Sangamon Sun

Sangamon County Citizens' Efficiency Commission met April 12.

Here is the minutes provided by the Commission:

Attendance:

Citizens’ Efficiency Commissioners-

Larry Bomke

Jackie Newman

Josh Collins

Robert Plunk

Kevin Dorsey

J.D. Sudeth

Karen Hasara

Robert Wesley

Mike Murphy

Other:

Ed Taft – Williamsville Fire Protection District

Norm Sims -SSCRPC

Molly Berns – SSCRPC

Jordan Leaf – SSCRPC

Gail Weiskopf- SSCRPC

I. Call to Order

Chair Mike Murphy called the meeting of the Citizens’ Efficiency Commission to order.

II. Roll Call and Approval of Absences

Chair Murphy stated that J.D. Sudeth and Jackie Newman would not be in attendance.

III. Approval of Minutes of the March 8, 2017 Meeting

Chair Murphy asked if there were any additions or corrections to the minutes of the March 8, 2017, regular meeting. Mr. Robert Wesley moved to approve the minutes. Dr. Kevin Dorsey seconded the motion, and the minutes were approved. Mr. Robert Plunk noted a modification to page 1, Section IV. Introduction and Announcements and also a modification to the last page under Section XI. Public Comments. Chair Murphy asked for a vote to approve the amended minutes. The vote to approve was unanimous.

IV. Introductions and Announcements

Chair Murphy welcomed Mr. Ed Taft from the Williamsville Fire Protection District.

V. Reports of Officers - Chair Mike Murphy & Vice-Chair & Hon. Karen Hasara

Chair Murphy stated that he has been derelict in his duties the last couple of months. He said things should be running smoother now that he has gotten his training done.

Chair Murphy stated that the Mayor knows about the CEC’s plans. He knows that the CEC would like to discuss it and the Mayor gave Chair Murphy every indication that he would like to listen. Chair Murphy said that he is available the next two weeks so he is going to try to set a time with the Mayor to meet.

VI. Report on Legislative Activities – Sen. Larry Bomke & Hon. Karen Hasara

Sen. Larry Bomke reported that Hon. Karen Hasara and he attended the committee hearing. It passed the House and is now in the Senate and it is assigned to committee. He said the Senate will take up House Bills probably after they return from Spring Break and the House will pick up the Senate. He said Bill Brady is sponsoring it for the CEC. Hon. Hasara said it is bipartisan.

Ms. Molly Berns clarified by asking if House Bill 3521 was amended to change the effective date? Sen. Bomke said in the House. Ms. Berns asked if it would take effect January after the next election? Sen. Bomke said he wasn’t sure, but the problem was that elected Township Officials don’t take office until next January. He guessed it would be four years after January. He said that it is actually in effect in January if anyone were to resign, an office would become vacant those elected would be able to stay their term.

Chair Murphy said that he felt that the press that the CEC got from it was very positive and Representative Tim Butler gave the CEC credit in both of his Press releases.

VII. Regional Policing Study – Hon. Karen Hasara & Sen. Larry Bomke

Hon. Hasara said she did not have anything to report on the Policing Study, but she believes that the Medical District may be meeting tomorrow. Ms. Berns told her that the meeting had been cancelled. Hon. Hasara said she was excited about Michelle Ownbey from Enos Park Neighborhood Association being appointed. She said if Mr. Josh Collins was here he would know who they were and where they came from. She said a couple of people there were enthused and one of the commissioners had made brochures. Ms. Berns stated that Mr. Collins went through the list a couple of months ago and gave the CEC an indication of whose appointments they were and the vacancies so she will pull them and send them in an email.

VIII. Unfinished Business:

Chair Murphy said that he had anticipated a call from Sangamon County Board Chairman, Andy Van Meter in regards that he would to bringing like to the bring CEC’s it before situation the County up to the Board County at the Board. April He 10th said meeting. that Chair He said Van that Meter his had email indicated is still working from Charlie Parker’s and he had not received an email. Mr. Sims said in part it is relevant because it came up in the Regional Leadership Council teleconference about the agenda for the next meeting and they raised the question with Mr. Plunk going off if the CEC would be so kind as to have a liaison continue with them to continue the interaction with the CEC. Chair Murphy said he would try to see what is going on with the County Board.

Mr. Wesley said he was going to stay on until we had done a report. Chair Murphy said that there was some discussion if we needed to do a report. Sims said he thought it would be reasonable going forward if there is such a body or if there isn’t such a body what recommendations this body would make about that. If there are any gains to be made what would you even want to tell leadership about it other than to say implementation is harder than we thought.

