Board of County Commissioners - Regular Meeting

Good afternoon, everyone. Thanks for joining us. We will now call

agenda. Are there any requests for additions, subtractions, or changes?

Move for approval. I'll second.

Seconded. Commissioner Vogt? Yes. Commissioner Derrick? Yes. Chair votes yes. Next up, citizen input. Is there, I don't see anyone in the room who might want to give a public comment. Are there any hands raised online?

I'm sorry for a moment. It worked on both for her live stream on YouTube, I'm assuming.

Yeah. So we were, for anyone who's watching the recording, we were just double checking that our online viewing functionality is working today.

Okay. So no citizen input.

Are there any commissioner announcements?

I did have a conversation this morning with several people from OHA regarding the grant funding. It was $80 million that was awarded. And apparently that's going to be going forward for this year and next year. And it's interesting. I will be chatting with our health department and it was hospice to Redmond. Now it's ClearPath and letting them know what they can do for their applications in the future. Apparently there's a meeting in Madras on September 29th. So anyone that is interested in further information on this funding, please put that on your calendars. It is September 29th in Madras, and it will be another, I don't know, the whole funding is $197 million plus. So I really want people that are doing health care in our region to be able to apply and get awards.

You're referring to the Rural Health Transformation Program?

Yes, I am.

Any other announcements? Just to acknowledge a fire started down at Crescent Butte in northern Claremont County. There's a partnership with the emergency radio team. So there are some volunteers got involved overnight to support Walker Range who responded to the fire. So it sounds like this So almost 200 acres now, but hopefully it's kind of managed. I haven't seen the footprint, but it was kind of just a silent view. So there was community engagement supporting that fire.

What time did that fire start? Do you know? Was it last night?

No, Saturday after.

Oh, okay. Some fire started last night because my husband's phone beeps constantly.

But it was an ATV accident.

Oh, right. That one.

Gotcha.

Saw that. And the 85 guy had to be whatever left it out or something. Yes.

A lot of fire on the landscape. I'll just share that the Oregon Water Resource Department is holding a meeting on the Deschutes Groundwater Mitigation Program this afternoon. There are no further announcements.

one uh public hearing and emergency adoption of ordinance number 2026-017 to affect updates to that county's hr personnel rules two commissioners for the record deputy county administrator whitney hale um i am revisiting this discussion which we began during last wednesday's meeting with the board on proposed updates to the county's personnel rules Our HR director was able to provide the board with a brief update of the proposed changes in the personal rules during last week's meeting. I'm happy to cover briefly that again, since the board will be holding public hearing on these proposed changes today. As Susan mentioned last week, the updates that are before you are primarily administrative. They deal with a variety of procedural and also technical changes that The county has either by way of a change of state law or of practice and process deemed to be needed to kind of modernize some of our practices. The board last approved updates to the personnel rules in 2021. And since then, the county has undergone a lot of work in the HR policy area with review and updates before the board. And this is really the final piece of that listing update process. Susan highlighted for the board, excuse me, last week, but these proposed updates do introduce bereavement leave for nonrepresented employees, which is consistent with a number of our other CBAs across the organization. But the bulk of these changes are primarily the procedural and technical administrative changes. Another area that we will be updating through these proposed changes is the mechanism by which the board would approve updates to the personnel rules. As we're demonstrating here today, the current structure is that the board would approve these changes via an ordinance and public hearing. The proposed change is that that would be modified and that future updates would occur more similar to policy updates and they would still come before the board, but there would be less process associated with those proposed updates. So with that, I'm happy to answer any questions that the board may have on the proposed changes. I know Commissioner Adair, you were able to ask a few of Susan last week, but if there's anything else that has come up since then, happy to answer any questions.

So we all acknowledge we're proposing to go from an ordinance to a resolution in here. That is part of the red lines. And then what's the date item that we stopped with last Wednesday?

Yeah, so last Wednesday during our discussion, We highlighted that one of the proposed changes in personnel rules is the sunsetting of the retiree health insurance premium subsidy that's provided to employees. And so that that premium subsidy would not be provided to employees hired after September 1st is the date that's in the draft you have before you. With the board's documents that you had in front of you on Wednesday, that date was August 1st, which was a date in the past. So we've corrected that and provided A feature facing date of September 1 so that we have ample time to host these if adopted by the board and also communicate that change out so that it is well known before we get to that date.

