The Marshall County Council has agreed to a personnel change for the Buildings and Grounds Department. “Jim Morgan just retired, and he was a maintenance/custodian,” Supervisor Doug Masterson told council members last week. “He would clean in the morning, maintenance in the afternoon. What we would like to do . . . we want to take Jim’s position and just make it a cleaner, so we can have it over here in [the Marshall County] building.”
Council members also agreed to let Masterson add a part-time clerical position. “With the extra money that we have left because there’s such a difference between maintenance/custodian and a janitor, let me have that money to put in part-time so I can have one-day-a-week office help, because I do more paperwork than anything,” he said. “And I can get out from behind the desk and actually do some maintenance.”
During last week’s meeting, the county council voted to update the 2018 salary ordinance to reflect the changes. Council members also discussed making the appropriate changes to next year’s budget proposal, as well.
They also discussed reducing the Building and Grounds Department’s overtime budget for next year. Masterson hopes the need for overtime will go down with the personnel changes, but the biggest factor is misbehaving inmates in the jail.
He said his crews are often called to the jail at night or on weekends, after inmates flush various items down the toilets. “This is the honest truth: me and Gary’s pulled out a pair of pants,” Masterson said. “We pulled out a pair of pants. It’s like, who’s running around with no pants?”
Masterson noted that the jail is often filled to the point where there isn’t enough room to move inmates to a different part of the building. That means repairs can’t wait until regular business hours.
Masterson also told council members that if plans to expand the jail move ahead, he would need another maintenance position.
