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MITCHELL COUNTY COMMISSIONERS - Monday, July 15, 2024

By Terry Bailey

The Mitchell County Commissioners faced a full slate of items for their regular business meeting Monday morning, July 15. Some of their work was new business and some was work from last week's budget meeting. They stayed very busy from start to finish.
Brian Streit presented a bid to the Commissioners for termite eradication at the County Recycling Center at the Fairgrounds. Streit said the infestation was relatively significant. "Most of the boxes to be recycled have been exposed to food of some sort. This is like a magnet to those little critters."
Streit presented two bids for the Commissioners consideration. The first bid for a building-wide treatment. This bid was $3,150 as well as an additional $370 for annual service. The second bid was for treating just the rest rooms and the perimeter of the building. The cost for this treatment was $1,372 plus $150 for annual follow-up.
The Commissioners voted to go for the total treatment of the buildings. Photographs provided by Streit showed significant damage.
Two Neighborhood Revitalization grants were approved. The first was to Charles M. File for an owner operated new building in the amount of $56,6000.
The second grant involved Robert May and new buildings for the Blue Hills Game Birds operation. The grant bid included four buildings measuring 55'x350', one building measuring 55'x730' and another building measuring 40'x80'. The total cost of these improvements runs at $2,350,000.
The Commissioners were in receipt of a letter from Heineken Electric inquiring about reimbursement for a three-stage transformer installed at the new County Shop building. The topic was complicated with the new building and the issue of who should pay for what.
The Commissioners contacted Marty Hernandez under whose department the project was supervised. The cost of the new transformer purchased from the City of Beloit was $39,000. Of that amount, Mitchell County paid about $14,000. According to Hernandez's record, Heineken was responsible for the balance of approximately $25,000.
Janelle Kicker, CEO of the Mitchell County Hospital Health Systems, was present to inquire about the status of her request for an increase in budget authority for the 2025 year. She was not aware that the Commissioners had increased the hospital mil levy by one mil. This would be an increase of $90,000-$100,000. Commission President Tom Claussen said, "We hope to add another one or two mils in next years budget. We know how medical costs keep getting higher and higher."
Missy McGinnis, Director of the Mitchell County Emergency Medical Services, was present with 10 of her EMS employees. The employees were present to request the Commissioners increase the director's salary. They enumerated several points where the service was greatly improved since she took over the directorship of the program.
The Commissioners thanked the EMS staff for showing their support for their director. Commissioner Mike Cooper said, "This needs to be done but it has to be done within the framework of building the budget. We are currently struggling with avoiding an increase in the budget, automatically triggering a Revenue Neutral Rate that would call for a public hearing on the budget. While it is a good idea, this probably the worst time to add more expenses to the budget."
The Commissioners agreed that if they could find extra money, a raise for McGinnis would be first on the list.
Next was a discussion about the purchasing of a new ambulance. Currently Mitchell County has an order in for a new ambulance. It was ordered about a year ago and will not be delivered until 2026. The cost of that ambulance is $258,000 plus $43,000 for an auto-cot to go with it.
McGinnis proposed the purchase of another new ambulance that would be delivered in 2026. The purchase this far out is necessary because of the extended delivery date. The new ambulance would be similar to the one already on order. The cost will be $277,000 plus $50,000 for the auto-cot.
The Commissioners agreed that this plan seemed reasonable and will keep the County from getting behind in equipment for the EMS.
At the end of last week's meeting, the auditor ended the meeting believing the final numbers were under the Revenue Neutral Rate. It became clear after that meeting that some of the information was based on incorrect estimates and the final numbers for the budget were higher than expected, thus putting the numbers into the RNR.
With the correct information in hand, County Clerk Heather Weston met with each of the department heads and asked them to see where they could cut expenses to get the final numbers under the RNR. Her efforts were quite successful.
The previous budget was built with the County requiring each employee to contribute 5% of the cost of their health insurance. Weston's efforts resulted in enough cuts so that the health insurance could be completely funded without the 5% employee contribution.
Buffy and Eric Kadel were present to discuss complications with a new fence they are construction on their property. Evidently there was a disagreement with Jerry Wessling as to property lines and the exact location of the fence. Commissioner Claussen was aware of this dispute and after checking the details, assured Kadel that he was building his fence exactly at the right location.
Mitchell County Sheriff Tony Perez was present to discuss his budget allocation from the budget discussion last week. He major issue of concern was with the line items for commodities and for contractual expenses. Perez said these two items are very difficult to predict and his requests were slightly higher than before but intentionally so. The Commissioners and Perez were able to come to an agreement on numbers that work for everyone.
Having addressed all the items on the agenda, the meeting was adjourned.

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Beloit, KS 67420, USA