By SALINA POST
Moving some county offices to make way for new court staff and two new jury-ready courtrooms is among the items on the Saline County Commission agenda for Tuesday.
About the meeting
Saline County Commission is scheduled to begin at 9 a.m. Tuesday in room 107 of the City-County Building, 300 W. Ash Street. The meetings also can be viewed on Saline County’s YouTube channel:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCwwZp_cTSJ3Nepp_5rOGevA.
To participate in the meetings, citizens will need to use the Zoom link. Use the following link and put in the Meeting ID and passcode:
https://zoom.us/j/96835819901?pwd=bUEvaExUb2ppMEFaUnd6cUd6MmNMUT09
Meeting ID: 968 3581 9901
Passcode: 144636
For further information, contact the County Commission’s Office at (785) 309-5825.
Agenda items
Commissioners are scheduled to consider a proposal to move some county offices from the City-County Building to the former juvenile detention facility at 229 N. Ninth Street in order to make room for seven new court staff and two new jury-ready courtrooms.
For the current state fiscal year, which began July 1, the State of Kansas included in its budget funding for two new district judges and a magistrate judge for the 28th Judicial District, necessitating the need for additional court space in the City-County Building.
County staff is recommending that Human Resources, Geographic Information Systems, and Planning/Environmental Health offices move to 229 N. Ninth Street once the facility is made ready for offices. Once those moves are made, staff is recommending that Administration, Finance and Commission offices move from room 217 to room 209 and County Appraiser, from room 108 to room 217. Some conversion would be necessary for room 217, according to information in the commission meeting packet.
Then, under the proposal, the county attorney's would move from room 302 to rooms 108 and 109, once those rooms are converted into the county attorney's office suite.
Other items on the county commission agenda for Tuesday include the following.
●Consider approving a workforce incentive beneficiary agreement between the Kansas Department for Aging and Disability Services and the Saline County Health Department to help recruit and retain health department staff.
●Consider approving the extension of the special road construction fund.
●Hear an update and consider proposed changes to American Rescue Plan Act funding that would include $600,000 for the Community Housing Development Corporation of Central Kansas, a non-profit organization formed to provide quality housing in an affordable manner to low- and moderate-income families; award a different sewer project for the City of Gypsum; and reallocate some funding to include the courtroom project mentioned above.
●Consider an employee organization policy.
●Consider adopting a proposed budget on behalf of Smolan Township, which has no township officers.
●Hear County Administrator Phillip Smith-Hanes' recommendations for the 2023 budget.
●Hear an Emergency Management Department update by Michelle Barkley, emergency management director.
●Hear a Road and Bridge Department update from Darren Fishel, administrator.
●Hear a jail project update from Smith-Hanes.
●Hear Smith-Hanes' update
To see the full Saline County Commission meeting packet for Tuesday (268-page pdf), click here.