In Split Vote, Supervisors Approve Relocating Offices
After more than an hour of discussion Tuesday morning, supervisors voted 3-2 to move the county’s garbage collection office, E-911 office and purchasing office to the Coffeeville courthouse. Supervisors Cayce Washington, Timothy Booker and Lee McMinn favored the move while Ken Rogers and Gaylon Gray voted against it. – Photo by David Howell
In Split Vote, Supervisors Approve Relocating Offices
By David Howell
Editor
COFFEEVILE – Three county offices will be relocated to the Coffeeville courthouse after supervisors voted 3-2 for the change in Tuesday’s supervisor meeting. The vote followed a cost-saving proposal presented last month by Board President Cayce Washington to save an estimated $73,000 by cross-training employees to work in multiple departments and eliminating utility bills at two buildings that will no longer be used by county employees.
Last month supervisors unanimously approved a portion of Washington’s proposal, voting to move the sheriff’s department and other county offices out of the Carother’s Building. In Tuesday’s vote, Washington, District 3 Supervisor Lee McMinn and District 4 Supervisor Timothy Booker were in favor of moving the county’s purchasing office, garbage collection office and E-911 office after a lengthy discussion. District 5 Supervisor Gaylon Gray and District 2 Supervisor Ken Rogers voted against the move.
The garbage and purchasing offices are currently located in a building adjacent to the Beat One County Barn on County Road 437. The E-911 office is currently located in the Carother’s Building. Both Gray and Rogers were in favor of housing all three offices in the building adjacent to the Beat One county barn.
Tuesday’s vote was propelled by the resignation of long-time garbage collection clerk Donna Massey, who submitted a letter last week indicating her last day on the job will be Friday. Hiring her replacement brought several issues to the table, including changing the office hours for garbage collection from 8 a.m. until 5 p.m. and updating the software in the office to directly communicate with the tax collector’s office to flag car tags of delinquent garbage accounts. Both changes were also approved Tuesday.
“We need to move on that pretty quick,” Washington said about replacing Massey. “This person also needs to understand that if we want them to work in another office, they work for the five of us,” Washington explained.
“We can hire somebody, but we are going to be hard pressed to replace Donna Massey. I worked with her for eight years and she went above and beyond the call of duty many times,” Gray said. “She took a lot of chewings that us supervisors are going to be taking in the next few months,” Gray also said about calls Massey fielded when there were problems with garbage pickup. “But we have to get somebody hired, we have to get somebody in there in the next few days.”
Input from officials
“This board unanimously appointed you a board president. You have done a fantastic job. You have spent hours and hours away from your business researching this and I think you have come to a good conclusion. I am prepared today to vote for it,” supervisor McMinn told supervisors. He also noted the cost savings are important after Tax Assessor/Collector Linda Shuffield presented the tax rolls earlier in the meeting. Her report showed the county’s taxable assessed value will decrease slightly.
“One of the questions asked to me is why we have to do this so quick,” Washington explained Tuesday. “We are in the budget process and we are trying to plan money that we are going to spend next year, right now. We can’t plan those savings if we don’t talk about them and vote on it,” Washington added.
Chancery Clerk Amy McMinn was also a proponent of the change. Speaking Tuesday, she explained that she is giving up money currently budgeted for the chancery clerk’s office to make the proposal work.
“I want to make it publicly known that this in no way benefit’s Amy’s back pocket,” she added.
Booker explained his position before voting in favor of moving the offices, citing that he was in favor of moving the offices to help ensure that the county would not face future cuts such as funding for libraries.
Circuit Clerk Daryl Burney reiterated his concerns that he shared last month against the change, noting the loss of one of two offices currently used by his office would create some logistical challenges. Among the challenges he cited was shortage of space for storage of court files and during each election, as one of his offices as used as a precinct for District 5.
“I will do what y’all tell me to do, but it will take some rearranging and some modifications,” Burney explained. He also said that even though he disagreed with Washington, there would be no strain in their friendship or professional working relationship.
“You know where I stand,” Gray said during the discussion, noting that he was also against moving the offices at last month’s meeting.v
