[transcript] It's a good thing to say that I'm doing it for the first time. Yeah, oh yeah, that's what I'm doing for the first time. Thank you. Here, he's still on the line. Under all around him. I was in two and we had a 26 percent one day. We got a two-story and we're still on the line. All of us told him I said it. The drought starts chanting. He walked on. I'm trying not to confuse myself with the details. Those details. Too many details. He will still... Okay. Okay. Oh great. Excellent. Oh great. That's not great. You should go both. Yeah. And then all of us will work together. It looks like there's still people signing their names. Okay. Great, great, great. Okay. Welcome everyone and please take a seat. And we will get started. I know there are still some people coming in who are signing up. I want to assure you that even if you haven't signed up to speak, you will have an opportunity. Well, that's excellent. I'll start again. Welcome everyone. Happy that you're all here. The intention of this meeting is to hear from you. From the citizens, from the taxpayers, to be heard by the Cook County Board of Commissioners who you have elected to represent you. That is the purpose of this meeting. Before we begin that section of the meeting, the public comment period, there will be two short presentations, one by our county auditor, Brady Powers, and one by our county administrator, Jeff Cadwell. Their presentations will provide some historical and Minnesota statutory context to the budgetary and levy setting process for Cook County. We as the commissioners of Cook County and as elected officials know that the process this year is extraordinary. Setting a preliminary budget at 19.9% is not a trivial matter. A responsibility that we have taken very seriously. We know that there is a lot of fear in this room, a lot of anger in this room. We also know that there are a lot of size of relief. So our mission, of course, was not to create pain and suffering. Our mission was to alleviate pain and suffering. So we had hoped and do hope that by planning more carefully that the budgets and levies in the future will actually cost the taxpayers less. We feel that planning to balance the budget this year is an essential step in going forward, especially being the fiscally responsible representatives that you elected. So at this time, I would like to introduce Brady Powers, county auditor, who will go over the statute, the budget calendar, and we'll explain in greater detail the tax statement. Thank you, Brady. Hi. So this meeting is an invitation for citizen involvement in the 2018 county budgeting process and an opportunity for county officers to explain budgeted expenditures. This is on the minister of the statute 275.065, which requires the county to hold a public meeting to discuss the proposed county budget and REVI. As background for the discussion, it's important to note that the county is the agent for collection of all property taxes in Cook County. The county collects the property taxes for the schools, the city of Grand Roe, the towns, the hospital, the EDA, and the state of Minnesota. Since 2002, the county has collected a remitted to the state, a property tax imposed in season on commercial properties. So with all of those, almost 50% of all property taxes collected in the county are full taxing entities other than Cook County. And those are on your statement on your notice and on your property tax state when you see a breakout. Well, we should be discussing about the level of various services to be provided. It's clear that we need government to provide services. Each level of government, federal, state, and local tends to focus on different sets of services. Local governments generally provide the most visible services. County commissioners are ultimately responsible for the county property tax level. The local control is constrained by state and federal laws and rules that mandate certain services and how you perform them. They're advantages and disadvantages to property taxes as compared to other forms of taxation, similar disadvantages, similar well known. State and federal laws mandate between that four funds, certain services that are paid by local property taxes. Property taxes are regressive, but is they're not directly related to the ability to pay such as income tax? Changes may be difficult to predict. Property values or classifications may change through the market conditions or new laws. The system is extremely complex, hard to explain. Examples of the complexity are the property classes and rates. The rates are applied to the values of classes of properties over the years. The legislature has shown the differences between the classes will expand in the number of classes to over 220. Physical disparities. This is something new since 1995. It's a method for seven counties to share the commercial and industrial value increases. Commercial value increases since 1995 are pooled and the average early-wide tax rate is applied to those values and now we send $7,800,000 a year to St. Louis County. The state general property tax, this is a property tax imposed by the state and this sold on commercial and seasonal properties since 2002. The county calculates, collects, and remits about $2 million annually to the state for that tax. The home study programs are also hard to understand. Home state properties receive a tech and a credit and a market value exclusion. The credit remains at $299.80 that a maximum amount regardless of property value unless you're in shorter in which case it's $315. The market value exclusion in contrast to the tech and a credit starts at zero, increases to $30,400 of exclusion for properties at $76,000 on market value, and then steadily declines until it goes to zero at $413,800. Those are some of the complexities. There are a few advantages of local property taxes, including there likely to be more responsive to public needs and more directly accountable to the public than state or federal taxes, which is why you're here tonight. We're generally more stable than other firms at the tax station and that is they're not sensitive to general economic conditions making it easier for local governments to function. But to reiterate with the challenge that this is not adhering to discuss the value of individual properties. Property values for 2018 taxes were addressed at the Board of Reveal meetings held in the spring of 2017. Values for 2019 taxes will be addressed in the spring of 2018. One step taxpayers can take to ensure that they're putting the correct amount is to check the property assessment classification and then extend records for accuracy. You can do this by contacting the County of Stethers Office at 208-387-3650 or stopping in. And again, this is adhering for the purpose of presenting and discussing the proposed county budget in loving for 2018. Just to briefly go over our budget calendar, the county starts in June of each year, discussing preliminary budget goals and directives, and distribute budget materials to department heads. We discussed the administrator to discuss the goals and directives with the departments and then starting the presentation to the county board. And after various meetings, some of them public this year, we had several public meetings. We had Todd Hall meetings, Gunflotural, Birch Grove, Hoverland in late August, and we released September. And then by September 30th, we have to approve the proposed budget in Levy. And that's what you saw on your notices. This is where we were at the end of September. We've discussed many other potential changes since then, but this is the only part that's been actually voted on and approved by the commissioners. After that, we may have a notices to all taxpayers. We have this required public meeting tonight and we have to set our budget in Levy before the end of December. And what we approved on September 30th was a Levy of $9,428,872, which is 19.9% increase over the 2017 final levy. And with that, I'll turn it over to the administrator Kevall. Thank you, Betty. Welcome. Good to see everybody here. I've seen a lot of you at the meetings that we've held throughout the season in the various districts. I want to reiterate that we have the commissioners have reviewed the budget. They