Will County Ad-Hoc Cares Funding Committee met June 5.
Here is the minutes provided by the committee:
In Accordance With Executive Order 2020-18 Issued By Governor Pritzker, This Meeting Will Be Held Via Videoconference/Telephonically Through The Webex Events Platform. Will County Board Members Will Be Attending The Meeting Remotely And The General Public Is Strongly Encouraged To Do The Same.
The Public Is Invited To Comment Or Pose A Question By Email At publiccomment@willcountyillinois.com. At The Public Comments Portion Of The Meeting, The Emails Will Be Read Into The Record. Please Go To www.willcountyboard.com/meetings For A Link To Attend The Meeting Via Webex.
I. CALL TO ORDER / ROLL CALL
Chair Kenneth E. Harris called the meeting to order at 9:02 AM
| Attendee Name | Title | Status | Arrived |
| Kenneth E. Harris | Chair | Present | |
| Mike Fricilone | District 7 (R - Homer Glen) | Present | |
| Amanda Koch | District 2 (D - Frankfort) | Present | |
| Jim Moustis | District 2 (R - Frankfort) | Present | |
| Sherry Newquist | District 1 (D - Steger) | Present |
Present from State's Attorney's Office: M. Tatroe.
II. PLEDGE OF ALLEGIANCE TO THE FLAG
Mr. Moustis led the Pledge of Allegiance to the Flag.
III. APPROVAL OF MINUTES
IV. OLD BUSINESS
1. Discussion Re: CARES Funding
(Discussion)
Mr. Harris stated I know there are other Board Members on, but as a point of order we going to keep the discussion with the Committee. If you have questions after the discussion, I will recognize you. Attached are the CARES Act funding frequently asked questions, including what the money can and cannot be used for. Our discussion will be to determine the best use of these funds and how to get them into the community as quickly as possible.
Ms. Newquist asked I want to make sure the percentages approved at the last meeting are flexible and subject to change. A newspaper article presented those percentages as this is what we are doing. I want to reiterate that the percentage are flexible and not written in stone.
Mr. Fricilone stated the article was based on the reporter being on our meeting and taking down information. I told him those percentages were flexible when he called me. Those are just guidelines. Hopefully, our consultant will be able to give us some more information. I have done some research on schools to see what they may need and our numbers may be too much or too small. As we get into the process we will see. People are starting to e-mail requests for money and it is important to get the consultant on board so they can handle the applications. We can’t just hand out money without an application because there are so many federal guidelines to follow. It was said in the meeting the percentage were a guideline to begin the process.
Mr. Harris stated I did some research and reached out to the Chambers. I also reached out to some of the Bolingbrook non-profits who have various youth sports programs. It will be a good task for us to come up with a plan to address the needs. I reached out the Illinois Restaurant Association. They have some programs in place, such as the bartender emergency assistance program to help the restaurant industry. Under new business will be a discussion on getting a consultant to help us determine what is out there and identify the needs. Those categories and percentages will become more flexible as we get data to make determinations.
Dr. Burke stated I sit on the Board at Stepping Stones and I asked them if they were aware of this support from the County and they were not. It is important to take a look at those areas that were hurt, especially the behavioral health people. They are getting some reimbursement from the state, but they are have to reduce their capacity because of the COVID requirements. That will hurt us in the long run. My interest is how we can work with them and make sure they are whole at the end of this. The agencies that take in the homeless and do treatment do not have a substantial resources, have gotten hurt in this.
Mr. Fricilone stated it is going to be hard to make everybody whole. We have to keep saying it the people who ask; this money is not for revenue replacement. It is only for COVID related expenses. People are going to say we are not making the money we did before but it does not replace the revenue. The guidelines were just to create the silos. Once we get the consultant on board we can talk to them about where they see the need. Once the applications come in, we may not get as many requests on the government side. Maybe there is not that much money we will need to shift over. Until we see the applications come in, how do we know who will ask for what and what will qualify.
