vendors that they utilize and at much better prices than we got by ourselves. repairing equipment.

Supervisor Lux. Sorry, I just had one more question. So does the Sheriff's Department currently right now have any staff to help out with calls for medical mental health reasons or anything like that?

Oh, absolutely. We have an embedded social worker that is in our patrol division now and she's actually employed by County Behavioral Health Terry Foster team over there, and they've been doing this all year and it's been incredibly effective. So she actually responds on calls with deputies when it's not a violent situation. There's a criteria to that, but she can deal with that. As someone who's met a mental health crisis, sometimes law enforcement uniform is a scary proposition and she's very good at deescalating that situation. Well, the deputies are good at it too, but nevertheless, they can be very intimidating. She does a very good job with that and tries to de-escalate. And many times they're able to leave. She has her own vehicle, her own transportation. They're able to leave and she stays with them and puts them in connection with all the services that they might need. And it's been very effective. And then like following days, she follows up on calls that have come through. So she follows up with families and just continues that work all the time. Perfect. Thank you. Yes, sir.

Supervisor Stocker.

I just had a, I don't expect you to have the numbers, but I was wondering if there's an average cost of each arrest.

You're correct.

They do not have that number. But I just think that that would be a nice number for us to know as the courts seem to be getting more lenient and we get more reoffenders, that that cost is really dramatically impacting your service to the community. Thank you. Yes, sir.

To Supervisor Stocker's comment, actually, when I was in the legislature, we tried to follow a case and tried to get that number through the Audit Bureau from arrest all the way through the system. Our state auditor wasn't ever able to delineate or pinpoint it because there were so many different outcomes of a particular inmate to actually try to figure out from somebody who might be picked up, brought in on a disorderly conduct and released. almost immediately to somebody who might be having something more significant, who was there more long term, who was then working through the court system. But that was one of the things we were trying to use CCAP, which is the circuit court system, to follow cases all the way through. There was a couple of us legislators who were trying to pinpoint that. So I'll reinvestigate and see going forward statewide between what, because we were trying to work with different counties to try to figure out But the initial cost was then working in all the ways. Again, every county is different. Every cost is different from inmate medical to our food service. You know, we operate two jails in Kenosha County versus most counties just have one. So we have the public, you know, done by the public safety building. And then we have the KCDC out in the West End.

I'm really looking for just the cost of the arrest. UM, AND BECAUSE I DO UNDERSTAND THAT IT'S VERY COMPLICATED AFTER THAT. UM, SO THE TIME OF THE OFFICER, THE, YOU KNOW, THAT KIND OF THING, I THINK IT WOULD BE HELPFUL TO THE COMMUNITY TO KNOW THAT. THANK YOU.

I'LL SEE IF WE CAN WORK IT OUT. ALL RIGHT. UH, SUPERVISOR TOZAN.

UH, REGARDING, UH, LAURA BESKE'S, UM, UH, QUESTION ON THE DEFICIT, THE $4.2 MILLION DEFICIT, UH, THE PERCENTAGE BETWEEN OVERTIME and the pharmaceuticals and the groceries, the sundries, do you have a percentage breakdown of the overtime related to all those?

There you go.

I'd say I don't have it off the top of my head. A large percent is overtime, but we could pull something together. I mean, it'll be a fairly easy thing for us to do. We have it all tracked. So we could share that out. Thank you.

Good questions. All right. Any other questions? I don't see anybody. All right. Well, thank you so much, Cher, for your overview of... Sorry. Next on the agenda is Human Services, and I'll turn it over to Interim Director, Rebecca Devon.

