Commissioners hear engineers report on MFT money
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By BETH ZUMWALT
The Scott County Commissioners met Monday, Dec. 19, and heard a report from Matt Coultas, the county’s highway engineer.
Coultas told the board, his department expects to receive $384 in motor fuel tax money.
“We will use $175,000 of that for equipment rental,” Coultas said. “The rest will go towards oil and chip, spray, patching materials, rock salt and culver repair and replacement.”
Coultas said it was also time to discuss his salary. The state recommends salaries for county highway engineers and if the county adopts the recommendation, the state pays a portion of that salary.
The state is recommending a two percent increase which will make the engineer’s salary $51,540. The county shares Coultas’s services with Morgan County, which also pays half of Coultas’s salary.
The inter-governmental agreement between Morgan and Scott was a 10 year contract with one year left.
Salaries dominated the meeting. In addition to Coultas’s salary, Bob Schafer, president of the board of commissioners, said no action would be taken on salaries granted for the 2023 fiscal year, which started Dec. 1.
At last months meeting, employees stated there was a discrepancy among the raises given.
Heads of the offices, the elected officials had their salaries set in the spring, before the fall election. According to state statute, salaries can not be changed once an elected official begins their term. Most of the deputies in those offices were awarded six percent salary increase, but there were others that received more.
Employees believed the raises should be equal as they have been in the past.
Schafer said the commissioners are looking into the matter to see if salaries can be adjusted once the budget has been passed.
Schafer also said the request by the county employees for insurance is not likely in the near future. Employees asked for insurance over the summer, saying Scott is one of only a handful of Illinois Counties that does not offer insurance to the employees. The employees researched and found bids, but no action was taken.
Schafer said there was no money budgeted for employee insurance in the 2023 budget.
The board also heard the steam table in the dining room at the Scott County Nursing Home (SCNH) is broken and cannot be fixed. The administrator is looking at prices and will come back to the board with a recommendation.
Census at the SCNH is 28, up one from last week, with a potential resident looking at the facility.
The board is also working with the City of Winchester on a new contract for dispatching at the Winchester Police Department. The current contract states the city pay the county $16,000 for dispatching services.
