With a bid price about to expire and new bids expected to be 8-10% higher, Highway Maintenance Supervisor Russell Klegstag brought an equipment purchase request to the county board Tuesday, January 26, 2010, sooner than originally planned. Buying the equipment—a Caterpillar compact track loader, also called a skid steer—with numerous attachments for $112,656 would throw the department’s 2010 budget off, however.
In addition, Highway Engineer Shae Kosmalski requested additional hours for three positions in the department – clerk (Lisa VanderHeiden), assistant mechanic (Scott Corwin), and maintenance worker (Rosie Johnson). These requests were already in the 2010 budget.
About the skid steer, Klegstad wrote in his purchase request, “I think we will find it to be one of the most used pieces of equipment that we own. …So many attachments are available for it that its use is very widespread.” He pointed out that it has been in the department’s preliminary budget for several years but kept getting pushed off.
With the attachments recommended by Klegstad, the skid steer could be used for soil testing, brushing ditches, snowplowing sidewalks, pushing up Firewise pits, highway cleanup, and small patch jobs. Those jobs are already being accomplished by the department, but many of them would be accomplished more efficiently with a small piece of equipment such as this, he said, and they would reduce unnecessary depreciation on larger equipment. “We could cut some of the attachments that I have included,” he wrote, “but it would be like pulling the teeth on a guard dog….”
Commissioner Bruce Martinson wondered how they could justify granting all the requests with the economy in such difficult straits. Kosmalski said adding hours to the clerk position would enable the department to be ready to jump on grants like many current federal stimulus grants that require readiness to move into action quickly. Klegstad added that having a clerk only 30 hours a week requires the work of the others in the office to be interrupted by phone calls and people coming to the front desk.
Kosmalski had written in a January 20 memo to the board that getting the county’s signs into compliance with state and federal mandates will take more personnel time than they have now. At the meeting, she told the board that Rosie Johnson currently gets unemployment January through March, and putting her on full-time would cost little more than the county pays in unemployment.
Kosmalski also wrote in her memo that what the county would pay to increase the assistant mechanic’s job from 30 to 40 hours a week would be paid back in costs saved in equipment longevity because the staff would have more time to keep the equipment maintained properly.
After the board discussed the options and their ramifications, Bob Fenwick made a motion to purchase the skid steer and put the clerk and assistant mechanic on full-time. Jim Johnson seconded the motion, and it passed 4-1 with Bruce Martinson casting the nay vote.
Two weeks later, Kosmalski asked the board again for authorization to recall Rosie Johnson from layoff earlier than usual so she could start working on an inventory of county signs that must be upgraded. Kosmalski proposed having Johnson work 32 hours a week at a higher pay grade until resuming her regular duties in April. The additional cost is in the 2010 department budget.
Kosmalski also requested authorization to add a temporary full-time employee to the staff this summer to run the new skid steer. Commissioner Jim Johnson reminded Kosmalski that she had said the skid steer would save on use of other equipment – could the employee not running the other equipment run the skid steer? Kosmalski said a lot of projects are backlogged up to five years, so the extra employee is needed. Some money saved last year could be used to pay for the position. The board approved both requests.
The board also authorized the following:
» Venting systems in the Tofte and
Hovland shops to get steam out of the buildings when crews are
cleaning equipment. The cost will
be $4,028.72.
» Required asbestos and lead testing
for a hangar at the old Cook County Airport. The building will be removed when safety improvements to County Road 8 are made.
Twin Ports Testing estimated
$1,174.40 to do the job.
» A reappraisal of the right-ofway
along the portion of County Road 8 that goes through land owned by the Cook County Airport Commission. The land was appraised last summer but the appraisal is now out of date. Kosmalski said the process of working with the federal government has been slow. The cost will be $5,000 plus a $300 bonus for each full week the work is completed prior to March 31. The county will have to spend about $750,000 for the right of way, but the money will be paid to the airport commission and can help fund a planned runway project. “Overall, it’s not
a bad deal,” Commissioner Bob
Fenwick said.
» A large format plotter for creating
GIS-compatible printouts of
job specifications. The cost, in this
year’s budget, will be $4,882.
» Replacement of a seven-year-old
computer server at a cost of $4,800. The new server will be installed in the Recorder’s Office because its server was sent to the Highway Department because it needed
that type of upgrade immediately.
The cost is in this year’s budget.
» Up to $3,000 of FEMA funding for
DSWG, an engineering firm, to draft plans and cost estimates for a multi-agency maintenance facility. The county’s share of the project is estimated to be about 32%. A site has not been chosen yet, but the current county garage site is being considered. The other agencies interested in being included in the project are the City of Grand Marais, ISD 166, MnDOT, the DNR, and Arrowhead Transit.
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