County Council opens discussions about ratification for attending fire association meetings
By John Watson Local Journalism initiative Reporter
Wheatland County Council is seeking more information regarding potentially ratifying councilor attendance to fire association meetings.
As it currently stands, there is no per diem for county councilor attendance at association meetings within their respective wards.
Reeve Amber Link pointed out that during council’s organizational meeting, representatives of wards are assigned to fire association committees and it becomes part of a councilor’s regular committee work.
She also said, however, she did not believe it was customary for a councilor to attend all of the fire association’s meetings.
“I was under the impression that it has been in the organizational chart that if you attend those meetings, it is part of your committee work. I’ve never had a motion to attend an association meeting,” added Councilor Glenn Koester.
Councilor Rick Laursen brought a motion to the floor to ratify council attendance at association meetings.
Koester countered that instead of ratifying attendance, council could simply motion that the county adds the ratification back to its organizational chart.
“In the past, every fire department had an association and the county funded the association it was a part of,” said Koester. “Over the years, there has been some of the associations have folded and given the responsibilities to the county. But there (is) still, on the east side of the county, associations.”
County administration staff do not attend fire association meetings; however, they do attend quarterly chief meetings for council’s information and twice per year for capital meetings.
Deputy Reeve Scott Klassen wanted to see what was done in the past before making a decision about any potential ratification of per diems.
“I don’t think I could make a decision without knowing what was charged in the past and then what we want to do in the future,” said Klassen. “I think of some stuff I go to in my division that, it isn’t fire association but there’s HOA stuff (and) I don’t charge for any of that. I go, but it has direct relationships with county members.”
Link said she thought it beneficial for the discussion to return at a later date with more information about how per diems were handled historically, though she was not utterly opposed to seeing the decision funded.
She added parameters would need to be set regarding how and how often funding was distributed based on councilors’ attendance.
Laursen ultimately withdrew his motion and instead asked administration to bring forward more information about ratifying council members’ attendance at association meetings to the next council meeting.
The requested information would pertain to councilor per diem or attendance to fire associations including frequency, history, per diems paid per associations and number of times paid per year.