County tells Mt. Union ?no? to snow removal

BY BROOKS TAYLOR

Mt. Pleasant News

Mt. Union asked and the county said no.

During the Henry County Board of Supervisors regular meeting Thursday, Henry County Engineer Jake Hotchkiss discussed a letter he had received from the city of Mt. Union requesting snow removal service from the county.

In the letter, Mt. Union Mayor John Marek asked for the county?s help, saying that due to the Regional Utility Service Systems (RUSS) garnishment of city funds and other financial constraints, Mt. Union could not afford to hire a city worker to remove the snow.

Marek said the city would negotiate with the county on compensation for snow removal but did not offer further details on payment.

Hotchkiss said he opposed the request for two reasons ? he didn?t have the manpower to do the work and he didn?t want to set a precedent. However, he said he did not want to make the decision without discussing it with the supervisors. By consensus, the supervisors agreed with Hotchkiss.

?It is difficult for us to keep up with our current snow removal needs,? Hotchkiss noted. ?Adding more would not be good. I don?t want to set a precedent because where would we stop??

In addition to the county?s paved and gravel roads, the engineer said the secondary roads department handles snow removal in the county?s three unincorporated communities ? Lowell, Swedesburg and Trenton.

The board suggested Mt. Union look for a private snow removal company to take care of its needs.

Supervisors also continued receiving budget presentations. County Sheriff Rich McNamee and County Planning and Zoning Coordinator Joe Buffington presented their fiscal 2016-17 requests Thursday. The budget proposals from county-elected officials do not include salaries and benefits for office staff.

McNamee said his request shows a $1,108 drop from last year. Major requests in the budget include the purchase of two new vehicles, 12 new handguns, hiring of two new deputies to fill staff vacancies due to retirement and the addition of two more full-time jailers.

The sheriff said he would prefer to purchase SUVs, rather than patrol cars. ?The SUVs we have are really working out well for us,? he said. ?I haven?t decided for sure, but I probably will get SUVs rather than cars.?

McNamee added there is a pretty minimal price difference between a car and an SUV.

Currently, the sheriff?s department uses handguns purchased in 1998, and McNamee said it is time to update the inventory. He said he would purchase 45-caliber handguns.

While he is requesting two more full-time jailers, he said a compromise for one more jailer might be able to be reached. ?We just don?t have enough help, we are really thin on jail staff.?

Currently, he has four part-time employees, who are cross-trained as dispatchers and jailers, but he said finding part-time jailers is difficult. ?When we find part-time help, we train them and then they go somewhere else as full-time jailers. If we hire more full-time jailers, we could drop the part-time jailers down to next to nothing.?

On a side note, he told the board he has been impressed with the candidates he has received to fill a dispatcher vacancy. ?I had close to 35 applicants and they were very good applicants. One of the applicants had 25 years of experience as a dispatcher and another had seven years of experience.?

Buffington?s budget request reflected a 3.7 percent increase and a five percent salary increase for himself. ?There are also a couple of adjustments in revenue but nothing significant,? he explained.

In remaining agenda items, the supervisors approved the hiring of a part-time clerical employee for the county attorney?s office and appointed Emily Kann, of Swedesburg, to the county board of adjustment.

Several months ago, County Attorney Darin Stater had requested the addition of a part-time clerical worker due to increased workload created by the state?s electronic filing system for court documents.

?We have it in the budget for this year,? Stater told the supervisors. ?We just have a bottleneck with the new filing system, and we are protecting ourselves from being backlogged.?

Iowa Wesleyan University student Mitchell Schneider was hired for the position. Schneider will be paid $7.25 per hour to start and $8 per hour effective July 1. He will work about 15 hours per week.

The next meeting of the supervisors will be on Tuesday, Jan. 26, at 9 a.m., in the Henry County Courthouse.