Commissioners Meet For Regular Discussion and Decision

In their first meeting of the year and Commissioner Mary Armstrong’s first meeting as Chairman, the Valley County Commissioners met for their regular Discussion and Decision meeting on Jan. 4. In addition to their normal business of approving employment and termination/resignation notices, the Commissioners discussed the Valley County Healthy is Wellness Program Proposal, the Stop the Bleeding program, Resolution No. 7-2023, and provided information on the cooperative status on the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) Resource Management Plan (RMP) Amendment for Sage Grouse.

The Healthy is Wellness program was previously funded by the County’s insurance where a company would come monthly, set up in the Valley County Courthouse conference room and the Senior Center, allowing Valley County employees, their families as well as retirees to obtain various health readings. “I guess it was getting good response and good participation here in eastern Montana generally. But where there are big numbers of people in western Montana it wasn’t really paying, so they weren’t going to do it anymore,” stated Commissioner Fahlgren. In order to continue to have the service in the County, the Commissioners needed to decide whether or not they were going to fund the program themselves, for $850 a month, which would include employees and their families but not retirees, through the fiscal year. “They’ll likely go up next year because that doesn’t include their travel costs. And what they’re trying to do is they’re trying to get another client, like the hospital, or something so they can spread their travel costs,” said Commissioner Armstrong. After further discussion on how the program has helped Valley County employees with their health, Commissioner Fahlgren made the motion to approve the $850 per month, asking the company if retirees can be added to the plan. Commissioners Paul Tweten seconded and all were in favor to move forward.

The cooperating status on BLM RMP amendment for sage grouse was tabled until the Jan. 11, meeting in order to provide more time to work on it and gather information. According to Fahlgren, the BLM is doing an amendment west wide for the sage grouse, which is considered to be a threatened species. The last time BLM did an amendment was in 2015 and they are doing another one which would amend all the resource management plans of every office and the BLM by getting into the cooperative status, where all the information would be sent as it becomes available. The downside however to this, according to Fahlgren is that there is so much information available and at the county level there isn’t enough time to participate. The hope is to be able to work with other counties who also have sage grouse issues and work together to avoid damage to the economy while ensuring the safety of the species.

“Probably the biggest thing that really affects Valley County is the limitations on oil, gas, drilling or any kind of mineral development of pipelines, that sort of thing,” stated Fahlgren. “In the 2015 one already, it pretty much takes all the BLM and Valley County and kind of puts it off limits....What the BLM head people are telling us at fall MACO meeting.... they didn’t expect to see a lot of change in Montana from this.”

The next item up for discussion was the Stop the Bleeding program training by the Frances Mahon Ambulance Crew. According to Fahlgren, a grant was received to do trainings in order for anyone to provide assistance to bleeding accidents, such as how to care of the wound and utilize the kit that would be placed in the vicinity. “Essentially it takes about a half hour for each session. They would come to the courthouse and set up, people could come over there and rotate through. They would be there all day doing this training,” explained Fahlgren. Commissioner Tweten made the motion to approve the training, while Fahlgren seconded, and all were in favor.

The next item discussed was the Rural Improvement District (RID) process and procedure to vote on. According to Commissioner Armstrong, this is the procedure that is used when the Pines Road Improvement District was put in however there was no written policy procedure. “We used what some of the other counties had and decided, well, so based on our experience, we thought let’s put one together for use here in Valley County,” said Armstrong. The motion passed by all commissioners.

The last item discussed on the agenda was changing the standard mileage rate for reimbursement to 65.5 cents per mile. Commissioner Fahlgren made the motion while Commissioner Tweten seconded. “This is just a standard thing every year that sets the rate that we have to adapt as a resolution,” explained Fahlgren.

The Commissioners met on Jan. 11 to further discuss the cooperating status on BLM RMP amendment for sage grouse and requesting approval of corrections to the Personnel Policy manual.