Board of County Commissioners of Lincoln County
Agenda for March 28, 2008
9:00 Call to order and Pledge of Allegiance
9:05 Start approving payroll and expense vouchers
10:00 Social Services Director Colette Barksdale to give her monthly report
1:30 Retired Senior Volunteer Program Director Melody Maskus to discuss an employment issue
1. Approve the minutes from the March 18th meeting
2. Review the February report from the Veterans Service Officer and the reports of revenues and expenditures for E911, Landfill, Library, Road & Bridge and the individual road districts
3. Review and sign the Program Paper of Planned Activities for Emergency Management for the 2008 federal fiscal year
4. Sign a letter of support for Roundhouse Preservation, Inc.’s grant application to the Gates Family Foundation
5. County Commissioners’ reports
6. County Administrator’s report
7. Old business
8. New business
The Board of Lincoln County Commissioners met at 9:00 a.m. on March 28, 2008. The following attended: Chairman Ted Lyons, Commissioners Steve Burgess and Gary Beedy, County Administrator Roxie Devers and Clerk to the Board Corinne M. Lengel. Kay Christie with The Limon Leader and Eastern Colorado Plainsman was also present.
Chairman Lyons called the meeting to order and led the Pledge of Allegiance, and then janitors Nova and Dean Waite met briefly with the Board to request that they be allowed to put up a cement bench and archway trellis in the area where the climbing roses were planted last year after Mrs. Waite’s mother passed away. She said she had received several donations from employees and friends and wanted to put up a small memorial to her mother prior to May 1. She added that it would not cost the county anything as the items were donated, and the Board agreed to allow her request.
The Board approved the March payroll and expense vouchers for the month.
At 10:00 a.m., Social Services Director Colette Barksdale met with the Board to give her monthly report. Robert Kraxberger attended as well. While the Board reviewed the January and February financial reports, Ms. Barksdale updated them on the progress of various programs. The LINCing Dads program and Fatherhood Initiative is going quite well; they are helping to sponsor the pinewood derby this weekend, as well as hoping to sponsor a family swimming night at both the Limon and Hugo pools this summer, make models for the car shows, and hopefully do something for the July 4th celebrations. She added that Cody Hurtado was the winner of the logo contest, and then went on to explain that the Child Care Center discussion at the Genoa-Hugo school was tabled. As for Centennial Mental Health, they met with her last month and they seem to be making progress in that arena. She added that the acting director, Bonnie Adams, introduced Deb Rykken, who will be the new county director for Lincoln, Cheyenne and Kit Carson counties.
After explaining the addition of item #16 to the Child Support Enforcement Contract that was signed at a previous board meeting, Ms. Barksdale asked that the Board sign it again to include the correction. The Board reviewed the contract again and, finding no reason not to sign it, Mr. Beedy made a motion to sign the updated Child Support Enforcement Contract. Mr. Burgess seconded the motion, which carried unanimously.
Ms. Barksdale informed the Board that she would be having a change in staff again, and added that she would be conducting two interviews this afternoon.
Discussion regarding the purchase of two new vans for the Social Services Department continued from the meeting on March 18. Ms. Barksdale had obtained bids from Anderson Motors and Limon Chrysler-Dodge and felt the two 2007 Town and Country vans at Limon Chrysler were the better buy. The cost of each would be $15,950.00; one with nineteen thousand miles on it and the other with twenty-one thousand. If the Board was agreeable to trading vehicles around, Ms. Barksdale said they would work something out.
Mr. Burgess asked if they were considering buying both 2007 vans, and Ms. Barksdale replied that was true; they would have the money for two since one would be purchased with TANF funds and the other with administrative dollars. Mr. Burgess told her that it was their intention to give one of the older vans to the nurse’s office, since they have problems with the old patrol car they have now. It was decided that they would put the patrol car out for bid.
Mr. Burgess made a motion to allow Social Services to purchase two 2007 Town and Country vans from Limon Chrysler-Dodge; price not to exceed $15,950.00 each. Mr. Beedy seconded the motion, which carried unanimously.
Ms. Barksdale had one final note that the initial report from the State Fatality Review board came out on Wednesday. She added that she would keep the Board informed of the status.
The Board reviewed the February report from the Veteran’s Service Office, as well as the reports of revenues and expenditures for the E-911, Landfill, Library and Road and Bridge funds, and the individual road districts.
