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Valley County HR asks commissioners for extra funds to cover background checks, drug testing and training software
Summary
County HR told commissioners the volume of new hires and required testing has nearly exhausted background‑check and drug‑test lines and recommended buying a $12,000-a-year learning management system that could be offset in part by existing training budgets.
Valley County’s HR representative told commissioners at the May 26 afternoon session that three budget lines—criminal background checks, employee drug testing and training—are straining the department’s current allocations and requested modest increases to avoid service disruptions.
The HR director said background checks, provided by a third‑party vendor, run about $50 each but can climb to $75–$100 for people with multiple prior residences; because checks are performed on candidates after they accept conditional job offers, the volume of hires this year has pushed the department past its $1,200 background‑check line. “I am going to, most likely, leak past my current budget of $1,200,” she said.
On drug testing, the director said the county uses Meinert and Associates with collections at Cascade Medical Center for preemployment, post‑accident and quarterly random tests. She said the drug‑testing line of about $9,000 is nearly exhausted and that random testing could be limited later in the fiscal year unless the board awards additional funds, noting that the testing helps secure a discount from the state insurance fund for workers’ compensation.
The HR representative also urged the county to consider a learning management system (LMS) from NeoGov to centralize employee training, saying the platform offers more than 1,600 trainings and would allow the county to upload its own materials. She estimated the LMS at roughly $12,000 a year and suggested that about $8,000 could be covered by reallocating existing training budgets across departments.
Commissioners asked staff to consider small reallocations and to account for the HR requests when finalizing the budget. No formal vote was taken on increases at the meeting; the discussion will feed into upcoming budget work sessions.
Why it matters: The requested adjustments would affect hiring pace, required safety testing and how the county documents and delivers employee training, with potential downstream effects on public‑safety staffing and workers’‑compensation costs.
