New county maintenance head requests additional funds

The head of Hot Springs County Road and Bridge, Dave Schlager, told the Hot Springs County Commissioners that Shane Rankin will be stepping in to handle things for a few months as Schlager is taking time off through the end of December.

Schlager also told the commissioners he had finished the GIS survey of roads, culverts, signs and other items throughout the county and found a lot of infrastructure out there, including a few culverts they didn’t know were out there. During the process he made note of which signs need replaced as well.

His crew has started zipping some asphalt and doing some fine-tuning with the machinery, so they have a general idea how it all works. They did take some training on it to start with and are working to get the asphalt they’re tearing out to a finer consistency so it can be bladed back into the road with no problems.

Some of the areas will need gravel thrown over the top, but Schlager said it will make road maintenance much easier. They currently have about a quarter mile finished of the expected four miles of the project.

New maintenance head, Les Culliton said his budget is “out of whack” and would like to request more funds to get things with the HVAC system taken care of.

He told the commissioners there were a number of things that had been bypassed rather than fixed and now they need corrected.

They agreed to meet with Culliton later in the month to go over everything that needs to be done so they can come up with an accurate amount that is needed to fix the issues.

Culliton has also been evaluating the custodial work and says the county is way behind the times on some of the ways they are doing the cleaning and the equipment being used. They will also discuss what needs to be purchased or installed in order to get things corrected.

He is trying to get things ready for winter snow removal, but is finding it hard to come up with some of the parts as the plows and other vehicles used were purchased in the 1970’s.

In other business, the commissioners discussed the thought that they will probably end up in litigation with the Wyoming Association of Risk Management (WARM) that holds the insurance for the county.

WARM is protesting paying certain bills for some county buildings and vehicles that have been damaged. They are very disappointed in how the company has handled the insurance claims and have already notified them they are considering not using their service any longer.

There is still a question as to whether or not the insurance will cover the interior damages at the Hot Springs County Library, lost computers, books and other items, as they are claiming the inside damage wasn’t caused by the outside hail damage to the roof.

County Attorney Jill Logan will be stepping in on behalf of the commissioners in an attempt to get things taken care of in a reasonable manner.

In some final business, the commissioners lifted the county-wide fire ban that has been in effect since July 21.