Mr. Wesley said he recalls a conversation that was not inconclusive about whether we were going to have a report or not. Hon. Hasara said she felt we should do something. Chair Murphy said we could do an update on the RLC and the tax collectors. The progress or lack thereof, with Fire/EMS, and our situation with the Policing Study. Mr. Plunk said he thought one of the greatest accomplishments regarding the Fire/EMS was the establishment of the Fire Protection District Trustees Association as a group to share ideas and know who each other are. He said we had the Fire Chiefs that pretty well know each other, but he thinks the formation of the association has done a lot to get the various trustees within the county at least familiar with each other. He thinks many of them are learning things through those meetings. Sims said as staff we can do the drafting of a document, but we sort of need to know what we are drafting. He said when we did the first one we had things in hand because we had the actual recommendations. If you remember we spent a lot of time talking about themes which became the end part of that report. Dr. Dorsey said it feels like basically a status report would be a good idea. We took it, we moved the ball to the 40 yard line and this is what we think needs to be done the future or these were the things that thwarted further progress. That way somebody has something to look at rather than saying well a bunch of folks got together once a month and sat around a table and talked about a lot of stuff. Hon. Hasara said it was right after they regrouped that they took the recommendations and voted on them to see which ones we would look at. Chair Murphy stated he like the status report idea to let people know where we are.

Mr. Wesley stated he thought that one of the findings should be that this is not an implementation group. A lot of the issues that were in front of us are political issues and a lot of information is available to the County Board, the City Council, and the various towns and villages. He said those kinds of decisions have to have the authority of the electorate behind it and we don’t. So he thinks one of the findings is that the County Board and the City Council should take a much more active role in examining what the findings are and what the recommendations have been. He said that doesn’t mean the follow the recommendation, it doesn’t mean they deny it. It means that these things have to be aired within government. Chair Murphy agreed and said that he thinks this has been the most frustrating thing. We can make recommendations all day long and it just takes a few opposed people to scare the elected officials off to do the right thing in his opinion. Chair Murphy said we can only recommend. Mr. Wesley said that he does not agree with that at all. Mr. Plunk said that he thought it was important that this group not have implementation powers that the CEC is just an advisory, coming up with recommendations, and pointing out the situations. One thing that came to mind is the situation with the paper on Pass-through Fire Protection Districts. That was one of the first things the CEC 01 noticed and asked why do we have so many why do each one of those have the expenses that they do for advertizing and paying trustees, and why does that exist with nine of them? He said that it just seemed like a “no-brainer.” But through the process what the CEC got was people in those nine districts felt that it was important that they have those individuals to represent that area rather than one or two or three of them and he thinks that is what came out of that. He said nobody in the public really got excited about it. The only reaction the CEC got was interaction with those trustees and they said they thought they were fine. And they also thought it was important for them to be individual districts to negotiate with the City of Springfield rather than the City dealing with just one or two districts within the county. Chair Murphy agreed and he said some of them thought that is the way it should remain, but he was not certain that it was correct. He thought that they had some interests that were not just totally for their constituents, but self-serving interests. Hon. Hasara said that Mr. Plunk was right. If the people don’t care enough to push for it, she understands. Chair Murphy said that he doesn’t think the people understand. Hon. Hasara said she would like to find advocates. For example, if the Mayor thumbs his nose at looking at how we might better deliver police services, she would like to go to the aldermen. She said if the aldermen don’t do anything about it then that is different, but they don’t know anything about all the research that has been done. She said that was just an example, but it really takes an interested group. Chair Murphy said he didn’t think the CEC should have implementation powers. But he does feel that it is very frustrating that we cannot get people more engaged on certain issues. Dr. Dorsey said this is not unique to government. What we have got is an inertia problem. He said a couple of years ago in organized medicine they had this guy from the Harvard Business School, Clayton Christensen, come and talk with them. He had just put out his book The Innovator's Prescription and it is a pretty weighty text. It talks about innovation and why is it so hard for old institutions to innovate because the new ones can. They have never done it. They have not been hampered by the way we used to do things or the way we have always done things around here. So the new kids can innovate at a much faster rate than the established organizations whether it is car manufacturing or whatever it is. One of the suggestions that he made that makes sense for this group is if you are going to innovate, what you do is, you incubate this group off to the side (our group) and they come up with the ideas and they have to take them back to the implementers at the big house and convince people that it needs to be done. Chair Murphy said that describes the CEC. Dr. Dorsey said it does and he has been thinking in terms of the organizations that he works with, but it is true with virtually all organizations. He said new car companies can come in and whiz bang they have got something hot off the line that Ford and Chevrolet couldn’t move if you gave them another decade. He said maybe if we look at ourselves that way than maybe it makes sense to be independent and not have the power, but yet be the incubator for ideas and then coming up with incubating the solutions to those ideas. Chair Murphy asked if everyone felt that the CEC should do a status report? He asked how the CEC should approach the report? Hon. Hasara said each of the committees could draft something. Mr. Sims said he thought some of that is to get a consensus from the group as to what some of those things are. He said if we are going to draft something up then we will know that is something that you are talking about. He said even from his point-of-view what do you think the greatest successes have been? And is there anything in common with those? He said some of the difficulties that the CEC faced are no different than we pointed out in the first report. He said if you look at some of things that he thinks can be pointed out as successes they don’t come from the recommendations they come from things that occurred in the back of the CEC 01 book. He said that RLC is a perfect example of bringing them all together. The fact that just looking over shoulders sometimes had an effect on improvement. There is a famous book in public administrator literature by Richard Beadle about how something shows up on a policy agenda. The answer was pretty simple. There is a problem stream, solution stream, and a political stream. You don’t deal with airplane safety until an airplane goes down. Then everyone wants to put it on the agenda and do something with it. He said even then if you don’t have a solution in your back pocket they don’t deal with it. The political stream is not necessarily related to politics that you think of. Is it a budget year it is an election year? All those things come together and the window of opportunity opens and change then occurs. And you have to work around that. That window may open tomorrow; it may not open for 5 years. Currently the Planning Commission is looking at some stuff right now that looks more critical than it did many years ago in terms of property tax and sales tax. In fact no one is going to get bailed out at the federal level and he is pretty sure no one is going to get bailed out at the state level. So if some of this stuff you guys have talked about doesn’t get done he doesn’t know where it ends up.

