Board of Supervisors - Regular Meeting

The meeting folks for the full allegiance.

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. agenda the agenda minutes from july 14th and treasurer's report agenda i will second the motion there's a motion and second to approve the consent agenda all those members say aye aye opposed Federation formal action liquor licenses. We have one from Castle Unicorn Class C annual renewal effective September 22nd.

Move on it or we can do it next week. Okay. I'll make a motion to approve the Class C annual renewal for Castle Unicorn.

Second the motion. There's a motion and a second to approve the Class C annual renewal effective September 22nd, 2026 for Castle Unicorn. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed? Question passes. Public comment. You're up, Bonnie.

Are all the departments under your accountability, I should say?

So most of the departments are under our accountability when it comes to budgets. So we can have the power of the purse. Now, the only two that I can think of that is not when it comes to the budget, specifically from the Board of Supervisors, is the Assessor's Office and Emergency Management. All the other departments, we control the budgets, but it doesn't necessarily mean that we control everything within the office. Why not? That's how Iowa law set it up as a separation of power. Really?

If you're elected, then you have autonomy over your own office.

She runs her office. We can't walk in and say, you can't do this for me, do that for me. She can say no. She runs her people. She runs her office. Really?

Because I'm elected by the people to do my job.

Great. It's the same way. We can tell the deputies to go patrol here to do this, and he can look at us and say no.

Yeah, and the same way with Francis, the Board of Health. We appoint the Board of Health, we control the budget, but the Board of Health really controls what happens.

So you have no say whether they can stay open at lunch or not? No. People are still complaining about it.

I would suggest that you talk to that department head then.

Who?

To that department head then. Oh, okay.

She's elected also.

Mm-hmm.

I'm done.

Well, I'm happy to hear that. Because I never know, Bonnie.

If I don't close your office a bunch of times. I'm done. Thank you. Jill's always over. That's true.

I'll get you, Bonnie. I'll get you. I've got a direct line. Is there any other public comments?

I wanted to say something really quick. I had listened in on the meeting last week. online and just a reminder that if you're in the meeting please don't talk because it gets picked up on the microphone and it makes it very hard to hear what other what's actually happening here and even if you're whispering you can hear it so if you have anything to say you need to leave the room and have that conversation and then so just just a reminder because it does get sorry i've heard complaints about before in the last night or last week because i was taking minutes live and it was like oh i can hear and then your conversation does get heard and people can hear what you're saying. So just a reminder to everybody. No, it's not just you. It happens occasionally.

Mostly great. Yeah, that's what I thought. Mostly great.

Even when you're not here to pick on me, I still get picked on. Jake is at a conference and he didn't really have anything this week, so I'll be able to bring something to you.

All right.

Formal action request to increase mileage.

As a reimbursement rule for the county, you guys set the reimbursement fees for mileage. The state of Iowa gives sheriffs the ability to assess mileage fees for paper service. When we knew somebody asked me whether or not you could Why why one of the things why it's against policy is this basically is not for reimbursement from us asking for reimbursement on personal vehicles. This is us asking for reimbursement from somebody to ask us to serve civil papers. So if we're going to drive Henderson to serve somebody papers and then drive back that service, the fees that go along with that $30 from the actual service fees. But then we also can ask for reimbursement for the mileage in this situation.

Yeah, so currently the mileage rate, well, before it was 72.5 cents a mile, 72.5 cents a mile, and now it is 76 cents a mile. Yeah, and that's up for a bunch of things.

So basically what I'm just asking is permission from you guys to go ahead and change our reimbursement, that will be for our mileage fees for the service and papers, not for this.

And specifically it would come at the cost of we're delivering papers for. Correct.

So yeah, as a, for instance, if a law firm is going down to a house for foreclosure, you can go post them on the front door. If that's an infinite $30 and 60 cents for mileage, It doesn't cover the actual expenses. Correct. You guys have to approve me upping that rate. Just you? Correct. Yeah, it would just be when he's able to bill back. It's just for when we are on duty doing service of papers throughout And again, as you mentioned, Jack, that's going to be available to, like, let's say, for instance, somebody who hasn't paid, you want to serve them a paper, you just pay a fee, you're going to serve a small thing, you give it to me, I drive, it's your monthly account, we'll explain what address, we'll go and we'll just send it to you.

Yep. Yep.

That's exactly what it is. It's a reimbursement for our car.

Okay, so how should we word this? I'll make a motion to increase the mileage fee for the Sheriff's Department.

I would say I would move to increase the mileage, the billable mileage fee for civil paper service.

Civil paper service, so that is my motion.

276 cents.

276 cents, yes, yes, yes.

Second the motion. There is a motion and second two. the mileage fee for civil banker service from 0.725 to 76 per mile. Is there any further discussion? All those in favor, say aye. Aye. Opposed?