have reviewed all of the line items. They have scrutinized the decisions that they're making. In 2015, the first year that I was here, we went line by line through the budget. And we found every efficiency that we could in all those items. In 2016 and 2017, subsequently, we have concentrated more on the things that have changed and had a much more serious look at the big budget items that drive the basis for the budget. One of them being at the level of staff that we provide in the level of services that we provide. Setting the budget is the most important decision the Board of Commissioners makes. It's their largest policy decision throughout a year. It directly impacts citizens through services and it's a tool to realize community's goals. Each time you drive roadways, a road is plowed or you call 911, you're accessing, you're witnessing your tax dollars at work. Over the last number of years, I think this was even published in the newspaper last year, the levy increases for the last 25 years have varied from a minus 12.03 percent to a high of a 25.36 percent levy increase. The average levy increase since 1989, including the proposed 2018 number, is 4.4. So when people say, when are we going to get to a three or four percent levy increase, it's important to note that over the 26-year average period of time, we have had an average increase of 4.4. The average increase in budgeted expenditures since 1989 through 2018 proposed is 4.0 percent. Budgeting a steady levy increase of 4.4 percent over that time period instead of the highs and the lows, the minus 12 to the plus 25 percent, we would have the same proposed levy for 2018 that we have and we would have collected $28 million in additional revenue. If we would have budgeted at a straight 4.0 percent levy increase over that same period of time to keep up with the average increase in cost of expenditures, we would have generated an additional $18 million and our levy would be $1 million less than what we're proposing for 2018. It's important to note that not to note that mistakes were made or planning wasn't done. It's a time to draw the line in the sand and say it's important to plan that now is the time to balance the budget and now is the time to plan for a more responsible financial future. Cook County since I've been here and even before that has been mitigating levy and increases through the use of fund balance, deferring maintenance on buildings and deferring spending. Going into the 2018 budget, we have a facilities budget of $50,000 for repairs on over $100 million worth of plant. That's not sufficient. We are paying in 2018 $200,000 for a greater that we bought in 2017. We still have $150,000 to pay on a greater that we bought in 2016. That's what I mean by deferred payments on equipment. Getting into the 2018 budget discussion, we're facing the same problem we did in 2017 and 2016. When I started the first of July in 2015, I walked in and I was handed all the department head budgets and the summary said that we need a levy increase of 27%, and I said we can't do that. That's not reasonable. And we did it again last year, and the budget requests came in and they said we need an increase of 27%, and I said we can't do that, that's not reasonable. And we did it again this year, and because we got a really good renewal rate in our health insurance, it came up saying that we needed a 21% increase in our rate in order to sustain the level of service that we currently provide. Deferring those costs and not raising the levy, along with the escalating costs of the cost of doing business, has created a structural deficit of about $1.3 million annually. We have about a $20 million budget. We have an $8 million levy this year, we're proposing a $9.4 million levy in 2018. The structural deficit can be summarized in approximately two components. We discussed these in the August and the September meetings. One is over the last eight years we've had to add 10 staff and health and human services. The needs in this community have exceeded the capacity of the staff that we had up to that point. That accounts for about $600,000 a year that we've not budgeted for. The gap in the county state aid maintenance dollars that we get from the gas tax proposed to provide maintenance on the county roads is somewhere between $600,000 annually and that gap has been widening over time. Those two items really explain the deficit that we have in our budget that we have an accounted for. Earlier this year, we were talking about opportunities to address this deficit and we were talking about opportunities to address it over a three-year period, a two-year period, or do it in one year. There were people putting numbers to pencils to paper and coming up with numbers and if we proposed a 15% and a 14% and the 13% increase, you calculated the same thing that the board did. That's going to cost you more in the long run than if we just balanced to what we need now. So our goals are to address the structural deficit in the budget to leverage the funds that do not rely on the levy including the newly authorized transportation sales tax and to have a long-term financial plan that accounts for asset renewal and our infrastructure maintenance. We are going to be doing a study of the jail facilities and taking a look at some other facility improvements that we need and we have contracted to do a financial management plan that shows us what's that's going to cost over a period of time. How we account for that and how we do it with as little impact a levy as possible. In all of our conversations related to budget which began December 21st last year, I was in Brady's office trying to calculate what it was going to do and what it was going to take to sustain a budget going forward for the next three years. And through bringing our budget committee together starting in March of this year, we've been talking about are we going to balance? You can fix a structural deficit in a budget by one of two ways. If we're going to support the level of programs and services that we have, then we have to increase revenues. And if we're not going to increase revenues, then we have to decrease the level of programs and services that we offer. There's only two ways to announce that. In 2015, we looked at all the stuff we buy. We don't buy enough stuff to cut spending to have any significant impact on the challenge that we have faced with the budget this year. And to this point, in addressing that issue with the Board of Commissioners and we have not been directed to do anything other than to provide a budget that allows us to carry forward the level of programs and services that we currently offer. The good news is that looking at the financial management plan that Ellers helped us put together, looking at the capacity for future projects, we can say in very strong confidence that if we balance the budget and move forward, if we actually balance programs and services with Levy this year, then going forward, we really can get back on board with having a 4.4, 4.5, 4.6 percent increase, something more closely tied to the cost of living. Honestly, over the last 25 years, if we had just had a 4 percent increase, everybody would have felt like we were doing a better job. And 20 years from now, I'd like to be able to look back and say we did a much better job managing the money. And it took a little bit of work in the beginning, in the middle, but it's worth it in the end. The numbers that I'm speaking from are on the flyer that came out with your proposed tax statement and there's just a breakdown of the revenues proposed for 2018 and a breakdown of the expenditures proposed for 2018. We leave that as resources, and this time is mostly for you to make your public comment, and I'll turn the meeting back over to Board Chair Sebritzon. Excuse me. Thank you, Jeff. So at this time, the public is welcome to address the county board about the budget and setting the final levy for 2018. If you have issues involving your valuation, your property valuation, our county assessor is out in the hallway to answer those questions, this hearing is about the levy and the budget, not about your evaluation. That can be addressed by Todd to make any difference to it, however, it would have had to