Mr. Moustis stated the silos we created were basically an estimate of where we thought the money might go. I fully expect the monies to be shifted around to where there is a demand and where they will have the most benefit for the people of Will County. The money will be put where it will have the greatest impact on people. Honestly, $120 million is a lot of money and it may not be easy to distribute. That is where a consultant can help. Let’s make it clear this will be a flexible plan going forward and that was always the intent of the Committee. We were just trying to get things moving with the estimates. There is a lot of work to do to determine where the money might be distributed.
Ms. Koch stated I agree we will have to be flexible as we move forward with the categories. I see some things that are missing, but they probably fall under one of the categories and I am not worried. The category I don’t see is advertising. We have to get this information out to all the different agencies; government agencies are easy because we have connections. How do we get this out to the business, not for profit community and the farmers? Do we need to keep a percentage to be able to get the information out to the community on how they apply for this? I would like to talk about how we are going to do that and how much we will spend. I think it is important that everyone has the opportunity to apply. We found out the small business loans went to larger corporations and I would like to think we will do better than that. Part of the reason is because they knew where to look. To really help small business owners we need to take the information to them.
Mr. Fricilone replied that is an administrative cost to the County and the consultant really has to guide us on that.
Mr. Moustis stated communication to the Will County community is crucial. That would be part of the administrative costs. Awareness is the first step.
Mr. Harris stated the best starting point for any business is to review the frequently asked questions, attached to the agenda. That will help them determine if these were necessary expenditures incurred because of COVID. They can look at their budget that was approved as of March 27, 2020. The expenditure had to be incurred and not budgeted for. That can be guidance for our constituents to use as a framework to determine what is necessary. Regardless of how we determined the silos, they were created as a starting point. A not for profit, is created if you filed with the Secretary of State the two-page form with your name, address and purpose. If you have a fundraising activity you are required to file with AG’s Bureau of Charities. Tax exempt are required to follow the IRS guidelines. It is tricky when you talk about not for profits, exactly what we define as a not for profit or tax exempt. We are looking for our consultant to provide that guidance. The silos are a starting point, they are not concrete and have flexibility. We have $120 million to spend and it will be an unsurmountable task to get this done by December 30th. We want to start the process as soon as possible and make it as equitable as we can.
Mr. Blackburn stated this is a lot of cash. Up to this week, the County has spent $232,000 on COVID related expenses. That will give us almost $120,000 more to spend. I submitted something about special considerations on the CARES Act. I had a conversation with Mr. O’Brien, Government Segment Leader at Guidehouse. They are the consultant doing work for Cook County and 20 other jurisdictions. We had a long conversation after Ms. Hennessy started talking about some of her concerns and the way it will go forward. There will be a lot of requests we will have to do ourselves. Even though we bring on a consultant there will be some operational and administrative work we will have to do. We will get no brownie points for not spending the money. He said many jurisdictions are finding it difficult to place this money somewhere, because it is such a large amount. As you are setting up silos, you set up an evaluation, criteria, prioritization or schedule of when you will put out the money. He also suggested we speak with the firm that does our single audit. Ms. Hennessy has reached out to Baker Tilley. He suggested their CARES Act consultant team leader is the direct leader for these 20 jurisdictions and it has to come down to impact. There is a strong performance data reporting requirement that you have to show impact. It is not for revenue replacement, but you have to show an operation performance impact. As far as setting criteria, some of the other counties have set something preliminary and tried to use outside, local agencies to help them through this process and to get the word out. Some of the criteria for the local governments is areas within the county, population. For the non-profits and faith based includes impact. In many cases if they cannot come up with the reporting requirements they are just left out. If they have not done or had a single audit, they are left out. Also these have to be new programs, new additional stuff. Many counties have looked toward small business centers at community colleges or the CED in helping to set criteria such as address, location, the amount of business you do within the county and other certifications, minority, women or veteran owned businesses.
