The Guthrie County Board of Supervisors met in regular session Tuesday.

The Board approved county held tax sales assignments for two parcels of land, before tabling a decision on a county credit card policy. County Auditor Dani Fink told the Board it has been nine years since the last time a Board signed a policy, and after some discussion on what they’d like to include, they asked Fink to revise a policy and present it once finished.

The Board then approved a substantial completion for Molin Concrete Products and a detention paint contract for JC Toland, before opening a public hearing about fiscal year 2022-23 Budget Amendment #1. After no verbal or written comments were brought to the forward, the hearing closed and the Board approved the amendment.

They then discussed in length on Guthrie County employee salaries before approving a raise. All five supervisors agreed that they wanted to give a raise, but were unsure of what to do to make things work. Eventually two motions were made. The first was a motion by Supervisor Mike Dickson, which would implement a 3% raise, and put in place a county wide hiring freeze for new positions and cut $30,000 from the sheriff’s office budget to help ensure funds were available, and leave the general reserve budget in a place the supervisors were comfortable with, which was 19% of the 2023-24 budget. The motion failed for a lack of a second.

After some more discussion, Supervisor Steve Smith put forward a motion to implement a 4% pay raise for county employees, with no cuts, no hiring freeze and no increase to tax levies. The motion was seconded by Supervisor Maggie Armstrong, and it went to a roll call vote. Board Chair Brian Johnson, Armstrong and Smith all voted in favor, while Dickson and Supervisor Kuster voted no, because this would cut into the general reserve, leaving it at 15.8%.