BOCC: Child Advocacy Center Hired to Help SO,
Finance Director Hiring Update

by George Gramlich,
News and Commentary
The April 4, 2024 regular meeting of the Custer County Board of County Com-missioners (BOCC) met in their meeting room across for the County Courthouse with all three Commissioners present: Chair Kevin Day and members Bill Canda and Lucas Epp. The meeting started at 9 a.m.
In Commissioner Items, Canda revealed that KKTV is now operational off the county’s hill top transmission building. The installers are having a small problem getting the other station (Channel 13) to work due to an incorrect cable. They hope to fix
that soon.
In  Elected Officials Reports, Sheriff Rich Smith was up first. With the County’s Victim Advocate employee resigning
a while back, Smith opted for a better solution. He hired a company out of Cañon City, the Child Advocacy Center, to perform the job. They have a full-time staff and the cost to the County is only $500 per month. Plus Smith noted we have two local volunteers who can also assist.
With regards to the increasing number of mental health calls, and the Deputy’s roles in responding to such calls, Smith said he has hired a very experienced local couple to assist in these calls. They will be available 24 hours a day.
Sheriff Smith said he also recently hired a part time person to be his Chief of Staff. This administrative position is for three days a week. No benefits. The person Smith hired was the retired Chief of Police for Florence, Mike DeLaurentis, who has 42 years of law enforcement experience. Smith had worked closely with DeLaurentis while Smith was the State Police Captain in Florence.
Smith was pleased to announce that the Sheriff’s Office has finally got their FreCom dispatch CAD software working.
The Coroners Report was given by Coroner Brad Baltzly. He said the county had only three “unattended deaths” this year and all were sent to autopsy.
In Staff Reports, Dominic Edginton, the County’s Veteran Service Officer gave his report. As usual, he reported great results with new veteran cases and continuing cases. (Dominic is doing an outstanding job. Reviews of his work are outstanding.)
Newly hired Bob Chesser gave the Human Resources report. He discovered a fairly big problem with the CTSI increased benefit to some County employees. The cost is split between the county and the employees, but the cost increase was not programmed into the employees’ paychecks. Thus, some employees owe the county money. The total is $15.5k, total, for all employees. They are exploring ways to fix this. (Chesser was a great hire. This guy has tons of experience, knows all the laws and regulations, and is a problem solver. Listening to him, it shows the BOCC should have hired a pro years ago instead of bringing people on board with NO knowledge at all of HR.)
In New Business, the Finance Report was first. Lisa Hemann, from Redland’s Accounting, the firm the County hired to fix the audit issues and other problems left by the last two Finance Directors, gave the report. She said she has spent three weeks working on the issues and concentrated on adjustments to liabilities and fund balances as well as looking at general ledger details. She has fixed a lot of incorrect fund postings and wrongfully entered account items. She also described other fixes and changes she made. She is confident she can get the “pre-audit” done by May 1st so the data can be turned over to the County’s auditor on that date. It was noted that a lack of training on the County’s new CIC accounting system is a major factor in a lot of the issues.
Dorothy Carsten, our Planning & Zoning Director, delivered her report. During her report she mentioned a “homeless camp” located on four lots in Silver Cliff Heights. She said it “goes back many years” and that there are concerns from a “healthy standpoint” as there are no “septics” or the “septics are not connected”. Where this is going remained unclear.
Two new Short Term Rentals were then approved by the Commissioners.
The next Agenda Item was “Revising and Reposting the Finance Director’s Position. (The response to the current posting was dismal. The CPA requirement and fairly low salary are the main culprits.) Canda opened the discussion. This discussion went on and on. In the end, the Commissioners lowered the requirements to a minimum of a Bachelors Degree in Accounting with a Masters and a CPA preferred. They also added mandatory experience in government accounting. HR Guy Chesser added a lot to the discussion. He also found several excellent job posting internet sites that specialize in these kind of jobs.
Epp talked about how it would be good to keep Redlands Accounting on retainer even after the new Finance Director is hired. (That seemed like a good idea.)
And that was that.