Saline County's mask mandate will remain in effect for at least another two weeks.
During their meeting this morning, Saline County Commissioners declined to rescind the mandate after discussing the county's COVID-19 condition with Jason Tiller, county health officer.
Tiller told commissioners that the county has had 238 new confirmed cases of COVID-19 in the past two weeks and more than 400 cases for the month of October. Tiller told commissioners that on Monday, the county recorded a high of 52 new confirmed cases. Forty-two of those were reported in the county's COVID-19 update. The remaining 10 came in after the update was issued, according to information from the county.
According to Tiller, a total of 11 staff are working six days a week on case investigation. Those staff are under an extreme amount of stress and often encounter unhappy individuals, which can make case investigation even more difficult to ensure that potential close contacts are identified and contacted, the county information noted.
Tiller also provided two resources:
The Kansas COVID-19 Vaccination Plan has been released and can be found at https://www.coronavirus.kdheks.gov/DocumentCenter/View/1533/DRAFT-COVID-19-Vaccination-Plan-for-Kansas-Version11-10162020.
The COVID-19 Vaccine Tracker https://covid19.trackvaccines.org/.
In a related matter, commissioners approved an amended memo of agreement with the Salina Area Chamber of Commerce Foundation concerning its grant program using part of the county's Coronavirus Relief Funding.
The changes include decreasing the amount of lost revenue that a business had to meet from 25 percent to 15 percent and increasing the amount that the businesses are eligible for per employee from $2,500 to $5,000, which also increases the maximum a business can be awarded from $25,000 to $50,000, according to information from the county. The modification is an effort to get more funds into the community before the Dec. 30 deadline.
During the meeting, commissioners conducted the following business, according to information from the county.
●They approved a request from Tiller to appoint Dr. David Dupy as the first alternate and Dr. Robert Freelove as the second alternate county health officer to fill in when Tiller was not available.
●Commissioners also approved accepting a $4,500 grant to be used for radon education, re-calibrating two monitors, purchase short-term kits, and conduct activities during Radon Action Month.
●Commissioners proclaimed today Election Worker Appreciation Day.
●Commissioners heard from Jennifer Fraser, deputy county treasurer, who provided the third quarter Idle Funds report. $68,795.31 was received in interest earnings in the third quarter, bringing the total to $331,084.74 so far in 2020.
●Commissioners heard Darren Fishel, road and bridge director, provide his bi-monthly update on activities performed by the department in September and October. One new generator and two re-used generators were set at the main shop building, engineering office, and traffic control building. One and a half miles of road were re-built in the Sundowner west area, 23 cross-road and entrance culverts were replaced, one mile of Cunningham Road between Schilling Road and Water Well Road was reshaped and graveled, six miles of edge wedge was placed on asphalt roads, 97 signs were repaired or replaced, and 4,065 ton of rock, 4,773 tons of AB-3, and 3,480 tons of sand were hauled.
●Commissioners heard Justin Mader, county engineer, provide his update. Several projects were completed in 2020 including the paving of West Water Well Road between Burma Road and Lightville Road for a total cost of $690,019, replacement of a culvert on Salemsborg Road west of Holmes Road for $57,716, hot-mix asphalt overlays in several areas as well as bituminous chip seal. Mader told commissioners of the cost differences between the hot-mix asphalt overlay versus chip seals per mile resulting in a cost of $150,525/mile for the hot-mix asphalt and $21,774/mile for the chip seal. Several projects that are under contract still need to be complete including five reinforced box culvert replacements, pavement crack seal, and aggregate shouldering. These projects are slated to begin sometime in November. The Engineering Department continues to work on six potential FEMA mitigation projects that have the potential of bringing approximately $1 million in funds to Saline County to complete these and improve areas where flooding is prevalent. Culvert inspections, plans for culvert replacements, bridge inspections, span bridge projects and reinforced box culvert projects, and continued road improvements are all in the works for 2021, Mader said.