have been addressed in the spring. But just to clarify that for everyone. So members of the public may speak respectfully for up to three minutes. All members who wish to speak on this subject respectfully will be heard. No person will be allowed to give their minutes to another person, and we will not read anyone's letters during the meeting, but they can be submitted to the board for our consideration. All comments must be civil in nature and must be directed at the board. We had a sign-up sheet out there. There may be some more people that have signed up, but I just wanted to let everybody know that even if you haven't signed up, there will be time at the end. Once everybody from on the sign-up sheet has spoken for those of you who would like to speak at that time. So again, I just wanted to say welcome. Thank you for coming. And I know that speaking in public can be a pretty uncomfortable thing for a lot of people, so I also just want to applaud you in advance for being willing to speak, and participating in this very important democratic process. So again, up to three minutes is the limit, and commission to Kirk has a timer. And about 15 seconds before the end of your comment, I will give you the peace sign, which means you'll need to wrap up your comments and then make room for the next person to speak. So, and I also wanted to say that this portion of the meeting is really not a conversation. We're listening, and you are speaking, and we will take notes, and hopefully at the end of this, there may be commissioners who will be willing to take up some of the issues that you bring forward during your comments. There will be other staff members here who could answer some of your questions, so don't be afraid to answer questions, but also don't be stunned when we don't take up the conversation at that moment. We want to get through all the comments, and then make time for conversation when everybody has had their speech. Okay. Madam Chair? Yes. There are some people in the hallway, and there are about 10 chairs up in the front. Yes, so please come in and take a chair. No need to stand out there and be uncomfortable. Be uncomfortable with us in here. Thank you. Great. So, first on our list, seriously, there are a lot of chairs in here. Please welcome to step inside. Don't be left out of the fold. Okay, our first person on the list, Tom Bradovich, would you please step forward, Tom, and we have a sign-up sheet, another sign-up sheet, for your name and address. And please state your name. Tom Bradovich, when does my three minutes start? Right, my name, don't you? Your name and you say I'm Tom, then I'll start the clock. That's a good question. Yes. It has started yet. All right, Tom Bradovich, I'm here to debunk the myths that are floating around out there surrounding the property tech survey that I was a part of. Myth number one, our survey results do not represent the overall population of Cook County property owners. Truth, we use standard statistical analysis techniques in order to determine the accuracy and validity of our data. For five of the six questions that we asked, we can say with 95% confidence that the responses represent the entire tax-being population with a plus or minus 3% variance. Excuse me, Mr. Bradovich, could you speak to the issue of budget or levy? This is not about a survey. I'm sorry, this directly affects that. Please get to the left. We've heard comments that, can we take a time out here while we have to defend this? We've heard comments that we are only 20% of people who don't want to pay property taxes. These results show just the opposite is true. So please bear with me. We hope that they'll participate in this process. Thank you. For one of the questions, we can say that we're even 99% confident with that same plus or minus 3% spread. You will see all of the raw data published in the Cook County News Herald this week. I encourage you if you want any explanation of how I computed those numbers or how I spread to you just constructed a volunteer to sit down with you. Myth number two, some people have been interested in hearing about the survey. Please comment, make your comment about the levy or the budget. How is this about the budget? I haven't heard anything about the budget. Why are you just giving me three minutes and let us decide? Please speak to the budget. There is no venue in this county for me to address the insinuations and innuendos that have been cast against this survey. And I'm trying to explain to you that you should read these numbers carefully. And they will affect your budgetary process hopefully next year. That's the nexus between what I'm talking about and what you want me to talk about. Please allow me to finish. Thank you. Some people have insinuated that we have a hand picked those who received our surveys. Others have said that even that we have thrown surveys away. The truth, both of those insinuations are completely false. I personally find them insulting. Gary Gamble used a technique called Inth-Name Selection where a random number is generated. You count down that many names on the list, that's persons gets a survey. Regarding throwing surveys away, that is complete thunk. Myth number three, the survey is biased. Just because somebody says it is biased does not make it so. Here's an example of a very biased introduction. Most of us in Cook County know that the current crop of county commissioners and the administrators spending our tax dollars foolishly. That is not what we said. I wrote that introduction. I started with two paragraphs that summarize clear facts. And then I finished with. Some in the county believe these increases are necessary. Others believe they are out of control. I don't see any bias in there. There's no bias in the questions. Myth number four, our taxpayer should have received a survey. I don't know how survey research works. Myth number five, many people received multiple surveys. That's not true. Some people may have. We had a hard time scrubbing the list that we got from county officials. There were duplicates because people with multiple parcels. We did the best we could. There's a few people that did. Myth number six, the Minnesota Center for Financial Excellence commissioned or conducted the survey. No, they didn't. This is all volunteer week. We did that all in our own. Two seconds, Mr. Raditch. Once again, I offer to sit down with you and explain all these numbers. And I hope you would take me up on that. Thank you very much. Next on the list. Jennifer Shoals. And please, we would appreciate hearing about the levy and the budget. Thank you. My name is Jennifer Shoals. And I have been a full-time resident of Cook County for almost 30 years. I did receive multiple copies of the survey. I just wanted to say that. And I encourage you to disregard that information in the survey. What I did want to say is that I live on a small disability check. And my taxes doubled in the last four years, doubled, which now makes out more than one month of my annual income that I am paying in taxes. And I do want to say thank you for your service to Cook County. And I think you have a difficult job to do. And I think that you're doing the best you can for a community. And I support your use of my tax dollars to help our neighbors. I believe in that. But I can't sustain the kind of increases that are happening. I can't afford to repair or do any work on my building. I'm just barely getting by. So I'd like you to be aware that people on fixed income cannot sustain this kind of increase. Thank you. Thank you, Jennifer. Don Davis. Don Davis son. Let's see the last syllable. It's right here. Hi, I'm Don Davison. In a former life, I was a DJ. We used to follow the billboard top 100. And it was a great compliment for a record to be number one with a bullet. When you're a sports team, it's great to be number one. But when I went to the Department of Revenue website today, we are in terms of the proposed levy, number one with a bullet. Our 19.9% increase is more than double the next county. Here's what's typical eight can 4.8, Anoka 3.9. Some counties have no increase, 0%. I think this shows that your process for developing a budget was flawed. It seems to me that you just took what you had and asked what else we could add to it. The way budgets should work. I want to leave this here as part of the record because I think it should be known to the county board that your levy is more than double a number two. And there are counties that are getting by with negative numbers and a lot of them with 0, 1, and 2%. 