Will County Board Finance Committee met April 5.
Here are the minutes provided by the committee:
I. CALL TO ORDER
II. PLEDGE OF ALLEGIANCE TO THE FLAG
III. ROLL CALL
Chair Jacqueline Traynere called the meeting to order at 11:27 AM
| Attendee Name | Title | Status | Arrived |
| Jacqueline Traynere | Chair | Present | |
| Margaret Tyson | Vice Chair | Present | |
| Mike Fricilone | Member | Absent | |
| Saud Gazanfer | Member | Present | |
| Tyler Marcum | Member | Absent | |
| Jim Moustis | Member | Absent | |
| Judy Ogalla | Member | Absent | |
| Frankie Pretzel | Member | Present | |
| Rachel Ventura | Member | Present |
Present from the State's Attorney's Office: M. Tatroe.
IV. APPROVAL OF MINUTES
1. WC Finance Committee - Regular Meeting - Feb 1, 2022 11:00 AM
| RESULT: APPROVED [UNANIMOUS]
MOVER: Rachel Ventura, Member SECONDER: Saud Gazanfer, Member AYES: Traynere, Tyson, Gazanfer, Pretzel, Ventura ABSENT: Fricilone, Marcum, Moustis, Ogalla |
| RESULT: APPROVED [UNANIMOUS]
MOVER: Rachel Ventura, Member SECONDER: Saud Gazanfer, Member AYES: Traynere, Tyson, Gazanfer, Pretzel, Ventura ABSENT: Fricilone, Marcum, Moustis, Ogalla |
1. Monthly Summary - Sales Tax and Cannabis Tax Collections
(Karen Hennessy)
Ms. Traynere said I am going to have Mr. Palmer introduce the new folks.
Mr. Palmer said welcome back everybody this is the first in person Finance meeting in over two years. I just want to introduce two of our new County Board staff that just started yesterday, Marcie Hamann our Finance and Budget Analyst and Kasondra Van Treeck who is our communications person. You are going to get to know them better, but we just wanted to introduce them and welcome to the Board.
Ms. Traynere said we are going to move on to old business, the monthly summary of the Sales Tax, Cannabis Tax collections. I did ask the Speaker if we could start talking about this money; but she was not ready yet. From what I understand, in the news the collection of the Cannabis Sales Tax is slowed to a trickle, I am not sure what happened in January other than people had to go back to work, I am looking at the numbers. I am going see if I can try to figure exactly how much less we collected. We do not usually get this on a month to month; this is just the year to date.
Ms. Hennessey stated I like to update it as close to the meeting as possible and I try to keep it near month end. But there is always a delay in a collection; if a sale is made this month it is collected by the State next month, and it is disbursed the following month so there is always that delay. Another thing that is a little bit different is with our new finance system we now can report a liability month, so it is much more accurate about what months we have received sales tax for.
Ms. Traynere asked if you could you go over this just a little bit again.
Ms. Hennessey said this report; the Finance Committee and the County Board had requested that I provide a monthly update of sales tax that we monitor. There are other sales taxes that we receive, they tend to be much smaller than this. Most of these sales taxes that I am reporting on are in the Corporate Fund which is the General Operating Fund of the County. You can see in the chart we have the tax type listed, the budget that we developed for FY2022, what we are in now, what we have collected to date, and what percent of the budget that is. The first one is Personal Property Tax that comes in three pieces. That must match FICA and IMRF first before it comes to the Corporate Fund, so that tends to come at the end of the year. The State Sales Tax we receive monthly, Local Use Tax, Supplemental Tax, and the local distribution of State Income Tax. If you go to the back of the report, it shows the monthly collection. When I talked about the liability month; you can see for State Sales Tax that we have received Sales Tax for the month of December, but not for January, February, March, or April yet. That three-month delay is typical. That is the pay cycle for Sales Tax. This is still early; this report is through March 29 that is as close as I can get and still have it done. It is still typically early for us to have collected all the way through March. The next chart is through the prior year, so you can see what the budget was for the year 2021, what we collected, and if there was any variance.
Ms. Traynere said the Motor Fuel, the county option, it was $5 million more than we anticipated. Is there a reason? Also, the same thing with the RTA Tax, which was $9 million more, can you explain that?