The minutes from the meeting held on March 18, 2008 were changed to reflect that the Pontiac van with the cracked head was actually a 2000, rather than a 2005, and to correct a couple of dates on Mr. Beedy’s commissioner report. The minutes stand approved as corrected.
After reviewing the Program Paper of Planned Activities for Emergency Management for the 2008 federal fiscal year, Mr. Burgess made a motion to sign the document. Mr. Beedy seconded the motion, which carried unanimously.
Ms. Devers explained that she had drafted a letter to the Gates Family Foundation supporting Roundhouse Preservation Inc.’s grant application, and asked if the Board would sign it since they own the property. Mr. Beedy made a motion to sign the letter to Gates Family Foundation, Mr. Burgess seconded the motion, and it carried unanimously.
When the Board reconvened after lunch, Public Health Director Tonda Scott stopped by and was informed that the nurse’s office would be getting the 2000 Pontiac van to replace the old patrol car that they had. Mr. Lyons explained that a new motor had been put in and that there was only twenty thousand miles on the transmission. Ms. Scott was pleased with the trade and thanked the Board. Mr. Lyons asked her if she had anything to report, and she said that they were awarded $25,044.00 for the STEPP grant, but that they needed to revise some paperwork.
Mr. Lyons called for commissioner reports and Mr. Beedy said that he attended the Republican River Conservation District informational meeting on March 25 in Yuma, as did Mr. Burgess and Mr. Lyons. He also reported that the road into Karval Lake had been finished.
Mr. Burgess reported that he took the bookmobile to A & E Tire in Denver on March 20 and admitted that it was a rather scary trip. He explained that the vehicle drifted and shimmied again like it’s always done, even though Chris Monks had made the suggested repairs to it. A & E Tire completed an alignment on it and found that the steering box was a little loose, but even the mechanic there said he’d never seen anything like it. Mr. Burgess also attended the Republican River meeting and a meeting at Plains Medical Center on Tuesday. On March 26 he met with Bonnie Adams and the new director of Centennial Mental Health, Deb Rykken, and on the Twenty-seventh he stopped by the landfill to speak with Bob Eberle regarding Chris Smith helping out in the interim until another employee is hired there. He also went to Arriba and helped Roger Noakes by hauling a couple of loads of fuel.
Mr. Lyons reported that he called Mike Vaughn about the insurance papers and the pipe he had mentioned at the fair board meeting. Mr. Lyons called Herschel Kennedy about getting pipe, but Mr. Kennedy didn’t have any of that particular size, although he thought he could probably get some. On the Twentieth, Mr. Lyons spoke with Mike Mosher about the fence at the fairgrounds and was told that they could get $1,200.00 from the state. They would then buy wood fence posts at Hugo Lumber and if Mike Vaughn or Herschel Kennedy came up with pipe, they could finish the fence off with it. On March 21, Mr. Lyons spoke with Jack Pfost about the land that the county would like to lease or sell to Dean Rains, and on the Twenty-fifth he attended the Republican River meeting with the others. At the hospital board meeting on March 27, he learned that they had gotten the new bariatric ambulance and also that there is an issue with everything being functional when the generator comes on. Apparently, only the emergency room and certain outlets are supposed to be operational when the generator comes on, according to particular rules and regulations. He added that Mr. Schrievogel had requested a waiver and apparently got one for six months. Mr. Lyons went on to say that the hospital made close to $105,000.00 last year, but that there had been concern that the nursing home portion looked as if it were losing money, due to the fact that it doesn’t receive any tax revenue.
Mr. Burgess provided a map given to them at the Republican River meeting and further discussion was held regarding that topic. The purchase of twenty-four thousand acres was for fifty million dollars, and the Board learned that the plan is to try and condense the numerous wells on the property into eight working wells. Although many wells would be closed, at least some of them would remain open.
RSVP Director Melody Maskus met with the Board at 1:30 p.m. to discuss an employment issue. Mr. Burgess explained that Bill Tarin had come in to discuss his dismissal with them and felt that there had been a huge lack of communication. Mr. Burgess asked how often Ms. Maskus visited the centers, as that had been one of Mr. Tarin’s issues, and she responded that she was attempting to make the rounds to all of them on a weekly basis.
Mr. Lyons asked why Ms. Maskus had felt that Mr. Tarin couldn’t be a volunteer and she replied that his treatment of other volunteers, his negative behavior at the nursing homes, and complaints from seniors had triggered her decision, as well as other problems.
