Lake County Gazette

Ogle County County Facilities, County Security and IT Committee met Dec. 10

Here are the minutes provided by the committee:

1. Call Meeting to Order: Vice Chairperson Nordman called the meeting to order at 1 p.m. Present: Fox Gillis, Kenney, Nordman, Oltmanns, Reising, Youman, Williams and Nordman Absent: Miller Others

Present: Coroner Christie Cox, Director of IT Larry Callant, HR Director Amanda Jacinto, Sheriff VanVickle, Corbitt, Griffin, Lloyd Droege, Arlene Sangmeister and June Jacobs

2. Approval of Minutes – November 12, 2024: Motion by Kenney to approve, 2nd by Reising. Motion carried.

3. Public Comment: None

4. Review and Approval of Bills:

a. County Facilities

■ Buildings & Grounds: $9,003.13 - Motion by Reising to approve, 2nd by Kenney. Motion carried.

■ Utilities: Electric - $40,243.94 | Gas - $4,086.84 | Water - $2,752.54

Motion to approve utility bills by Oltmanns and Gillis seconds. Motion carried.

Youman questioned if Alpha can present a five-year energy usage and show where we transitioned to solar and what cost savings we have had. Griffin stated they are in the works of doing that right now and he can share when it is available.

■ Sheriff: None

■ Emergency Communications: None.

■ Corrections: None.

■ OCEMA: None.

b. Department Claims: Nordman stated the department claims have been reviewed.

■ Sheriff: $45,674.58 | ECOM: $1,438.34 | Corrections: $38,704.67 | OCEMA: $1,749.58

c. Coroner: $2,239.49 - Motion by Reising to approve, 2nd by Kenney. Motion carried. Nordman welcomed Cox officially to her first meeting. Cox thanked her and reported there have been 26 deaths and the total deaths, to date, are 480. Oltmanns asked of those 26 how many did her staff go to. Cox shared she can find out for him but usually it depends on the type of death whether they have to go to the site or not. Cox state to best of her knowledge in the last ten days it has been about six times. Cox commented that she would be happy to provide those numbers at any time if someone is interested. Oltmanns asked that maybe there could be a summary in a few months just to get a picture. Nordman stated it would be interesting to see if there are any usual trends.

d. IT: $109,673.43 – Motion by Fox to approve, 2nd by Reising. Motion carried. Callant stated these are so high because it is the payments for hardware maintenance and software maintenance for Microsoft. Fox asked if these are within the budget and Callant replied yes it was. Callant also shared they have purchased new laptops for the County Board because the old ones seemed to be coming in for repair consistently in the last few months or so. Callant stated the last ones were purchased by the County Clerk but the repairs were becoming consistent enough to replace them.

So they are working on getting those ready to distribute soon.

5. County Facilities Discussion – Status Report – Comments

Sheriff VanVickle reported they have made 268 total arrests, 71 total accidents and one of those was fatal. He shared they are seeing between 10 to 14 Marshall inmates. Which if those numbers stay on track we should be tracking $300,000 a year. VanVickle stated based on conversations last month we are expecting those numbers to be going up. Kenney asked what the comfortable capacity is and Sheriff stated 80/85 before they would have to add staff but if that was all Marshall inmates they would need to add staff due to increased transports. Sheriff spoke to lack in staffing due to Workmen’s Comp or injuries and the use of earned time. He stated his staff is working a lot of overtime to fill the voids and are now dealing with an unexpected announcement of retirement. He shared it takes about 9-10 months to train someone for a new position to where they can be on their own and we try to prepare for things but it doesn’t always go the way you think it will. VanVickle also stated hiring is not very easy when the contracts aren’t signed yet so we cannot provide great incentives for hiring with old contract numbers so far below compensation in our surrounding areas.

6. County Security: None

7. Coroner Discussion: See above.

8. IT Department: See above.

9. Closed Session: None

10. Open Session: None

11. Old Business:

a. American Recovery Plan Act – None.

12. New Business:

a. Proposed Ordinance Review: Sheriff stated recently there have been some concerns with solicitors in the unincorporated areas of the County. He stated this is something that is a little hard because municipalities have ordinances but the County does not. Sheriff stated they have found an example of another County’s ordinance that he has sent to State’s Attorney Rock but hasn’t heard a response back from him yet. Sheriff stated as soon as he gets something back from Rock he will distribute it to the committee for review before next month’s meeting.

13. Adjournment: With no further business, Chairperson Nordman adjourned. Time: 1:25 p.m.

https://www.oglecountyil.gov/document_center/County%20Board/Committees/County%20Facilities/2024/County%20Facilities%20-%20County%20Security%20-%20IT%20Minutes%20December.pdf