Kankakee Times

Iroquois County Board met Nov. 23.

Here is the minutes provided by the board:

The Iroquois County Board met in Special Session on Monday, November 23, 2020 at 9 A.M. The meeting was conducted electronically, via Zoom, under Phase 4 of the Governor’s Plan to reopen the State of Illinois and Executive Order 2020-59. The phased opening and executive order were issued in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, they require social distancing measures to be taken to stop the spread of the highly contagious virus and also suspend certain provisions of the Illinois Open Meetings Act to allow for public bodies to continue their course of business during the public health emergency. Chairman Shure called the meeting to order and asked County Clerk Breein Suver to call the roll.

Chairman Shure

On motion to call the roll

Aye: Alt, Behrends, Bowers, Crow, Curtis, Ducat, Huse, Johnson*, McGinnis*, Offill, Shure, Stichnoth, Whitlow, Young*

Absent: Bard, Bohlmann, Coughenour, Duby, McTaggart, Zumwalt

*denotes member that was present via Zoom

PRAYER & PLEDGE OF ALLEGIANCE

Mrs. Offill gave the opening prayer after which the Pledge of Allegiance was recited in unison.

CALL FOR SPECIAL SESSION

County Clerk Breein Suver read the call for special session.

To Breein Suver:

We, the undersigned members of the County Board of Iroquois County, Illinois, do hereby request you to call a special meeting of the County Board of Iroquois County, Illinois to meet at the Administrative Center in the City of Watseka, Illinois on Monday, November 23, 2020 at 10:00 AM for the purpose of discussion and action regarding a media conversion project for the Iroquois County Recorder using CURES Grant Funding

s/John Shure

s/Ernest Curtis

s/Gerald “Jed” Whitlow

s/Barbara Offill

s/Lyle Behrends

s/Steve Huse

s/Sherry Johnson

It was moved by Mr. Curtis and seconded to approve the agenda. The motion carried by a roll call vote.

PUBLIC COMMENTS

There were no public comments.

DISCUSSION AND ACTION REGARDING A MEDIA CONVERSION PROJECT FOR THE IROQUOIS COUNTY RECORDER USING CURES GRANT FUNDS Chairman Shure explained the reason for the special session was in regards to approving a media conversion agreement between Iroquois County and Fidlar, the County Recording Software Vendor which could potentially be reimbursed through the CURES Grant that was awarded to Iroquois County for Covid related expenses.

County Clerk and Recorder Breein Suver told the Board that she heard about the CURES Grant and the possibility of utilizing it for the digitizing of records in the Recording Office at a webinar. She was then approached by Fidlar, the Recording software vendor, with the opportunity to move forward with a media conversion agreement. The initial proposal from the vendor was for the scanning only of the documents, which would have given the Recorder a hard drive that contained the scanned images. While this would be beneficial for employees to telework, it would not allow for those outside the office access to the documents. The second proposal in the amount of $76,728.50 was for the scanning and image processing into the Fidlar program, including grouping and naming of the images, which would make them searchable by document number. She explained, the justification of this type of project being a Covid related expense boils down to the fact that having the documents available on line give title searchers, attorneys, banks, and the general public the ability to work remotely, without having to physically go into the Recorder’s Office. The project proposal is for a 10-year span of documents from 1980-1989. Currently, the County has documents going back to 1990 online. 1996 to present are indexed; 1995 through 1990 are searchable by document number. The documents for this proposal would also be searchable by document number until they are indexed. By digitizing the 10-years of documents, it will give the County 40 years of land records available online. County Clerk Breein Suver commented that the project was not put out for bid and it is over the $30,000 threshold that requires counties to let for bid. She was unsure, because of the type of contract and integration of current professional services, if it would have to be let out for bid and asked if the Board was going to move forward that State’s Attorney Jim Devine be contacted for an opinion.

The Board discussed the media conversion project along with additional grant related expenditures that could potentially be sought for reimbursement. It was noted that the chance of denial for the reimbursement of the media conversion project was real as Kankakee County had their request denied. There was discussion on where the money would come from to pay for the media conversion project. Finance Manager Jill Johnson said there was money in the County Board Contingency Line, as well as in the Finance Contingency Line; however, there was not enough to cover the costs in total. By adding in money from the Recorder’s Automation Line, there would be enough to cover the cost of the project. It was moved by Mr. Behrends and seconded to move forward with the media conversion contract, pending approval from State’s Attorney Jim Devine. The motion carried by a roll call vote.

On motion to move forward with the media conversion contract, pending approval from State’s Attorney Jim Devine

Aye: Alt, Behrends, Bowers, Crow, Curtis, Ducat, Huse, Johnson, McGinnis, Offill, Shure, Stichnoth, Whitlow, Young

Absent: Bard, Bohlmann, Coughenour, Duby, McTaggart, Zumwalt

OLD BUSINESS

There was no old business.

NEW BUSINESS

There was no new business.

ADJOURNMENT

As there was no further business to come before the Board, it was moved by Mr. Bowers and seconded to adjourn at 10:37 A.M. The motion carried by a roll call vote. The next County Board meeting will be held at the Administrative Center, in Watseka, on Monday, December 7, 2020 at 9 A.M.

http://www.co.iroquois.il.us/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/County-Board-Special-Session-11.23.2020.pdf