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WORLAND – The Washakie County Commissioners met for their first regularly scheduled meeting of 2020 on Jan. 7 to amend changes to the county’s policies regarding vacation, sick and compensation (comp) time.

The amendments that were made to the verbiage included changing the range of years an employee accrues 15 days of vacation leave from a range of 10-14 years (from the previous 10-15 years), and earning 20 days of leave when working for the county 15 years of more.

A paragraph was also struck from the comp time section of the manual, regarding comp time needing to be paid or used before Dec. 31 of each year, and the comp time being unable to be rolled over to the next year. All comp time over 40 hours will be paid as overtime to the employee immediately as comp time may not exceed 40 hours unless extraordinary circumstances occur.

Also at Tuesday’s meeting, County Planner David Anderson brought forward a request to re-subdivide the Monkey Face Subdivision to divide Lot 1 into Lot 1A and Lot 1B, to divide the house and Ten Sleep Brewery to be on separate lots for potential future plans. The request was approved.

Anderson also updated the commissioners on the progress of the bike path retaining wall. They are at the point where inspections have been completed and designs are being created.

Washakie County Homeland Security Director Kami Neighbors brought forth the Emergency Operations Plan Update which is required every two years, and determined the towns of Ten Sleep and Worland need to be added as their resources will be used on top of Washakie County’s resources for an emergency plan.

Neighbors wants to work over the next two years to place the emergency plan into BOLDplanning, a website which allows for different agencies to have access to the document, and update it as you go along rather than going through hundreds of pages at a time. She also believes that the Emergency Support Functions (ESFs) are also “kind of lacking a little bit” and plans to work with department heads over the coming years to improve them.

OTHER BUSINESS

Keith Bower of road and bridge brought forward a permit for the commissioners to sign from Rocky Mountain Power to put a line across Washakie County Road Ten, and discussed the recent vandalism that occurred on Lane 17.

Tom Schmeltzer of building maintenance reported that Washakie County Sheriff Steven Rakness wants improvements on some doors in the courthouse around the district court to prevent somebody from breaking through to reach the security device. Schmeltzer reported that they will replace a light at the front entrance of the Ten Sleep Library that has been a nuisance for a significant amount of time.