Motion passes.

The only thing I have for general discussion this morning, just a reminder, this is from Chief Johanson and Jetson. We had a meeting yesterday. Kind of one of our last week where we have our community event here on the square, on the lawn. It's going to be August 5th. 5 to 7, if I remember correctly. Just a reminder, we're going to be there. I've talked to Chad. Just a reminder that we're coming in. We'll start setting up on the lawn at probably 8 o'clock in the morning. It'll be fairly early. They've got some events they want to get in there.

They're having the train come in again. They're having... So they've got some things that are going to come in.

They're going to start bringing it in kind of early. Obviously, they asked for permission from you guys. They just want to make sure that it's still okay.

Chief Johan's supposed to be here next week to talk.

Yeah. But he said, please remind them. I'm still asking for permission. And then just, I guess, to say it out loud and uh the meeting itself uh they're going to be using the circle drive they're going to have several different vendors and a lot more people getting certain but probably about noon we're going to have to that be clear just a reminder to you guys so that we're not stepping on your toes don't take don't take yes um that will be at the fire department uh i think they're gonna have um some kind of like a bagger set up that's jim down there um Elkhart-Thompson, Briggs and Luda. The fire department will also have some hot dogs and prawns. Should have full hops there. A couple years ago when they ran out of food. They ran out of food, so they definitely have their plan for like 960. Should be a lot of people. Very good.

Do you want me to send out a reminder email about the Circle Drive?

Yeah, that would be great.

I'll send that one out. this week, and then I'll just get a couple to send out for mine, and then I'll take care of that.

Thank you. That's all I have. Thank you.

Well, that's not all you have. Oh, you want to talk about that now?

No.

Rachel Reese, Director of Community Health Revisions to General Relief Policy.

Good morning.

Good morning.

So you guys have the updated policy in your packet. Things that were changed, and we know they've gone by a percent, up in line to 30% AMI. So what that means is that it's a little higher threshold and aligns with most people that would receive disability coverage. And so it also aligns with a lot of the other suspension services that are provided throughout our region. And the other pieces that are added is there is an asset limit that was changed for Jack. And so I think that we talked through that and it aligns more with what SNAP benefits and state health benefits look like. And then within that, the only thing that I just want to caution us on is When people come to us, we do an intake and we're walking them through what they need. We're not doing a huge deep dive into their whole entire background of like, I just want to clarify, like, it's self-reported. Now, I would say probably 80% of the people that come to us absolutely need help. And they do not have any of those assets that are And we're working through with VA on how to manage the VA benefit side. And so all of it is all recorded. We do try to do as much feedback as we can. It's just, it gets invasive after a while. So I just want to manage expectations on that. Um, otherwise I think those were the main things we did add back in that you could be a student. You just had to be working for reasons with doing something within county. Big ones that we changed. There's no little.

I appreciate you. Rachel taking some of my comments. For reference, Lonnie, the $3000 standard household maximum assets and the. 60 and above are disabled. $4,500 assets is the same asset limitation for state benefits. And then along with the assets really covers exactly what the state has. I just want to make sure that I'm not saying that people abuse the system, right? But I think I just want to make sure that the people who need it, who really need it, that there's funds available for then there, you know, we don't run out too early, like what's happened in the past.

I mean, I've been holding it for a year. I think what I've been thinking about next year is either the guidelines weren't being really, like, followed correctly, because there's no reasonable way that a general relief was written that should have run out of money. And so I think, like, we... have really tried to work within those guidelines. And realistically, the thing that we pushed through were the cremations. We really want to make sure that people are able to use that. And at this point, it's a couple handful non-profits that can be able to put a little bit of money to support people. But I mean, we're seeing people come to us with like 6,000 to 8,000 careers online.

And there's quite literally nothing we can do to catch that.

And so... We can start to problem-solve a little bit more through that, but I think if we can all align the resources that we have to kind of match each other, then we can help people kind of reach that stabilization piece, which is a little bit more what we want to see. And usually the reason they're in the room is some massive catastrophic event has happened, and they just cannot catch up.

Have you pinched the numbers to see what the budget for I know you can't see the future.

