BOCC: Special District Tax Levies Approved,
IT Meets with “the Feds”, BOCC Meetings at All Aboard Westcliffe in 2025

by George Gramlich,
News and Commentary
The Custer County Board of County Commissioners’ (BOCC) December 19, 2024 regular meeting was held at their regal throne room (the “Annex”) across from the court house. The meeting started at around 9 a.m. All three Commissioners were present: Bill Canda, Lucas Epp and Kevin Day.
No real important Commissioner Items.
In Elected Official Reports, most were written and silently read by the commissioners while the public waited. Once and a while a commissioner would make a comment on them. Epp said they are now being stored on the county’s website so us peasants can see what is going on. (It would be nice, for the peasants attending the meeting, and those viewing, that when the Commish are silently reading, that at least the highlights be mentioned so the audience wouldn’t be in total darkness on their content.)
The Sheriff’s Office (SO) report was written. It was noted that the SO is under budget for the year and also under budget for the Fremont County Jail housing costs.
The Coroner’s Office had a brief presentation noting that the county’s death toll is around what is was last year and that the Office is under budget.
Department Reports
Human Resources Director, Bob Smith, gave the report. Smith said there are currently 12 county job vacancies (including the Finance Director). He said he is working on county policies and procedures and has completed a rough draft that the commissioners have. Smith wants a meeting next year to review those. Smith also noted that he is working on a county pay classification scale.
Dominic Edginton, our Veterans Service Office (VSO) Director delivered that Office’s report. Last month he had 45 scheduled visits and 23 walk-ins. He said that the county’s veterans are getting around $145k compensation per month and since he has taken over, about $1.6 million has come into the county from the VA.
The Information and Technology Director, Vernon Roth, gave that department’s report. Vernon said he hired a new sidekick, John Mapes, (ex Navy) and he is doing good. Vernon stated that he had a meeting with “the feds” about cyber security and “it was very interesting”. He said that there might be some training stuff coming down the pike with them.
The county’s accounting consultant, Lisa Hammon, from Redland’s Accounting gave the Finance report. She has been working on reviewing the 2025 budget with Vernon, bank reconciliation, and with the Treasurer’s office. She also has been continuing to work on the credit card problems from 2022 to 2024. (That credit card roll out was a total disaster. No planning and no reporting guidelines on expenses. Thank goodness, the person who orchestrated that is bye bye.) She said she only has access to the 2022 to 2024 credit card data.
Going further back will be a lot more time-consuming.
Epp spoke up saying Hemann putting together a draft Request for Proposal (RFP) to hire a new county auditor as the county will be changing auditors in 2025. (YEARS too late….) Epp then brought up the search for a new Finance Director and labeled the current situation as “looking for a unicorn”. This brought on the usual suite of lamenations from the commissioners, Hemann and Smith about how hard it is trying to find a decent Finance Director for the paltry salary they are offering. Canda brought forth an idea about splitting a Finance Director with another local county (maybe the combined money from two counties would be enough).
Department of Human Services, Road & Bridge, Airport, Planning & Zoning (“business is down”, down $184k from last year. “Will affect our budget for sure”.),
Recycling, and EOM were submitted, written reports.
Awarding the county’s trash contract for 2025 was next. P Bar O and Oak Disposal submitted bids. P Bar O got the contract.
Epp then brought up the lease agreement with All Aboard
Westcliffe re the commissioners using their meeting room next year for their BOCC meetings. It will cost the county around $5k per year to rent the place. The meetings will be held on Thursdays next year.
Next was the inter-governmental agreement (IGA) proposed for the West Custer County Hospital District with regards to them using our Human Resource Director, Bob Smith, for a few hours each month. The basic deal was that Smith would do five hours for free and then bill them for anything over that. This started a HUGE discussion on the scope of the deal, total hours, who would be involved, whether this is hurting the county. On and on…After a ton of blathering, the commissioners agreed to the deal.
Resolution 24-27, a Vehicles and Associated Equipment Supplemental Budget Appropriation for the Sheriff’s Office was the next item. This would move $14.9k from the defunct “Inmate Fund” to the SO’s capital improvement fund. This would be for purchasing the local used Jeep that was discussed last week. That passed.
Resolution 24-28 for $51,185 for the Sheriff’s Office to buy school
security equipment and some training for the School Resource Officer was approved.
A Resolution (24-29) was then approved for the Landfill for $19,765 to build a fence around the new trenches to catch the flying garbage.
The next Agenda Item was a big one: Approving all the special tax districts in the county (except for the county’s property tax mil levy that was passed recently). There are about 11 of these districts including the West Custer Hospital District, Wet Mountain Fire, Round Mountain Water, the two towns, etc. Most of the levies were adjusted down to compensate for the enormous property valuations from last year. The total tax take squeezed out of us serfs for these districts will be $2,716, 044. (The Hospital District is getting $1,179,513 and the school is getting $4,716,795.) Vernon Roth, who prepared the report, said the total tax grab by the county and all the other tax districts is $10,112,473. (This is the 2024 taxes to be collected for the 2025 budget.) Vernon noted that the county’s total property valuation is around $25 million.
And that was that.
To be continued……