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 Under new business, Ruben discussed the annual abatement
ordinance, which has to do with bonds backed by the authority of the
county that were taken out to pay for the Harris brothers murder
trials. He explained that they are paying the bonds out of other
places and if the board could not pay them anyplace else, the board
could tax citizens in the property taxes to collect the money from
it.
Ruben said the board has to put it on as an obligation, but then
abate it because they are not going to need it because they are
going to pay for it another way. He said that they have to do the
abatement every year when they do the levies at budget time.
 Davenport asked how many years they have to do the abatement?
Ruben said it is for the life of the bond, which is 20 years, noting
that they are three years into the bond. Ruben said that they would
do it until they pay them off, noting that there is an option to pay
them off early.
Dugan asked what would happen if the community did not vote it in?
Ruben said he was not sure.
A motion was carried to discuss it at Thursday's board workshop.
Quadrennial property assessments
In other business, Assessor Denise Martinek said that the assessor's
office has been busy as they have updated a lot of the residential
pictures, inputting all new sketches. She explained that there are
18,000 parcels in Logan County with probably about 12,000 to 14,000
that are residential. Martinek said her office has also input
everything from the old property record cards into the canvas
system, which is a computer aided mass appraisal system that gives
them an idea of where the assessment should be.
Martinek noted that they have run into some problems because when
they look at the data from everything that has been input, there is
a lot that has not been picked up, such as people having a garage
they are not assessing for or changing a garage into a living space,
then building another garage.
 Martinek said that they are trying to keep up, but that they will
probably be in the field a lot more just to make sure that they have
everything and going through everything with "a fine tooth comb."
She said her office wants these assessments to be "fair and
accurate" and they are finding that some of the conditions of
certain properties are "far better than we ever thought" and "some
are worse than we thought." Martinek says her staff has worked very
hard and gone "above and beyond at times."
Ruben asked Martinek if she needed more money for mileage as she had
indicated to him. Martinek said that she would since their mileage
budget had been cut from $2500 to $2000, and there are many
properties they need to go back out and check again. She said that
she will have to wait until next year to check some of these
properties since she needs to close out this year's assessments
soon. When Ruben asked how much more she would need, Martinek said
that between $2500 and $2750 may be needed to cover the costs. Ruben
said that the board would need to amend the budget, they could amend
the mileage amount from $2000 to $2750, making a motion to discuss
it further at Thursday's workshop.
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Rohlfs asked if the fact that the staff is driving their own vehicles has made a
difference in mileage costs, and Martinek confirmed that is has.
Ruben explain that the staff from the assessor's office went out [to check more
properties] this year because of the quadrennials, and that realizing some of
what is missing will mean they have to go out into the field more next year.
During quadrennial assessment occurring every four years, assessors must view
all properties in their jurisdiction.
Martinek told the committee that instead of going out every four years, some
counties are looking at a quarter of the county every year, and she has thought
about doing that. After looking into that option, however, Martinek decided that
there is much going on throughout the county, she does not feel that right now
she could just focus on a quarter of it. Martinek stated that the next
quadrennial will be 2019 and that it would probably be a good time to look at
that option, thinking they could do a quarter that year then another quarter in
2020. Ruben thought that might be a good option.
Other business
Ruben next motioned for a budget amendment to the current budget to put $500
coming into the drug court fees, explaining that it is a new law and a new
collection. A motion to carry it over to Thursday's board workshop was passed.
In old business, Ruben stated that the budget for fiscal year 2015-2016 is still
on display and will be passed around at Thursday's meeting with one amendment
likely.
County treasurer Vicky Dugan reported that the IMRF audit has been completed and
the county is in compliance.
After expenses and bills were approved, the meeting was adjourned.
The next finance meeting will be November 10, 2015 at 5:30 p.m.
[Angela Reiners]
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