Commssion meets with dept. heads

The Cloud County board of commissioners met with department heads during its regular meeting on Monday.
Department head reports presented included:
Mike Hake, Solid Waste director – Hired a temporary full-time employee, employees thanked the commissioners for giving them their birthday off and reported KWORCC recently conducted a safety inspection and the items found were fixed.
Tyler Husa, River Valley Extension District – Conservation District annual meeting was last Thursday. Doug Smith received the Wildlife Habitat Award; spring planting workshop is on March 19 and a Burn workshop is on February 25 in Washington County.
Jerry Collins, IT director – Security scan had been completed, with just a couple of items to take care of; discussed the KSGMIS meeting in Newton last week.
Andy Asch, Highway Department administrator – Discussed the road conditions.
Nancy Owen, deputy Appraiser – Wrapping up final values, and mailing them on first of March.
Brandi Bray, Health Department administrator – Working on the Wind Farm grant application for Stop the Bleed kits to be put in county vehicles and equipment to provide certification for CPR and AED, looking into if equipment used previously was the counties and what may have happened to it.
Henry Eilert, Maintenance manager – Participated in the flag ceremony on January 29 to honor John A. Elstrom who was retiring from the U.S. Air Force after 30 years of service, serviced all of the air handlers and helping move furniture.
JoDee LeDuc, Treasurer – Commercial and heavy truck trailer renewals are due at the end of February.
Shella Thoman, County Clerk – Asked department heads to remind employees of the special offered at Womack for oil changes; benefit statements are visible to be reviewed by department heads before they are sent to employees; working with the city of Concordia to get Textcaster set up for county notifications, please have employees sign up; time clocks have been installed at the Courthouse and Health Department; handed out the severe weather and emergency conditions policy for discussion; recommendation to remove being paid and one and a half times the regular rate.
Bill Czapanskiy, commissioner – Inquired about putting information about the Neighborhood Revitalization program in an upcoming mailing. He said it had been sent out a few years back, but the program has changed.
Also during the meeting, Asch reported that he had talked to Hall Brothers about the Ames/Miltonvale road and the cost would be between $711,000 and $749,000. He also reported he had ordered beams for bridges at a cost of nearly $23,000 and that beams have not been purchased since 2016 and that clearing has started for project 15c-4875 (county line bridge).
The commission discussed the severe weather and emergency conditions policy. Thoman will make the corrections to the employee handbook and present the changes at the next meeting.
Thoman informed the commission that she had received an email last week from Sheriff Brian Marks letting her know that the Law Enforcement Center will not be using the time clocks that were scheduled to be installed. She stated that she felt like it was not in the best interest of the county or the employees by not using them, but that they were looking at other options for places they could be beneficial.
Marks also inquired about full-time paperwork for the nurse at the Law Enforcement Center. He had previously requested the board reclassify the position as full-time.
Thoman discussed the change with the KCAMP attorney and is waiting on additional clarification from County Attorney Rob Walsh, but believes that a motion by the board to create the position as full-time would be necessary for the reclassification to happen. She said the budget will not be a problem, as the nurse was budgeted for 40 hours per week.
Czapanskiy made the motion to change the Law Enforcement Center nurse position to full time. Following a discussion, the motion was withdrawn.
The board approved the hiring of Jared Shuler as full-time temporary Recycling Center sorter effective February 6 at a rate of $11.50 per hour.
A wage change for Kathleen Thomas, equipment operator from $14.44 to $15.02 due to introductory wage ending.
The board approved a capital outlay request from the IT Department for $5,038.92 for two single monitor computer systems and two Surface books.
A real property tax relief application for the tax year 2018 for William Tobald for a loss due to a fire at 725 North 65th Road, Glasco, was approved by the board.
The board approved the following payroll expenses totaling $157,230.15:
General Fund, $85,019.42; Appraisal, $5,035.32; Noxious Weed, $1,676.46; Solid Waste, $4,623.16; Road & Bridge, $43,125.26; County Health, 16,276.01; Election, $1,474.52, and payroll deductions and benefits totaling $65,734.49.
County offices will be closed on February 18 in observances of Presidents Day.