19.9% is unfair and it is not a compliment to be number one with a bullet in this regard. Thank you. David Beckwith. I would ask that there be no clapping or cheering or booing that we would be even emotionally. Thank you. My name is David Beckwith. I didn't get to know your other meetings because I wasn't sure what was going on. But now I'm a little concerned about how we're projecting the 2018 budget. Now just got a couple of questions. Does it help to have many county roads or less county roads? Do we get more tax dollars, form, or without them? Because as you drive around to a county, you see a lot of our county roads that were put in place through older county commissioners in their districts. And now a lot of them are private driveways and we continue to maintain them, follow them, grade them, et cetera, et cetera. I don't know if that brings us more dollars or less dollars or if we're using it wisely. Another thing is my eyes is our police force that's on duty 24 hours a day. They get to take their vehicles home on our gas. Is that good, bad, or ugly? I know it's a policy as I was in a policy, but is that something that we can possibly look at changing to decrease our costs for gas? Since we're on the end of the tip of the arrowhead, we're on the end of the road. And I see the other day we got a new county road on 8th Avenue West. I live on a state aid road on Broadway. And I was told by somebody, and I can't remember who it was, that 8th Avenue was now a state aid road. And there's a brand new science county road 19. Everybody was doing their jobs, maintaining it, and stuff like that all along. That's where I'm wondering where is a grant needs, or et cetera, et cetera, or something. Maybe we can reduce some money by either eliminating some of our private roads that go to private residences that has the county road sign on. It's all I think of right now. Thank you for working at it, but I think you've got to work a lot harder. And I know it's on a beach, but you've got to work hard. Thank you, David. Bob Matson? My name is Robert Matson. I live in 11,000 West here in Grand Mare. I sat here last year about this time when we were going through your budget dilemma, and I specifically asked you to hold your department heads, physically responsible in the coming year to hold their costs down to make them accountable. For my experience, there's not a government budget that isn't open to some tweaking, some fine tuning, and taxpayer accountability. But as I look at your proposed budget, I see $480,000 increase in expenses, a highway department that appears to be out of control. And this doesn't seem right. But I'm not here. I'm not going to hit here and talk for years and percentages and numbers. When I look at this whole overall picture, I want to let you know overall impression I have of this, and that is your lack of empathy for the taxpayer. A lack of concern, our young couple, or a household on a fixed income is going to bear this additional burden. My point is to get out of this dilemma, there should be shared pain between the taxpayers and the departments you oversee. A two-way street, but I don't see it here. You've allowed it to become a one-way street, and now you've got a room full of people that don't like it. You took the easy way out by making the taxpayer totally responsible to solve the county's budget problem, and that's not right. Speaking personally, it looked like a household that's locked in at a one-and-two percent cost of living, locked in. In two years, your county taxes on my little house have more than doubled. One-and-two percent versus a hundred plus percent, not a good ratio in my book. But in the end, I'll pay your taxes. When I return, you've lost my faith and my respect for your judiciary governance. And the only way I feel I can hold you accountable is at the ballot box. Thank you. Please hold your clapping in a hill. We will stop the public hearing if you don't adhere to those roles. Please stop your sentence. Where is the sale? You're at the start. Remember it. There will be order in this meeting, and this meeting will adjourn. There will be no clapping, there will be no booing, there will be no commenting, other people. Respect every... That's fine, you don't have to, but you will respect this process and you will give everybody the ability and the respect to speak for their three minutes. The same as we're giving all of you the time to speak your three minutes. People can speak their three minutes without hearing, applause, or cackling. And if you can't follow those rules, then I will ask that this public meeting come to close. I may not have the authority to do that, but I will ask for it. I will. Thank you. Thank you. Anna Hill. I'm Anna Hill, and I just have a very brief comment that I would encourage you to think about the people who will be losing their houses and what you're going to do with the tax-four-footed properties. Thank you, Anna. I think I'm going to be one of the first, I hope not last, supportive person here tonight. And while I am not wildly ecstatic about a 20% increase, my perspective is that my husband and I have traveled about 12,000 road miles from one end of the country to the other this past season. And what was clear to us is that there is a huge difference in the places that seem to invest in themselves and those that don't. And we chose to move here. We chose to move here, understanding that things are expensive, and that taxes are expensive, but we chose to move here and become part of a community and be active participants and do what we can to make it better, and keep it going for the people who live here. So that's my comment. I think we need to do what we need to do. I know there are mechanisms to soften the blow to individuals who are in a particularly tight position, but I care about this place and I don't want to see us. I can quibble with numbers around the edge, but in the end it doesn't really make a hill of beans difference in how things turn out. We went through this last year and we're in the same place we are this year. So thank you for your service. Thank you, Barb. Joyce Haskrey. I would like to just make a comment for future. You know, setting a meeting on the Monday after Thanksgiving holiday is not a good thing. People are traveling. So when you're looking at that next year I hope that you'll take that into consideration. I think there are people that are not here tonight because of that. So I'm my name. I am Joyce Haskrey. I live at 1102 West First Street and I'm going to read fast because I only have three minutes. I was born here and my family has been here for six generations and I welcome new people that come here. It's not because I'm an original and think I'm better. I love seeing all the people come. I'm wondering if any of you have reconsidered your vote on the 2018 tax level increase since listening to the public via the meetings, emails, phone calls. All five of you I feel are my commissioner and you have an obligation and a duty to each and every taxpayer in this county to reduce this proposed levy and budget. You need to vote in the manner that represents the entire county population. You can have an agenda for special interest groups, friends, businesses, associates. You need to represent that little person. The young couple like Bob was saying the elderly living on fixed income. There should be no conflicts of interest whatsoever and I'm seeing some of that among our county city leaders. We are looking at taxation with all real representation. When you say we remain we need to remain steadfast in our position. That tells me we are not being listened to and you have no intention of changing anything. I was pretty shocked to hear Mr. Cadwell say at the public meeting that the commissioners gave him no directive to cut costs. Since when aren't the commissioners ultimately responsible to their citizens to cut where needed especially looking at this large levy increase. You should have given a directive to Mr. Cadwell and the department heads to put a pencil to paper and see where they could cut. Did you ever ask Mr. Powers what his professional thoughts were on this? I never hear that. Healthcare. Talk about this last year. You cannot expect the taxpayers to pay for a Cadillac health plan for county employees. We all know that right now they are paying $50 a month or $75 family with deductibles of $1837. 