Where is that in the document?

That would be on there. 13.020 at the bottom of page 38, rolling over onto the top of page 39. So that date change starts at the top of page 39. And that paragraph of red lines at the top there that concludes with the sentence employees hired on or after September 1st. And this is employees only, not elected. I believe that this would also apply to elected officials. This, I can double check that, but we are pretty clear throughout the document and I believe it would. Okay.

Unless it's for future hires, so it's kind of closing a window or moving a window, basically.

Right. So we're honoring the program as it was provided to any employee that was hired up to this point, but as we have in other areas choosing to subsidize, excuse me, sunset that for future hires.

Okay. Are there questions before, questions, comments before we go to a hearing?

Nope.

okay um well at this time we will open uh the public hearing on ordinance number 2026-017 to effect updates to the county's HR personnel rules I don't see anyone in the room um is there anyone online now as their hand raised Seeing none, we can now close the public hearing and proceed to motions and potential adoption.

Well, thanks for providing this package. I know this is the follow-on to all the other HR items that precede this. So with that, I'll move approval of first and second reading of ordinance number 2026, 017 by title. A second.

Second. Further discussion. All for the vote. Yes. Yes. Yes. Okay. So

Then I can move adoption of ordinance number 2020. Oh, we've got you on the reading, so sorry.

Read the title.

Oh, all of them.

Before the Board of County Commissioners of Deschutes County, Oregon, an ordinance amending Deschutes County HR personnel rules and declaring an emergency, ordinance number 2026-017. Can I read it again? Okay. Okay. Before the Board of County Commissioners of Deschutes County, Oregon, an ordinance amending Deschutes County HR personnel rules and declaring an emergency. Ordinance number 2026-017. Okay, now move adoption of ordinance number 2026-017 by emergency to take effect immediately.

And I will second it. It's been moved and seconded. Any further discussion? I'll just acknowledge the emergency clause is utilized for this purpose, just to align the dates here. And I think, yeah, even if there was an issue, it still could be appealed within some amount of time. So instead of waiting 90 days, that's what we're working on.

All right. With that, we'll call for the vote. Commissioner Garrett?

Yes.

Commissioner DeVold? Yes. Chair votes yes.

Thank you.

Thank you. Right. So that was our only action item on the agenda today. At this time, are there any other items?

Oh, I do want to comment. I did hear back from COID today because I was questioning what is the flood percentage in COID, and they have not done their survey for five years. So they approximate that it can be between 40 and 50 percent flood irrigators. So

they have not done a survey for five years yeah i really there's really need to move forward with on-farm efficiency work i and i said organ irrigation districts um excellent so one other thing i'll mention probably should have brought this up during announcements but um this thursday the 13th um community outreach meeting on you know the county's Fort Thompson property which is being proposed as a lease for a solar PV project so that begins at six o'clock and it's community listening session. Are there additional other items?

Tomorrow afternoon, about noon, we'll have the Sun River-La Pine Economic Development Board meeting at City Hall. So that's our SLED board meeting. Not directly involved, but kind of a tangential thing. There's definitely a lot of activity. Trucks coming and going up the side of Newberry for geothermal activity that's happening right now. So to say sleds not specifically involved with that, but there's going to be some overlap because of the economic activity involved. And then Friday, we have our courthouse expansion ribbon cutting at 2.30. That's right.

A question. The Quays site, no, the

There's a couple spots on the highway where there's some signage. So I don't know exactly what routes will be promoted, but you definitely see that there's truck routes that are defined. Right across from Burgess Road is one of the, you know, kind of wide open gravel roads that I know trucks are coming and going. But also we see activity at the Paulina Road because that ODOT kind of parking area, transfer parking area, sometimes there's larger loads will be transloaded there too. So activity up and down 97 is what I'm seeing. I don't have it.

specifics is that for both both the Mazama and the Quays I mean the Quays location is uh yeah I don't know yeah I was just wondering the other day what where how they're getting in there as I say there's a few spots on the highway where there's obsidences you know truck route here or whatever but I haven't really studied it right uh are there any additional other items where we adjourn Seeing none, meeting at church. Thank you very much.