Mr. Palmer stated I think the lack of awareness and that people don’t know about this is because we have not told them the process yet. We have had this money for a while and we keep talking about getting a consultant, if that is the case, let’s get a consultant. The guidelines are out there and available to the public. All these municipalities have looked at it and these groups can look at them and see if they believe they qualify. The number one step is awareness and collecting information. What do people think they can spend the money on? Let’s get a process to collect the money, which will help everyone at the county decide do we have enough projects in the various categories? Maybe we will find some ideas we had not thought of that are really good we can put money in. Let’s get the process of collecting the data started then we can vet it. We can’t give money to outside groups and have them spend it. All the cutting of checks will have to come through the county. We cannot give $50 million to United Way and tell them to spend it. They can vet it, send it back to the Board and the Board is going to have to approve it; then the administrative staff will cut the check. That is the concern across the entire region, spending this appropriately and being accountable for it. Let’s start collecting what people want to spend the money on, vet it and then we will know whether the percentages are right or whether they need to be adjusted. We can’t do anything until we start collecting the data.
Mr. Fricilone stated I disagree, if we start asking for information and people bring information who is going to handle that? You will get inundated with requests. That is why we need a consultant so they can put a real application out quickly so we can the right information from the get go. If somebody sends something in now, later we put out an application and that person isn’t given money will we tell them it is because you didn’t submit an application, they will respond you told me to send in the information. I think we are creating a problem if we start asking for data. I surveyed some schools to get some data to give us an idea. But if we start asking for people to send stuff in without the true application, I think you will get inundated unless you have someone answer all those e-mails,.
Mr. Palmer stated we have had the money for a long time and we have not given them any direction yet. We have to come up with something, so let’s hire a consultant.
Mr. Moustis stated let’s not over complicate this for ourselves. The federal guidelines say we will reimburse you for expenses you have incurred; outside your budget or unforeseen. When it comes to the non-profits we are saying they had to do or need to do some programs we can put money toward their programs. If they have already spent some money, let’s reimburse them for what they have spent. That is how you start. Everybody needs to sit back. We all have ideas, none of us are experts and let’s get a program together. As I read it, you reimburse people for the expenses or programs that they would not have had otherwise if COVID never existed. I don’t think we need to over complicate this. I think we need to move forward and select a consultant to guide us.
Mr. Fricilone asked would we do that now or after we get a consultant?
Mr. Moustis stated we would get the consultant on board first.
Mr. Fricilone asked are you going to hand out money now just because someone has an expense? People have to follow the guidelines and fill out paperwork to make sure we have the appropriate receipts.
Mr. Moustis replied it would be okay, to reach out to the taxing bodies and let them know they will be reimbursed for COVID related expenses under the CARES Act. We could ask them to start putting things together and we will have an application in the near future.
Mr. Fricilone stated we told them all along they should be compiling data. I have told that to everyone I know. We should not be requesting information from them yet.
Mr. Moustis stated I think we can let people know we will have an application soon. We are not going to start taking requests now, because we are not set up for it. We have had this money for a while and we need to start disbursing it.
Ms. Hennessy stated I wanted to give you some information so everyone understands how this will work. We can pay five consultants or one consultant and there might be a way to address this by type of support. All the payments have to come directly from the county. When you think about all the taxing bodies, that is more than 300 applications; more than 300 vendors added to our system and 300 plus checks to cut. I agree we need an application or process to gather the information, because we don’t have the staff to physically manage the information. It would be great to have one place for that to come in. How do we want this to work processing wise? Is the information going to be gathered by the Executive’s Office, then presented to this Committee to review and approve? Do we ask the consultants to review and make a recommendation and we use their information? The same with internal county expenditures. We need to appropriate that in the budget because right now we can’t even spend the money. We don’t have any expenditures in the fund we set up, so we cannot reimburse our own out of pocket expenses and we cannot begin to spend anything else. There are a couple of steps we need to do, but hiring a consultant is the number one thing.