Ms. Hennessey stated you are all aware that we are starting the budget cycle already; when we did the budget for 2022 it was early in 2021 and those taxes were relativity new. The county option we had only been doing for not quite a full year, and the Motor Fuel Tax was increased by the State; those are what those increases are from. I believe if you look up the County Option for the Motor Fuel Tax for the Fiscal Year 2022 budget has been increased by almost $3 million. Ms. Howard can explain more about this; we use the most conservative approach on revenue, we do not ever want to overestimate revenue either. Are there any other questions about the sales tax.
Ms. Ventura asked what PPRT is.
Ms. Hennessey said Personal Property Replacement Tax.
Ms. Ventura stated in 2021 we did not budget for it; did that come out of a different line item?
Ms. Hennessey stated we have not received it in the last couple of years. The collection on that needs to hit a certain dollar amount before it flows into the Corporate Fund, it first goes to FICA and IMRF. It must match a certain percentage of the levy in FICA and IMRF before anything comes to corporate This is only reporting the corporate funds. The next section is about the Cannabis Sales Tax. The first chart shows what we budgeted for FY2022, what we have received and the percent of the budget.
Ms. Traynere said on the State distribution of the Cannabis Sales Tax, are we ahead of where we should be?
Ms. Hennessey stated this is a small dollar amount, it comes timelier than the county option which is collected and goes through that three-month cycle. For the county option we have only received December, from the State; I believe we have received two or three months. I think the most important thing about the Cannabis Sales Tax is the Inception to Date, it is $1.9 million between the two. You can see the County Option we have collected $1.7 million from the State Distribution $207,000. That is for all FY2021, part of FY2020 and a few months of 2022, it is the equivalent of 2-years. The final page is a breakout by month, I can add the cannabis for next month.
Ms. Traynere thanked Ms. Hennessey for providing that information.
VI. OTHER OLD BUSINESS
VII. NEW BUSINESS
1. Appropriating Funds from the IDPH COVID-19 Response Grant into the Will County Health Department Budget
(Susan Olenek)
Ms. Traynere said we are appropriating funds from the Illinois Department of Public Health COVID-19 Response Grant into the Will County Health Department Budget. Ms. Olenek if you could you tell us a little bit about what Congress did yesterday; and what the President signed; and about $14 billion more in COVID funds, and what that means to us locally.
Ms. Olenek said what Congress did yesterday, unfortunately we don’t know how that will trickle down to the local level. We have been watching that through our Legislative Committee through the Northern Illinois Public Health Consortium. We will do everything in our power to get whatever funds we need at the local level. What we are asking to appropriate here is the result of the federal money that passed months ago. This is for our contact tracing and our communicable disease efforts. It was very specific in the grant that we could not put any request to fund vaccine efforts, that was through another grant. This was for continuing funding for contact tracers; we are also requesting funding for a communicable disease nurse, and a contact tracing assistant which is a lower nonprofessional job doing data, paperwork and making sure everything gets put into the right place. We are also looking at keeping on our Contact Tracing Managers, and our Congregate Care Site Manager which is the one who coordinates the breakouts and the number of cases Congregate Care Sites like nursing homes, jails, and schools.
Mr. Gazanfer asked is there anything for testing, I know that only insured people are getting tested free, and a lot of people are not insured and must pay out of pocket.
Ms. Olenek stated we are testing at our Community Health Center, and you can go there to get tested whether you have insurance. They are still testing in the school systems for free, that is all through the Shield Program or through the other IDPH program through BinaxNOW which we provide. We were providing free testing at the Health Department; we did that for about four or five weeks. It was not in demand whatsoever; testing is really going to shift towards personal testing where you will have test kits at your home, and you will test yourself. I think the full-blown testing is a thing of the past. I know that the Federal Pharmacy Program that the Federal Government and the Illinois Department of Public Health set up with CVS, Walmart, Walgreen’s, and those type of places. People aren’t interested in testing any more.
