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

The meeting started with the Board reviewing the recommendations from the Compensation Board. They recommended a 12% across the board increase for county-elected officials for the 2023-24 salaries.The Supervisors didn’t take immediate action, as they wanted to run a few percentages through a formula with the County Auditor and see what those numbers look like before they make a decision.

The Board then heard department head updates from Facilities Manager Brandon Thompson and County Engineer Josh Sebern. Thompson told the Board that there had been a new shop started at the transfer station over the summer, with the project finishing ahead of schedule at the beginning of December.

Sebern talked about the All Systems Permit, saying that he’s seeing several counties opting in with varying degrees of use. He did recommend to the Board that Guthrie County participate, though there weren’t very many benefits to the county for doing so. He added that the Board didn’t need to make a decision until February, so the Board decided to wait to make a decision.

The Board then approved several items for the secondary roads department. They approved a resolution for setting right of way and temporary easement purchase rates, and tabled another resolution for setting fencing compensation rates. The Board wanted to wait until those rates were closer to the current material costs. They also approved plans for two bridges to be replaced with aluminum box culverts.

The Board then discussed the Law Enforcement Center Project. Supervisor Mike Dickson let the other supervisors know that there is currently $46,000 left in the project budget, and that with the work that’s left to be done, that wouldn’t be enough. He added that he had discussed with both Thompson and Sheriff Marty Arganbright, and that both the facilities and sheriff’s department had some extra money in their budgets that they were willing to allow the use of to help get things finished. The item will be added to this Thursday’s agenda for approval.

Dickson said that he’s been trying to get in contact with Shive-Hattery and get them to do a completion inspection on the cafeteria, laundry room and offices so they can be used, but that they have told him they can only do the completion inspection when everything is done. Dickson told the rest of the board that Shive-Hattery can approve certain parts before the entire process is done, but that it feels like they don’t want to.

A change order for payment to the Jensen Group was approved, as there had been a computation error. Payment number 25 to the Samuels Group, and a payment to Schindler Elevator were approved as well. Schindler Elevator was withholding the keys to the elevator until the County paid them, and the County was withholding payment because of fixes and extra cost accumulation due to Schindler Elevator changing how they wanted to do things after the original contract was finalized.