Mr. Moustis stated we need to bring a Resolution forward to the County Board to appropriate these funds. We can start there, because the funds have to be appropriated. There is action we could take at this meeting, we could appropriate funds. If there are additional costs to the county or you need to bring someone on, even a temp worker, we could talk about what it will take to do the distribution. If it is an expense that could be reimbursed, you need to bring this forward. I absolutely believe this gets administered through the Executive’s Office. We are not going to give it to the consultant. I believe we handle this like anything else. The Executive’s Office does the day to day administrative work and they do the administration. They would work with the consultant, and if it requires the County Board approval for payments, then it comes to County Board.
Mr. Harris agreed. Let’s get this money appropriated and do whatever we need to do to bring it to the Board.
Ms. Hennessy stated I will come up with something. A lot of the counties are throwing most of the money in contingency until they decide where the payments or how the support is being provided. I don’t know if we have identified any capital expenditures within the county. We can’t even make the budget transfer without Board approval. We know most of this money will be treated as subgrantee and we have an expense line for that. So I would think we put the lion’s share in there, some in other professional services and some in contingency so we have some flexibility as we start moving.
Mr. Moustis stated in the past we have put large amounts of money in the County Board contingency, which is not a bad way of doing it. As the funds needed to be expended it was transferred from the County Board contingency. It is a simple way and has been done in the past.
Ms. Hennessy stated I agree putting a large percentage of it in contingency would be a good idea. The subgrantee and consultant line items would be funded. I think anything other than that we come back to the full Board or Committee to make decision on how to move it. Even though the County Executive’s Office would be managing the day to day if we recommend a capital purchase the Board would still have to approve that.
Mr. Moustis stated once it is in the contingency fund, we could pay it from the contingency fund.
Ms. Hennessy stated we could do that and then reclassify the expenditure as needed. I can come up with some dollar amounts and send it to the Committee for review. Mr. Harris, do you want to move this forward?
Mr. Moustis stated I believe this is a Finance Committee item and should be sent to Mr. Harris. We have an Executive Committee meeting next week. You can create the funds and also move the money into the County Board contingency where you watch over it. I would make a request to put this on the Executive Committee agenda and move it to the full Board.
Ms. Koch stated I like the idea of getting the money appropriated as soon as possible so we can send it out as soon as possible. Who will do the administrative portion of sending out e-mails to the government bodies? Do we have a staff person who will handle this? Does anyone have time to even get this started and who would that person be? We should send out an e-mail telling the entities to get their stuff together. We could send the same e-mail the Chambers so they could reach out to businesses, letting them know we don’t have the application, but they can begin putting their stuff together. I want everyone to be able to apply and receive their money as soon as possible because this is for prior expenses and they need the money to continue operations. That is my priority.
Mr. Moustis stated the County has a host of public information officers. We use Mack Communication along with our Chief of Staff to get information out. It is easy to contact the taxing bodies. I would ask Dr. Walsh to have his office communicate to all the schools.
Ms. Koch stated I just want to know the best way to do this, because getting the information out the community is of the utmost importance.
Mr. Moustis stated the County Board could do some through Mack. I would ask Mr. Palmer if Ms. Tuskey and Ms. Reiher are equipped to do this? They do public outreach and public information. Every office has a public information officer. Mr. Palmer do you think you folks could handle that?
Mr. Palmer replied yes, it is definitely something we can help with. We could work with Mr. Brandy at the Health Department, the Governmental League and Dr. Walsh once we get a plan and have an application. I would think it would be web based where people can go on, put in their information and upload documents; everybody could share the link. If we are going to target certain people perhaps we don’t want to cast a wide net. I think the big concern is many people think we are not going to open it up to other entities because they have not heard officially.
Ms. Winfrey stated in addition to casting the wide net, we can use all our resources including Mack; that we also remind people there is an application process, we are using a consultant, there is a vetting process and they need to have the correct information. Then people will know up front what we are looking for and can’t just say I need money. They need have the information based on the criteria so we can give it to them and be on the safe side of any regulations or rules that apply to us. I would encourage us to move forward on getting a consultant so we can move forward.
