Churchill County reinstates assistant road supervisor position; Carl Zolz placed at advanced step

The Churchill County Board of Commissioners approved a reorganization of the Road Department that reinstated the assistant road supervisor position and promoted Carl Zolz to that post at grade 69, step 10, with an annual salary recorded in the motion as $106,828.09.

Joe Sanford, Human Resources, said the reorganization responds to recent losses of key personnel and asked the board to authorize an advanced‑step placement under Title 3 of the Churchill County Code. Sanford said the board may grant advanced step placement for difficult recruitment or for an employee who possesses superior qualifications; staff recommended the latter for Zolz based on his 22 years with the department and more than a decade as maintenance and construction foreman.

Road Supervisor Gary Fowlkes described how the reorganization will change the department structure, eliminate the foreman and lead mechanic positions, and replace them with a regular mechanic position. Fowlkes presented estimated personnel savings of about $42,551 overall: roughly $10,470 attributable to replacing the lead shop mechanic with a regular mechanic and about $4,350 from moving an office specialist into a vacated office supervisor role, with additional position changes making up the remainder. Fowlkes noted road department funding is kept in separate funds from the county general fund.

A commissioner moved to reinstate the assistant road supervisor position and place Carl Zolz at step 10 of grade 69; the motion was seconded and carried by verbal vote. The motion and staff presentation did not identify any additional external approvals required. The transcript contains multiple spellings of the promoted employee’s name (examples in the transcript include ‘Zolz,’ ‘Zultz,’ and ‘Zlutz’); the article standardizes to 'Carl Zolz' and records the transcript variants in clarifying details.