The Marshall County Commissioners discussed the creation of a highway department position when they met Monday morning.
The board members received a job description for a county highway superintendent from Waggoner, Irwin and Scheele. Commissioner Kurt Garner said Company Representative Kent Irwin gave the commissioners some options in June. At that time, Kent Irwin recommended the creation of the interim highway superintendent position. Once a full-time highway superintendent or county engineer is hired, the interim position would dissolve as well as the highway supervisor and highway administrator positions. No decisions were made at that time.
County Attorney Jim Clevenger acknowledged that the county council may have amended the salary to compensate Highway Supervisor Jason Peters’ efforts in completing work that would otherwise be done by the highway superintendent and a highway administrator. However, the commissioners had not taken action to amend the administrative job titles or job descriptions at the highway department.
Additionally, the county council eliminated funding out of the 2019 budget for a county engineer.
Stan Klotz, who is running against Richard Erickson for the County Commissioner District 1 seat in Tuesday’s election, suggested waiting to make a determination about the position until January so the new commissioner could have a say in the final decision.
Commissioner Kevin Overmyer recommended waiting until after the council’s Nov. 12 meeting so they have a chance to review all the job descriptions recently submitted by Waggoner, Irwin and Scheele and added that a new commissioner could weigh in on the matter.
Garner disagreed stating that this position change has been in the works for several years as he thought it was the direction that the highway department needed to take.
“If that’s going to be the position that’s been created by the council by virtue of pay and by virtue of how Kent Irwin laid out the options, then that’s what we need to do, said Garner. “So, I’m going to make a motion that we create that as a highway superintendent position.”
The motion was seconded by Mike Delp and the motion passed with a vote of 2-1 with Kevin Overmeyer opposed to the motion.
Auditor Julie Fox noted that with a new position that it will have to be advertised.
