Philosopher Camus wrote “Always go too far, because that’s where you will find the truth. “
White Pine County Commission Meeting
April 11, 2018
Public Comment
Chris Conner (Business Agent for Operators Engineers Local) “ We spent months last year negotiating a contract for the hard-working men and women of this County for 3 1/2 raise. I found out last night that you’re about to vote for an 18 1/2% raise the fireman out there at the Red Barn, you lost the chief. I’m just wondering when this madness will stop. I know the city has offered $170,000 to take over the fire patrol. I’m wondering why we waste so much money on something that is not needed. The city took care of the fires for a hundred plus years. You’ve been through 9 Fire Chiefs in 9 years, when is this madness going to end.”
( I do think there’s a little confusion in this statement. The city offered $170,000 as an insurance policy that they will help the county when they are needed. And if you compare the wages with the working men and women in the county you will find that they do not get paid $11 an hour to start. There is a large discrepancy between the firefighters and EMTs and the County employees. If you want to compare you can check transparent Nevada.”
Fire Commission
Calls for March
Total Calls- 59
Medical Emergency – 23 – up 5
Medical Assist- 8 – up 4
Care Flights- 21 – down 11
Hospital to Hospital – 1 – down 1
Fire – 1 – Structure cooking
False Alarm – 4
Agency Assist – 1 – Dynamite/ Cap removal we assisted the sheriff’s from Elko with the dynamite removal. They found well over a thousand sticks of dynamite with caps near Lane City.
Discussion / action / Possible Approval to contract with Intermax for ambulance billing service for 9.5% of net collections.
Stork “ this is a contrast between hiring out the billing or doing it in-house. If we do it in-house it’ll be slightly over $28,000 a year. This would include salary, benefits and tools. With Intermax it would be approximately $32,400, so we have a difference of roughly $3,000. One of the differences is they will have to follow up on the collections and the County fire department will not have to. After 12 months it will be turned over to a collection company. We will still receive the money, but pay a fee for recovery. The nine and a half percent will be for what they collect not what they bill.”
Frances “We currently do all of this in house and we set up payment plans if people need it. We do follow up on all payments. We never drop a bill we continue to pursue it or turn it over to collections”
McKenzie “ One question I have is who’s going to go over everything that has to be sent to Intermedix?”
Stork “At this point they would access our EXO. As I see this we could continue with the part-time employee to help with Grant Management. By Contracting this portion of her job out it would free up more time.”
Howe “I went out there and watched her work. She seems to have a great handle on things. To be able to go directly to her with questions seems to be a very valuable thing. I know the hospital and other places in the county that have outsourced their billing, are now taking it back for in-house billing. I do feel it’s better that the local people can call someone local and not deal with somebody from outside the county” McKenzie “Now this is one company we went to direct, but we didn’t contact other companies to get quotes. We should do our proper process and go get proposals.
Frances “If it is between $25,000 and $50,000, according to the NRS we do need to get at least two competitive proposals. Right now the part-time person is paid buy EMS. If changes are made, it will have to come out of a general fund.”
No action taken at this time
Discussion/Action/Possible Approval of revised wage scales for White Pine County Fire Protection District hourly in personnel.
Frances “One of the things that was discussed last meeting, was how do we compare with other fire stations. Our closest entity to compare with is the city of Ely and I have found we are way below. And the state site that compares all of the entities in the state, we are well below even the average. If we give them three 5% increases what would the additional cost be? It would result in a $50,180.00 in this budget year. At a 3% increase it would result in $46,700. We can drop part of the equipment budget, the training budget, the travel budget and the equipment maintenance budget we could accomplish these raises.
Howe “ the Fire District employees have not received a raise in about 5 years.”
Ricci “The pay scale was put together in 2014 and they have not received any cost of living raises.”
Frances “I do hope that Mr. Connors does negotiate for the County workers, I’m sure that he would recognize that the low end of our firefighters and the low end of the City of Ely firefighters is drastically different. If you were negotiating for our firefighters he would realize that a comparable wage is very important. If we do the 3% we will bring them closer to the lowest in the state.”
Howe “All of our employees are below any other department.”
Bybee “I can’t see giving out pay raises and staying in our budget.”
Conners “ If they need representation why haven’t they called me? I would be glad and would represent them well. Now that I know that some of their expenses come out of the general fund I have to represent them.”
Stork “We can remove the bottom three steps and add three steps to the top. This will give our bottom people an immediate raise and provide a future raise for the people higher up.”
If they start at step 4 for new recruits, it would be about a 10% raise. Then the lower steps would be added to the top giving other people increases in July.
Howe “We are in the process of recruiting and it would help having a higher starting wage.”
A motion was made remove steps 1, 2 and 3, making step 4 entry level and adding three levels to the top, to become official on July 14th.
Bybee “I can’t support this, I know our employees need a raise but until we straighten out Financial I just don’t think we can afford it.”
4/1 Bybee no
Discussion/Action/Possible Approval of allowing maintenance to do repairs at the McGill Legion Hall.
