Funding issues presented at commissioners meeting

The Hot Springs County Commissioners tackled a couple of items that are going to need addressed soon at their meeting on Tuesday morning.

County Assessor Dan Webber told the commissioners he would like to begin looking at a new county vehicle for the assessor’s use soon as the 2006 Trailblazer they are currently using has been having a lot of issues.

Apparently, the engine light has been on for years but no mechanic has been able to figure out why. It began overheating on them this summer and a complete maintenance job was done on it, including flushing and refilling all the fluids, but the problem still remains.

At this point, sending an assessor out to a rual property to do an assessment makes him nervous, worrying the employee could be stuck in the middle of nowhere with no cell service and a broken down vehicle.

The commissioners gave Webber a contact to the governmental pool so he can start the process of looking for a new vehicle and suggested as well that he speak with Emergency Management Coordinator Bill Gordon about getting a radio in the vehicle in case of an emergency.

Judy Carswell will be retiring from the assessor’s office at the end of the year and she has been the one taking care of the mapping for the county’s website.

While she has begun some minimal training with another employee, Webber has been looking for a full replacement and discovered anyone qualified to hold the position is looking for a salary in the $50,000+ range.

It would also be possible to contract someone at $75 per hour if necessary.

Another possibility would be creating a shared position between the town and the county, a GIS Coordinator, who’s responsibilities could be separated among the town and county entities such as road and bridge and the county planner. Combining resources could quite possibly make it feasible to hire a full time coordinator.

Dusty Spomer with TO Engineers spoke with the commissioners about the future of Black Mountain Road, questioning whether they want to apply for CRIP funding to refurbish 8.6 miles of road.

If they were to do the funding, it would require them to take on all future maintenance of the road, a long-term committment they may not want to take on.

In reality, Spomer said the county doesn’t have a really good chance of getting the $5 million grant as there are a lot of projects out there and very little money being alotted. He pointed out 20 years of maintenance would probably well outweigh the initial funding.

Commissioner John Lumley said his concern is the boom and bust cycle we inevitably go through, afraid that if they were to get on board with the grant, fix the road and then take on the 20 year maintainance, that the money could dry up in a bust cycle and then they’d really be stuck.

Road and Bridge Director Dave Schlager said maintenance is expensive, and the more roads you have the more expensive it gets. He indicated total reconstruction of the road would be more like $12 million whereas taking it back down to gravel would be about $50,000.

Commission chair Tom Ryan said the county really has more asphalt than we can take care of now and is opposed to going forward with applying for the funding.

The commissioners voted to forego the CRIP funding.

Now the question is what funding to look at to take it back down to gravel or whether or not to take it back to a gravel road. There is a possibility of doing a double chip seal on it that would keep it usable for another three or four years until additional funding could become available.

The commissioners, engineers and Schlager will continue to look at their options.