The corporal will work when ….

The corporal will work when the sergeants are not on duty. He noted that currently with people being the same rank level, people can offer advice to coworkers but that does not mean it would be taken. Woebbeking said that being a jailer is more complicated than people imagine and that the state reviews jail complaints.

While there is additional cost, Woebbeking said he felt it was worth it. “I think the little bit of change is much cheaper than a lawsuit,” he said.

Committee chairman Lester Lewis noted that the department’s budget was set for 2023 and that it would be up to the sheriff to make it work within his budget.

County human resources director Nicole Hager called for some changes to the job description before it goes to the finance and personnel committee for that group’s approval. Specifically she wanted it to include the necessary qualifications. Woebbeking said it hadn’t been included since the goal was to promote someone already on staff. “It is an employee who already met our standards,” he said.

Lewis said the simplest thing is to add the qualifications for the jail employees to the corporal description.

Committee members unanimously agreed to create the corporal rank.

Travel time pay

The sheriff’s department is looking to do away with paying for travel time for new hires attending law enforcement training.

Woebbeking proposed a side agreement with the deputies’ union to eliminate travel time pay for recruit school. Taylor County will hire prospective deputies and pay to send them to go to recruit school. The tuition for the program is paid by the county and reimbursed at the state level. The recruits are paid the starting wage in the deputies’ contract while in the training and use a sheriff’s department vehicle to go to and from the training, which is held through Northcentral Technical College in Wausau.

Chief Deputy Corey Dassow said the county is seeing a lot of travel time overtime involved with those taking the course and wanted to try to eliminate that. “Maybe they could drive there and back on their own dime,” Dassow said.

While supportive of the desire to try and save money, committee members expressed concern that it might hurt staff recruitment.

“It is worthwhile having the discussion,” Lewis said. “We are having a hard time recruiting and you want to take some of the incentive away,” he said.

The travel time amounts to about 10 hours a week, or 20 hours per pay period for the 18-week course. “It is a lot of money,” Floyd said.

Dassow said the union is receptive to the request. Human resources director Nicole Hager explained that Bayfield County does the same thing and does not pay the travel time. Other counties handle this by paying the new hires 75% of the starting wages.

Woebbeking said he did not think it was a make or break decision for the department’s budget. Lewis suggested a stipulated side agreement that travel time be straight time.

“They get a county vehicle and gas,” said committee member Chuck Zenner, suggesting they could go without the overtime pay. “I don’t think we should be doing overtime either,” said Floyd.

“I don’t know at this point that we want to take something away,” Lewis said. However he noted that it was good to have the conversation and suggested it be brought to the county’s finance and personnel committee for additional discussion.

In other recruiting discussion, committee members supported moving forward with county code changes that eliminate language requiring written tests and score levels for deputy recruits.

Woebbeking said this is a holdover from a time when the department would be receiving dozens of applicants for each position and they needed to thin them out. “I think it is outdated,” Woebbeking said.

Lewis said the committee can refer it to the finance and personnel committee for review, but that it will take action by the full county board to change the code. He said they should bring it back to the next committee meeting in January.

Fuel spill

A fuel leak due to a faulty valve on an outdoor residential fuel oil tank may end up being a bigger clean up project than originally thought. The spill, which occurred near Stetsonville on November 11 involved approximately 250 gallons of fuel oil.

According to Taylor County emergency management coordinator Daniel Gellert, the spill was the result of a valve going bad on the tank shortly after it was refilled.

“It was worse than they planned,” Gellert said, noting REI, the contractor hired to remove the contaminated soil, removed an area that was three feet deep, 12 feet wide and 15 feet long. Now, it appears that the oil has gotten under the house’s slab and is seeping through the slab into the vents of the house. Gellert noted they could smell the oil in the home.

Gellert explained that the oil went to the lowest spot underneath the house. “It went right underneath the foundation,” he said.

“It is still a mess out there, we are trying to figure out a way to remedy it,” he said.

The cost of the clean up is on the homeowners, who Gellert said are pretty tight with their funds right now. He said the insurance company involved was “nickel and diming” the project. The next step will be to get the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources involved, Gellert said if the DNR was involved it would try to get money from the homeowners.

In other emergency management business, Gellert requested being able to get a decommissioned sheriff’s department squad vehicle as a dedicated county vehicle for his office’s use. He noted that in March the county was scheduled to replace some squad cars and asked that the law enforcement committee assign one of the decommissioned vehicles for his department to use. The county normally sells surplus vehicles on sealed bids to the public, however, sheriff’s vehicles have also been transferred to other departments in the county such as the airport and buildings and grounds. In those cases the budgets of the receiving departments are charged for the purchase price with the money going back into the sheriff’s department vehicle replacement funds.

“They still pay for them,” Woebbeking said, but he noted since it is for county use they would give the most reasonable price they could.

Gellert also requested that a subcommittee be formed to review the county’s emergency operation center needs and come up with recommendations for necessary upgrades. He said he wanted a group to have discussion and not just seem like it was him saying “I want, I want, I want.”

Lewis said the request to form a subcommittee to review the operation center needs will be put on the agenda for the committee’s next meeting.

GIS updates

The law enforcement committee is looking to use some of the remaining federal ARPA funds to update the GIS tracking information in the sheriff’s department dispatch center.

There are GIS trackers in all the squad vehicles which integrate to the system to allow dispatchers to know what vehicles are closest to an emergency call.

According to Woebbeking, the current system is considered “outdated and no longer serviceable” by their vendor. The last upgrade to it occurred in 2013.

Woebbeking said that if they did not upgrade it, the function would go away leaving a blank screen in the dispatch center and the dispatcher going back to not seeing where squads are located.

The cost of the upgrade is $34,503 from Motorola Spillman Solutions. Woebbeking said the county had savings from the ARPA funds for radio upgrades and said much of the money for the GIS upgrade could come from this leftover amount. He estimated the county would have about $30,000 remaining after the radio purchases.

“It takes two steps backward if we don’t move forward with this,” Dassow said.

Committee members gave their approval to request up to $40,000 from the ARPA funds for the upgrade to the dispatch center equipment.