Logan County offers animal control contracts to all communities; Census still being collected

 

[May 29, 2020] 

At the Logan County Regular Board meeting on Tuesday, May 19th, the board heard committee updates and voted on several items.

Animal Control Committee Update

Animal Control Committee Chairman Steve Jenness brought forward a motion to send Animal Control Contracts to Mount Pulaski, Latham, Atlanta, Middletown, Broadwell, Elkhart, Emden, Hartsburg, and New Holland.

Board member Scott Schaffenacker amended the motion to change the contract amounts from $3,421.24 to $2,400 for Mount Pulaski’s contract based on the amount negotiated at a committee meeting last summer.

Jenness said he realized the committee made that modification last year. He said based on a three-year average of calls to Mount Pulaski, it added up to about four dollars per call that the city is charged.
Both the amendment and main motion passed unanimously.

All the contract amounts will be the same as the 2019-2020 contracts and will become effective June 1, 2020.

The contract amounts are as follows:
 

	Monthly	20-21 year
Lincoln	$3,500.00	$42,000.00
Mount Pulaski	$   200.00	$  2,400.00
Latham	$     66.33	$     795.56
Atlanta	$   110.46	$  1,352.56
Middletown	$   110.46	$  1,352.56
Broadwell	$     66.33	$    795.56

There are NO contracts with Elkhart, Emden, Hartsburg, and New Holland; however, offers were sent to each of these communities at a rate of $110.46 monthly and $1,352.56 annually.

Census update

The board also heard an update on the 2020 census. There is a Complete Count Committee with Logan County Zoning Officer Will D’Andrea and Ron Keller (City Alderman) as Co-Chairs. The committee (with no formal authority or funding) has been meeting for several months to try and encourage participation in the Census.

The Complete Count Committee has tried to identify “people groups” and organizations that interact with those groups and encourage them to encourage their constituents to fill out the census.

For example, D’Andrea said District 27 was contacted and was going to do some activities in the schools, to send home to parents, but Covid-19 closed schools. Community Action and D’Andrea were planning on all kinds of outreach efforts and the Library was going to have outreach and offer to assist [people who needed to] use computers to do the census online. The pandemic has delayed some of the outreach as some places are closed and many are working from home.

The committee is trying to get word out through Social Media that the census is still happening.

The time to get census information in has been extended to the end of October, which will help Logan County. The county had a 73.1 percent response in 2010 and the extra time should allow the county to surpass that for the 2020 census. Numbers are already at 65 percent.

Logan County Zoning Officer Will D’Andrea said he is trying to get help with outreach from public offices. He hopes percentages will increase as things open.

Todd Volker, who works for the United States Census, said they may be able to set something up with school registration. He asked the board to remind people to fill out the census form.

The higher the percentage response, the fewer doors census workers will have to go knock on to try and get participation.

Finance Committee updates

The board approved the following motions brought forward by Finance Committee Chairman Chuck Ruben:

1. The annual audit of the county budget by Clifton-Allen-Larson.

Clifton-Allen-Larson representative Adam Pulley sent financial statements to board members for their review.

Pulley said the results on both the regular audit and single audit (on the Federal grant) were clean and unmodified.

Pulley had recommendations on two items. First, the Jury Commissioner bank account is not recorded on the general ledger. He recommended that all bank accounts get recorded on the general ledger.

Second, Pulley said there is some lack of centralization with the tracking of capital assets between departments. Pulley said this past year, the county had more activity when it came to infrastructure projects, airport projects and equipment purchased by various departments.

When auditors went through the capital asset area of testing, they thought they were done. As they continued the audit, Pulley said they saw some things that did not make sense. The auditors then realized they did not have everything they needed to have for the capital assets initially.

While Pulley said it is tough in a county that has various departments, there needs to be tracking of the capital assets. These would include the infrastructure projects, airport projects and equipment purchased by various departments. Better tracking of these assets would help with the audit.

Pulley appreciated how well the departments worked with him during the audit.

Ruben asked about the bond for the courthouse since most of the work done will fall under capital assets. Ruben wanted to know what the county could do to make it easier for the auditors to track the capital assets next year.

For that, Pulley said he could discuss it with Logan County Treasurer Penny Thomas. He said having one designated person tracking the capital assets in a folder or an Excel spreadsheet would help. That person could then share the information with Thomas or the auditors.

Since these expenses should all come from one line item, Ruben said that would be easy to do.

2. An Engagement Letter for Professional Services with PGAV Planners, LLC for bond process.

At Thursday’s Board Workshop, Ruben said they were one of two companies who bid on doing the bond process.

PGAV Planners will investigate how much money the county will receive from the half cent public facilities. Ruben said that will help the board decide how much to bond. Covid-19 [and how it has affected businesses] could decrease the amount the county can bond. The amount may be less than $11 million.

Ruben said the county will go out for the maximum amount by June 1.

3. A purchase of a Geographical Information System server at a cost of $12,000 that will come out of the GIS fund.

This server will be at the Logan County Highway Department building and will replace a server that is 10 years old.

All these motions were unanimously approved.

Building and Grounds Tech Sub-Committee update

The board unanimously approved Tech Sub-Committee Chairman Cameron Halpin’s motion for Watts Copy Systems to return DCS Copiers with the shipping fees per machine being charged to the department where each machine resides. The $300 removal fee will be paid out of the line item for county board office expenses.

Executive and Personnel Committee update

Executive and Personnel Committee Chairman Scott Schaffenacker’s motion to indefinitely postpone the electronic recycling event scheduled for June (due to the pandemic and restrictions) was unanimously approved.

Transportation Committee update

Transportation Committee Chairman Janet Estill’s motion for the chairman to sign a Covid-19 contract to provide federal funding for Public Transportation in Logan and Mason Counties was unanimously approved. This contract must be signed by the chairman for the county to be eligible for these funds.

The next Regular Logan County Board meeting will be held Tuesday, June 16 at 6:00 p.m.

[Angela Reiners]