Mr. Blackburn stated other counties they have only started this process within the last week or two because of the complex and evolving federal requirements. Much of the guidance has slowly been coming out as to how to respond to the extensive reporting. Many other counties have thought about a phased approach, first take the non-profits and give them date. Then in another month it would be local government and businesses. We have until December 30th to do this. It is important to do that to adequately protect us from fraud, waste and abuse, moving fast through these processes is important. For all the programs, projects and subgrantees it is important to understand the exposure to the risk of fraud, waste and abuse. I know everybody wants to go fast, but as the Auditor I want to say that the risk of going fast also opens you up to exposures of fraud.
V. OTHER OLD BUSINESS
VI. NEW BUSINESS
1. Review Scope and Names of Consultants
(Discussion)
Mr. Harris reviewed the responses to the scope of work and gave a brief update on the firms who responded and their abilities. I thought we would pick three vendors to give us a presentation next week.
Ms. Hennessy reviewed the page of vendors. Would we be interested in having everyone present? Their presentations are very similar. Everyone seems comfortable with Guidehouse. RSM’s proposal was very similar as are the others. Maybe we could come up with a list of five things we want them to cover in a presentation and look at all of them. If you prefer to scale this down to three, I would need a little more time and assistance in going through these to rank them. If I had to choose today; I would select Guidehouse, RSM and compare the others to pick one out.
Mr. Moustis stated our past practice has been to narrow the responses down to three or four. we could talk about how we would like to rank them. I also think Mr. Harris and Ms. Hennessy can sit with Ms. Winfrey and pick three or four to present to the Committee. In the past, we have had staff, a County Board member and someone from the Executive’s office give recommendations of the three or four. I think interviewing all of them is too much. Some would probably be dismissed quickly and it is not fair for them to put in the effort and money of a presentation. Let’s get it down to a few, get the interviews done next week and keep the process moving forward.
Mr. Fricilone stated if we have three we can get into the meat of the presentation versus doing five and interviewing with a broad brush. We need to get into the details with three of them so we know we are picking the right one who can jump on it immediately and get rolling.
Ms. Hennessy asked could someone come up with a list of topics you want them to cover, versus you have 30 minutes to give a presentation on what you can do. If we come up with five or six topics I think it is easier to select the firms we want to interview and work with.
Mr. Harris indicated he would be interesting in working with Ms. Hennessy to create a list of items to be covered.
Mr. Moustis stated Mr. Blackburn gave us an outline of the things that should be included and he can give an outline of things we want to focus on. I am comfortable with Mr. Harris and staff selecting the firms to interview.
Mr. Harris stated my choices for an interview are: Guidehouse, RSM and Bronner Group.
Committee members agreed with the selection of Mr. Harris. Ms. Howard indicated those were the three she ranked for interviews.
Ms. Novak stated our office has a portal with all these taxing bodies and we can exchange information with them electronically. We would be happy to let them know the application will be coming. They can also send back information through the portal.
Mr. Harris indicated he would work with Ms. Novak next week to determine the best way to get the information out.
After a brief discussion, the Committee set interviews for Thursday, June 11th at 1:00, 2:00 and 3:00.
Mr. Blackburn indicated he would get something to Ms. Hennessy today to send to the vendors.
Mr. Moustis stated one of the questions is; their ability to do this in a timely fashion and actually talk about dedicated staff and number of people working with us. I think their ability to get us up and running is one of the questions we need to ask. This has to be done in a timely fashion. Ms. Hennessy you should be consulting with Mr. Harris also on the questions.
VII. OTHER NEW BUSINESS
Mr. Harris stated I have received a number of e-mails. EMA sent an e-mail and talked about centralizing the procurement for certain things such as PPE. Ms. Cowan suggested some of the processes be centralized. Ms. Olenek presented information regarding the request for $50,000. The Wheatland Township Highway Department wanted to learn more about being a partner with us. When we receive inquires they are being addressed.
