By Kris Goracke

Reporter

The Pope County Board of Commissioners held its regular meeting on Tuesday, February 4, 2025, addressing a range of county matters, including land use, vehicle purchases, facility repairs, and IT department staffing.

David Green, Land and Resource Management Director, presented a Conditional Use Permit (CUP) request from John Lundebrek for a non-farm residence in White Bear Lake Township. The property is in a Non-Intensive Agricultural zoning district, which requires board approval for residential use. The board unanimously approved the permit, following the recommendation of the Planning Advisory Commission.

Highway Maintenance Supervisor Dave Orlowski requested approval to purchase two new ¾-ton Chevrolet crew cab pickup trucks for the Highway Department. The board approved the purchase from Marthaler Chevrolet, with prices of $49,300 and $49,700, plus tax and licensing fees.

County Administrator Kersten Kappmeyer presented re-roofing quotes for the Public Health Building, explaining the need for the project, “The original shingles at the Public Health Building need replacement. This is a repair that, when the building was purchased several years ago, was anticipated to be needed at this point.” The board approved Roth Roofing of Alexandria for the project at $21,644, with funding coming from the county’s Capital Improvement Fund.

With the county’s Information Technology (IT) Department seeing significant growth in responsibilities, Human Resources Director Jackie Stevens and IT Director Bryan Gates requested the addition of a full-time Technical Support Specialist.

Since the last staffing increase, the department has expanded its support from one to five outside entities, increased from seven servers to 59, and taken on multi-tiered backup systems, data replication for disaster recovery, and over 200 software products. The department now averages 1,200 support tickets yearly, ranging from simple five-minute fixes, such as a non-working mouse, to complex, multi-day issues like troubleshooting squad car software with multiple vendors.

“With our current staffing levels, we find that ticket response times are not what we want them to be, and we have received feedback stating the same,” IT staff explained. “We believe adding one full-time Technical Support Specialist will give the county the staffing levels needed to respond to support tickets adequately and allow other IT staff to perform their duties without excessive interruption.” The board unanimously approved the request and authorized recruitment for the position.

County Auditor/Treasurer Stephanie Rust presented several financial reports, including the December 2024 Trial Balance and Fund Analysis, the 4th Quarter 2024 Journal Entries and Billing, and the 4th Quarter Revenue Expenditure Budget Report. The board unanimously approved all reports.

Additionally, the board approved bill payments totaling $109,222.88 and employee reimbursements of $191.84, bringing the total to $109,414.72. Per Diem Expense Reports were entered into the official record.

After giving their respective committee reports, the board moved to adjourn.