USDA Wildlife Services requests additional funds from county

    Mike Sherman and Jerry Feist with USDA Wildlife Services joined Chase County Commissioners Jacci Brown, Duane Dinnel and Dennis Kunnemann at their Sept. 14 meeting to discuss an increase in expenses.
    The county has a contract with the USDA until June 30, 2023. Though the county was supposed to pay $14,749.04 for 2021, the USDA is asking for an additional $24,123.00 to help cover expenses for 2021. The contract can be broken with 60 days written notice.
    With no county requirements to have a Wildlife Service program, the commissioners took no action and will research possible alternatives.
    One of those alternatives may be to work with adjoining counties to hire Sherman themselves.
    Sherman and Feist attended  the Perkins County Commissioner meeting Monday with Feist making the request for more money from Perkins County as well.
    Perkins County commissioners discussed the possibility with Sherman. Like Chase County, Perkins County will look at alternatives for the program over the coming months.
    At its June 8 meeting, the board discussed cutting back on grader operators and letting road foremen use more employees on separate projects. At that meeting, Brown said those employees would need to resume grader work if the regular grader operators fell behind on their routes.
    At last week’s meeting, Brown said she’d like to see the county go back to nine grader routes because the roads in her district are not being graded on a regular schedule.
    With a new GPS system soon to be used by the county to track its graders, Dinnel is interested in seeing what that information shows.
    No action was taken.
    The commissioners approved a $70,000 bid from Western Equipment and Truck of Greeley, Colorado for a dump truck for the road department.
    Approval to purchase two new traffic counters was give so the county can do a road study at the intersection of 742 Road and 321 Avenue.
    Several budgetary matters were taken care of, including four resolutions and a public  hearing for the final tax request.
    The next regular meeting of the board will be Sept. 28 at 8 a.m. in the courthouse.