BAKERSVILLE — During its regular session Thursday, July 16, the Mitchell County Board of Commissioners made changes to the new personnel policy, approved the use of Laserfiche Cloud System for the Mitchell County Department of Social Services and discussed the contract with LifeGuard for the county’s new EMS vehicles.
In discussions regarding the new personnel policy, Commissioner Matthew “Vern” Grindstaff proposed two changes to the policy for county employees.
The first change provides county employees with three benevolent leave days and three personal leave days.
The major change proposed and put into a motion by Grindstaff was for all department heads and on-call workers to be required to live within 30 miles of Bakersville.
“We have had substantial concerns over several months, if not a year now, about time responses for certain situations in our county that I believe need to have critical time responses,” Grindstaff said.
At the end of the meeting, County Finance Officer Mavis Parsley conferred with Grindstaff over what he meant specifically and said the measure regarding living within 30 miles of Bakersville would have to be grandfathered in, meaning the new rule will apply in the future, not to current situations.
The proposed changes were unanimously approved. The new policy goes into effect Aug. 1.
The commissioners also approved the contract for DSS to move forward with the Laserfiche Cloud System. The system will allow the department to go paperless and store documents on the county’s server and a cloud system.
Burleson made a motion to approve the program which passed by a 3-2 vote. Grindstaff and Commissioner Jeff Harding voted against it.
Lastly, the commissioners discussed the contract the county made earlier this year with LifeGuard regarding new EMS vehicles.
County Manager Tim Greene said due to the ongoing pandemic, production of the four-wheel box ambulances has been stalled at Ford.
Because of this, LifeGuard bought the four-wheel drive box ambulances from Mission Hospital that the county was using previously and has re-striped them and changed the interior to accommodate their stretchers.
Grindstaff said he had spoken with some people at LifeGuard who promised the county new four-wheel drive box truck ambulances.
Grindstaff added he was fine with the used ambulances for the time being but expects new vehicles in the near future.
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UPDATE: During the Mitchell County Commissioners meeting on Monday, August 3, County Attorney Lloyd Hise informed the board they would have to alter the personnel policy regarding department heads living within 30 miles of Bakersville.
Hise said they would change the policy to require department heads to live within 30 miles of the town within the first six months of employment or else they would be terminated.
The policy will stay the same for the on call workers.