She was asked if she had ever specifically met with Mr. Tarin and discussed the issues and problems that she had with his performance, but she answered that they usually discussed things in their staff meetings where others could provide input and suggestions on how to handle specific problems; not on a one-on-one basis. Ms. Devers asked if she ever wrote up supervisory contacts that were signed by both parties when she met with him to discuss his behavior, but Ms. Maskus said that she had not; only that she had written down that she spoke with him.
Mr. Burgess moved on to budget issues again, stating that there was only $102.00 left in her office supply line item for the entire year. Ms. Maskus said that she had understood that the computer she purchased at the end of the year was to come out of the 2007 budget since that had been approved, but instead it came out of the 2008 budget, which was why she was so close to running out of money in that line item. Ms. Devers told her the bill would have had to have been turned in on time for the computer to come out of the 2007 budget, as planned.
Mr. Burgess also mentioned the telephone line item, and Mr. Beedy added that they’d noticed she’d gotten cash from the Treasurer for training, but that practice was not usually allowed since the county has credit cards for those things. He added that she would have to be sure and return any unused portion of that money.
Mr. Lyons informed Ms. Maskus that Bill Tarin did not want his job back, but wanted her to be aware of how she dealt with these types of issues in the future, and that she must keep better documentation records.
Ms. Maskus said she wanted to let the Board know that she had received information regarding a rescission (reduction) in her grant award, and that she was ordered to revise her grant at the line item level to achieve the reduction, which had to come out of the federal share. As a result, she felt that she would not be able to take Mr. Burgess to the national RSVP seminar in Atlanta.
She added that another reason she had come close to spending all of the allotment in the office supply line item was because she had to replace a printer when the old one quit working.
When asked how her financial/budgetary conference had gone, Ms. Maskus responded that she feels she now has a much better idea of how her federal budget works, and that she learned how to move things around in it. She asked the Board if it would be acceptable to adjust her federal budget to compensate for the lack of funds in her office supplies line item, adding that she had quite a bit in her postage line item.
Mr. Beedy reiterated that the Board wanted the actual expenditures to appear in their proper line items, and Ms. Devers wanted to know if she meant she would be moving things within the county budget. Ms. Maskus said that up to ten percent of the federal budget could be moved around in line items, but she understood she couldn’t move anything in the county budget.
Another thing she has seen that they are starting to enforce is that program director salaries can no longer be one hundred percent paid for by the federal grant. She thought that everything would be okay for 2008, but approximately ten percent of her salary in 2009, and future years, would probably need to be covered by sponsors or from some other funding source. Ms. Maskus felt the money should be obtained through grants, not from sponsors, and Mr. Lyons asked approximately how much it would be. Mr. Burgess looked on the budget sheets and said that she was paid basically $24,000.00 a year from Lincoln County, so ten percent would be close to $2,400.00. Ms. Maskus said that she believed in writing as many grants as possible and intended to do so in order to raise the money from another source.
Mr. Burgess told Ms. Maskus to do better when filling out employee performance evaluation forms and Mr. Beedy said that they had noticed while approving the vouchers that she had received a DVD player from some company when she had placed an order. She explained that the item was free with her purchase and when that happens they give the gifts to volunteers on recognition day. Mr. Beedy told her to be sure she wasn’t ordering a particular amount of office supplies just to get a free gift, as had been done in the past by certain departments.
After Ms. Maskus left, Mr. Lyons asked Ms. Devers to give the Administrator’s report, so she informed them that courthouse janitor Nova Waite would be having surgery the end of April and would be out approximately six-to-eight weeks. She asked if the Board would allow people to donate leave time to her since she is considered a part-time employee and doesn’t receive benefits. She also advised them that they would need to decide if Dean Waite could work the extra hours that Nova would not be able to, or choose to hire a temporary, part-time person to fill in. Any decision was tabled until the Board had time to think it over.
Ms. Devers also reported that when she asked about the number of cells to calculate for the landfill to complete the design capacity form, she discovered in one of the audits that it was estimated that the site could utilize one hundred and four cells. She added that the landfill’s anticipated life is nine hundred and fifteen years.
After researching past minutes to find out when and how much Dean Rains had offered for the 38.2-acre parcel next to his property, she learned that the offer was for $4,000.00 on May 18, 2005.
Another item Ms. Devers reported was that she had talked to Patti Bronikowski at CTSI about having beer gardens at specific events at the fairgrounds. She was told that the county has five million dollars of liability coverage, regardless of where an individual obtains their alcohol, drinks too much and has an accident. Patti said the county might ask the Ranch Rodeo to provide more insurance than their current policy if they want a beer garden, however, the county couldn’t force them to do so. Ms. Devers thought they had a policy of one million dollars with the county as additional insured.