Ms. Koch stated if Ms. Olenek is going to put someone into the community to educate the hotspots about COVID it needs to happen pretty fast. Ms. Winfrey will talk more about the process. This is not something I want to wait for three or four months. I hope we can get this person on soon. I am not sure this is the appropriate committee, but I want to stop the spread in the hotspots of the County. I believe it is disproportionally affecting low income area, people of color. It is terrible when I look at the map and see zip codes with 800 cases. At Public Health Ms. Olenek said she needed an educator and I asked why we could not get her one as soon as possible.
Ms. Winfrey replied I spoke with Ms. Olenek to clarify what she is looking for. She is going to talk with Dr. Burke and come together with a plan. That money can come from the contingency money Ms. Hennessy is setting up and we do not have to wait for the consultant to be on board to do what needs to be done to reach out into the community.
Mr. Fricilone stated I disagree. The Health Department is getting direct money from the CARES Act as well. Why can’t they use that in the meantime and put in the applications so we have all the backup? I read the educator information and I am not exactly sure what they will do. We have more cases because all the testing is being done in Joliet. The County is not doing testing in other locations. Are we already going to avert the process, then what is to say someone else will not have a critical need? They can spend the money using some of their other budgeted money and come back for this when we have the process. Hopefully, we will get someone on next Thursday and within a week or so they will be able to get the forms out for us to start the application process.
Mr. Moustis stated I have some similar concerns. They are getting direct CARES money. County Board’s only involvement with the Health Department is giving them money. What she is asking is for an increase in appropriations of $75,000 for the educator. Is this a permanent position or temporary position? They have educators. They have a very sizable budget. The Board of Health hires their people. I don’t know if the Board of Health approves their hiring or if the Director hires at will. This is about an additional appropriation. I don’t know if it is a justified appropriation or if she could use her direct CARES money. Are there no educators that are currently at the Health Department? Maybe they need to redirect some of their current staff. Ms. Olenek likes to just ask, give me more money; I would be cautious. She will have to really show me this is not a situation where she needs to re-appropriate her current resources. All we do is give them money. Once we give them the appropriation, County Board Members and the County Executive have no say on what goes on there. Ms. Olenek is not answerable to the County Board she answers to the Board of Health.
Mr. Fricilone asked do we know how much CARES Act money the Health Department is getting? Sunny Hill was getting $442,000; I don’t know what the Health Department is getting directly.
Ms. Dunn replied I believe they are getting $4.9 million directly.
Ms. Olenek stated I was asked to prepare a memo to request this positon and funding by the Public Health & Safety Committee. We have Community Health Educators already in the agency who are all tied to existing grants on which they are working. We hire Community Health Educators based upon grants that we get. If we get the teen pregnancy or STD/HIV or Well Women grant, those individuals are hired specifically for that grant. If the grant goes away and we don’t have another grant to put them on, then they go away. I can’t take our existing Community Health Educator off the tobacco grant and say I want them to do this work. They are supposed to working on those grants. We will receive an IDPH for $4.9 million, it is a specific for contract tracing. It is not for education or outreach or anything else. We are hiring contact tracers, IT people, CD investigators, managers, half time Community Health Educator to assist with some of the outreach and education. We are purchasing laptops, technology and licenses and everything that goes along with contract tracing. We do have an allowable expense in there for alternative housing and food, because the State has discontinued that program. This is a very specific grant and we have to stay with the deliverables of this grant. It is not for outreach and education into hot spots. Since the inception of COVID, we have done a good job of getting information on our website and social media. Websites and social media find hotspots as well. People in Romeoville, Bolingbrook and Joliet all have cell phones and computers. The messages are out there. I need a better, clearer understanding of what this person might do. If you are wanting me to hire someone to go knocking door to door to let them know there is a COVID pandemic, they need to get tested and wear a mask; that is not a good use of the money. All the information is already out there. If we hire a Community Health Educator it would be for very targeted education and outreach. It has to be done in a way that is compliant with the current situation. This person can’t go to a church and talk to 100 people nor can they go schools and talk to students. This will have to be carefully thought out. We have been doing for months and people are just not listening.