Chair Murphy asked if the commissioners were willing to put together outlines of their different committee reports on what they think the movement has been with this term of CEC? Mr. Wesley stated that Mr. Plunk and he have 37 talking points that they submitted on Fire/EMS Working Group and a letter to the County Board and far as he is concerned that is noteworthy components for their committee. He said he is more than happy to resubmit those two items and to read what everyone else writes as well. Hon. Hasara said when we draft something hopefully things will become a bit little clearer. Sims said that would help him draft around that.

Mr. Wesley said that the way the proposed referendum was written was not what this group had recommended but the way it came down meant somebody hadn’t read the report. He doesn’t mind that the political entity changes what the referendum is going to be because that is what they are there for. They are the ones who put the referendums on the ballots in the first place and they should have that. He said he does not envy that, but somebody had not read the initial report because it wasn’t about that. The real problems are that the volunteers’ days are receding and that's not just Fire Protection District that is in pretty much everything. What he would say about implementation is that if the referendum is going to be worded in such a way that varies from what the recommendation is, that it should be informed by the information that was in that report. He went back and reworked the numbers. You can work them in means and you can work them in percentages on the standards of response time. The standards are relative clear. So he guessed what he was saying is that there never really was a close association between this group (CEC) and the county board which is sort of the founding agency if you will. And certainly there has not been a close relationship between this group (CEC) and the City regardless who the Mayor is. That association with the governmental entities has to be strengthened a great deal before what we recommend what we learned how we get informed is going to get aired. If that doesn't happen then we're not going to face much in ways of success on a lot of these issues we have successes those are certainly things to write about, but he think that issue should addressed. Mr. Plunk said the impression that he has regarding the county board is that there was an expectation on their part that the role that we would play will get the public not the County Board involved and excited about something so they come back to the county board. We just don't have that kind of leverage. Sen. Bomke said you can’t energize the general public to get involved. If we were able to do that than there would be changes. Wesley said that costs money. There are 25 Fire Protection Districts. If he just put a thousand dollars into each, because they have to be dealt with individually. If I just put $3,000 into one of them, he could very quickly come up with a $75,000 budget for a political campaign. That's not a lot of money to put together a few yard signs, maybe a pamphlet that you mail, and that is about it. And if you want to do a real campaign then you have to get it organized with each Fire Protection District. He doesn’t mind the opposition, but you have to have resources to do that and we don’t have them. Chair Murphy agreed and said the CEC never would. Mr. Sims said he wanted to add one point, he want to go back to Dr. Dorsey’s point about this. He said in the past now or even into the future and he says this keep in mind the Planning Commission is Cassandra. He said we can tell the future, but nobody wants to believe us. One thing this body has done, could do, and could even continue to do even this year is to put in somebody's back pocket what the solution to a problem is when the window of opportunity opens to get an issue off the policy agenda. One thing is we have been predicting and anticipating is the property tax slowing of growth for at least three or four years. The county is starting to see it. When this thing first came up we had a comment made in one of our discussions that the number of those who will qualify for 65 and older Homestead Exemption in Sangamon County increase by a third in 5 years. They were wrong it will increase in 2020 by 30% and it looks like it will double within 5 years after that. He said that is a property tax loss that no one has any control over. The City has started to see what we predicted was going to occur related to sales tax revenue. This is not an importance to the City of Springfield because many of us know property tax goes to pay police and fire pensions. City runs off sales tax. Sales tax is going to go down for three reasons. One is e-commerce. The other one is simply because our birth or death rate is hardly anything. And in addition to that we got an out-migration. And in addition to that we have a whole bunch of old people that are not buying stuff. We are not starting families, not starting homesteads, and not buying major appliances. Downsizing is what we