December 6, 2021

Kiowa County Commissioners Meeting
December 6, 2021

John Bertram, David White, Bert Lowery, Kristi Cooper, Chay Howard, Jay Schmidt, Kendal Lothman and Matt Christenson attended the meeting.
Consent agenda included: Agenda and Commissioner minutes of 11/30/21.

After the pledge of allegiance, John opened the meeting at 9:00. Bert moved to approve the consent agenda as presented and David seconded, motion passed unanimously.

Jay Schmidt came and presented updates for the Public Works Department which included. City Service Road project complete by Heft and Sons, blading, building intersections and driveways back after the project is now completed, 15 grader tire quotes from Alliance Ag $12,990(Hercules tires), Greensburg Tire $18,007.50 (Michelin tires) and Commercial Tire Center $16,470 (Michelin tires). Jay informed them that while he was getting quotes that tires are hard to get in per some of the vendors and so after some discussion, they wanted to stay with Michelin tires and so it was consensus to go with Greensburg Tire if they can get the tires in that are needed.

Matt Christenson came to discuss COLA raises for all employees for 2022. He informed them the last COLA was December 2017. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics the Consumer Price Index (CPI) for all urban consumers has increased by approximately 12.2% since the last COLA was applied to county employee wages. He gave a breakdown of different options from 3% to 12% and informed them the impacts that would be on the budgets. He asked them to discuss this in the next couple meetings and they could continue the discussion at the last meeting of the year if they would like to give a COLA this year to all the employees.

Kristi Cooper asked for clarification on chairman and vice chairman for resolution 2022-1 and after some discussion the new chairman will be David White and the vice chairman would be Bert Lowery. She informed them she would get the resolutions prepared for the first meeting in January.

Break called till 9:29

Chay Howard came to discuss the national opioid settlement and documents and presented resolutions that are required. He asks them to review the information he presented, and they will continue the discussion at the next meeting.

Jay came back to inform them that Greensburg Tire is unable to get the tires at this time and that the price would go up once they did get them in, so it was by consensus to get the 15 grader tires through Commercial Tire Center out of Salina since they are readily available to them.

Meeting adjourned at 10:00.