Commission discusses salaries, elevator and museum board project

The Hill County Commission discussed county employee salaries and this year’s budget at its weekly business meeting Thursday.

The budget would cover county government for the 2020/2021 fiscal year.

During discussion for the resolution that would adopt the budget, Hill County Commissioner Mark Peterson said he would not vote for the budget because due to a recent surgery he hadn’t had enough time to look at it.

Hill County Clerk and Recorder Sue Armstrong said she didn’t understand his objection since the majority of the budget was done Monday of the previous week.

Peterson said he thinks the county should change the process to have the budget a week in advance of the meeting at which it is to be approved.

Hill County Commissioner Diane McLean also raised concerns about the Buildings and Maintenance Budget, went up recently due to the county courthouse’s elevator breaking down.

Armstrong said she would work with the commissioners to find the money for the repairs and adapt budgets as the year goes on.

Hill County Commissioner Mike Wendland said he doesn’t see any issues with the budgets that stood out to him.

The commission voted 2-1 to pass the budget with McLean and Wendland voting for, and Peterson voting against.

The commission then discussed a resolution to fix the salaries of office holders in county government for the same fiscal year, while adopting the 2020/2021 salary matrix.

McLean raised the possibility of using a reduced Cost-of-Living Adjustment from 1.5 percent, as opposed to the 2 percent reflected in all department budgets, and use the funds gained from that to pay for the elevator repairs.

Armstong said if the commission were to do that every budget that has been submitted would have to be redone, as they all were calculated with the 2 percent COLA, and legally the budget had to be done by Thursday.

The Hill County Compensation Board had originally voted for a 1.5 percent COLA, but Hill County Attorney Karen Alley said that decision was made before the actual recommended COLA was released by CPI which was 1.8 percent.

Armstrong said when it was found that the actual cost of living adjustment, she rounded up to 2 percent, which she said all the budgets were able to afford and discussed the matter with department heads.

Peterson said the fact remains that the board voted on it, and the board was advised to hold at 1.5 percent.

Armstrong said she had discussed the change with the commissioners, but Peterson denied that ever happening.

The vote to adopt the salaries as presented failed with Wendland voting for, Peterson voting against and McLean abstaining.

Armstrong continued to object to the idea of adopting a 1.5 percent COLA, and said employees had the expectation of 2 percent and they shouldn’t have to pay for the elevator repairs, which is what the decision would amount to.

“I understand that we have to pay for the elevator, but I don’t think the employees should have to pay for it on the wages because of that,” she said.

Peterson said he would not support a 2 percent COLA and made a motion to adopt the budgets with a 1.5 percent COLA.

Alley said either the Armstrong or the various department heads would need to submit updated budgets reflecting the change which would take a significant amount of time.

Hill County Public Health Director Kim Larson, who attended the meeting virtually, said changing the COLA would require a significant amount of work on her part and would be difficult to do in a timely fashion given the current situation.

“I have about 12 budgets and a lot of them are grants, and salaries come out of that,” she said. “So, I need to know what’s changed because I was going off of the 2 percent COLA like we were told, and that’s what my staff has been told… I guarantee you I will not get a new budget to you by next week with everything that is going on, and I’m sure I’m not the only department that has that issue.”

Armstrong said the 2 percent was reflected in all the previous budget presentations that the commissioners had, until now, approved and she didn’t think a change would be worth all of the trouble it would cause.

“With all the budgets that came in we all knew it was the 2 percent,” she said. “There’s just a lot of work that I’ve done, that (McLean) has looked at, that every one of these offices have done. I don’t think it’s worth the 0.5 percent.”

McLean said responsibility for the situation does lie to some degree with the commission for not saying anything when they looked at the budgets in previous weeks and didn’t bring up the 2 percent reflected in them.

“That’s on us for not saying ‘Wait a minute, that’s not what we were thinking,’” she said.

The commission then voted down the motion to adopt salary fixes with a 1.5 percent COLA 0-3, and brought the previous motion, which would approve the 2 percent COLA, back.

This time the motion passed with Wendland and McLean voting for and Peterson abstaining.

Members of the The H. Earl Clack Memorial Museum Board told the commission about progress on a project they’ve been working on for many years.

Bear Paw Development Corp. Director of Community Planning and Brownfields Director Samantha Chagnon said the museum is receiving a sub-grant and loan through Bear Paw’s Brownfields Clean-up Program, for the abatement of lead-based paint and asbestos at the former location of Griggs Printing, which the H. Earl and Margaret Turner Clack Memorial Museum Foundation wants to renovate and eventual use as a museum.

Christin Hileman, a brownfields specialist from NewFields, which performed a Phase Two Envionrmental Assessment back in 2016, said 12 pieces of building materials with asbestos are in the building, including flooring, building adhesives, insulation and others, as well as 46 surfaces that contain lead-based paint including many interior walls and some exterior paint.

She said the current plan is to abate all asbestos in the building other than the roof and remove lead-base paint from first story windows while managing the paint in other parts of the building using and encapsulating primer.

Hileman said, under different circumstances, these surfaces could be left as is, as long as they are not disturbed, however the renovations expected to be made to the building make that impossible.

She said they are looking at mid-November for the project after they submit documentation to the State Historic Preservation Offices and hiring a contractor.

She said the team working on the project will be setting up a containment area around the building to make sure no dangerous materials escape, and they will also have workers fully protected in specialized suits.

“If you see somebody who looks like they’re wearing a spacesuit around that building that’s what they’re doing,” she said.

H. Earl and Margaret Turner Clack Memorial Museum Foundation President Elaine Morse said she was excited to see the project move forward.

“This public is anxious to get this moving,” she said.

Chagnon said presenting the project at a public meeting was necessary because they were using federal funds, and they would continue to take public comment until Sept. 18.

The commission also approved a series of SID resolutions reauthorizing them for the coming year. Most were for sanitary sewers, and streetlights in the county.

The commission also unanimously renewed contracts with Blaine and Liberty Counties that allow the Hill County Health Department’s Women, Infants and Children Program to serve their satellite clinics in those counties.

They also unanimously approved a contract with the Maternal Child Health Block Grant program.

They also voted unanimously to approve a proposal bid agreement for the repair and modernization of the Hill County Courthouse elevator, which broke down two weeks ago and is no longer usable.

McLean said the project would be put out to bid soon.

She said they’ve discussed whether to fix the motor or get a new one and found that repairing it, if that is even a possibility would cost $30,000 to $40,000 for a motor that they’ve been told is on its last leg.

Peterson said the commission thinks it’s wiser to just get a new motor, considering even pulling the current one may cost $10,000 only to find that repairs can’t even be made.

“You’re spending 10,000 to pull a motor only for them to say, ‘Oh we can’t fix it,’” he said.

McLean said the decision does, unfortunately, put the project in a timeframe of winter so the courthouse may be without an elevator for some time depending on how quickly bids come in. But she said the commissioners believe this is the fastest way to solve the problem effectively.

“It makes better sense to just bid for a different elevator… we’re trying to find the fasts path to something that’s functional,” she said.