are doing. He said if you look at projects right now in the City, the number one project is storage units. It is related because the older people are downsizing and need someplace for their junk. Ms. Berns said also the construction of duplexes is on the rise and it correlates very closely to where the storage units are going in. People downsize, they store and buy a duplex. Sims said that’s why somebody needs to be looking at this beyond us and say this is what the outcomes of those are likely to be related to government services and what can be done more efficiently and effectively to address that. I think all the politicians at this table would agree that if you have an event horizon beyond 4 years I'd be shocked and mostly it's what is on your desk that is a problem right. Even when you try to make a decision to address an issue you don't give a lot of thought to what the implication of a decision is going to be in 2 or 3 years which could be worse than what you got now. I will tell you they're not listening to us and it is not just on e-commerce. The stuff that is bought from Amazon, from Macy’s online, the amount of retail activity that is going on Craigslist or Ebay. And know if you don’t know the phrase Alibaba you will know it soon because they are the Chinese Amazon and they are moving into this country. They use to only sell large stock, but that is not where they are going. They are going to compete. Amazon collects state sale taxes, but not local sale taxes. This is where the markets are going and it's why a little niche business is doing better. It's why service businesses are doing better because that can't be provided online at this point. He said if it is not you guys then who does that? Who works the problem at the local level? The problem that we dealt with the fire districts has nothing to do with the fire districts in his mind, but it had to do with demographics and the nature of what younger folks are interested in and the lack of that. And the fact that in a lot of these areas the same trend is occurring. Mr. Wesley said what Mr. Sims said about the fire districts is what he meant it wasn’t about response time. Mr. Sims said no, the report indicated that. Mr. Wesley stated exactly and the problem that you have and the CEC is having is that strategy is about committing resources over time and we're not very good at that. We're very good at tactics which is managing the problem that's in front of us and he doesn't know how you get around that. Mr. Sims said his old thing was there isn’t a state agency director worth a grain of salt that doesn’t have 15 solutions to a problem that they think is going to happen, but it hasn’t happen yet and they have it in their back pocket and they are ready to jump into it. Mr. Sims gave an example; DCCA had been trying to get the state to provide more money for small business development centers forever. The state budget could never get that to happen. All of a sudden the new welfare federal program comes in you have to do “Welfare to Work”. And Schnorf wanted to know what the different agencies could do to advance this? To which we said if you are going to do that you are going to have to have daycare centers. And if you are going to have daycare centers you are going to have to train people to run the daycare centers, work in the daycare centers, and a good place to start doing the training would be at small business development centers. He thinks they sent a request for 2.5 million dollars to advance this. To which about two days later he got an email back from Schnorf` asking what they could do with 6 million? The window of opportunity opens and you do something. But in the absence of this body or body like it, who is there to work to through these and have them in their back pocket when the window opens. Chair Murphy said he thinks they first need to see what the county board’s plans are for the CEC and if they have any

CEC Minutes –April 12, 2017/ pg.6

plans. Mr. Sims said he thought it was worrisome that the CEC members did not know. Chair Murphy said to prepare for either: whether they would disband or be continued with an outline of a report of what this version of CEC accomplished for the May 10th meeting. He said he would request a meeting with County Board Chairman.

IX. New Business

A. Next Meeting Date –May 10, 2017, at 3:00 p.m. until 5:00 p.m.

X. Public Comments

Ms. Berns said Chairman Van Meter sent a communication to all the newly elected mayors to personally invite them to attend and become active participants in the Regional Leadership Council (RLC) and the next meeting will be April 26th. We are having cookies and punch a half hour before the meeting.

Mr. Sims stated that the RLC wanted to know if someone from the CEC would be attending the RLC meetings.

XI. Adjournment

Chair Murphy asked if there were any further comments. There being none, he called for a motion to adjourn. Mr. Wesley moved to adjourn. Dr. Dorsey seconded the motion. There being no further business, the meeting was adjourned.

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