County Board Postpones Vote On Sheriff Fees
By Stephanie Malench
smalench@timestribunenews.com
The Madison County Board continued its process of not considering three of Chairman Kurt Prenzler’s appointments at its June 16 meeting.
Not considered this month were Nick Mason for the Wood River Drainage and Levee District, Donald Sawicki and Justin Warren (previously Jeremy Plank) to the Madison County Flood Prevention District, Richard W. Gibson (previously Cedric Irby) and Richard Schiefer to the Madison County Transit board.
Appointments that were approved included Wayne R. “Rick” Sims to the Fosterburg Fire Protection District; Ed Allsman, Donald Nizinski, and Jefffrey Lynn Oetke to the South Roxana Fire Protection District; Mary Ann Niemeyer to the Madison County Health Advisory Committee; Janis Hagnauer to the Madison County Board of Review; Bruce Mattea as the Madison County Government Ethics Officer; Tim Johnson and Larry Rose to the Northeast Central County Water District; Harry “Bud” Kreutzberg to the Marine Sanitary District; and Michelle Goebel to the Prairietown Street Light District.
The board approved budgeting $163,437.50 of the $51,078,063 of the American Rescue Plan Act funding to the Information Technology Fund.
Resolutions were passed later in the meeting to use this money for one year of a two-factor authentication program cloud service subscription and a contract with Artic Wolf Security Monitoring Service for hacker prevention services.
The ordinance revising the county sheriff’s fees for private event contracting was postponed until other asepcts of the program be investigated.
The fee scale was previously updated in January of 2015, with officers being able to work special events outside of their regular duties for $65/hour.
The new rates would be based on rank of the officer.
Concerns about the program include the liability of private citizens renting a sheriff’s department employee off hours and whether or not businesses are using sheriff’s department employees because the rate is less than private security companies.
A Park and Recreation PEP Loan of $53,112 was awarded to Wood River Township to fund the conversion of old tennis courts to pickle ball courts, resurface parking lots, and work on drainage along the trail at Kutter Park.
The board passed a resolution supporting the extension of two of Fairmont City’s TIF District #1 for an additional 12 years to assist in development and redevelopment efforts as well as to create and maintain jobs.
A resolution was passed authorizing the county to apply for the 2022 annual Emergency Solutions Grant for CARES Act funds totaling $795,318.
The Rental Housing Support Program was renewed by the Illinois Housing Development Authority with $576,253 in funding to support up to 21 units of housing for the county.
The Madison County Employment and Training Department awarded contracts with the Madison Community School District #12 for in-school youth programming as well as MERS/ Goodwill and Lewis and Clark Community College as a vendor for the out of school youth programs.
