Commission discusses board appointment policy, health department grant

The Hill County Commission approved new grants and contracts, revised office rules for the courthouse and revised a written policy for board appointments during its business meeting Thursday.

Commissioners have been discussing the matter of board appointment and interview procedures for some time, with Hill County Commissioner Sheri Williams in particular raising concerns regarding insufficient advertising of open positions and a need for a clear written policy regarding the interview process.

Earlier this week the commissioners agreed that all vacant board positions must be advertised, and that they would interview new applicants.

They also agreed that they would interview applicants in cases where there was more than one applicant for a position, but if someone was applying to retain a board position they already held, they would forgo an interview and simply reappoint them unless there were other applicants.

Williams has said this has been the standard procedure for years, but hasn’t been consistently followed in recent months and she believes there needs to be a written policy dictating that process.

Advertisements for these vacancies are posted in the courthouse, on the county’s website and periodically in the Havre Daily News but, during the public comments section at the beginning of Monday’s meeting, Hill County resident Raela Hulett suggested they also post them in the Havre-Hill County Library, which gets plenty of traffic.

This idea seemed to be well received by the commission and other county officials present at the meeting.

Williams suggested the county also go back to posting them in all the post offices, but Hill County Commissioner Mark Peterson claimed that her comment was inappropriate as it was made during the public comment section of the meeting.

In response to Hulett’s concerns about these advertisements not being widespread enough, as well as many similar comments he said he’s received from others, Peterson said, “we’ve found that we just can’t seem to please everybody.”

Later in the meeting, when the commission reached the issue on the agenda, Williams reiterated her suggestion about posting the advertisements in post offices, saying it has been done in the past, and wouldn’t take a huge amount of work to start doing again.

“I think it just will reach a lot more people throughout our whole county, not just Havre,” she said.

County resident Samuel Ayers, who is running as a Libertarian for Peterson’s seat on the commission in this year’s election, said he would never have heard about open board positions if not for people calling him directly asking him if he was interested.

He said any increase in reach outside of town will be helpful.

Hill County Commissioner Jake Strissel concurred, saying he thinks they should make an effort to increase awareness of these vacancies in the county outside Havre.

Peterson is not eligible to rerun for his seat after moving out of his district a few years ago.

Bill Lanier is the Democratic candidate in that race.

During the meeting, the board voted unanimously to approve Kellen Verploegen to the Wild Horse Rural Fire District.

Later in the meeting, Hulett also suggested the commission keep a copy of board policies and bylaws in their office, both for their reference and for ease of public access.

Williams said that is not a requirement under law, but Strissel said he thinks it’s a good idea.

On the subject of boards, Hill County Cemetery District Assistant Manager Perry Atchison said the information about the cemetery’s board on the county’s website is many years out of date and requested that it be updated to reflect the current makeup and structure of the board, which is correctly noted on the cemetery’s own website.

Commissioners agreed to do so, and that they would make sure it is correct on the county’s new website, which will be going up soon.

During the meeting the commission also unanimously approved the receipt of a $120,000 grant from the National Association of County and City Health Officials for the Hill County Health Department to set up community partnerships, programs and events aimed at increasing awareness of, education on, and access to vaccination in the county.

Hill County Public Health Director and Health Officer Kim Berg said this is a new competitive grant, but they’ve used similar grants in the past to partner with local Head Start and Early Head Start to improve virus mitigation for young children and this grant will allow them to set up similar partnerships with local schools, church organizations and the community as a whole.

Berg said they are setting up events with the schools to help check students’ vaccination records, verifying they are up to date on required vaccinations and filling out paperwork for medical and religious exemptions where needed.

She said they are also hoping to forge partnerships with local health care organizations and pharmacies to improve access and education on vaccines and their benefits for young people, as well as social and traditional media outreach for similar purposes.

She said they had a lot of great programs for these kinds of things during the pandemic, but many have since ended and they want to get back to doing them.

Berg left the meeting to make an appointment after the grant was approved, but at the end of the meeting during public comments, county resident Ed Hill, who is running as a Republican against Democrat Paul Tuss in the upcoming election to represent Havre and North Havre in the Montana House of Representatives, raised concerns.

He asked if there was any way to evaluate the county’s “return on investment,” for this grant, saying he was concerned that there wasn’t enough work being done to evaluate the effectiveness of this program and whether it increased or decreased vaccination in the community.

Williams said the grant doesn’t have a match and is brand-new, so they don’t have a one-to-one comparison to look at in terms of a quantifiable impact yet.

However, she said, Berg is extremely diligent about tracking the effectiveness of her departments programs, and the grant does have reporting requirements to keep track of its impact, and she’s confident that she will use it wisely and that she can go into more detail about the particulars with Hill if he’s interested.

Hill reiterated his concerns, seemingly unconvinced.

“I just want to try to be efficient with the money,” he said.

The commission also approved a number of revised courthouse policies in a split vote, policies ranging from procedures for using sick leave to allowable uses of personal cellphones.

The most recent revisions to these policies were made in September of last year.

Williams said these policies have been discussed at length by county officials, and she’s been trying to get them on the commission’s agenda for approval for some time so that Human Resources can get them in writing.

Peterson voted against approval, continuing to argue he hadn’t been given a chance to read the policies and ask questions.

The commission also voted to put out a request for proposal for the government’s on-call engineering services.

Peterson said they have been using Great West Engineering for their on-call services for the past 10 years and they have been great to work with.

“I’ve had situations where, in the middle of the night, there’s an issue with a manhole or a lift station, and called for help and they answered the phone,” he said.

However, he said, the county needs to periodically request proposals from others to be the go-to provider of the county’s engineering needs.

Peterson said notices will be posted in the Havre Daily News and proposals are due by May 9 at 2 p.m.

The commission also approved contracts with Hygienix, a Great Falls-based industrial hygienics firm, to inspect the Hill County Courthouse for hazardous materials like lead and asbestos before work begins on the building’s HVAC system, and with Korb Construction for a concrete slab for Beaver Creek Park’s storage shed.