Thank you. And thank you all for being here tonight, especially the staff. I know it becomes a long day when you're here, but I think it's important for us to talk about both of our successes as well as what our challenges are looking forward. So as many of you know, human services is one of the largest budgets within Kenosha County. And as a team in human services, we understand that we have a responsibility to ensure that both our programs meet the needs of the community while being fiscally responsible. In 2025, we've talked about, we were able to get back over $7 million. While that's not something that we normally are able to do, that's based on the fact that we also have impacts to our budgets that we often cannot control. So if we have a child that is court ordered to a high level of placement, or we have an adult that has a mental health crisis that requires a costly placement, those are oftentimes things that we cannot account for within our budget. But I'm confident in telling you tonight that our team closely monitors all of our programs to ensure that they are both effective and they meet the quality standards that our community expects. Some examples of those successes that we've seen in the last year include aging and disability, implementing a new call routing system that has significantly increased staff efficiency while providing better service to the caller, meaning that the caller, when they call in, gets a resource person, so they're not bounced from reception to resource and then on to the next person. It's been highly effective with providing a lot more satisfaction to the callers. Our behavioral health team secured a grant to hire a substance use navigator who is able to support a client throughout their recovery journey. We know that there is great success when we can walk with someone through the beginning to the end to ensure that they get all the services that they need. Brookside was able to exceed their budgeted targeted census, something that they should be very proud of. They've worked very hard to get to that. This year we implemented a five year RFP strategic plan, so request for proposal strategic plan. This will ensure that all of our contracts are reviewed on a five year cycle so that we make sure that we are meeting those high quality standards that we expect. Our Department of Child and Family Services prioritized prevention services by working collaboratively with community resources to help support children and families within their homes. Our health team spent a great deal of time building up the communicable disease team to help us prepare for any future needs that arise. Our medical examiner office revamped schedules to provide more consistency in staffing, reducing the amount of turnover that we have, and allowing for faster response times. Our veterans office was proactive in reaching out to veterans who recently separated from service to make sure that they are aware of the resources that are available to them. Our workforce development team navigated the federal shutdown very well by growing the amount of knowledge and resources that they had. So they were able to provide more resources to callers who called in for services. And our fiscal team for managing all of our revenue changes throughout the year. And trust me, there's many. So kudos to Tammy's team. Well, all of those highlights of our successes, this is a budget vision meeting. So I really should talk about some of the areas that will impact our 2027 budget. And those include the increased costs that the human services building will have. The uncertainty of funding, whether it's at the federal state or even on our grants, there remains a lot of uncertainty out there. Potential structure updates in several of our divisions. Our division of child and family services is looking to change a position to a management position to provide more oversight for its teams. Our health department is looking to change a manager role to fund our deputy director position, which has been unfunded again to provide greater oversight. And our behavioral health team is looking at adding some clinical supervision within the department as we see that department grow. And we spend a lot of time with that team being out in the community. So to wrap up everything tonight, I want to thank you again for being here. And as a reminder, most of our divisions have updated monthly dashboards on the pages on our county's website. So those provide a great deal of detail about the programs that we offer, as well as who is receiving those services. AND I JUST WANT TO REACH OUT AND LET EVERYONE KNOW THAT AS THIS BUDGET PROCESS CONTINUES, PLEASE FEEL FREE TO REACH OUT TO TAMMY, MYSELF, OR ANY OF THE DIRECTORS IF YOU HAVE QUESTIONS OR CONCERNS ABOUT OUR BUDGET, ANY OF OUR PROGRAMS, OR ANYTHING THAT WE CAN OFFER TO YOU. WE ARE HAPPY TO MEET WITH ANY OF YOU AT ANY TIME.

DOES ANYBODY HAVE ANY QUESTIONS FOR REBECCA? REGENT MORRISSEY.

$30,000, I THINK IT IS, THAT GOES TO KIDS FOR THE HOTEL VOUCHERS. IS THAT OUT OF YOUR BUDGET? So I'm hoping that you double that for next year in 2027. I'd prefer that it come in in your original budget. If not, I'll be making amendments on the floor at the committee levels. But I think that really needs to be doubled. I believe they were out of funds by February this year.

Thank you. So where's your stocker?

How long after a fall is the fall no longer considered a factor?

That's a good question.

That's why I raised it, I hope.

