HC Conservation Board questions recent budget cuts

BY BRYCE KELLY

Mt. Pleasant News

The Conservation board may have some tough financial decisions to make in their upcoming regular board meetings as the department?s budget has officially been cut.

Henry County Conservation Director, John Pullis, announced Monday night that Henry County Supervisors have moved to cut about $14,000 from the department?s budget. Among some of the major line items cut was money budgeted to send park ranger/naturalist Trenton Hoekstra to the law enforcement academy, as well as money set aside for maintenance to department equipment, and funds being put towards moving camping registration for the county online.

?Out of the $8,000 that was put towards Trenton?s law enforcement academy slot, the supervisors cut $3,300 of that,? said Pullis, as he read through the various budget items with the board. ?For maintenance costs, I normally budget $2,000 for that and have for years. This year, it was cut in half. Money I budgeted to move the county to online registration for camping was also completely cut, and I know right off the top, it will cost us at least $2,000 to get set up for that.?

Among the board?s biggest concern regarding the recent budget cuts was that of Hoekstra?s law enforcement academy slot. And while the board says they are committed in making sure Hoekstra gets the training needed to safely perform his duties as a county park ranger, they are still unsure at this time where that money will come from.

?No matter what we do, we have to make it work for Trenton to go to the academy,? said board member Jim Onorato. ?It?s a matter of his safety that he do that. So, if we have to take money from some other program to get the rest of those funds, then that?s something I think we need to look into.?

Pullis agreed, saying that he has already been thinking about where to pull funds from to make up for what was not approved by the supervisors. According to Pullis, while it is not against policy for Hoekstra to perform his duties as a park ranger without law enforcement academy training, it is highly unsafe for Hoekstra to do so and a liability to the department.

?I do plan on speaking with the supervisors tomorrow morning (Tuesday), in order to get some explanation for some of the things that were cut,? said Pullis. ?I?d like to know why so many things were cut, especially money for the law enforcement academy. I?d also like to know why the supervisors didn?t discuss any of this with me before they cut some of this stuff out?that just doesn?t make any sense to me.?

Apart from talk of recent budget cuts, the board did approve the removal of a 200,000-gallon cement tank that was found buried beneath the Water Works building that is currently being torn down.

?On the southwest side of the building, this tank is buried. And it wasn?t until the contractor we hired to demolish the building and salvage the scrap metal found it that we even knew it was there,? Pullis explained. ?What the contractor has requested is an extra $1,000 to take the tank out.?

The board approved, making the total payment to the contractor on the project roughly $2,000.

Also approved by the board was the awarding of a Kabota track loader from Morning Sun Farm Implement at $33,400. There were a total of 10 separate bids received for the track loader.

Last on the agenda was a report from Henry County Naturalist, Cari Nicely. According to Nicely, a recent Iowa Association of Naturalists Conference, which was hosted at Iowa Wesleyan University, was a success. Nicely thanked all who attended the event, as well as Iowa Wesleyan University for hosting the conference.

?Iowa Wesleyan was a great host. We had a lot of compliments on how the conference went, and I am thankful for everyone who helped us with the event this year,? said Nicely.

The next Henry County Conservation Board meeting will be held on Monday, April 11, at 6 p.m., in the Henry County Conservation Board Room.