Yeah, I mean, I don't think, I don't see it being a huge influx. I think my goal is still, like, if we can spend the next 20, 25,000 of it, I think we're sitting in a good spot. I don't know that we're ever going to spend a full amount, just because of the guidelines still being there. I mean, 30% AMI is still fairly low. So, I mean, I think within that, knowing that it gives us a little bit more flexibility, Flexibility, especially the change that you can be on snap and make. We want you to have those in place so that when we're actually helping stabilizing event and not pushing people into using their home, having to start over, it's just easier to keep people housed and wrap around those services that happen to catch them up. Increvations in the full time.

yeah and i did reach out to um georgianne and scott um about that um about the amount and they both requested we leave it 1200. they didn't need it to be more they understand how the process works and so i just want to make sure they were getting what they needed yeah because it is an expensive thing but they said that that was that was sufficient now yeah what we found is that a lot of people like

Even with back pay and anything like that, usually what we end up doing is we'll say, okay, we can cover $700. Are you able to do a payment plan for the other part of it? And it's the same with cremations. And people need time to have to kind of pool money together. So, I mean, the bulk of it is covered by that. I plan to review this this week.

And also, I want to sit down and try to review it. And I want to make sure that we are consistent with Chapter 52. So I will work on that this week, and then I will send you guys an email about it. I won't be next week's meeting, but I will send an email out ahead of time, and I'll send it out. If it's ready, I'll throw it on the agenda next week. Thank you.

Thank you.

Appreciate it. Thank you.

I'll let you know, Rachel. Thank you. Thank you.

Good.

We got Amber Farnan, Auditor, Consideration, Formal Action, Resolution 26-27, Approval of Homestead Tax Credits and Exemptions, Military Service Property Tax Exemption, and Disabled Veteran Homestead Property Tax Credit Applications for the 2026 Assessment Year.

They're all good. Sessions or whatever you want to do. I wrote, all right. Where's that? Sometimes it's on that page.

People are filing these even though they got on the property.

They might have moved. So the homestead, it says they moved there in December of 22. I think they came on August 25 and they sold their property before. So sometimes people don't realize that they to apply for it by that time, yeah. I'm not honestly sure how Terry's being an owner. So yeah, not a resident of the state of Iowa. They plan to build a house here, but they decide in Iowa. The last one, you have to literally be a veteran. You can be gone to reserve and have to I would make the motion to approve Resolution 2627 approval of homestead tax credits and exemptions, military service property tax exemption.

and disabled veteran homestead property tax credit applications for the 2026 assessment year.

I assume the ones that Rochelle recommended to not allow is not included in resolution.

Right, yeah, correct. Well, those will be signed separately.

I will second that motion then.

Here's a motion and a second to approve Resolution 26-27. Is there any further discussion? Seeing none, all those in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed? Motion passes.

And if you guys are okay, you'll have to sign the disallowed ones.

Yeah, the disallowed ones.

Yep. And then the other ones, if you guys are okay, I have a stamp. I have a stamp for a supervisor to approve it for the date. And then I will send a letter to the four that were not allowed. So they're aware. And then I send a letter to the DVH up against to let them know that next year's taxes, they won't...

You all the same. These are just one. I just want to do this.

And I can do it afterwards and then I could take it out or you want me to sign on the back on the back page. Yeah. First. First.

I'll bring it down.

And these are not, this is for the payable taxes of 2728. So you guys approved the ones for this year's taxes. Yep.

I'm sure there's some changes now. Yeah. But it's after the Lakers call. It's Oh, that's right. Yeah. These ones are good. It's next year. We have to be here for that size. Yeah. Okay. It's going to be fun because Homestead is changing from a credit to an exemption. So it deducts 10% taxable value. Yeah. It's going to be fun. Yeah, it will.

Thank you. Thanks. Consideration formal action permission to advertise for part-time temporary elections clerk.

So we've In our budget every year to have a part-time temporary clerk. And one reason we always forget to. So it ends up being where Katie is working a lot of overtime, which costs us quite a bit of money. So I would like approval to hire or to advertise for a part-time temporary election clerk. I would like them to start in either in the end of August or September, because there's a lot of prep that goes into the general election. It's a lot of work. And I think that we might have a special election that we will have in August. So we'll already be doing stuff. So I would appreciate if we could get approval to advertise for that. And it would work probably through mid to end of November.

Fine, Lonnie. I would appreciate if we could table this until if it gets back on Tuesday.

It is in my budget. Okay. I want to make sure that he's in the loop when it comes to staffing-wise.

Okay.

We'll table that until next week. Evisions to credit card, expense reimbursement, use of county personal vehicle policy, and adding new policy travel and business expense reimbursement policy.

Yeah, well, so Amber and I got together this last week and I sent something out to you guys just that what I drafted was a hell of a whole lot of thievery from other places. I contacted several other counties, cities that have travel reimbursement policies different from what we currently have. I put something together with two different options. I don't have to get you to take a look at. Amber and I got together. We realized that there's a couple of other current county policies that because of the way I sent that proposal out, there's going to be some changes.