The last thing in Ms. Devers’ report was that Sheriff Nestor had asked her to inform the Board that a total of $9,521.25 had been spent on manpower for security from January 30 through March 26. Also, the cost of the alarm system was $7,258.00. The sheriff intended to submit a request for reimbursement through the court security grant either yesterday or today.
As for old business, Mr. Burgess said that he would like to take the old patrol car that the nurse was trading for the Social Services van and give it to one of his District Two employees to drive. He felt that with rising fuel prices it would be cheaper than driving a pick-up, since that employee now lives in Hugo. The others had no problem with the suggestion.
Discussion was held about setting a free day at the landfill and the options were May 17 and June 7. Ms. Devers will advertise the dates chosen when they get closer.
Mr. Burgess asked if they had decided to take tires again since they had found out that Mr. Hass would bale them. The Board decided that they had discussed it and thought it would be okay, as long as they charged the individual bringing the tires into the landfill. They all thought it would be better than finding tires discarded in the ditches when people found out they had no place to dispose of them. Mr. Lyons suggested that Ms. Devers contact Mick Jaques and let him know, and emphasized that they would not take tires, however, on the free day.
Since the item on the agenda under old business regarding an update on leasing and/or selling approximately one hundred and twenty acres of county-owned property was already discussed earlier when Mr. Lyons said he’d contacted Jack Pfost, the Board moved on to new business.
Mr. Beedy asked the others if they would like to add their names to a letter of support for the Regional Learning Center to obtain grants, and they readily agreed. He said he would draft a letter and bring it on Monday for their signatures.
A brief discussion was held on HB1368; Taxation of Property Used to Produce Alternating Current Electricity from a Renewable Energy Source, which Mr. Beedy had learned was a bill being supported by Senator Brophy that would take away any sales and use tax the county could make from wind farms. He said he intended to testify if need be when the bill was heard, and encouraged the other members to attend the hearings, as well.
Mr. Lyons said he’d been approached by a resident who told him there is a lot of disgruntlement in the county regarding the current trial. He was asked if he thought starting a petition against having another such trial in Lincoln County would help, and Mr. Lyons told him he had no idea, but he would contact District Attorney Carol Chambers and ask her.
Mr. Lyons also said he knew they had discussed replacing the windows and the carpet in the Assessor’s office, as well as re-painting it, during budget discussions, but wondered if it would be a better idea to replace all carpet in the courthouse at the same time so that it matched. He didn’t know if it mattered that everything was all one color or not, and Ms. Devers said that there were different colors in several of the offices now, but that it didn’t really matter as long as they weren’t directly up against each other.
Shawn Smith had left a bid with Mr. Lyons to replace the front windows at the courthouse and one in Social Services, along with some in the DA’s office and the courts, which came to $4,719.53. Mr. Beedy noted that it contained a thirty percent increase to do the work after hours, and Mr. Lyons said that he thought that several of the windows would be covered under the courthouse repair grant, which Ms. Devers confirmed. Mr. Burgess said he would like to see all of the windows on the north side of the building replaced and Mr. Beedy said he wasn’t sure exactly how important it was to replace the carpet everywhere, although there were several spots that were discolored because of the plastic floor mats.
Ms. Devers reminded the Board that they had made the decision at budget-time to complete the necessary repairs and upgrades one office at a time, and that they had chosen to start with the Assessor’s office.
Discussion went back to the windows, and everyone felt that Travis Nall could continue to replace windows in the offices, especially when Mr. Burgess said that Hugo Lumber offered to deduct $50.00 per window if the county would order all of them from there.
Mr. Lyons said they could take the window in the Social Services office off of the bid from Shawn Smith because it looked like it was only for replacement of glass, anyway. He called Shawn and asked if he would revise the bid again to remove that particular window and the sales tax that he had added in. Shawn told him the labor cost would not change, even if they worked on a Friday because they work four ten-hour days, but if Mr. Lyons would bring the bid back he would change it.
Mr. Burgess asked if anyone planned on attending summer conference June 9-11 and Mr. Beedy said they had until May to turn in the registration. Mr. Lyons said he would not be going.
With no further business to come before the Board, the meeting was adjourned until 9:00 a. m. on March 31, 2008.
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Corinne M. Lengel, Clerk to the Board Ted Lyons, Chairman