100 which I believe are the same as the out of pockets. Most people in this county are paying high premiums deductibles in out of pockets and they should not have to subsidize a Cadillac plan. You need to negotiate these insurance benefits and I don't know if they were negotiated or not. Last year you gave $1,200 back to the department heads on their visa so that total $2,400. You want affordable housing? It's three minutes. You still have some seconds. Landlords will be raising their rents each month to pass on additional debt. How are these people going to pay for their rent? It's a vicious cycle. And why should people have to lower their lifestyle and standard of living to the burden of high taxes? Thank you very much. I have more so I guess I'll have to come to the meeting tomorrow. You're welcome. Probably come in. Clapping is not allowed. We will end the meeting. Yes, I will. One more clap. Diane Hagen. This meeting is in conducted respectfully. We can call it closed. Very respectful. Diane Hagen. Excuse me. Hi, my name is Diane Hagen and I'm here because I believe that we need to do something about our taxes. My ancestors have been among the first people that have settled here and my family has lived here. I just don't understand. We are on a fixed income and I just don't know what we're going to do. When we can't pay taxes, what happens to us? Where do we go? It's just getting all the hand. We just need some help. Everybody's got to get together and work. I don't know. Like I said, I'm not a public speaker. This is scary. But I think our spending picked tomatry things and things like that. I believe in repair. But I don't believe we have to keep building and building and building things that let's take care of what we have. And let's not extend our expenditures out there where we don't need to have it. I mean, community centers. What about the childcare at the Y? Why are we paying for them for people to have their childcare when we had to take care of our own problems with our childcare? The banning has just gone way out of control. And I, like I said, I'm not a public speaker. But I do know that we have to do something. Just can't go on. What am I supposed to do when I can't afford to pay my taxes? Thank you, Diane. avoirer. Some months back my husband and I were asking ourselves a simple question is it just us? Are we the only people in the entire county who feel like the county government is out of control and the current county board is operating completely independent of the people's wishes? So instead of wondering, we felt it was time to do something to answer that question. What could be more simple than asking the people what they think? Thus, the survey was born, with the help of so many others who spend hours of consulting, planning, implementing and analyzing those results, recently reported in the Cook County News Herald. In essence, what we did is your homework. The results of this survey were simply astonishing, given the integrity of the methodology and the overwhelming response the verdict is in. You will be guilty of turning a blind eye to the expressed will of the people if you stick to the levy of 20% increase. My comments are directed to the four of you. As you commissioner to shop, appear to get it. Bobby, you get it. Bobby, you get a pass right now and you deserve it, but watch it. For the rest of you, it's time to reverse course. Unfortunately, you have painted yourselves into a corner for reasons that I find murky at best, and at the very least disturbing, it would be more accurate to say that you have allowed yourselves to be painted into a corner. But the paint in the corner, you find yourself in, is not yet dry, and you're going to have to step in it to get out. But you can walk through the paint to this side of the room and reestablish a relationship with the majority of taxpayers who simply do not want a 20% levy increase. It is a rocket science where the budget can and should be reduced. Eliminate the county administrator and replace it with simply a personnel director. Eliminate the newly created public information position. Keep the veteran service officer at half time. Inform the county negotiating units that the health insurance gravy train is over. Renegotiate the YMCA contract. Get out of subsidy daycare in any form. Tell the EDA to stop promoting the dying sport of golf with a $100,000 public relations price tag. Significantly reduce the non-mandated funding if not eliminated altogether. Stop spending nearly $27,000 on hotel bills like you did in the first seven months of this year alone. Consider instituting a hiring freeze. Carol, your time is up. I've got one more paragraph. May I finish game? No. Carol, you're not finished. It is easy to admit you are out of sync with the overwhelming majority. This is going to take courage and most of all humility. And those are the hallmarks of good leadership. I asked you to go home tonight and take a look at them here and ask yourself, what am I doing and why? You have the capability as every human being. Does of simply admitting, I've got it wrong and it's time to pivot. One more time. And we can leave. I was here last year at the last Truth and Taxation Meeting too. I haven't missed hardly any in many, many years. It's quite clear to me that this board of administration are not listening to the public, except for a few special interest groups. And I truly believe we hired an administrator to have county government run more smoothly, more cheaply, and not to have waste. And I would like to know, you know, personally, where any county board member or the administrator I asked this question last year, has saved the taxpayers of Cook County $1. The thing is like, I know I was at the meeting last Tuesday and I brought it up. And Mr. Cadwell made the comment later. We did start working on the budget right away. But it's easy, like Miss Everson had said, you know, the budget process is very easy this year. Yeah, it is very easy if you say yes to everything and just want to keep raising taxes. Well, the whole thing is it's like some of the other people that said there are so many people on fixed incomes and it's really going to be a burden on them. And then with Mr. Cadwell, his budget in 2017 was $300,000. Well, if he was so concerned about this budget this year, you know, why did he, if he's got it proposed to go up $47,000, up to $347,000? If that's correct, if I'm saying I got the wrong information, speak up Jeff. Well, basically, just to have the administrator, it costs 5% of the levy right now. And a member years ago when Sue Hakes was a county commissioner, she said, man, we county commissioners, I'll certainly go for cutting our wages 20%, it might have been 25 if a higher administrator to take some of the burden off. So basically, like I said, to have a administrator right now, if he gets his way with his increase, that's another 5%, you know, that that goes on to the levy for this year. And another thing is the EDA. The EDA has received $3,244,690 in taxpayers' money, just in their levy's. But this year alone, you turn around and you grant them the permission to put up $100,000 sign, notice the golf course, a losing proposition. And the EDA has put us in debt millions and millions of dollars. I didn't bring my true figures with me this time, but I gave it to you all last year. I didn't have time to get it all figured out tonight and stuff. But just the loan with the EDA, that's costing us over 5% too. So between Mr. Cadwell and EDA, that's 10%. And that I just can't understand why we keep dumping money into a dead horse in my opinion. And in Lake County, they don't have an EDA. Most counties don't. Thank you, Lloyd. Your time is up. Thank you. And Lake County, they got a deal called City Redevelopment Agency, which handles the EDA. Nick Berger. Check