| RESULT: MOVED FORWARD [UNANIMOUS] Next: 4/14/2022 10:00 AM
TO: Will County Executive Committee AYES: Traynere, Tyson, Gazanfer, Pretzel, Ventura ABSENT: Fricilone, Marcum, Moustis, Ogalla |
| RESULT: MOVED FORWARD [UNANIMOUS] Next: 4/14/2022 10:00 AM
TO: Will County Executive Committee MOVER: Rachel Ventura, Member SECONDER: Saud Gazanfer, Member AYES: Traynere, Tyson, Gazanfer, Pretzel, Ventura ABSENT: Fricilone, Marcum, Moustis, Ogalla |
| RESULT: MOVED FORWARD [UNANIMOUS] Next: 4/14/2022 10:00 AM
TO: Will County Executive Committee MOVER: Rachel Ventura, Member SECONDER: Margaret Tyson, Vice Chair AYES: Traynere, Tyson, Gazanfer, Pretzel, Ventura ABSENT: Fricilone, Marcum, Moustis, Ogalla |
(Kathleen Burke)
Ms. Ventura stated this item and the last three items are all grant dollars; these are additional dollars being brought in to our County. Each one of these is the hard work of these departments.
| RESULT: MOVED FORWARD [UNANIMOUS]
TO: Will County Board MOVER: Rachel Ventura, Member SECONDER: Saud Gazanfer, Member AYES: Traynere, Tyson, Gazanfer, Pretzel, Ventura ABSENT: Fricilone, Marcum, Moustis, Ogalla |
Mrs. Tatroe stated these are monies that arrive out of the prosecution of the crime of money laundering and to deter these types of crimes; the objective is seize the profits made from the crimes. This is monies or assets that were acquired from money laundering; so, they are then distributed to the various law enforcement agencies to be used for specified purposes under the law. Under the State’s Attorney authority, you can use them for law enforcement purposes is the general objective.
Ms. Traynere said if I am reading this right, we are taking $50,000 and we are putting it on subscriptions, contingency, and furniture. What kind of subscriptions?
Mrs. Tatroe stated they are probably for licensing.
Ms. Ventura asked if you change each year where you use this money.
Mrs. Tatroe stated it depends on the fund; there are three funds. There is the one that derives from money laundering, there is one from state drug forfeiture and federal gun forfeiture and they all have different guidelines as to what they can be used for. A lot of it goes for training, it is not always used for the State’s Attorney’s Office. Some of it is buying equipment, or resources for Police Departments. Some of it is in the State’s Attorney’s Office for things like software, sometimes for computers. It cannot be quite often for the entire office because it may be only a specific unit that it can be used for. Sometimes it can be used for legal education; again, depending on the fund it comes from it may be only a certain division. We can use that money for legal education, seminars, things like that. For the drug forfeiture a lot of it is used for dogs to sniff out drugs. We also have the dogs that sniff out electronics which that dog may have been paid for out of money laundering rather than drug forfeiture because he is not a drug sniffing dog. There are programs that help keep young people out of trouble so money may be given to the Spanish Center or other entities, and not typically money. But we help support programs to help keep kids off drugs, there was a bus for the Spanish Center, there was a bus for the Veterans Commission.
Ms. Ventura said my question is what our role in this is; obviously, we would not want to deny this.
Mrs. Tatroe said you just appropriate the money. There are certain line items that we cannot internally transfer. It is in capital; we must either spend it in capital or come to the County Board to get approval to move it somewhere else. You have no say in how it is spent that is entirely the purview under the State’s Attorney; but we need your approval to move it from one section of the budget to another. Had we asked upfront in the budget year properly we would not need to be there.
Ms. Berkowicz asked what is in the contingency portion.
Mrs. Tatroe said contingency is that we have a lot of latitude on what to spend it on. I apologize I should have asked what we have in mind, but I do not know, I do not have that information to give you. It is under the State’s Attorney’s full authority, he does not need to seek permission from anyone if he follows the state law as to what he can spend it on. So, the state law does provide parameters.
Ms. Traynere stated this money was from cars.
Mrs. Tatroe stated we had originally asked it to be appropriated on vehicles; and then changed our mind to where we had the need for it. There is a separate Article 35 forfeiture which I do not know a whole lot about. It does somehow involved vehicles that are used in the commission of various crimes.
| RESULT: MOVED FORWARD [UNANIMOUS] Next: 4/14/2022 10:00 AM
TO: Will County Executive Committee MOVER: Margaret Tyson, Vice Chair SECONDER: Saud Gazanfer, Member AYES: Traynere, Tyson, Gazanfer, Pretzel, Ventura ABSENT: Fricilone, Marcum, Moustis, Ogalla |
Ms. Traynere stated for a county of this size I now realize that is cheap.
