BOCC: Fleet Management Presentation, Employee Bonuses,
BOCC Meeting Location Change
George Gramlich,
News and Commentary
The November 20, 2024 Custer County Board of County Commissioners’ (BOCC) regular meeting was held in their royally appointed quarters in the Annex across from the courthouse.
It started around 9 a.m. All three Commissioners were present: Bill Canda, Lucas Epp and Kevin Day.
In Commissioner Items, Epp said the Commissioners had to sign the 2025 budget in their December 11 meeting coming up. Day said he had received a letter from the County’s insurance carrier, CTSI, warning against “mass changes” in personnel when the new board convenes in January. (That, folks, was a little strange. There is one new Commissioner coming on board in January.) Epp noted that the Board has received three applications for the Director of Human Services (DHS) Director’s opening coming up in January. Epp wants to speed up the interview/hiring
process so the newly hired Director
has a chance to train with the
retiring one.
In New Business, the first item up was a presentation by a company
called “Enterprise Fleet Management”. They manage the purchase of fleet vehicles for various government entities and private companies. This was Day’s item. The Enterprise guy gave a decent Zoom talk which went on for a bit. The Commissioners will give him the VIN’s of all our fleet vehicles and he will get back to them with a
proposed plan.
Next up was approving the Upper Ark Weed Management Area Agreement. This passed.
The annual “Dedicated Service Awards for the County Employees” bonus was next. This is a year-end bonus of around $120 gross to each county employee. (Elected officials are not included.) Epp said we have “money in the salary lines” to do this. He also said the county “should be $200k to $300k under budget for the year”. (Commissioners, give that money to Road & Bridge. They need more help and equipment.) The bonus passed.
As a comment, Day said if somebody needed to see the County’s 2025 budget, one must go to the county website and then to the HR/Finance page. It is on a tab there.
Elected Official reports were next. The Sheriff’s Office report was first up. It was written and was not read at the meeting so we don’t know what was in it. After the Commissioners spent a few minutes scanning it on heir computers, Epp stated that he was working with our IT guy Vernon Roth to get the written reports online so us peasants can see what is going on. He said hopefully in January this will be working. (Thank you Mr. Epp and Mr. Roth for doing this.)
The Treasurer’s written report was accepted.
Coroner Brad Baltzly gave his report in person. He said they had 20 deaths YTD including one from Sawatch County (a hiker died in their county but the body was pulled out to Custer so we got stuck with it). Baltzly said suicides were “way up” (the county had seven) and about 40% of our total deaths are suicides. There were no homicides this year. He noted that in 2023 the county only had 13 deaths. (re homicides: Custer County Sheriff Rich Smith has put together a top notch team of very qualified counselors to respond to suicide calls. The timing is good. Our suicide rate, per capita, is very, very high.)
Department Reports
Human Resources was a written report. It was accepted.
Our Veteran Services Office Director, Dominic Edginton, was there to give his report. He had 61 scheduled appointments last month with around 65 walk-ins. He went through his claim numbers and compensation gained which were impressive. At the end he mentioned that he was Vice President of the Colorado Veteran Service Officers organization, but now, since the President stepped down, he became the big Chief. He made a couple of comments that there were going to be some changes in the organization in terms of performance and responsibility. (Go git’m Dominic!)
Road & Bridge gave their report. He needed the Commissioners to ok the water lease with the Upper Ark Water District (they get their road water from them). It was $9,500. The same as last year. It passed. He also needs the Commissioners to approve
the cost to replace the R&B’s fuel
station. That cost was $80k for the work and equipment and another $12k to do a new concrete pad. That passed.
Human Services, Landfill and Recycling reports were all written and accepted. Planning & Zoning was also written but Epp made the comment, from the report, that all receipts (building permits, etc.) were down dramatically from last time, around $200k worth. (The building boom is over folks. We better start tightening our budgets.)
The Airport report was written. Canda said the new AvJet fuel tank is here but not installed yet. He also noted the $450k game fence project had started. (That is being paid by a private company with no cost to the county.
Information Technology’s report was written. It was noted that there are two finalists for the vacant IT assistant position.
The Office of Emergency Management and the Extension Office reports were both written and accepted.
In Additional Items, Epp said the BOCC were moving their meetings down to the All Aboard Westcliffe building in Westcliffe to avoid using their current room as the Annex is HR and Finance’s current home and the BOCC meetings are very disruptive to their operations. The time frame is open.
And that was it. Another day in Happy Valley.
