BOCC: Donated Fuel Tanker, Finance Rumblings, UACOG Money Woes,
Late EOM Grant Issues

by George Gramlich,
News and Commentary

The February 29, 2024, Custer County Board of County Commissioners regular meeting started at 9 a.m. in their gilded throne room in the building across from the courthouse. All three Commissioners were in attendance: Chair Kevin Day and members Bill Canda and Lucas Epp.

In Commissioner Items, Canda noted that the State of Colorado will be donating a fuel tanker truck to the airport. This can be used to refill rescue and fire helicopters in emergencies. It will be available in April.

Epp then made several comments about the Finance Department and all the accounting and audit woes. He said the company the Commissioners hired, Redlands Consulting (actually just one lady) had spent a week there going over the books, etc. He said she started with the 2022 audit adjustments and “was able to reconcile some funds.” Epp said the 2022 books “should be clear today.” Redlands will then work on the 2023 issues. After this is all over, Epp said he wants the entire county staff to be trained on how to correctly make entries. The credit card mess still needs to be “cleaned up” and the county needs to “upgrade policies and procedures.” (They have been talking about fixing the “policies and procedures” issues, or the lack thereof, for like three years now. Hire a darned consultant and get it done! Good grief. What is wrong with these people!)

In Public Discussion on this topic, Nadine Peterson asked Epp about the $6k CIC system training session for Finance on the CIC payroll module (which Finance has been having big problems with). Nadine asked this because Epp had been talking about moving to a different outside payroll vendor, in fact, it seemed that that was a certainty. In his answer, Epp basically said now they want to try to “fix” the CIC payroll issues instead of moving right away. Epp said he is still getting more information on the other two payroll companies.
Next it was Day’s turn. He said he went to a Upper Arkansas Council of Governments (UACOG) meeting yesterday and a lot of their grant money the organization was getting has “dried up” and they are making cuts. (UACOG is a grant gifting machine that doles out state and fed grant money to local entities, including the Senior Center meal program. )
Canda then brought the issue of paying the 11th Judicial District Attorney’s office for defense council for two of the DA’s members who were involved in disciplinary proceedings. Custer County’s share was only $600. After some babbling by the Commissioners and comments from the County’s Attorney it appeared that that was ok.
In New Business, the Com-missioners agreed to interview two more candidates for the BOCC Administrative Assistant position on March 5th.
Next up was Office of Emergency Management’s Director, Robyn Knappe with a Homeland Security Grant offer. She said this grant would cover three items: computers for cyber security purposes, money to hire a consultant to run a big disaster training exercise and buying some dive team equipment. The disaster exercise consultant would cost a lot: $56k. We would have to spend the money and then we get reimbursed later.
She then sandbagged the Commissioners with: The “application is due tomorrow.” (That didn’t go over to well.)
Epp then talked a bit about the three items. Day then said, very politely (but correctly): “this is due tomorrow. Would be good to see this a week or two ahead so we could get answers.” The discussion went on and on. (There were a lot of questions of various issues with the grant.) Day again said again that the Commissioners want items like this brought to them early so they have time to discuss it and get questions answered. (Robyn Knappe got a little huffy but held it in. Day was right, bringing big items like this to the table at the last minute is simply poor management.) In the end, the Commissioners said go ahead with it and if we change our mind on any of the three items we won’t accept the money.)
In the final General Public Comment, local real estate broker Bob Senderhauf (ex Chair of the Upper Arkansas Water Conservation District (UAWCD) asked the Commissioners to sign a recommendation letter for a person (Jord Gersten) wanting the newly vacated General Manager position at UAWCD. Bob presented a summary of that person’s credential and accomplishments. (It was impressive. Plus Bob has been with UAWCD for decades and knows his stuff.) (Bob did this because out of nowhere two weeks ago, Canda asked the BOCC to endorse a different candidate for the job. That guy was a UAWCD board member and is a Chaffee County Commissioner. He owns a rafting company. He is also a democrat. That was put on hold.