Klamath County commissioners approve 2025 personnel assumptions, authorize purchasing IGA and assessor AI pilot

Klamath County commissioners on Dec. 17 approved a set of personnel budget assumptions for 2025, authorized a cooperative purchasing agreement for search-and-rescue equipment and cleared an assessor pilot that officials said is low-risk and time-sensitive.

Amanda Van Riper, the county’s human resources director, presented the personnel assumptions, saying, “we have budgeted $1730 a month for all employees except for 701,” and outlining proposed cost-of-living increases and unchanged items such as life and workers’ compensation insurance. Van Riper told the board PERS employer rates are due to rise sharply — she cited roughly 27.28% for tier 1/2 members and about 22.88% for OPS — and said the increases carry a fiscal impact she described as “more than $448,000.”

Commissioners debated whether to temporarily forgo collecting unemployment contributions, noting the county’s unemployment-risk carryover sits at about $1.3 million and last year’s payments were relatively small. A motion to approve the personnel-services budget assumptions while excluding unemployment contributions was moved, seconded and approved by voice vote; the transcript records the voice vote but does not provide a roll-call or individual tallies.

The board also approved an exception to the county’s PTO policy to permit the sheriff-elect to receive a payout based on current accruals. County staff said the payout would equal 1,202.5 hours and would be paid at the sergeant rate on the Jan. 25, 2025 paycheck, the last paycheck at the employee’s sergeant rate. A motion to authorize the exception was seconded and approved by voice vote.

On procurement, the commissioners authorized the chair (with an amendment to allow the vice chair to sign for speed) to execute a cooperative purchasing intergovernmental agreement with a national purchasing partner so the sheriff’s office can replace search-and-rescue snowmobiles through an existing competitive contracting vehicle. The motion was moved, amended and approved by voice vote.

Assessor Nathan Bigby described a time-sensitive offer from C3.ai for a three-month pilot that would analyze the assessor’s residential property data; the company would provide the pilot work under a $250,000 grant, and staff said IT had reviewed and approved the project. Bigby said the county would receive a data package identifying appraisal outliers and data problems; he called the arrangement “no risk” and said that if the county chose the product later the ongoing cost could be in the $100,000–$120,000 range (Bigby said the pilot itself is a three-month engagement). The board voted to authorize the assessor to participate.

Other routine administrative business included setting a fee-analysis timeline for departments (staff were asked to complete analyses by the end of August for hearings in September), and approving a slate of liaison duties for 2025. The chair adjourned the meeting at about 3:45 p.m.

Votes at a glance: motions recorded in the transcript were carried by voice vote; the transcript does not include complete roll-call tallies or individual recorded yes/no votes.