Mr. Moustis thanked Ms. Olenek for clarifying.
Ms. Olenek stated at our next Board of Health meeting we will be appropriating over $6 million in funding, but it is for specific things. One grant is a telehealth grant to help pay for and support a telehealth program in behavioral health. I can’t put in a Community Health Educator to go out to hotspots to encourage them to test, social distance and wear a mask. Typically, grants are pretty specific. Our Community Health Center received $793,000 for an expanded services grant from HERSA for COVID testing. It is for getting information out about the test sites and testing, not outreach or education.
Mr. Moustis stated even Ms. Olenek is unsure of the effectiveness or how she would use a COVID educator. She will need some additional guidelines and goals of the educator. You need to take a step back if this is direction from the Committee. That is something that should come through the Executive Committee. If there is a recommendation for a hire coming from the County Board, more appropriately would be that the Public Health Committee would make the request through the Executive Committee. I think the process used was a little flawed.
Ms. Olenek stated I am not saying this position wouldn’t be utilized. All I am saying is we have to hire the right person. It would be a professional position that is why the salary and benefits are $74,000 because we would have to do some creative and targeted outreach and education. I would need more guidance of what the thought is that this person should be doing. If it did come to fruition, I would not want all this to have happened, but we didn’t do what was requested.
Ms. Newquist stated I would like to see an additional testing site be available in the eastern side of the county. That is why I think we need more discussion about the position.
Ms. Olenek stated we will be testing on the eastern side of the County on June 15th or 19th.
Ms. Winfrey stated I appreciate the greater clarification. When I asked for the memo it was because it was given to me as it was something you were asking for. It is helpful to understand exactly who is requesting what and what it looks like. When I said we could use contingency funds, I had a different understanding of what was going to be needed. I agree more discussion should happen within the Health Department of what can be done and how it would be done before it comes forward to the Board. If it does come forward it would be coming through the Executive Committee and not the CARES Funding.
Ms. Ventura stated I wanted to echo the concerns of Mr. Blackburn about moving too fast. The beginning part is one of the most important parts of a project. I understand last week you put out a call for consultants. Is one week enough time to get a broad view of consultants and get people to interview. Could you continue to ask for information from other firms? One week is not much time to prepare. Ms. Koch asked earlier in this meeting if there was someone specifically going to help with some of the data entry and getting the information out. At the beginning of the meeting she started to talk about advertising costs. I does not sound like some of that came to a conclusion. This is a tremendous job to have all the data intake come into the county and also get the information out. Even having someone to coordinate with all the departments that have a public information officer will take time and effort. I would hope this committee would consider hiring someone temporarily on the County Board staff that would help facilitate this and the Committee could have direct conversations on what that staff member need to do going forward. I hope this Committee will consider hiring for that position who can help with data entry with advertising skills and PR.
Mr. Fricilone stated the presentations we have received they talk to all of that stuff. It talks about data entry and getting information out. Once we sit down with the firms we will have a better idea. These firms have already been giving presentations to counties and municipalities around the country. I am sure their presentation may be a little canned, but I don’t think one week is a problem. I think we will get a good presentation and the questions about what we need to have at the county will be answered when we ask them, what do you need inside. Instead of us telling them what we are going to do, they can tell us what they will need to help us facilitate getting the money out in a reasonable timeframe and meeting all the federal guidelines.
Ms. Ventura stated I understand what Mr. Fricilone is saying about putting it all on the consultant, but I think there is work to be done before you bring on a consultant. If it is the will of the Committee to wait, I understand. But even putting stuff on the website and getting the information out there so the community is prepared to fill out applications. We could be doing that now to provide more time for the business, local governments or non-profits to get their information ready to go. We could be putting information on our website if we had someone on our staff with the ability to do that.