into that. My name is Nick Berger. Last year, the county board held the Truth and Taxation hearing and proposed a levy increase of around 19%. More than 100 members of the public attended many of the individual spoke for and against the proposed increase. And later meeting the board after long tedious session unanimously approved the final budget levy increase at 11.2. I was curious as to why the commission was making such a substantial reduction and asked my commissioner. She replied, and I quote, it was the right thing to do at the time. She went on to say that going into next year, she was going to bring up the budget at every meeting. We'd be asking the board to make decisions by April. And she asked that the board wants to get below 20%. So they need to make huge changes now and nonprofits need to know that they will have to find money somewhere else. Unfortunately, none of that that she proposed ever happened. I have not seen any attempt by the board to actually address budget problems from an expenditure perspective. Rather, they spent an inordinate amount of time crafting a budget messaging strategy that relies on what I call false narratives. Here are three examples. There in this situation because an irresponsible board in the past kicked the care down the road. The county budget is out of balance. And last but not least, we need to identify needs of the county and spend accordingly. As to the kicked care theory, I would like to point out the three of the current commissioners have been through four budget cycles with one of those having been through six. If there's a kicked care and their boot prints are all over it. Rather than digging in and having the courage to address the financial problems by making those necessary huge changes, it was generally business as usual with the annual year-end budget drama and excuses. You guys own this. Regarding the unbalanced budget, if there is a shortfall, it's only because the board's inability to face the facts. If you send a levied increase at 11.2% knowing that there were deferred expenses, what was the strategy for reducing expenses and non-budginal additional spending to make up the previous year's shortfall other than to blame out of the previous board members? No attempt was made to control skyrocketing employee benefit costs. At the beginning of 2017, the county increased the Veeba accounts of managers to compensate them for the increased contributions for health care premiums, identified in the final budget. Instead of charging the YMCA for county costs for cleaning and maintenance. As promised in 2016, the board renegotiated 25-year-old contract which provides the service at no cost in addition to free rent, free utilities, and replacement of exercise equipment and no charge. There are also issues in health and human services regarding missed reimbursement buildings. A request for an accounting of what impact those missed buildings had on the budget went on answered. The county continues to resist analyzing how to streamline expenses and deliver services in the most cost effective manner, again more excuses. Finally, as to identifying the county needs and spending accordingly, just who determines the needs? The board, the county employees, the administrator, special interest groups? The administrator just last week reminded the committee of the whole that people who speak of public hearings or public comment do not represent the needs of the county. This attitude is disturbing. What the county needs is a competent proactive board, and county administrator who doesn't arrogantly display contempt and respect to those who pay his salary and benefits. Ben Peters, please. Ben Peters, a long time listener, first time caller. I'm really frustrated. I'm frustrated. We sat in this room last year. We talked about the same stuff. The title of this meeting was Truth and Taxation. I don't see a lot of truth. I think that seemed pretty elusive to this board. Last year, following this meeting, there was a tirade of lies. I don't think there's any way to put it, but between jobs lost and Christmas presents being taken away and closing the senior center to list a couple were really not helpful. I think there is unhelpful as what Codwell was talking about, averaging the levy increase. I'll get to that in a second. Truth really is that you don't listen because we were here last year, and we're talking about the same stuff, or you don't care, or you lack the courage and skill to make the necessary cuts. But unfortunately, like the impacts of the negligence of the board are going to far out last your ten years. You're crippling the community for years and years and years. The elders budget, I think, is flawed, and I'm not an expert in that, but I think it's flawed because the numbers that you guys put into it were just blunt markers. They weren't representative of any real project. They were just large multi-million dollar best guesses. And you can't pass the budget if it's not real. So my suggestion is you start cutting with the lowest hanging fruit, and that really is Jeff Codwell and his team. There hasn't been a lot of production out of there. I think we can get back to doing what you used to do, which is your jobs. And the argument about 20-year averaging the levy just doesn't hold water. You can make numbers, say, Jeff, whatever you want them to say. What if you did a two-year average starting this year? What if you did a five-year average? How about we start the clock last year and do a five-year? You're going to find a different result with the same input, same numbers. So your argument sucks. So that's my suggestion. He said his bags were packed with tanks full of gas. I think you guys should find out if that's true. So my Carlson respectful comments is what we're interested in. My Carlson. A lot of respectful people are leaving. Stacey Hawkins. I'm coming before you as a lifelong citizen of Cook County and a property owner for over 30 years. And I have at one time or another wrote letters to you or called you on the phone or had coffee with you to discuss county matters. And I sincerely hope you will respect my sharing of thoughts and questions today as a constituent. I want to encourage you to join me in being curious about the numbers and how they relate to the financial position of the county budget. You state the median household income is $52,299. That means 50% of the population is below that amount. I looked into this further and I found that 12% of the households have household income in the $35,000 to $49,999 range. 25% have household income of less than $25,000. So my next question is what happens to those people when you initiate another large increase since one quarter of our households are less than $25,000. And I want to emphasize, I do not question the numbers presented. I truly believe the numbers are accurate. What I do believe is the way the numbers are being presented are not showing you or the public the full picture. We have been presented with information about budgets and have been told we have not had a balanced budget for years and that is what just caused the problem that we are in. But you do not construct a budget using only previous budgets. A budget is a guess. Hopefully a good guess on good information. But if you never look back and see how well you guessed, future budgets mean nothing. Over the weekend I did an eight page spreadsheet with the information that's publicly available on the website. I focused primarily on the general fund. And since you budget expenses high and revenues low, I wondered what the percentage difference was from reality to budget. And there are some obvious warning flags that came up. I encourage you to investigate those areas. Are there previous grants that were used to offset expenses that we are no longer receiving but still providing the service? Why have the revenues projected for some departments been reduced 63% and or another one 256%. Why did the expenses for one department increase 100% in 2015 and another 229% the next year? What expenses of this increase are new expenses not previously budgeted. The soil and water grant for 2018 the expenses for this grant are in the budget but the grant revenues are not presented on the department line. And I worry