Staffing changes mark county budget talks

On Tuesday, July 26, Eddy County commissioners held a special meeting to continue their budget discussions.

Up first was Tiffany Harr, who briefly discussed the budgets for the Recorder/Clerk of Court and Public Information Officer positions, before delving into the Community Ambulance Service of New Rockford (CASNR).

Harr, CASNR's business manager, said the biggest change is seen in the line item for payroll.

Harr told commissioners CASNR has struggled with having enough EMTs on-call to respond to emergencies, and, in recent years, their board has tried several ways to increase coverage, such as increasing on-call pay to $3/hour.

“It seems to have helped,” said Harr. “The squad has said that it helped encourage them to pick up hours.”

For those reasons, she explained, the CASNR board has voted to pay $3/hour “across the board” for next year.

All totaled, CASNR’s expected expenses exceed their anticipated income by $86,300, approximately $9,000 more than it did last year.

The biggest news didn’t come until afterwards, however, when Harr told commissioners she’s stepping down from her position as CASNR business manager effective Sept. 30, and that Georgia Johnson will be stepping down from her position as manager on Aug. 31.

Taking their place will be Angie Hopfauf as manager and Tanya Munson as business manager.

Merita Aldayel, President of the Eddy-New Rockford Library, asked the board to approve Tiffany Munson to take Kathy Steinbach’s position on the library board, as Steinbach’s term has come to an end. The motion was carried unanimously.

Aldayel, also President of the Eddy County Historical Society (ECHS), then presented the ECHS budget for the upcoming year, which came out to $13,320 in expected expenses, a decrease from $16,750 a year ago.

The historical society’s expected expenses also match perfectly with their anticipated income.

Danette Schmid, Eddy County Public Health Nurse, said the only real change in her department’s budget was a line item for the projected cost of adding a counter at the window inside their building, an estimated cost of $521.

Eddy County Sheriff Paul Lies reported his department is looking at replacing another squad car, and that the Ford Interceptor they’ve already ordered may not arrive until next year.

He also reported the Sheriff’s Department will be working with a new company to outfit their squad cars. The new company offered a lower bid, Lies said, and is located in Jamestown, an hour closer than the old company.

Allen McKay, Director of the Lake Region District Health Unit, was the last to discuss budget.

“It’s pretty much a ... small increase for each county from last year,” he said. “But other than that our mill levy is about 4.3 if you round it off, so we’ll try to keep it from going much higher than that.”

McKay then talked about Ashley Peterson, who will take over his position as director on Oct. 1.

“I think she’ll do an exceptional job,” said McKay. “She’s very organized and she’s been spending a couple days a week in the office.”

The Transcript will have more on Peterson in a future edition.

The next commission meeting is scheduled for Tuesday, Aug. 2 at 8:30 a.m. in the courthouse, by which point final mill numbers should be available according to Eddy County Auditor, Patty Williams.