Mr. Harris stated we talked about that at the last meeting that there will be some tasks that will coincide. We can start to do stuff now, which I think is the plan and understanding of all the staff. We are not going to wait for a consultant to tell us what to do, we are going to be proactive and get ready. I don’t want anyone to think we will rely strictly on a consultant to tell us what to do.
Mrs. Tatroe stated you are having a good conversation on what needs to be done. I think Mr. Blackburn weighted in very thoroughly on some of the things we need to be careful about to make sure we have the proper documentation, that the money is expensed properly and I look forward to getting a consultant on so we can move forward. A little bit of a concern, which I don’t think was fully vetted but touched on, I think that several of the offices have had to expend money they don’t have in their budget. How do they go about getting those bills paid? Employees are coming back. You heard Ms. Stukel has ordered extensions for her cubicles. Our offices ordered extensions for the cubicles and that money was not in our budget. Maybe we can cobble together some line items to pay for that, but I would like to see some direction to the departments as to how they are supposed to pay those bills for things they had to purchase to bring employees back.
Mr. Harris stated hopefully, we will get this money appropriated at the County Board; that is the first step and it will let us proceed with what we know the county has spent for our needs. We can start that once the Resolution is approved.
Ms. Hennessy stated I agree. Hopefully between now and when the appropriation happens at the Board meeting, we can come up with a process for departments to submit items. I would like to work with Ms. Pleasant and Mr. Blackburn to talk about even how we will reimburse departments for things they have already paid for. They found money in their budget although it might not have been what it was intended for; we need to look at an internal process for the reimbursement. I want to make sure everyone can get the most information they need out of this process and make it simple for departments.
VIII. PUBLIC COMMENT
An e-mail from Mr. Brian McDaniel was read into the record.
Ms. Dunn stated Ms. Ellen Hush asked, in the chat, could the Board put the guidelines on the County website so businesses could have them before the application process.
Ms. Dunn stated the guidelines are on the U.S. Treasury website under frequently asked questions. We could put a link to that on our website. We don’t have the criteria yet, specific to our process. It is something the consultant will help us develop. As soon as we have the criteria and know our plan for the application process we will put it on the County Board website.
Mr. Moustis stated I believe you can put the federal guidelines on the website. Our application process will be coming soon, but we will be following these guidelines. We are not creating our own guidelines, it is the federal guidelines. We will have an application process but we will be following the federal guidelines. We will be prioritizing within the guidelines what would be most effective for the people of Will County. The guidelines themselves will not change.
Mrs. Berkowicz stated Mr. Blackburn mentioned there would still be responsibilities that would have to be done by county staff, even with the hiring of a consultant. With our existing staff do we have the ability to handle those additional tasks related to COVID disbursements? If we find we don’t have existing staff would we be able to pay this through the COVID money because it is a COVID expense. I don’t want it to be an additional burden on the taxpayers. With the new position proposed for the Health Department will it be paid with COVID funds? In prior meetings we have told other departments to freeze hiring and hold off on salary increases so that is a concern I wanted to make sure we were considering.
Mr. Harris stated the guidelines do apply to us. We will be making sure all the reimbursed expenditures are within those guidelines. Your concerns will be addressed through the process.
Mr. Blackburn stated any administrative costs created by this for advisors or anything else is covered through the COVID CARES Fund Act.
IX. CHAIRMAN'S REPORT / ANNOUNCEMENTS
X. EXECUTIVE SESSION
XI. ADJOURNMENT
1. Motion to Adjourn at 10:46 AM
RESULT: APPROVED [UNANIMOUS]
MOVER: Mike Fricilone, District 7 (R - Homer Glen)
SECONDER: Jim Moustis, District 2 (R - Frankfort)
AYES: Harris, Fricilone, Koch, Moustis, Newquist
http://willcountyil.iqm2.com/Citizens/FileOpen.aspx?Type=15&ID=3785&Inline=True
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