the way this is presented that next year we would just absorb those grant expenses because we budget it for them without showing the revenue. Other departmental grants have shown up on the department line budget. Why wouldn't they all stay so your time is up. I have your point. I'd be happy to have coffee with you. My name is Robert Pratt and I was born and raised here in Grand Maree. I went away for a number of years and returned after retirement and when I left it was so different. I mean there were squabbles and so forth but the expenditures were within the means of the taxpayers. And I think that the people I guess what bothers me is fairness and I'm not saying anybody isn't fair but boy it's a mess. All the conflict between say you guys and us and I'm not here to fight. But the people that have spoken have been here once had six generations. They have a pretty good grasp of what it's like to make a living in this county. And I'm not sure that it's being honored. It's easy to come in here I guess you could choose to live here. A lot of people didn't have a choice. They were born and raised here. They didn't have ways of getting out of here and doing something. I was lucky and because I think a guy in the 10th grade education talked me in to go into college and he had been here in generation after generation he's now deceased. It hadn't been for me and I probably maybe I'd be on much worse off than I am. But listening to the people that have talked here there's a big disparity between who can afford to drive 12,000 miles and come back and those that have no darn money at all to even go across the county line hardly. And then they're all being taxed. And I guess I pay mine I'm not grumpy about that. So that's my one thing. The other thing is I think communication can be improved. I'm not just sure how. But you know when I I live up in Bobby's district there and when I heard 800,000 dollars for a garage you know it was like sticking my hand into a light socket for crying out loud it was it was you know whoo. But there is a woman that works here for the county I can't remember what her name is now. But I called her story anyway. She was wonderful. She broke things down. And you know. Thank you Bob. Your time is up. Okay. So I guess what I'm saying and I'll get up and walk away. The somehow these facts that she provided me or if I knew or we knew who would go to with maybe bring. Thank you. Okay are there those who would like to speak who haven't spoken. Thank you Brad. Name is Brad Thompson. I don't have any the answers for you. I had since I'm not allowed to clap the only way I feel that you guys here and see my feelings my attitude toward this. I just want to tell you that I support Lloyd and Bob and Stacey. The clapping to me I think you shouldn't take it as just respect you should take it as strong comments of these people. Many of them like myself hate speaking in public. This stinks. I don't like it at all. And many of these people are not getting up here for the same reason. I can't with the budget. I think it needs to go down. It's all I got to say. Thank you Brad. Anyone else. Steve. My name is Steve Nielsen and I live here in Grand Marie. First thing I want to say is thank you for taking the time to do this. I know it can't be easy for you like it's not easy for all these folks. Second thing I want to say is I like everybody else. I got my estimated tax statement the other day is fair to say I wasn't excited to see it. But it's also fair to say that I think I understand it. I appreciate the information that came along with it that helps understand where the money's going. And it would be easy. Not easy, but it would be tempting to try and talk about the specifics of the budget and that sort of thing. But I don't think this is the place for that. I think this is the place for me to say that I think I speak for the majority of people in this county and saying thank you to you for taking the risk you take to make the tough decisions for serving the public because I know that what you care about is making this a better place for all of us. Regardless of our opinion. And so from me it's not about the budget so much today. It's about saying thank you for taking the risk to do this. For taking the risk to be a public servant because I know all of you care most and foremost about making this a better place. So thank you. Thank you, Steve. Number of people have mentioned the lack of pre-planning or whatever going on here. And it seems that that's not entirely case. I see looks like we've already bought the picked a metric machine or whatever it is. So that's nice. My name is Nevin Holberg. I live in Holblund. Private land is less than 10% of Cook County. Our population is less than 5,200 people and you plan on a budget of about $24 million which is over $4,600 a person and approximately $5 to $6 million greater than the last year's budget. Your actions show that you have no intention of cutting expenditures and intend to saddle a property taxpayer with ever increasing financial burdens. Matters are worsened when one considers the discretionary spending continues to pace. Your pet projects are generously funded regardless of their overall public benefit. Activities appropriately funded by the private sector have become de facto county departments. Examples include but are not limited to golf courses, historical societies, the arts housing and YMCA. The private sector cannot compete with such government subsidized enterprises. I have three questions. By a show of hands, who among you is a member of the Y? How much monthly rent does the Y pay a county for the building they occupy? And finally, exactly what will you do with a quarter million dollar picked a metric machine? Thank you. Thank you, Evan. Who else would like to speak? Who's in their names? Hello. Hello. I'm Ron Lund. I live in Grand Murray since this last gentleman brought up that machine. That's been on my mind. I'm a little bit hung up on that. What do you call that machine? It's a little thing but I think it represents a broader tone of how you spend money. I have this right. This is something that's like the eye in the sky where you can come down and you can look at properties and get a look at it. I applied for a variance last year and I told Bill Lane that I was 76 feet back. He said, no, you're actually 74 feet. And I said, how did you know that? He said on the Google, could already do that for nothing. And what did we pay for that? 250,000. Now, maybe I don't understand the full scope of that 250,000 and the great things it can do. But you know, if it's taking pictures of front of houses, you could probably put two people to work, give them a job to go out and take pictures. Anyway, the last thing I want to say, things like that, and I don't know because I haven't investigated it and I think Bob Bratt was kind of hitting on this. If we had a way of communicating things like this and what they were for and what they really did, and things weren't sort of nebulous. You know, once you get in to understanding the specifics of something, I think some of the mistrust goes away because then you can start to see what's going on. But when these things are just kind of thrown out there, you said it's not a machine according to the paper. It's a contract. So there's a $250,000 contract to look down something that what I think could maybe I'm wrong. I know I'm not wrong about Google being able to do that. But the extra benefits you get for that is it worth 250,000. We'd like to know, or I would. So I think the communication, and that's what Bob Bratt was saying, above the whole of the garage. Once he talked to Mrs. Storley and got the information, he was less upset about it. So it would be who you may be to have some way of communicating what kind of projects you're doing and the specifics of them, and it would help out. Thanks. Thank you, Ron. Who else would like to speak? Good evening. My name is Dean Merlet. I live within the boundaries of Grant Board of Gender and Reservation on Prepper Property. One comment that I would make while I'm filling this out. It's not a communications issue between the voting public and you folks. It's an unrealistic ability for you to spend money. We don't have simple enough. We