The Decatur County Council met on Tuesday.
Sheriff Durant came to the board to request the payment of the Detention Center Programs Director ‘s Salary out of commissary. This was approved.
Diane Wenning came to the board requesting an expenditure to fully balance the books. In January of 2021 once taking office, Wenning realized that the books would not balance and hadn’t for the past couple of years. They began investigating and fixing these problems by balancing the books daily. They now have a positive balance which will be balanced out to 0 after this expenditure. This was approved.
The council requested Philip Deiwert come to the meeting to discuss expenditures within the Visitors Commission. All expenditures are approved by the commission before coming to the council. There was a question on whether or not Deiwert’s position was hourly or salary based and how that effected the overtime. It was found they are an hourly as it is mainly elected officials within the county that are salary based. The position and department are being reviewed with the payroll committee as are all other county offices. There was also a discussion on one board member on the Visitors Commission who is also under contract with the visitors center. This is not the only county board with a contracted voting member, however they do need to look into getting conflict of interest papers signed.
Rick Anderson with Veregy presented an energy assessment to the council. They try to use the county’s budget to determine a neutral payment plan so they are spending no more money than they currently are. If they were to not save the projected amount in utilities, Veregy would write them a check.
State Representative Randy Frye discussed Senate Bill 119 with the council. This is for farms and farming equipment to be eligible for a tax abatement of up to 5 years. This is determined by the local governments and would be set within limits in the county also determined by the local governments. The main goal of the bill is to promote agriculture where it is difficult or impossible to revitalize the land.
All transfers were approved. All additionals were approved.
Morgan Schofield
WTRE News
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