Chief Woolever “Some background. I need to check with THE DA but supposedly we own the Legion Hall, we do pay the insurance on it. We will come back as soon as we know for sure if we own the property, we do not want to do anything illegal.”
Tabled 5/0
( I am very happy that there’s a lot of discussion on the matters concerning the County Fire Department. It has been a long time since they have received raises. This will help with recruitment and it will help our firefighters and encourage them to stay on the county team. I am also happy that Mr. Connors dead recognize that some of what he spoke of was not correct.)
Public Hearing – The White Pine County Commissioners will take public comment on Ordnance 489, Bill No. 03.14.2018, an ordnance amending Title 4 providing that fictitious business name certificates expire five (5) years after with the White Pine County Clerk.
5/0 Approved
Public Hearing the White Pine County Commissioners will take public comment on its intention to make an inter-fund loan from the general fund to the Wildlife Management Map Fund in the amount of $1,830 to provide for travel until those funds are received from the state.
5/0 Approved
Discussion/Action/Possible Approval to award the March field concession agreement.
Only one bid was put in on this project, requirement for the county is a 5% of gross receipts for 2018. The business name is Tumblebugs gym. And the agreement they want is 8% back to the county.
5/0 Approved
Discussion/First Reading of ordinance 490, bill No. 03.2 8. 20188a, an ordinance amending ordinance 482, and ordinance requiring any person or entity which engages in any business, trade, profession, industry, occupation or calling in White Pine County to obtain and maintain a business license to operate, to bring in to compliance with chapter 364 of the Nevada Revised Statues as follows: (1). by providing that the sheriff’s delegates his or her Duty as ex-officio collector of County licenses to the County Clerk and that the Clerk accept such duties, 2. by stating that an annual license fee in the amount of 3% imposed on marijuana establishments gross revenue is a new fee and, 3. by stating the need for and the purpose of ordinance imposing such a fee and an intended use for the revenue to be obtained pursuant to the ordinance.
This is mainly a housekeeping to keep our ordinances up-to-date and to have the Sheriff’s Department in charge as the collector of County licenses. We do not have a business department, so we need somebody to collect for licenses. There is one item that has been left out and we will be back for a second reading. This is an ordinance that provides for proper record-keeping and an audit of any business.
Discussion/First Reading of Ordinance 493, bill No 0 4. 1 1. 2 0 1 8, an ordinance amending Title 4 of the White Pine County Code to provide an abbreviated process for obtaining a temporary liquor license for special events.
The liquor license everyone has been filling out for a temporary event, is the same as getting a liquor license for an established business. This is needed to shorten the form events need to fill out.
Lombard Conrad Architects
Discussion /Action/Possible Approval of contract with Lombard Conrad Architects Nevada limited for the Justice Center project in the amount of 1,650,000 (8.25% of estimated construction cost) for a Basic Architectural Service Plus other fees as outlined in the attached document pursuant to final review and approval of the USDA and District Attorney’s office.
There could be over runs, so this is not a locked-in price.
5/0 Approved
Discussion/Action/Possible Approval of the written addendum and / or modification of Public defender contract based on the commission’s prior 4/1 Decision to allow 8% increase in pay.
4/1 Stork opposed
Discussion/Action/Possible Approval of the affidavit for Delinquent Tax mailing.
One good thing is the delinquent taxes are down from last year. 769 delinquent notices went out in the mail.
5/0 Approved
Discussion/Action/Possible Approval for the County Clerk’s Office to close at 5 p.m. on May 21st and 22nd during the last two days to register to vote in person pursuit to NRS 293. 560(2).
5/0 Approved
Discussion/Action/Possible Direction on Insurance Coverage for the Airport Race Events scheduled for June 2018.
Frances “We have been concerned that we have adequate insurance coverage for the airport race. We don’t have anything finalized but we do have more update.”
Gale “ All our permits have been issued there is an exclusion that our underwriter has from the county standpoint. The county has a 10 million dollar coverage at the airport. That’s general liability in coverage for normal Aviation that happens at the airport. Special events have to have their own insurance coverage. There are four other events like ours in the world and they are all covered by Lloyd’s of London. And that’s because they’re all out of the United States. The only other race that is covered is the Reno race. There’s really only one company that offers the liability that we need. We have applied and we have our premium back. There are three options that they have given us. There are 16 Pilots that will be coming and each pilot is required to carry $1,000,000 coverage. The pilots will list the county as insured. As being the organizers of the event we also need insurance, this will cover our volunteers and spectators. The insurance company has given us three options – 1 million, 3 million or $5,000,000 coverage. We’ve kept our insurance for this coverage at 2000 people attending the event. $1,000,000 of coverage boils down to $8.90 per person. We are looking at the $3,000,000.
You have cost of $37,500 for $3,000,000 coverage. We don’t have to bind the coverage until days before. And by that time we should know just about how many people will be attending. The advance ticket sales should give us a good idea.”
Frances “So there is no misunderstanding, this is a county sponsored event. There has been money augmented and I do feel we need the maximum amount of coverage.”
