The Greene County Board of Supervisors met Monday in regular session.

During open forum, Assistant County Attorney Thomas Laehn gave a couple of updates. He said the application window to succeed him as assistant county attorney is closed and he received five applications. Interviews have already started and he hopes to hire someone before the end of the calendar year to get that person fully trained. Laehn also told the Board that the Courthouse Security Committee reviewed the security recommendations from the risk assessment study. He will have the final recommendations to the Board in an upcoming meeting.

Also in open forum, County Sheriff Jack Williams said that the County E-911 Board met and decided to pay $300,000 for state-mandated communication equipment upgrades to allow them to communicate with other state law enforcement agencies.

The Board then heard about a new program with the Prison Industries. Representative Dan Clark talked about their work release program and a new aspect. He told the Board their typical work release program is when prisoners are sent to a location to do work for an employer. The new part is having prisoners do work at their facility in Rockwell City. Scranton Manufacturing indicated they are interested in participating. Vice-President of Operations Jim Ober said they would transport parts to the prison and have prisoners weld them and send the finished product back to Scranton. They are looking to employ eight prisoners. Clark noted that 80-percent of each prisoner’s wage will go to state and federal taxes, victim restitution and child support (depending on the prisoner’s situation) and the other 20-percent would go to the state’s general fund and to the prison program. Ober said they are looking at this alternative because they are having trouble hiring individuals to be welders. The Board took no action following the discussion.

The Board then voted three to two in favor of contributing $1,000 in the single plan and $2,000 to the family plan for an employee’s Health Savings Account (HSA) up front. The County would contribute the money at the beginning of the next calendar year. The Supervisors hope that by making the decision, it would incentivize more employees to sign up for an HSA.

Finally, County Engineer Wade Weiss gave a couple of updates. With the retirement of Don Van Gilder, Weiss said he is promoting Tanner Stauffer to Assistant to the County Engineer. Ryan Baugh would then take over Stauffer’s position of County Maintenance Supervisor and Kevin Bauer would be promoted to Fabrication Shop Supervisor. Weiss also discussed the courthouse heating and cooling conversion project. He said the designs are being put together, but suggested holding off on the finalized plans, if payment for the designs hasn’t been determined. His concern was sitting on the finalized plans and then the costs would go up every year that the project isn’t completed. The Board decided to meet with the architect firm to further discuss the topic.