Todd County Board of Commissioners
Kircher opposes changes without discussion 

by Karin L. Nauber
karin@inhnews.com

After discussion, the board agreed to bring the revision to the county credit card policy to a work session for further discussion.

Kircher said, “We should have discussion before. Why didn’t we bring this to a work session before bringing it here? I have issues with the $500 limit. I am concerned because we (as a board) need to have more input on policy than just having it presented before we adopt it.”

Neumann asked if this was what was done before they had an administrator (what the revised policy was proposing)?

Busch said that previously, all the credit cards had been with the auditor/treasurer so people had to come to her office to get them.

She said there would be a quicker turn-around with the cards being with supervisors.

Blessing said that the three departments in question: sheriff’s office, public health and social services, can get them in their departments now.

Busch said that this way the departments have their receipts and no one has to run down receipts.

Kircher said that when it came to changing policy, all five commissioners needed to give their input. He said they also needed ample time to think about and discuss the proposals.

“We are developing a pattern of changing policy. We agreed we were going to stay on the same path when the administrator left. It seems it is running amok. The power steering is gone.

Neumann said, “The issues we are dealing with are because of the things the county administrator did. There are issues with the bills not getting paid. The administrator had full control over the credit cards, right?”

Busch said “No.”

Kircher responded, “If you are going to point fingers you have to point them at us. We approved the policy for the administrator to follow. We need to have more thought process on this. It shouldn’t be a wham-bam-thank you kind of deal.”

Recorder’s Office

After discussion at this meeting and previously at a work session, Recorder Cheryl Perish presented a resolution for establishing the Certificate of Possessory Title (CPT) method of registering property in Todd County.

This form of registration is to provide an initial voluntary procedure for registration of certain possessory estates in and with certainty under a CPT at a reasonable cost and speed and cuts out the necessity of the initial adjudication required by Chapter 508.

Perish said she saw the benefit as did Tom Sellnow who is the appointed Examiner of Titles for the county.

The biggest benefit is that it takes less time and is at less cost. It is up to the owners of the property if they want to do this form of title.

Perish said this is especially useful in cases where part of a property is in torrens and part is in abstract because property owners have to pay double the recording fees. However, with the CPT they don’t have to. The CPT would make the property all torrens. To make such a property all abstract would require going through the court.

Sellnow pointed out that this procedure will not fix title problems. This is for good titles only. What it does, in essence, is simplify the recording from a huge abstract file to a single piece of paper.

This change would cost the county nothing.

Commissioner David Kircher said that this procedure had more pros than cons and appeared to be “a harmless resolution that moves things along.”

The board approved the resolution.

Todd County Development Corporation

Approved a TCDC application through the county to the Initiative Foundation for a challenge grant of $5000. The IF will grant the TCDC $5000 and will need to raise $5000 from donors. 

TCDC Director Rick Utech said they did this last year and raised well above the $5000 necessary.

In a related TCDC grant, Utech reported that they had received a $9000 grant from Blandin for creating 10 wi-fi hot spots in the county.

A copy of the TCDC annual meeting report is on their website at: http://www.co.todd.mn.us/departments/announcement/tc_development_corp/todd_county_development_corporation_2011_annual_report.

Public Works

After hearing a story about Neal Katterhagen and about how he was a great operator and a great employee, the board accepted the resignation of Katterhagen effective March 29 as he is retiring. Katterhagen worked for the county for 27 years and 10 months.

Approved filling the vacant position left by Katterhagen as the public works department would be short staffed for the scheduled summer workload without filling the position.

Director Loren Fellbaum said that the new hire would not start until May or June if everything goes well with the hiring process.

A brief closed session was held with Attorney Jason Kuboushek of the Iverson Ruevers Law Firm to discuss the ongoing case of Todd County vs Central Specialties Inc. regarding a discrepancy in road work done in the county. The meeting was related to the courts recent ruling which dealt with motions for reconsideration. Kuboushek reported that the court ruled in the county’s favor.

MIS

Approved the hire of Zachary Aaberg as GIS specialist effective Wednesday, March 20 at Grade 20, Step 2 or $20.088 per hour. For the remainder of the year the financial implications of the hire are $31,388.

Kircher asked if the job description for the GIS position had changed since the last GIS person had left.

MIS Director Chris Pelzer said that it had and the position was now a GIS specialist.

Licenses

The board approved several liquor, set up and dance licenses for Todd County businesses.

Health and Human Services

Approved the hire of Tracy Pederson as a child support officer at Grade 18, Step 2 with a start date of April 1. The financial implications for this hire are $33,738 annually with 60% of the funding coming from federal and state resources and 40% coming from the county.

Approved amendments to the South Country Health Alliance Joint Powers Agreement.

Auditor/Treasurer

With both Commissioner Kircher and Chairman Randy Neumann opposed, the board approved writing off the bad debt of $6252.87 in the Solid Waste Department.

The debt is being written off because the county has exhausted resources in attempts to find those owing the debts.

Auditor/Treasurer Karen Busch said that these debts had been on the books for a long time.

Kircher said he was not supportive of writing off a bad debt. He stressed again that he felt the county needed to get out of the roll-off business because others in the county have that ability.

Commissioner Mark Blessing said that not all of this bad debt could be attributed to roll-off, but agreed that there are others in the county who have the ability to do the roll-off business.

The board tabled approval of quotes for repairing the Expo building roof because the two quotes received were so different in the amounts. One was for $1074.08 from RJ Contracting in Long Prairie and the other was for $8471 from Johannes Construction in Long Prairie. Both appeared to be very similar in the scope of work being done. This will be brought back to the board at their April 2 meeting.

Approved acknowledgement of permission for Benson Air Ag. Inc. of Benson for the spraying of tent caterpillars.

Approved the transfer of $84,875 from the general fund to the economic development fund for the annual appropriation.

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