Ms. Hennessy said yes, it is. I will give a little bit of history. We bid out our audit services every three years. We have been using Baker Tilly about ten to twelve years. They do a fabulous job and some of the other bigger firms do not understand how they are doing it for what they are. They provide us a lot of support; we love working with them. Unfortunately, COVID has messed with a lot or our financial reporting. This year we have a new GASB (Government Accounting Standards Board) pronouncement, which is a change in an accounting standard that we are mandated to make, in how we report. We cannot possibly do that without their assistance. They gave us an estimate; it will be from $25,000 to $30,000. Their annual quote for the audit is based on known things. This was not known when we did the bid three years ago, it makes all the sense in the world to continue to use the same firm. To go out and get someone else to do this piece of the work, when they are doing our financial audit, in auditing our state and federal reporting it does not make any sense. That is the first part of it, is to help us implement a new accounting standard. Again, we are required to do that because if do not we will not be following the general excepted principals; and our financial statements will not be up to snuff.
Ms. Traynere asked what is the 84.
Ms. Hennessey stated that is Fiduciary Activities where we are holding money that doesn’t necessarily belong to us. An example of that is residents at the nursing home have their own personal accounts. We keep them in a bank account, it is not our money we hold it for them. This pronouncement requires that we go through each of those funds and ask a series of questions to determine that we meet this new guideline for being considered fiduciary. If not, we must pull them into our regular operating for the county. If they can remain as fiduciary the reporting for them has changed and looks more like a regular financial statement. There is going to be an income statement, and balance sheet and going to be some other schedules. Quite different from what we do now.
Ms. Traynere said the ERA, is not to be confused with women’s rights.
Ms. Hennessey said the second part is to give you a little history, the County received two waves of Emergency Rental Assistant Funding. The first wave was $24 million, we were able to put that out in the community, partnering with the Illinois Housing Development Authority. Because we gave the money to the Housing Development Authority to implement the terms of the award; we are required to do sub recipient monitoring, we are required to go into their operation and make sure that the applications were treated the same, if they followed the guidelines, that they had adequate payment processing, that they followed procurement rules. Again, not something that we could do. We have always had that responsibility, but they tend to be smaller. A good example we had a Cox Grant for the Village of Homer Glen; the grant came through us, and they used it to harden the schools, you know security measures. During COVID they just sent me pictures of what they did, and it was just one place. This was 2,500 applicants. The other thing it was Will County, DuPage County, and Kane County all used the Illinois Department Development Authority; we all got allocations of the money. Baker is the auditor of all three of those counties. We approached them to do this as an Approved Upon Procedures. Doing it that way it is less expensive for all of us because it is based on the level of activity. That will be covered by the ERA Fund. Part of that can be used for Administrative Costs, so there will be no cost to us for this, but I do need to have the contract amended so the not to exceed is large enough to make a payment to them. The budget increase is to cover the GASB assistance. I don’t need a budget amendment for the ERA. We have already budgeted for administrative costs.
Ms. Traynere said just to give you an idea I think we paid $35,000 at the Township for our audit; and out budget is about $3 million.
Ms. Hennessey said our budget is half a billion dollars, and we are paying $100,000. I think it is going to go up in the next round because of these pronouncements. GASB slowed the implementation schedule for them, but we have three or four coming that are a lot of work, and we just don’t have the staff available, we just don’t have the kind of time.
Ms. Ventura said the second we have an ERA; how much was that and do we have to audit those services do we work with IDPH with that as well.
Ms. Hennessey stated for the Emergency Rental Assistance, yes, we receive that differently, we only received 40% of it; we have an agreement with the Housing Development Authority, but we are not far enough along to do any sub-recipient monitoring yet. We will probably do that again. This contract probably won’t be in effect, it will probably be taken care of in the same way. The group will come together and find someone to do that monitoring on our behalf.
Ms. Ventura said we have had this auditor for 10 to 12 years; I don’t know how they offer the lowest price and I do know that we have an Auditor that goes through and looks at all these things. I think on that realm that we are safe, but at the same point if they continue to offer the lowest bid, then if we must go with the lowest bid then we never change our audit. The question becomes at some point; then are we obligated to change our Auditor.