Patty, your medical examiner, I think she's still here. I'm not sure if she is or not. But when Patty looks at fatalities for falls, is that what you're referencing?

I was referencing the falls fatality review group. And so how long after a fall would they no longer consider the fall to be a factor?

Patty, what does your team determine? So there is no set interval so we could have somebody who has an injury that leads you know they might have a broken femur broken hip bone we see that quite frequently so we've also had people who have had you know they're possibly hit by a car they might be paralyzed and things like that and so it might be years if they're affected by this injury and we have to be able to link the initial injury to the actual cause of death. So it could be a couple days, a couple weeks, couple of months, but as long as we can link that back and the example I like to use is when James Brady was shot protecting Reagan and then there was about, I want to say over 30 years that he had residual effects and then he ended up dying from complications of being shot. And so even though there had been over many decades of time between the initial him being shot and him dying, his death was still classified as a homicide.

I love that answer.

Thank you. You're welcome. Thank you.

And I think it's important to add to that, that this falls fatality review team that our aging and disability team is closely monitoring is based on the fact that Wisconsin remains the number one state for fatal falls. So we have a very high percentage of folks that fall and unfortunately pass away due to those injuries. So it's something that they felt very compelled to look at to make sure that we can provide some intervention if we can.

Any other question for Super? Yeah, I do. Okay.

Oh, Super. So the 7 million in surplus, is that due to the program that both you and Carrie have put in place where we're not doing as much traveling, we're taking people across the border and placing them instead of going up?

So you're referencing our contract with Lake Behavioral Health Hospital for psychiatric? Some of it is. I'm going to let Tammy actually break it down a little bit more for you. Okay, thank you.

In Carrie's budget in the behavioral health, the placements did see a surplus of $1.2 million.

So part of that is due to that. Good, good. So that's a really good program. I know you've worked very hard on it. So thank you. And I just want to say in the new dashboard, there is a

THEY REALLY DO BREAK IT DOWN REALLY NICELY. MONICA HAS WORKED ON THE NEW DASHBOARDS, AND PLEASE CHECK THEM OUT. THEY ARE AVAILABLE. ALL OF THIS INFORMATION TONIGHT IS ALSO POSTED ON THE WEBSITE AS WELL UNDER THE BUDGET SECTION. OKAY. OTHER QUESTIONS? I'M GOING TO TURN IT OVER TO DIRECTOR BILLINGSLEY.

Good evening again.