5/0 to get the five million dollar coverage at the cost of $71,000.
Discussion/Update on Indigent Burial at the City-owned cemetery.
Barnson “As you know we have a section down at the bottom of the cemetery. I was informed that we are out of plots. The cost to the county for us to do a burial is $2,390. The cost to do a cremation is $1,550. I tried to discuss with the families to do a cremation. We do have enough room at the Potter`s Field to get a vault. If they have no family or if the family chooses, they can go in a vault and be properly labeled. This vault will hold between 100 and 200 people, so this will get us through about 20 years. It would cost $300 for a vault.
Lance Gale – Airport Manager
Discussion/Action/Possible Approval of the Airport Capital Improvement Project. Record of negotiation and independent fee estimate and the task order for Engineering Services for Armstrong Consulting.
Gale “ This is to approve our Engineering firm with Armstrong Consulting. They came in with a $756,000 fee , they were much higher but came back with this amount. And I’m just asking for your approval to sign a contract with Armstrong Consulting to continue with our engineering projects.”
Frances “It is covered under the grant even though it exceeds.”
5/0 Approved
Discussion/Update on abandoned airplane that was donated to the airport.
Gale “I want you to know that the county is very close to owning an airplane, there are no engines to it but you will be owning an airplane. In 21 days it will be official and then we will put it out to bid.”
Discussion/Update of possible AirMed service by MedEx AirOne Yelland field, rental of hanger and possibility of bringing in an on-site fuel trailer.
Joel Hochhalter, President of Jovl Holding “We are looking into the possibilities that any air transported the patient can be flown at no cost to them. So we are looking into a change of Air Med companies. Air Med is located in Elko and anyone that has the air Med insurance would still be covered and they would be called as a secondary provider. The hospital is currently discussing with MedEx four possible service in White Pine County.”
Howe “We are looking at alternates providers here and we’re talking about MEd flight being a secondary. Weekend every port every month on the med flights that go out and it’s average 2.6 per day. What I’m hearing is that we are possibly looking into another service. I understand competition is good and you’re talking about free air flights, but lives are more important than money. Because something is more palatable financially doesn’t mean it’s a better than money.”
Hochhalter “The hospital has no problem with Med Flight, they have been amazing. We have made sure that the equipment, and service are of top quality, so we do not believe there will be any difference in the care.”
This is membership versus actual cost. Many people here in Ely are part of the membership, and the membership is insurance, but it is also a charge. In the program you bring in more memberships that you can write off against Federal programs. This new program is ran through a 501 3 C and takes donations to cover the flights instead of the family paying for it. This new program will not have any fine print, it will be ran off the 501 3 C at no charge to the patient or their family.”
Stork “ I think the question before us today is will we rent them Hangar space. And being a public utility I do not think we can refuse.”
Howe “What about the on-site fuel trailer. That cuts out our guy for filling the plane.”
Yes but if we need to be fueled at 3 in the morning, we can fill it our self without getting somebody out of bed and getting them to the airport. This would save a lot of time and get the plane off the ground quicker.
Stork “I don’t feel there’s decision to make be made on this board, if we have an available space we should rent it.”
Perea “The only problem I see is that we have a contract with the Jet Center to provide fuel. If we allow someone to come on with their own fuel tanks, is this a problem.”
The Hanger is not a necessity, if there’s ground available there can be a hanger built.
Howe “This has been a great discussion. Now we need to move on to the next item”
( I firmly believe in competition, and I feel that this discussion needs to be public. If you have any comments please make your feelings known to the County Commissioners. I have known many people who have been life-flighted out and do not have the insurance. The cost of a med flight can destroy your financial being. A question I have is will this new group willing to help build a new hanger?)
Update on Hanger #2 for lease
The Hanger is all cleaned out and ready for lease on May 9th.
Discussion/Update on Air Show/Race June 13 – 16 schedule
At the moment we have about $42,000 in sponsorship. Last week wheeler Machinery donated all the equipment that we needed to do the improvements out here at the airport for the safety of everyone. This is about an $8,000 donation.
One of the things that just came up as we are going to have a test flight and the FAA is going to come out to see how we’re handling situations. We will have a plane taking off and landing on the runway. There will be a mock disaster, with the EMTs and fire departments.
We have the media coming out here, Fox News is considering being part of this.
The Department of Transportation is going to donate the 470 cones that we will have along Highway 93.
On the volunteer side we are going to need between 300 and 350 volunteers. That is about 70 to 80 volunteers a day. On April 20th, at the Bristlecone Convention Center at 7:00 pm., there will be a meeting to acquaint the volunteers with what needs to be done and place them in the proper spots.
E-tickets will be set up shortly and you will be able to buy tickets online. We have to firm up our prices so that it covers all of our expenses including the insurance. The online pricing will be far better than at the gate.
(this is a good opportunity to be a volunteer at a new event. Anyone’s help is appreciated. Please come out to the volunteer night and get your assignment).
Geri Wop
