Logan County Board Workshop Meeting
Board hears public comments on C02 Sequestration, talks raises for non-union employees and hears concerns over distribution of tax levy increases
 

[October 13, 2024] 

On Thursday, October 10th, the Logan County Board met for their monthly workshop meeting. This meeting, which was held on the first floor of the Logan County Courthouse, is held prior to each month’s regular board meeting so the members can determine what is and is not to be voted on at the regular meeting.

At the start of the meeting, the board was just able to make a quorum, the minimum number of members that must be present for official business to occur. The board members present were chairman Michael DeRoss, vice chairman Dale Nelson, Bob Sanders, Joseph Kuhlman, Keenan Leesman, Jim Wessbecher, and Gil Turner. As the meeting progressed, members Hannah Fitzpatrick and JR Glenn came in after the start. Members Emily Davenport, Julie Bobell, and Kathy Schmidt were not in attendance.

The meeting kicked off, as these usually do, with public comments. Community Member Susan Adams was the only person to speak during this time, giving the board an update on CO2 sequestration. Archer Daniels Midland (ADM) is a company that focuses on carbon capturing. Adams informed the members in attendance that ADM had a leak in the second monitoring well that they put in. According to Adams, it started having problems in 2020 and began leaking last year.

Adams continued, sharing information on what other counties have done to curb CO2 sequestration. According to Adams, Champaign County is considering a ban on CO2 sequestration because they are above the Mahomet Aquifer. Seeing as how Logan County is also above this aquifer, Adams stated that our county may be able to ban CO2 sequestration based on the same grounds. Adams handed out a packet to the board members that also included some advice for requesting Illinois lawmakers to ban sequestration.

After Adams’s comments, the board began moving through each committee and discussing items being brought forward. The board either passed the item on to be voted upon at the regular board meeting, or they would send it back to the committees.

The first committee that had their agenda items discussed was Building and Grounds. This committee only had one item to bring forward, and that was the Winter Wonderland Christmas trees around the square. The board approved this item without discussion, sending it forth to be voted on for final approval at next Tuesday’s regular board meeting.

The next committee up was Executive and Personnel. This committee also only had one item, which was the appointment of Cole Awe to Broadwell’s Special Drainage District Number One. This was also approved with no discussion.

Next up was Finance, where there were several agenda items to be discussed. The first was a tax sale for Leonard Harmon, which was approved without discussion. The second item was the per diem/milage verbiage change to the board’s policy. DeRoss noted that, with any language change to board policy, the proposed change would have to be publicly posted for thirty days before it could be voted on and approved by the board. This being the case, DeRoss said they would not be able to vote on this until November.

After this there was a discussion on tax levies. It was during this discussion that Bret Aukamp of the Logan County Highway Department spoke up. He brought some information forward comparing tax levy increases for Logan County’s general fund versus the increases his department saw. Aukamp brought out several numbers, stating that the general fund usually gets somewhere around seven percent, while his department usually only sees an increase of about three to four percent. He wanted to know why this was.

The board members gave several reasons for this. One reasoning Nelson gave for this was that the general fund usually needs more than other departments and will always have a higher percentage. Nelson also shared that, according to the law, there is a set limit to the percentage amount all departments can be increased total per year. That percentage is not per department, but rather a set percentage number, where the board has to decide how much percent everyone gets. This being the case, if the board is at their limit, to increase the percentage of one department, they would have to decrease the percent of another department by that percent amount. They did offer to look into it, though, as they were not sure if the county was yet at that overall percent limit or not.

The next Finance item was a proposed three percent salary increase for all non-union employees of the county. DeRoss quickly brought up an important point, that being that the board cannot increase all individual employees’ salaries. When the board votes for an increase to salaries, each department gets an amount, but the elected official overseeing that department gets to distribute the amount to the employees they oversee. “We can’t tell the Treasurer she’s got to give her people a three percent raise,” said DeRoss. “She could give this guy six and that guy nothing… Not saying that she would, but she can.” Consumer Price Index (CPI) was also mentioned. In 2023, CPI was 3.4%, meaning that a three percent raise would still have their employees behind the rate of inflation.

Transportation was the next department, not having any items for the board to officially vote on. Zoning and Economic Development was next, being the last committee of the five. The first item that was briefly discussed was an update to wind ordinances in the county. These updates are to bring Logan County in compliance with state recommendations on wind energy projects. The county has already done the same with solar previously. All of this was explained by Tracy Bergin of the Zoning Department.

The next item for discussion was a decommissioning plan for the Pivot Energy solar farm that was approved back in August. Brittney Krebsbach, employee of Pivot Energy, was present to speak on this and answer questions. Krebsbach stated that, since Pivot Energy is still early in many of their solar projects, they do not yet have everything for decommissioning down but are wanting to put plans in place for when it is time to decommission a project. She stated that, in about forty years, when it is time to decommission Lincoln’s solar project, they would work with the local government to get all of the necessary permits. They would also go about restoring the site where the solar project was. The cost of decommissioning the site is estimated to be about $283,000, minus whatever Pivot Energy is able to get from scrapping and selling the project materials.

A few announcements were made toward the end of the meeting. The first was that a special Zoning and Economic Development Committee meeting was planned for 5:30 pm on Tuesday, October 15th. This meeting will be in the first-floor courtroom of the Logan County Courthouse, followed directly after by the October regular board meeting. The board also planned a special regular board meeting for Wednesday, October 16th to discuss the budget. Like the per diem/mileage language change, next year’s budget has to be posted for thirty days before the board can vote on it. The board plans to vote on the budget in November.

[Matt Boutcher]