So making any changes to if we add this policy, actually includes our reimbursement policy a little bit this goes more into depth which i like um and then also our um county vehicle policy and our credit card policy which we need to update anyway so we're working on all those at once to make sure that we're not contradicting ourselves in the policy that we're writing um this would do more of a you know it has limit set so only spend so much per meal and it's set by the federal i don't know what that was called the federal gsa guidelines so the employee would have to go look for the city they're going to and that's your and i'll show you what your meals are yeah yeah i brought it i wrote forward a while back and like gets in the way kind of dropped off so run back up and i just want to make sure that you guys understand that um

We were hoping to bring you a draft that we're gonna say, yeah, let's take a look at this, let's make it a yes or a no. But because of our conversation last week, we realized there's a couple of other policies that are affected by this one. So while we have hoped to move forward sooner rather than later, we're definitely at a way to be clear. So we need to make sure that we can get through the policies and make sure that we're having some of those counter victories that we have in place. It's on paper seems like a great thing, but that's back to family policies.

I have credit. I'll give it to you guys after me and I forgot. So that's what we're looking at right now.

Yep, correct, correct. Yep.

It would be up to the employers to look up those rates and hand those rates in with their meal reimbursements.

Like a comp or something. It was one of the things we thought was that use your county card to one of the contradictory policies county cards can be used for meals basically we're going to say that's not going to be the case you have to use your own card ask for the reimbursement um and i had mentioned the two different options one was the exact meal amount the other was a per diem um

Consensus seems to be that not per diem, not just a flat rate.

You know, here's your, I don't remember the exact number, $80 a day. That covers your breakfast, lunch, evening meal, as well as any, like a $5 ancillary amount for Ubers or whatever it takes to be parking. We wouldn't do that. We would say you have up to that amount, no different than what was in the other one, 22, 23, 33. I think the dollar amounts. But if you go to breakfast and you don't spend $12, we're not going to give you $22 for the day. We're going to ask you to keep that receipt. Turn in that receipt and then you can get your $12. Or rather than a per diem basis, it would still be a reimbursement. For mail. Correct. But then the max is set. If you go over the max, it's on you. Yeah. But like I said, there are some, because of the way it was presented, A couple of things.

Like the credit card one needed to be updated anyway, because we kept getting dinged by the state auditor. So we need to make a couple of tweaks to that. It's not that we were doing anything wrong. We're just doing it contrary to our policy. So we just need to amend the policy. It's not the way we were doing it was okay by audit standards, but the sense of fact that it didn't match our policy, then it's not okay. So you'll see that. at a few of those and maybe some of the things will have to change um so we are keeping consistent is there any way we could have this as a workshop discussion next tuesday when mr mike galloway is here i i won't be here next tuesday and i'm not sure i can ask him if that's something he wants to go over i don't know it's something that well

Whatever policy we have, we should at least run it by him.

Yeah, we will.

When he's in here, just like a chance to sit down and talk to us.

I'm not opposed to it.

If he wants to take a look at it, then send him questions. I will get it out. Nothing I couldn't take. It's hard to hear.

I do.

Yeah, and yeah, I'm not at all afraid to have a look at it, but I do think that, you know, with the number of other agencies that pull in, I think it's a solid policy that you've got to make sure it doesn't happen again.

Yeah.

Other than that, any questions at all? Appreciate it. Thank you. Thank you. Got you down for general discussion, Amber.

No, I've said it 18 times, but when I will not be here next week. Then I will not. I don't think I'll have access really to my email or I'm not sure if our phones will work very well down there will be in the middle of Arkansas, so I'll check emails as I can and.

Moving on board of supervisors. Me. meeting updates. Roger Crouch is at the NACO conference currently. Let's see. I can't think of any meeting I had last week.

I had a good utilities board meeting on Wednesday. I had a map of finance committee meeting on Wednesday. I had a juvenile detention meeting on Wednesday.

Seems like I had one more, but I recall what it was. The Iowans for Tax Relief Conference on Thursday. I forgot about it. That's probably the only thing. Any new business? Either of you? I had something and I'm drawing a blank on what it was, so it's not that important. Next week, I remember it.

Just wanted to give you guys a heads up. Oh, Amber, I'm going to be able to make it. to the Emerson Sports Board grand opening this Saturday. I think I told you I wasn't going to be. I was going to be out of town, but I'll be here. So I don't know if Richard will be able to go in case we need to swarm them. And then next week, the fair board will be coming to talk about the Lincoln building. So it should be sent to me now.

The fair board? Yep. who's a contact for that do you know the variable you ever sell i have her email i can email her if i don't hear things there's no further business i'll entertain motion to adjourn we're supposed to adjourn at 8 27. second the motion there's a

Motion and a second to adjourn at 847. Any further discussion? All those in favor say aye. Opposed? Motion passes. We are adjourned. If you won't, John, I'm going to be at work. Otherwise, I'd be down there.