can't afford you. Now, I got here a little late, and I apologize for that, respectfully. But I would like to ask a question. I did not get some of the paperwork the other folks. Is there money in your budget for what is sure to be the special election that will be taking place here in the not too distant future when you get done passing this? I'm just asking a question, respectfully. I'm sorry, I'm so mad, I'm shaking. Wow, this is cool. Have a good evening, respectfully. Anyone else would like to speak? Respect. No one? Can you speak in place? No. I would turn the conversation back to us for a conclusion. No one will be speaking twice if there's somebody who hasn't spoken yet and they would like to speak. Speak now. Okay, we're turning the conversation back to us. Is there any commissioner, is there any question or comment that one of you would like to address? I would like to address the communication and a phone call really helps. I get a phone call, what's this about, whatever, and I explain things. We have many ways. Our board meetings are live streamed. You don't have to watch at 8.30, you can watch at midnight or whatever. That's one way. We go on the radio after our board meetings and we discuss what we have been talking about at the board meeting. I'm lucky because I have townships to go to. So I have three places that I can spread the word, ask questions, people can ask me questions. We have the newspaper. And so I think we're all looking for how can we be better at communicating? One way would be, like I said, the personal way. Call us, email us, and on a personal level we can get into more depth. And our last committee meeting, I invited Scott Harrison and Mr. Headstrom to come and talk about the whole history of the golf course. And that is absolutely fascinating because we've had that golf course for over 31 years. And how did it start and who was involved in it and where do we go from there? From here. So look it up because that gives you the whole perspective as to how our involvement started with former commissioners, way back then. And we have a commitment to make in certain areas where things are passed on. So we try to say, okay, that was then. This is now, how can we move forward with something? Or maybe we can't move forward with something. But there's many areas where we can't let it drop. Because if we let something drop, it will come back on us. So we try to very thoughtfully work through the process with, we have a budget committee, we have a personnel committee, we have unions, we have three unions in the county that people deal with. So we have a lot of things that have to come together. And maybe we need to be a better group to give communication on that. I don't know. I think we're trying. And I would say communication these days is pretty complicated. There are a zillion ways and we use a lot of them. We've answered the pictometry question at every single meeting for the next month. Two months we've answered it. Maybe you should let, Ron know what it is. Thank you. Would you like to up to you? Ron, it's a service that we buy, which will be paid for by Grand Courage Force Service in the county, goes over the county. That's where your pictures on Google come from. You can't just ask questions like that. But what does it do? That's where the email is get through. People tell that they do that for a total of all of our nine rock reviews. That was right on the 8th Avenue. What are you gaining by this $250,000 that you can't already do? Well, understanding is that, is that Google gets that information from the flyover that we've paid for in the past? We did this six years ago. So the flyover goes and takes the pictures. And that goes out where Google picks it up. And you use it. No, Google goes out and just grabs it and uses it. But there wouldn't be any pictures if we hadn't paid for the flyover earlier. Six years ago, and then potentially again. So if you're talking about how to base it. Yeah. Yeah, Google goes out and uses anybody else's information, and then turns around and gives it to you in a different format. But it wouldn't be there if somebody didn't actually pay you for the flyover. And to the degree of $250,000 that over what period finds that? No, they'll look at it again to see, I don't know the details in each department that uses it. But they'll look, in this case, it was six years since they did it before. It was like, I think, a 12-inch degree of accuracy, and they're getting it down to six-inch, six years later. Now, whether, yeah. Okay. There are two employees a year to do that service if they can, which I don't know that they can. Our assessors here somewhere that could address that, is on average $140,000 a year, so it's not cost-effective. Are they going to be caught with this machine? It's not a machine. It's not a machine. Is that, who is new procedure? Okay. I'm going to let Jeff answer that question, because he answers it extremely well, explains the service, and so forth. And then that's going to be the end of that question. The pictometry update is simply updating the database that we use, and many other people use, including the agencies that Commissioner Deshaa mentioned. It makes it much more, we get competing interests. We heard somebody suggest that people shouldn't take their cars home because we should conserve gas, and then we hear somebody say they should take the cars out and go for a drive and take pictures. If you don't understand that's a competing interest thing, it's a prioritization thing. Having an up-to-date database makes it possible for many of our staff to do their jobs effectively, for many people in the forest service to do their jobs effectively. As a matter of fact, as we've brought on more partners with this project this year, our cost has already come down to the point that it's going to be under $200,000 to do this. So, numbers that are a snapshot for many given point in time are not necessarily accurate and they evolve. But this information is necessary for many of our staff to do their work, for many in the people in the public to do their work, for emergency responders to be able to respond to situations, to know what it looks like before they actually get there. It's very important information. It doesn't replace, it allows our staff to be more efficient, because we already have it in place. And we don't currently have staff doing this, so there isn't anyone to cut. Any other questions or comments or answers that the commissioners would like to respond to? Are there any more responses? As far as anything. As far as anything. I just would like to say I did not vote for the 19.9%. Lovey, I see things in this budget that can be cut. I have tried to cut from different shots. And I have another one for this. Any other comments or questions? Questions we'd like to answer. Madam Chair, if I could. Yes. I'd answer Mr. Beckwith's question if he's still here. Cassada 19 is not new, it's just a new sign. It's always been designated as County Road 19. Okay, one question. Yes, ma'am. Thank you. I would point out that I respectfully raise my hand. Sir, if I understand and I may not understand completely. We have a Google snapshot that we paid for some years ago that gets us within a foot. So we're going to drop 250,000 so we can now get within half a foot. So we're twice as good as we used to be. Because we're down to six inches now. So for six inches, you're going to spend 250,000 dollars a month. Do I understand that or did I miss something? There's been a significant amount of development in the county in six years. And that's the reason for doing the update. And we have many partners in the project. It's not just us. Grand Portage is partnering. The City of Grand Maria is partnering. The DNR is partnering. The Forest Service is partnering. This is a service that is needed by many people in this community. So our portion of the bill is not 250,000. It's a shared bill. Is it just a kind of a one-time box then? Or is it preparing? Or what is the... You'll need to be updated periodically. The last update was six years ago. So in six years, so in addition to the last... Four to six years, depending on how quickly things change. Okay. Well, thank you all for coming. And... Thank you. Peace. Thank you.