The Polk County Board of Commissioners met inside the Polk County Government Center on Tuesday morning.
COUNTY BOARD MEMBERS ISSUE FORUM
The board began the meeting by Designating the MCIT Voting Delegate and Alternate. Polk County Administrator Chuck Whiting explained that the 2022 Annual Meeting of the Minnesota Counties Intergovernmental Trust would be held on Monday, December 5, at 4:00 p.m. with an election for one seat on the MCIT Board of Directors. The current members were Commissioners Joan Lee and Gary Willhite. Commissioner Warren Strandell proposed they reelect both Lee and Willhite. However, Willhite recommended appointing Mark Holy and Warren Strandell. After much discussion, the board chose to reappoint Joan Lee as the Delegate for the Board of Directors and, due to him completing his application before the meeting, decided to appoint Gary Willhite as the Alternate Delegate for the board. They also made a motion to support him as a candidate for the open seat on the MCIT Board of Directors. Willhite was honored by the support of his fellow commissioners and told us about his interest in running for the MCIT’s Board of Directors. “They’re a board I’ve been interested in for a couple of years. In fact, I interviewed for a position last January, and now another position is open now at the end of the year,” Commissioner Gary Willhite explained. “I have submitted my application and am looking forward to an interview within the next three or four weeks.” Willhite explained that after the interviews, the counties will vote at their meeting on December 5. The board approved the appointments unanimously.
SHERIFF-JAMES TADMAN
The board was then approached by Polk County Sheriff James Tadman, who came forward with the Monthly Sheriff’s Report for October. Tadman reported that they had made 135 Paid Services for $8,755.05 and had $2,064.34 for No Charge Services. They had also traveled 5,307 miles for the month of October, which were mainly for in-state prisoner transportation, which gave them a total of 71,042 for the year. They had also received 2,690 calls for the month at their dispatch center, with 741 emergency calls and 1,949 non-emergency calls. They had also received 852 calls for service, with 243 for Traffic Stops, 246 for Civil Process, and 49 for School Patrol. Commissioner Willhite asked if he had heard anything about the East Grand Forks Department had begun enforcing hiring bonuses for their duties and what County Sheriff’s Office was doing in response to recruit new officers. “It’s competitive at this time with all of the agencies being short and having open positions. It’s a matter of who can come to the table first with the bigger pocketbook who are getting the law enforcement officers coming out of school at this time, which is at an all-time low,” Sheriff Jim Tadman explained. “We just have to keep that on the forefront and keep on trying to find ways to get law enforcement officers to come to Polk County. We keep it up, and so far, so good, and we’ll just continue with that.”
PROPERTY RECORDS-SAM MELBYE
The board was then approached by Property Records Director Sam Melbye, who came forward with a resolution for the county to continue sponsoring the Crookston Driftbusters and the Sandhill Snowcruisers Snowmobile Clubs as their Fiscal Agent from 2023-25, which will allow them to continue to get funding from the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources (MnDNR). The board approved the motion unanimously.
Melbye also reported that they had done their post-election count and found no issues. The votes have now been counted and recorded to the Secretary of State.
ADMINISTRATION-CHUCK WHITING
The board finished the meeting hearing from County Commissioner Chuck Whiting on an update for their 2023 Budget. He first went into the AARP funds used to help cover some items within the budget. Whiting reported that he had met with County Engineer Richard Sanders and other department heads to discuss using some AARP funds for some of the requests from county departments. Whiting explained that he awarded $1.8 million to the Highway Department for some of its projects that would have been leveed to lower its levee request to just under $3 million for the year. He had also met with the Public Health Department, which had requested $40,000 for a Public Health Nurse to work at the Tri-County Regional Corrections Center. This gave them about $1 million they still had to disperse to the departments, which still had a few requests to be fulfilled. However, these brought up some issues that would have to be considered in the future, mainly to figure out the longer-term funding for the year and how it would impact the half-cent sales tax decision in the summer.
This had an impact on their budgets, especially after the market study by David Drown Associates had been completed. The study had changed several departments’ requests because of the wage adjustments. Some of these included the Building Department looking to fix some sidewalks by the Polk County Justice Center for $10,000 and other building improvements to the Justice Center and Government Center, such as the breaker repair for $15,000. Another was the Public Safety Department had ordered vehicles to lease along with other equipment, such as body cams, for $61,855. “That was one of the bigger changes. We’ve got a lot of the department budgets now very close to being finalized. We had to adjust the wages based on our market study, and that was one of the key things I’ve been waiting for,” Administrator Whiting explained. “Right now, we’ve got about a 5% levy increase, and the board would certainly like to see something under 4% or in the 3% range. We’re using a lot of fund balance numbers to try to make this work right now, but we are physically healthy, and it seems to be a year where that may be the answer in the interest of our property taxpayers to go.” With these requests, Whiting explained he had lowered the levee to just over a 5% increase at $27,185,505, which was $404,880 away from the goal of a 3.5% increase at $26,780,625. Unfortunately, he believes they will have to cut some requests in order to make the levy goal of 3.5% in time for the Budget Public Hearing on December 13 at 6:00 p.m. and will meet with several other department heads to discuss additional items this week.
The Board of Commissioners will next meet on Tuesday, November 29, at 8:00 a.m. in the Polk County Government Center.
