Benton County supervisors create unemployment fund, approve farm exemption and hire maintainer

Benton County supervisors approved several routine resolutions at their meeting, including creation of a new proprietary unemployment/self-insurance fund, personnel actions and a land-use exemption.

County staff told the board the county will exit the ISAC unemployment pool and begin paying Iowa Workforce Development directly for unemployment claims; staff recommended budgeting a 0.1% rate and creating a new internal fund (proposed fund number 8502) to receive a check currently on staff's desk. "For now, I'm only asking you to approve me creating that proprietary fund," a county staff member said. The board moved and approved the fund-creation resolution (identified in the meeting as resolution 25-101).

The board also acknowledged the resignation of reserve officer Les Wood; the resignation was presented by staff and the board voted to accept the acknowledgement.

On a land-use item, the board approved a farm-exemption application for Melinda Riley covering 75 acres in Florence Township; the applicant's legal description was read into the record and a motion to approve was seconded and carried.

Personnel actions included formal adoption of a hiring resolution for a maintainer operator. Staff presented resolution 25-102 to hire Charles Betterton for the Bruce Center shed, with a starting wage read aloud; the board moved, seconded and approved the hire.

Infrastructure business included removing a previously posted 3-ton weight embargo on a newly replaced twin-box culvert on 52nd Street in Polk Township; staff presented resolution 25-103 and the board voted to remove the weight restriction now that the structure is completed.

Motions on these routine items were moved, seconded and recorded as carried during the meeting. Several items were discussed further during department reports and will be revisited in budget discussions when appropriate.