Public Works and Development Services is a diverse department, kind of like Human Services, consisting of six divisions. So I'm going to kind of go through them division by division. I'm going to start with our Parks Division. We welcomed approximately 2 million visitors and hosted more than 880 programs and events this last year. Significant accomplishments included completion of phase three of the Pike River Restoration Project, ADA improvements at multiple parks, expansion of our recreational opportunities, and continued investment in community programming. Looking ahead, we will continue to enhance visitor experiences through playground improvements, expanding some parking lots. We're going to add a pickleball facility. We're going to work on our shoreline restoration project at the comfort center and continue our public private partnerships. A HIGHWAY DEPARTMENT HAS MAINTAINED AN IMPROVED TRANSPORTATION NETWORK THAT INCLUDES OUR INTERSTATE, STATE, AND COUNTY ROADWAYS. CREWS RESPONDED TO 18 WINTER STORM EVENTS, COMPLETED RESURFACING PROJECTS, BRIDGE REPLACEMENTS, AND SAFETY IMPROVEMENTS ALL WHILE UTILIZING 2.7 MILLION IN GRANT FUNDING. THE UPCOMING YEAR, WE'RE HOPING TO CONTINUE INVESTING IN ROADWAY SAFETY, CAPACITY IMPROVEMENTS, AND INFRASTRUCTURE PRESERVATION THROUGH PROJECTS SUCH AS, LIKE WE'RE DOING THIS YEAR, COUNTY TRUNK HIGHWAY W AND COUNTY TRUNK HIGHWAY O AND OUR ANNUAL RESURFACING PROGRAM, WHICH HAS ALREADY STARTED. FACILITIES DIVISION CONTINUED MANAGING AND MAINTAINING OVER 35 COUNTY FACILITIES WHILE ADVANCING MAJOR CAPITAL PROJECTS Notable accomplishments included improvements at the courthouse, Brookside Care Center, at our Public Safety Building, and continued progress on the new Human Services Building. Looking ahead, our major priorities include completion of the Human Services Building, the Kenosha County Center remodel, communications infrastructure improvements through the West End Tower project, and critical facility investments in the Detention Center and Public Safety Building. Our golf division experienced another record setting year that Barna had mentioned. We had hosted over 122,000 rounds and generated more than 5.7 million of revenues. These successes continue to demonstrate the importance of our golf facilities as both recreation amenities and financial sustainable county assets. Our future investments will focus on maintenance facilities, equipment preservation, drainage improvements, and continued course enhancements. Planning and Development Division remained actively engaged in supporting responsible growth and long-term community planning. Staff advanced housing initiatives, redevelopment efforts, conservation planning, transportation studies, and technical improvements that make information more accessible to residents and developers. Our upcoming work will continue to focus on land and water conservation, redevelopment opportunities, ordinance updates, and our regional planning initiatives. UW Extension continues to serve as a vital community resource by providing educational programming, youth development, financial literacy resources, agricultural support, and community engagement initiatives. Through these partnerships and outreach, Extension continues to improve the quality of life for our residents as well as our staff. Beyond our operational accomplishments, we have also invested in our people. The past year we launched the momentum team and expanded our safety team to strengthen communication, employee engagement, workplace culture, and safety throughout our department. We added a GIS specialist position to improve data management, mapping, and decision-making capabilities across all divisions, and these investments helped ensure to remain efficient, innovative, and prepared for our future challenges. The proposed budget will reflect a balanced approach that supports our services, maintains our critical infrastructure, and invests in our workforce while preparing the future needs and remaining mindful of our fiscal responsibility. On behalf of our entire department, we want to thank you for your continued support and investment into the service that keep us moving forward. AND WHERE YOU'RE HERE, LIKE REBECCA HAD SAID, IF ANY OF OUR DIVISIONS, IF YOU HAVE QUESTIONS, PLEASE CONTACT US. WE'D BE HAPPY TO MEET WITH ANY ONE OF YOU AT ANY TIME AND GO THROUGH THE PROPOSED BUDGET OR ANYTHING OF THIS YEAR. SO, THANK YOU.

ALL RIGHT, DOES ANYBODY HAVE ANY QUESTIONS FOR DIRECTOR BILLING, PLEASE?

TO DIRECTOR LUX. YEAH, I JUST HAD A QUESTION. SO, IN MY DISTRICT, IN DISTRICT 10, There was a park called Hopps Park. It's currently gone like the park. I don't know what happened to it. I'm just wondering. That is actually a city park.

OK, so I would refer you back to the city of Kenosha. OK, thank you so much. You're welcome. I think you're sitting next to somebody who may be able to answer your question. He's smiling, so I'm going to just take his cue. OK. Can you share with us?

Sure, if you go by now, it's all fenced off and part of the new playground equipment is put in there after the accident.

OK, see that again. Willing to help and answer questions. Anybody else have any other questions on any projects coming up with regards to public works? There are a lot that are on. Oh, yeah.

I'm curious about the golf programs looking forward because we're breaking records. That's great. What about the next generation? so i know we have a kids golf program in the county love that um i'm curious about the caddy program i think we had a caddy program not maybe 10 years ago that came and went real fast it's like for about a year and i'm wondering if we could maybe use that to develop our kids also along with golf and maybe even combine those with uh using the caddy program to inspire the golfers, the little kid golfers to use it to incentivize those kids to come back home to our golf course.