Ms. Hennessy stated they are not the lowest bidder; we have had some very small firms bid on this. It is very difficult to take a chance on a small firm because we are big. If they don’t have experience doing county audits, we are big and not the same as a municipality. Because this is a professional service, we’re not required to take the lowest bid; it is who meets our needs the best, I have felt up until now that it has been Baker Tilly. We kept them this last time because of the new finance system; it makes sense for them to make sure that we moved properly into the new system. We will see what happens when it comes up for bid. I think we are going to be shocked at how expensive it is going to be going forward. There are other firms that can do it, but we do have a great rapport with them; they have done a lot of extraneous work for the county. They did and operational review of the nursing home, an overtime study for the Sheriff, they have the breadth and depth to offer other things if we need them.
Ms. Traynere asked if they send the same person every time?
Ms. Hennessy stated this is the third partner that they have had; they also have a great reputation. Almost every one of the metro counties have used them or have in the past, this is one of their niches.
| RESULT: MOVED FORWARD [UNANIMOUS] Next: 4/14/2022 10:00 AM
TO: Will County Executive Committee AYES: Traynere, Tyson, Gazanfer, Pretzel, Ventura ABSENT: Fricilone, Marcum, Moustis, Ogalla |
(ReShawn Howard)
Ms. Howard stated this is a short list and it is for FY2022, this is for Sunny Hill Nursing Home. They are moving money around in their budget.
Ms. Traynere said they are and quite a bit and it is contractual.
Ms. Howard said the reason for that is they are short staffed, and they are using their temporary contracted or are hiring from the agency. Although it is early in the fiscal year, they have already exhausted their funds in that line item. They are moving funds from some of their salary lines they have vacancies into that month.
Ms. Ventura said there were some potential retention bonuses that were being discussed; have they been budgeted in?
Ms. Howard stated I am not aware where they are in the process, but that would more than likely come from the budget.
Ms. Traynere said these are not the easiest jobs to fill under normal circumstances. We were using contracted services when there was no COVID.
| RESULT: MOVED FORWARD [UNANIMOUS] Next: 4/14/2022 10:00 AM
TO: Will County Executive Committee MOVER: Rachel Ventura, Member SECONDER: Margaret Tyson, Vice Chair AYES: Traynere, Tyson, Gazanfer, Pretzel, Ventura ABSENT: Fricilone, Marcum, Moustis, Ogalla |
(ReShawn Howard)
Ms. Howard said as a part of the budget process the County Board estimates the levy in October, then at the end of March and present it here. Today are the final numbers so in your packet it is basically a narrative. I will just highlight some of the changes.
Ms. Howard reviewed the Final 2021 Levy Tax Extension provided in the agenda packet.
| RESULT: MOVED FORWARD [UNANIMOUS]
TO: Will County Board MOVER: Margaret Tyson, Vice Chair SECONDER: Rachel Ventura, Member AYES: Traynere, Tyson, Gazanfer, Pretzel, Ventura ABSENT: Fricilone, Marcum, Moustis, Ogalla |
(JEN ALBERICO/JULIE SHETINA)
| RESULT: MOVED FORWARD [UNANIMOUS]
TO: Will County Board MOVER: Saud Gazanfer, Member SECONDER: Margaret Tyson, Vice Chair AYES: Traynere, Tyson, Gazanfer, Pretzel, Ventura ABSENT: Fricilone, Marcum, Moustis, Ogalla |
IX. PUBLIC COMMENT
X. ANNOUNCEMENTS/REPORTS BY CHAIR
Ms. Howard stated the committee guidelines were sent out to Elected officials and Department Heads on April 1, 2022. The budget meetings will kick off in June, so the work begins over the summer. The Finance Committee will get their first look at the budget in August after the County Executive presents the budget.
XI. EXECUTIVE SESSION
XII. ADJOURNMENT
1. Motion to Adjourn @12:21 PM
| RESULT: APPROVED [UNANIMOUS]
MOVER: Margaret Tyson, Vice Chair SECONDER: Saud Gazanfer, Member AYES: Traynere, Tyson, Gazanfer, Pretzel, Ventura ABSENT: Fricilone, Marcum, Moustis, Ogalla |
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