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Kiowa County Commissioners Meeting

Courthouse Lower Level Conference Room

December 30, 2019

Bert Lowery, John Bertram, Ronald Freeman, Kristi Cooper, Chay Howard, Jay Schmidt, DJ McMurry, Chris Tedder and Jeff Blackburn attended the meeting.

Consent agenda included: Agenda, Payroll reports, AP reports and Commissioner minutes of 12/2.

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

DJ McMurry came to discuss year end balances in the GIS fund. He requests to transfer $90,000 to the special equipment fund for GIS for software and aerial photography. After some discussion Bert moved to approve the transfer and John seconded, motion carried 3-0.

Jay Schmidt came to give updates for the public works departments which included; payroll change M Harrell(separation), Mullinville blacktop project completed will get bids for a sand seal and chip seal for next year, bids for chip seal on Belvidere blacktop due to its been 5 years and blacktop overlay on City service road or Brenham/Fellsburg next year, bid for fuel from Alliance Ag. John moved to approve the payroll change for M Harrell (separation) and Bert seconded, motion carried 3-0

Chay Howard came to inform them of some information that he had received from an attorney representing Don Edmondson for negligence of road maintenance on 19th Ave between the section of R St. and S St. Chay presented pictures that he received and gave a summary of the letter. Jay Schmidt explained that the road is minimal maintenance and that the banks are high and that there is a bridge on that road and had asked the landowner if they could trench out a little on some property and the landowner was against them trenching on his land. Jay reported he would go out and clear under the bridge, but they can’t really do anything about the other issues due to road being in that condition for 20 plus years and would have to move fences, phone lines, etc. Chay will contact the attorney and let them know where the county would like to go.

They discussed the mowing bid for Belvidere area while they waited for the next agenda item. Kristi explained that whoever places a bid will have to have liability insurance in the amount of $1 million coverage to be eligible to bid on the properties. John was unaware of this and will inform the people who are interested in the area. Next, they discussed selling the old school house and it was by consensus to move forward with selling the property and Chay will work on this and report back.

Rosa Spainhour and Kaylan Jones came to discuss transferring year end balances to the Ambulance special equipment fund in the amount of $15,382.74. Ron moved to approve the transfer and John seconded, motion carried 3-0. Also informed them they received an award for the Safe Kids program.

Break called till 10:00.

Matt Christenson came to discuss Emergency Management transfer to Equipment fund in the amount of $20,000 for a purchase of a new response vehicle. Ron moved approve the transfer and Bert seconded, motion carried 3-0. He presented a payroll change for A Taylor(merit) next. Bert moved to approve the payroll change as presented and Ron seconded, motion carried 3-0.

Chris Tedder came to present payroll changes for P. Capansky and T. Finch (salary increase). After review Ron moved to approve them and Bert seconded, motion carried 3-0. Next, he requested to transfer $180,000 to go into his special equipment fund to go towards upgrading the shooting range at the old landfill. After some discussion Ron moved to approve the transfer and Bert seconded, motion carried 3-0.

Kristi Cooper came present a letter from Cody Sherer regarding year-end balance for the fire department fund. Bert moved to approve the transfer of $148,000 to the special equipment fund to go towards building a new truck and John seconded, motion carried 3-0. Next, she requested to discuss year-end transfers from Election and Fairground funds. She would like to request $20,000 for Election and $5000 for Fairgrounds to go into the special equipment fund. She explained she would use the funds for equipment. Ron moved to approve the transfers for Election and Fairgrounds and John seconded, motion carried 3-0. Tax corrections were presented for approval. Ron moved to approve the corrections as presented and Bert seconded, motion carried 3-0. Last she asked if they would allow the County offices to close at noon on December 31st for New Years Eve. Bert moved to approve to close at noon on December 31st and Ron seconded, motion carried 3-0.

Matt and Kristi came to discuss cost of living adjust (COLA) for all county employees. He explained that he looked at year end totals and the 2020 budgets would allow for the COLA increases to all employees. He also added that they hadn’t given a COLA increase for 2 years and that hourly employees had only received merit increases based off job performances. He suggests giving a 4.3% COLA increase to catch up for 2018 and 2019. Bert requested a 10-minute executive session at 10:58 to discuss employee relations and Ron seconded, motion carried 3-0. Regular session began with no action taken. They discussed the COLA a little more and Bert asked for another 5-minute executive session for non-elected personal to discuss employee relations at 11:03 and Ron seconded, motion carried 3-0. Regular session began at 11:08. Bert stated they would not be giving a COLA raise to any of the employees. He then stated that they would still give the supervisors their annual raises that they approved at the last meeting. Bert moved to keep the supervisors annual pay increases the same which were discussed at the last meeting and John seconded, motion carried 3-0.

Meeting adjourned at 11:50.

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