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July Finance Committee Meeting
[July 10, 2025]
On Tuesday, July 8th, the
Finance committee of the larger Logan County Board met for their
monthly meeting. The meeting was held in the Blue Room of the Logan
County Safety Complex starting just after 6:15 p.m. The meeting was
supposed to start at 6:00 p.m., but the new Safety committee met in
the same location starting at 5:30 p.m. and that meeting went about
ten minutes past 6:00 p.m. All committee members were present with
the exception of Dale Nelson. Members present included Chairman
Kathy Schmidt, Vice Chairman Joseph Kuhlman, Lance Conahan, and
Keenan Leesman.
The meeting started with Schmidt giving the floor to Bret Aukamp of
the Highway Department. Aukamp spoke of not having enough funding
for his department. He shared that, over the last few years, he has
felt that his department has begun struggling increasingly with
their finances. He then shared that he believes he discovered the
reason why. Aukamp shared that the percent increases his department
and others have been getting come budget time over the last few
years is not enough. He then shared that the General Fund has been
receiving double the percent that most other departments receive. He
stated that many funds are getting “short changed,” and that the
Highway Department is not able to pull anything from the General
Fund for their cost of operation. He then stated that his department
must be given their “fair share.”
Leesman then addressed this comment, asking if Aukamp feels the
Highway Department’s 3.4 percent increase is not their fair share
like it is for everyone else. Aukamp responded by stating that he
wants “all ships to rise equally.” Aukamp then spoke on the motor
fuel tax fund. He stated that, while he is able to dip into this
fund, and does so for his salary and the salary of a few other
Highway Department employees, the more he dips into it, the less
money there is for maintenance of roads in the county.
After Aukamp spoke, he left to get to another meeting. Next the
floor was given to Kayla Davis of the Sheriff’s Department. Davis
told the board that Sheriff Mark Landers wanted her to give an
update on some of the grants they received for body cameras for
their officers and where those grants are at in refunding the
Sheriff’s Department. She shared that one grant was about halfway
refunded,, and the other grant was almost entirely refunded with
about $3,000 that they have yet to receive.
Once Aukamp and Davis’s comments were made, Schmidt moved the
committee to old business, of which there was only one item on the
agenda. The only item on old business was the Community Benefit Fund
(CBF) guidelines. An application and guidelines for the CBF were
voted on and passed last month. The committee made sure that board
member Michael DeRoss’s request for 501(c)(19) organizations to be
added to the list of groups able to apply for CBF guidelines was
added, and Leesman shared that he added it that night. The committee
was unsure if this update had been added to the guidelines on the
county website, and stated that they would make sure it was.
This brought the committee on to
new business. There were five items on the agenda for new business.
The first was a credit card for the new Administrative Assistant,
Madelyn Hinton. Schmidt shared that she and County Treasurer Penny
Thomas looked for the limit the previous Administrative Assistant,
Katie Newman, had on the card issued to her. Schmidt stated that
they could not find what the limit was and proposed a limit of
$5,000. Conahan clarified that Newman would use this card to help
with expenses mainly at animal control and the airport. He then made
a motion to move this item to the Workshop agenda this Thursday,
which was seconded by Kuhlman.
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The second item on
new business was the budget. Schmidt shared that Nelson was
supposed to speak on this, but was absent. She said that she and
Nelson had discussed having a meeting to talk with all of the
department heads on what financial needs they have going into
next year. A date of July 30th was set for this meeting. Leesman
then shared that, in the past, meeting with each department head
individually, as they would do, sometimes took an hour or more
each. He said that they would break these meetings up across
multiple days so as to not have too much to do all at one time.
Schmidt said they would keep July 30th as the date, but only
schedule a few department meetings on that day.
The next item was labeled “IT
reimbursement” on the agenda. It was shared that, when the county
made a contract with Hart IT for email and other IT services, the
contract stated that each department would pay for their portion of
what Hart’s bill would be. There was some discrepancy on exactly
what occurred, but the general consensus was that former
Administrative Assistant Newman was supposed to get the bills to
each department, and that did not happen. Thomas told Schmidt that
they really need each department to pay what they were supposed to
have, and that someone will need to reach out to them about paying
now. The money for these bills so far has been coming from the
Building and Grounds committee’s funds. Conahan, Chairman of that
committee, stated they are starting to get a bit low in that
account, with $61,000 remaining. Leesman shared that when the
contract with Hart was signed, there was a breakdown of exactly how
much each department was responsible for. It was agreed that the
committee would try to find that contract and then move forward once
they had.
Next on the agenda was a tax sale for Susan J Utterback. The
committee viewed the paperwork for this briefly before making a
motion to move it on to Workshop.
The final item on new business was an insurance renewal request from
Counties of Illinois Risk Management Agency (CIRMA). The committee
members all pulled up an email they had received on this, and it
stated that the renewal was due by July 14th. The committee was not
sure how much the renewal would be. If it was under $30,000, the
committee could renew it without full board approval. A motion was
made to move this item to Workshop depending on what was found out
between the two meetings.
The board then moved on to approval of bills. Several comments were
made, one from Conahan, about the bills coming from animal control
being “off the charts.” Conahan stated it appeared that 403 percent
of their donations last month had been spent. Kuhlman inquired why
that did not stop at 100 percent, but no one had an answer. The
bills were approved, and a bit more conversation was had about
things such as the Safety committee and the Logan County Tourism
Bureau. After these discussions, and with no public comments, a
motion was made to adjourn.
[Matt Boutcher]
[Text received from file]
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