Kiowa County Commissioners Meeting

Courthouse Lower Level Conference Room

October 15, 2018

Ronald Freeman, Bert Lowery, John Unruh, Kristi Cooper, Chay Howard, Jay Schmidt, Kerri Ulrich, DJ McMurry, Matt Christenson and Jeff Blackburn attended the meeting.

Consent agenda included: Agenda, Payroll reports, AP reports and Commissioner minutes of 10/01.

After the prayer was given by Jeff Blackburn, Ron opened the meeting. Bert moved to approve the consent agenda with the addition to the agenda and John seconded, motion carried 3-0.

Kerri Ulrich came for the Board of Health meeting (BOH). Ron adjourned the regular meeting and called the BOH meeting to order. Kerri gave updates which included school nursing hearing/vision testing, flu shots, turn out on the Emergency Preparedness exercise on October 5^th, end of year reporting has started and shingle vaccinations. Ron adjourned the BOH and called the regular meeting to order.

Jay Schmidt came to give updates for public works departments which included Grant St overlay almost complete, landfill inspections passed and possible purchase of a backhoe for R&B.

DJ McMurry came early to talk about making a change on the pay plan for the deputies at a grade 13 and would like to move them up due to his employee has hit the max but this would affect other deputies. Ron asked him to see what Pratt County uses. Matt explained how the pay plan was created and how they came up with the wages and job descriptions. DJ will report back on his findings. Next, he talked about GIS and explained they are making changes for mapping through the State. The cost would be around $4000 to get started and it was by consensus to allow this new mapping system which will aide in multiple areas throughout the County. He explained the benefits for Kiowa County compared to Pratt County. There will be other costs associated with this new system but will talk to other entities who could use this new system.

Matt Christenson came to give IT update plans for next year which included email server change this week, Microsoft support change, moving to Windows 10 and replace 25 computers to the new operating systems, bulk order of computers for multiple departments, server refresh is needed for all our servers, replacement of a backup server next year. John asked if he had any information on quotes for the plans of the new building and he is still working on it. He hopes it will be ready for one of the 2 first meetings in November.

Kristi Cooper presented payroll changes for M Brown (merit), G Koehn (separation), R Walker (Part-time new hire), M Murski (part-time new hire), C Hacker (full-time new hire), S Powell (full-time new hire) for approval. After review of the changes Bert moved to approve them and John seconded, motion carried 3-0. Next, she presented a tax correction for removal of street assessment per tax sale for approval. After review Bert moved to approve the tax correction and John seconded, motion carried 3-0.

Break was called at 10:25 for 10 minutes.

Chay Howard discussed the Keller’s subdivision and the property and explained that it all needs to be vacated except for Oak street and that he could not find where any of those have been vacated properly in 1993. John wanted clarification on who would maintain that street and Chay explained that the County would be responsible for the upkeep. We will do a publication notice, notice to all residents that reside on that road, public hearing and record properly. They discussed holding the public hearing for November 19^th to vacate Oak street. John moved to begin the notification process for vacating roads located in the Keller’s subdivision excluding Oak St and Bert seconded, motion carried 3-0. Next, he presented the information for the open records request from Great Plains. They complied with our request per Chay. He will have them look over the information that he has given them and will see if they have any further open records request at the next meeting.

During Commissioner John asked if we had received the settlement check from Pratt Wells lawsuit and Chay reported that he has received the first month settlement check and has been given to the Treasurers office.

The meeting was adjourned at 11:25.

Kiowa County Commission:

 

Ronald Freeman, Chairman                                                    Attest:

Bert Lowery, Vice-Chairman                                      Kristi Cooper, County Clerk

John Unruh, Commissioner