Yeah, I would agree in that caddy programs are wonderful things for both the kids and the golfers. I don't know that there are any municipal facilities uh around the country that offer them you may see some at like your tory pines or uh which is san diego county and several hundred dollars uh per round uh we we certainly traffic in the more affordability uh space of golf and so uh It's certainly something that I would entertain. I don't know how feasible it would be at our economic level of customer and our economic place in the game. I know, I believe Kenosha Country Club still has a caddy program. Not sure about Strawberry Creek. I know we've got some, I know some people that caddy at Lake Geneva Country Club and Typically now in golf, you see it at the private clubs and even the higher end private clubs because at most times, most clubs, the standard rate for a caddy is about $100 per round. And our cost of 18 holes with a cart on a weekend is $65 total. So it's a bit of a market that we don't really traffic in. We're not in the higher end space, but it's something I would certainly continue to look at and would be happy to look into the feasibility of because again I think it is great for the kids and I think it works at country clubs because you're dealing with mostly people that have had a lot of success in their life it gives the kids access to that caliber or that that class uh whereas we see that but not at the level that a country club would but it's certainly something I would I would look at for sure it's a great thought

I also just want to add that, Jim, if you'd share how we partner with the high school and UW Parkside, because again, we have partnerships with both of those opportunities for our youth.

Yes, we do work with the Parkside golf teams in giving them access to our golf facilities. I also coach a First Tee program. uh at the city golf course at Washington Municipal that actually starts next week and we've seen that program grow uh every year this will be the third year of it and uh the numbers have been a little higher every year with that uh so that's you know obviously it's not at our facilities but we try to support every golf facility around because there's there's honestly there's uh There's probably more golfers than facilities available right now. The way, you know, the numbers of golfers in the country is going up. We don't know that it'll stay that way. But yeah, and we also do partner with the local high schools. I believe Central plays at Brighton Dale and they host the regional tournament there every year. And we've also got PGA Junior Leagues now too, which is a place for kids to graduate. after our junior golf program they can it's almost like little league uh for golf so that's been that's booming as well all right supervisor meadows yeah a question for director wallace i if i recall correctly you've told us before that ever since covet the number of youth golfers has been going up year over year is that correct yeah absolutely uh youth any any non-conventional category of golfers youth uh women the number of women golfers is up huge so uh and we take a lot of pride in trying to cater to every every market so uh a child in our community can buy a golf pass for 90 95 and play all the golf they want all year long with pretty much no restrictions on when they can play golf supervisor grady

Thank you. Just in terms of youth and golf, we've had a pretty good success with the first two programs that Jim mentioned, golf lessons, high school students coming to compete and play in the game as part of their curriculum and also the colleges as well. And 10 years ago, we actually did have a, excuse me, a caddy program that was started. It was a volunteer. Youngsters would show up to actually at Petrifying Springs attempt to start the program ran for about three years. And really what made it fail was lack of utilization. The golfers were not required to pay anything other than donation if they wanted to. And you would have maybe six or eight golfers that would utilize it. But by and large, the golf leagues would not use it at all. It just wasn't part of their thing. And early in the day, people just kind of wanted to get through and play the game and not, you know, go into the caddy thing. So it's not for A LACK OF TRYING, BUT WE'RE SUCCEEDING WITH THE YOUTH IN A DIFFERENT METHODOLOGY AS OPPOSED TO JUST THE CADI PROGRAM.

ANY OTHER QUESTIONS THEN FOR DIRECTOR ZILLING? SEEING NONE, OKAY. WELL, WE'RE CLOSE TO THE END HERE, AND I JUST, FIRST OFF, I WANT TO POINT OUT THERE ARE A COUPLE AREAS THAT WE DIDN'T TOUCH ON. We have a human resources overview and an information technology, which even though they're not speaking tonight, will be a part and they are intertwined in every division throughout county government. So again, please take a look at their documents tonight. And I really appreciate the conversation. Does anybody, before we adjourn, have any other questions for finance or for myself? seeing done um that i i just i really appreciate everybody coming tonight and uh see you down the road