Caribou County Commissioners Meeting 6/24
The Caribou County Board of Commissioners met for budget discussions with the various county agencies during the morning.
Aaron Cook, Assessor
Aaron Cook spoke with the commission about ongoing reappraisal issues, as well as the budget for the next fiscal year, during which time he was hoping to bring the clerk salaries up to the average rates in surrounding counties.
Angie Mendenhall, Treasurer
The County Treasurer also spoke to the commissioners about the planned budget. Mailings from the office (November, delinquent, reminder, delinquent) are a large part of the budget. Mailing is one of the routine large costs for the department. Between the Assessors and Treasurer’s office, there was some discussion about more efficient methods for handling the mailings and associated costs.
Eric Hobson
Firefighter wage increases were discussed. The Firefighters haven’t received raises for the last two years. A raise of a dollar an hour was requested, though Commissioner Somsen suggested raising it further to an even $10/hr for volunteer firefighters.
Most of the expenses were requested at level amounts from the previous year’s budget.
EMPG grants will be decreasing in the upcoming cycle as a result of cuts to the funding by Congress, which decided that local emergency funding was not the responsibility of the federal congress, according to the House. Revenue sharing funds will be used to offset the 30 percent reduction.
The Fire Department is currently understaffed, which is a situation shared nationally.
Raises were requested for EMTs as well. A similar raise of a dollar was sought for emergency service workers.
The budget for supplies was requested to be increased.
Contract expenses were reported to have dropped.
A new ambulance should be delivered in late September, which is right at the cut off for the next budget year. The cost is over $200K, with most of it covered by a grant. The county will end up paying a fraction of that cost, but the specific budget year remains to be determined.
TJ Burbank and Daz Buttars IT Specialists
TJ spoke to the commissioners about the budget for the county’s IT service contracting. Email hosting offsite was discussed as something that would be beneficial to the county, but require more expense in some areas and savings in others. The state is asking IT departments to move to .gov addresses, though the migration process will take a while. Both addresses will be active in the meantime.
Website maintenance, Adobe upgrade, internet services, and other items were discussed as needing minor increases, though some aspects of web services were also reported to be reducing in cost.
Nellie Askew
Not a lot of changes were requested for PZ, other than a few minor things.
Parks and Recreation budget requested a small increase in order to hire a camp host for the new RV park.
Rowdy Larkins
Rowdy Larkins from the Building Department spoke to the commission about the upcoming budget, and how the Event Center will be located within the county’s budget, as it involves several entities.
A potential request for a new truck was raised. Some elements of the current vehicle were reported to not be working well. A motion to approve the purchase of the vehicle from half out of department assist funds and half from courthouse and grounds capital outlay $58K passed.
The commissioners provided input on the paint and design elements of the exterior of the Event Center in Grace, which will begin construction after the Fair. Among the concerns was that the overall appearance “not look like a tire store”. The mock up sample included red highlights, which the commission did not like. The appearance and type of the siding was also discussed.
Justin Steele
Justin Steele from Probation talked to the commission about the department’s budget. An increase to the court services and drug testing sections of the budget was requested. The increases were minor. Travel was minimal, as certifications and training were current for members of the department.
Ally Schwulst
The budget for GIS was discussed. Ally mentioned that she was instructed to bring up a potential raise at the budget hearing for the next year, so she did. Schwulst presented a list of duties that she performs in her position, as well as a comparison to others in the same position in nearby counties.
Travel, mileage, and meals were requested to be increased, in order to allow for attendance to a national conference which would be valuable for training.
Supplies and vehicle expenses will stay the same. Maintenance agreements were requested at a higher rate, in order to keep the plotter maintained. Licensing has increased.
She reported that moving to the cloud for storage was saving the county
money.
Paying for software shared by GIS, the Assessor, and Planning and Zoning was discussed in terms of how the account funds would be allocated in order to pay the costs most efficiently.
Justin Hatch
Hatch expressed thanks to the commissioners for the support they have given to the Extension Office in the past.
He requested an increase in funds available for part time hours. There are currently 61 participants in the horse program. Hatch would like to hire a new part-time person to help with the program for 10 hours a week. The total cost would be around $10,400. The employee would also be able to help with the market animal program, as well as other needs in the office. The bulk of the hours would likely come during the summer, especially the Fair season. Whether the employee would be best as a “seasonal” employee or not was discussed. Rules for seasonal employment require the employee to be off for three consecutive months, which creates some additional issues that would need to be figured out.
Hatch also discussed payment to the University of Idaho. The bill was slightly higher, due to the services of a new employee from U of I.
It has been suggested that hiring a third party, bonded individual to keep track of the books during the market sale would decrease the liability for the county, according to the U of I who encouraged the idea. A contract fee for the individual would be necessary.
Dwight Lloyd
Dwight reported from the Weed Department that there were not any anticipated increases for the department this year. He mentioned that the Dyer’s Woad project within the county had been going very well, and the that the county stood out among its neighbors for having done a great job combatting it.
A motion to authorize the payment for a new truck for $58,000 (2024 Duramax Chevy Silverado) for the department was approved. Half of the funds are from PILT, and half are from the Weed Capital Outlay.
Jill Stoor
Clerk Stoor stated that salary increase requests were really the only changes to the proposed Clerk’s budget. A discussion of a longer term project to scan necessary documents into a digital record system was discussed. Funds have been left in the budget for the potential to hire someone or allocate hours for someone to help with the process.
With regard to the commissioner budget, minor changes were noted.
Minor increases in some budget sections for the attorney’s office were requested, as well as a request to maintain or increase wages and salary to
current staff.
Due to the reduction in the number of elections during the year, the budget for elections was anticipated to be lower.
Sundries. The Unemployment Insurance fund will remain the same, though it was reported that the county has never had the need to use the expenditure.
Telephone fees are slightly up from last year.
Indigent Funds might be used in several places.
The budget for the Event Center Maintenance and Operations was discussed. Since the construction on the building will not be completed until the next budget year is fully underway, budget outlays are speculative at this point but need to be in place. Oneida County, which has an event center of a similar size and usage, sets aside $30K for M and O, so that was used as a ceiling and scaled from there. The discussion will be ongoing as the construction process gets underway. Revenues are also somewhat unpredictable at this point for the center.
The remaining department requests will be discussed further in future coverage of the budget process.
