(Spirit Lake)– Personnel issues in the Veterans Affairs and General Relief offices took up most of the discussion at Tuesday’s Dickinson county board of supervisors meeting.
The supervisors again considered a request from Veteran’s Affairs Commissioner John Tonsfeldt to increase the number of hours Ernie Cupp, his assistant works, and to compensate Cupp for 117 hours for which he wasn’t paid last year. After considerable discussion, a motion to pay Cupp 12-dollars an hour for the 117 hours was approved four-to-one, with supervisor Mardi Allen casting the no vote. Allen was concerned over budget implications, since there’s no provision for that in this year’s budget. There was also concern over setting a precendence among other offices that have also experienced dramatic increases in workloads.
A short time later, Beth Will, the county’s General Relief Director, appeared before the board requesting a one dollar an hour increase for an assistant in her office effective October 18th. Will said there’s sufficient money in the current Community Services budget to cover the increase. The supervisors unanimously approved the request.
On another matter, the supervisors awarded two proposals to purchase new computer software–one is for 74,886-dollars, which is included in this year’s budget; the other is for 62,910-dollars, included in next year’s budget.
