Local News

Wednesday, December 19, 2007 Todd County Board of Commissioners-Work Sessions Board juggles a tight budget by Karin L. Nauber On both Tuesday, December 11 and Friday, December 14, the board met with one major item being discussed: Was there any way they could cut the budget further before they put in their final levy for 2008? One of the big issues on Tuesday was where they would come up with the $44,400 that was not budgeted for Rainbow Rider. Auditor/Treasurer Karen Busch said if they did not hire an administrator for the first six months of 2008 they would have $43,000 in that budget to help cover it. Chair Mark Blessing said that if they looked at the past it would take them at least three to four months to get the administrator in place. There was some discussion about the money that is spent for the fairgrounds. There was also some discussion about why the Great River Regional Library expense went up. Commissioner Mark Nelson, who sits on the library board, said that there was an increase in users based on population and income. Also, Todd County's portion went up almost $17,000, but that the library system is still working with the same amount of money. Another discussion was about the money that had been in line items for various departments for furniture and equipment. The money, in some departments, had been all shifted to the MIS department. This money, at least in part, could be shifted back to the individual departments. Commissioner Randy Neumann said they should just allocate $1500 per department for furniture. Another discussion area on Tuesday was about the payment to South Country Health Alliance. Public Health Director Cheryl Schneider had indicated that she had about $400,000 in rollover money for this year. The discussion was that perhaps this money could be used to make the SCHA payment. Blessing asked that Busch meet with both Schneider and Social Services Director Frank Sandelin about this budget item. Another big part of the discussion was about a possible addition of another attorney. Nelson asked, "Are we going to stay the same? Add? What are we going to do?" Kircher said he felt like the audience at the Truth In Taxation meeting had made it pretty clear they didn't want to pay for another attorney. "Do we need to give the county attorney new direction?" asked Nelson. Commissioner Gary Kneisl said he had talked with the sheriff and with Andrew Dahlgren and thinks they will be getting together on working out a plan for issuing citations soon. Busch said that she has heard concerns from other department heads that when they call the attorney it takes a long time to get a response. Blessing also read an e-mail from Planning Commissioner Member Rin Porter who said it was difficult to make decisions when they know there will be no enforcement. She asked that the board do everything they could to hire and equip a new assistant attorney. "Is it possible to contract?" asked Busch. "At what cost?" asked Neumann. Nelson said that legal services for hire were expensive. Dahlgren joined the discussion then and said that counties like Stearns and Cass have an attorney dedicated to just planning and zoning. Dahlgren had checked with an attorney that his office has used for outside legal counsel and the cost is $140 an hour. He said that if someone makes a legal challenge on a Board of Adjustment decision, the county's insurance, MCIT, charges $2500 every time they are challenged. "It won't be getting easier. We need some form of legal counsel," said Dahlgren. Kircher said they had no guarantee that they would have someone at their board meetings from the attorney's office even if they did hire new. "We can't direct his office and we have no guarantee that the new attorney would be for just planning and zoning," said Kircher. The question of how to pay for the new attorney was broached. Kircher said he understood that the revenue that office brings in would pay for some. Busch said that the revenues for that office were reflected in the budget before the commissioners and they had taken out a new hire that had been in that budget. The budget for the attorney raised less than $6000. Dahlgren wondered if the fees from the fines paid if they began to issue citations could be used by his department to pay for an attorney. Kircher said he felt like he was being cornered by the county attorney who he said was telling the commissioners that he won't prosecute (planning and zoning) unless he gets extra help. Dahlgren asked if the compliance fund could be used to help pay for another attorney. Kircher said he could see hiring another attorney if he saw an honest attempt by the county attorney to prosecute some of these (planning and zoning issues). "But to say he won't unless we hire" said Kircher. "We're being held hostage," said Nelson. The cost of another full-time attorney would be close to $60,000 with benefits. Friday, December 14 The board met with the elected officials that were present at the meeting which were: the sheriff, the auditor/treasurer and the recorder. County Attorney Chuck Rasmussen could not be at the meeting due to being in court. Human Resources Director Karla Nalezny said she was not able to get salary comparisons with surrounding counties or similar counties to Todd for comparison for the sheriff's salary. The board met with Busch and Recorder Cheryl Perish first. They were both put on the grade scale last year. Busch was put on Grade 22 Step 7 for $58,296 and Perish was put on Grade 21 Step 7 for $54,888. They were each supposed to go up a step in July, but this did not happen. Blessing said he was not sure why the two did not get the step increase, but that they could make it happen on January 1, 2008 and be retroactive to December 23, 2007. Perish said she did some calculations and she has lost about $1440 in the time period since she was supposed to get the step. Nelson said, "I believe we owe them that. This was supposed to make it easier." Perish has been with the recorder's office for 30 years and the department head for 20. Busch has been with the auditor/treasurer's office for 35 years and has been the department head since 2002. Kircher asked Perish if the compliance fund could be used to pay an attorney's salary. Perish said that they had guidelines for using the money and one thing they didn't want to come out of it was wages. She said that it was basically technology things that the money was to be used for. Neumann pointed out that $7500 was used to pay wages in the GIS department. Perish said that it was for a match grant to get the parcel mapping done. The Sauk River Watershed provided the grant if the county would do the watershed district mapping first. The board next met with Sheriff Peter Mikkelson. He said he would like to see an increase in his salary. He said there are state troopers who make more than he does. His current salary is $64,000. Mikkelson said he averages about 50 hours a week. "That doesn't bother me. I understood it was part of my job when I ran," he said. Blessing asked if Mikkelson had an idea of the salary he would like to be at. Mikkelson said he wanted to see the comparisons with other counties, but believed that Nalezny had set his budget with an increase to $70,000 for his salary. Kircher said that would be around a 9% increase. Kircher asked if anyone knew what the county attorney was asking for? No one indicated that they did. The sheriff's department budget was briefly discussed. Mikkelson said that even with the increases in salaries for the supervisors he thinks they will be able to stay within the budgeted amount. MIS MIS Director Chris Pelzer came in with some concerns about her budget. She said with the cuts made to her budget, she will only be able to do bare bones replacements and will not have money if something breaks. "If we hire a new employee (in any department), we wouldn't have the funds for them to have a telephone or a computer or the software they will need," said Pelzer. She said that her department does have a computer reserve budget of about $35,000 and she could dip into the compliance fund, but she did not feel comfortable doing either. Pelzer also had concerns because her department is short on staff. Her CEP worker was on their last day and she had another employee out on family medical leave. "We look for creative ways to make everyone work more efficiently, but adding new technology takes people," she said. Neumann said that what scared him the most was that her department had jumped $181,000 since he came on the board. Pelzer said they had added one staff person in 2005, they had put in the new phone service that would be saving the county approximately $20,000 a year and they had taken on the sheriff's office construction project. Further Discussion If the board wants to give themselves raises, it has to be set by the end of the year. Neumann thought they should look at the same raises as have been offered to county employees. This wasn't really part of the meeting, but it was spoken of afterwards. The petition to vacate County Road 55 was withdrawn by the petitioners. Busch said that they plan to resubmit it after the first of the year.