Huerfano County faces employment shortages with higher salaries offered elsewhere for stressful postions
by E.E.Mullens
WALSENBURG — While the Huerfano County Board of Commissioners met in regular session Tuesday morning for just over 15-minutes, a number of resignations highlighted the fact that within local emergency services dispatching and jail detention, staffing issues have become an important topic.
On nearly a weekly basis, a segment of the board’s consent agenda usually contains a list of new hires, promotions, pay scale adjustments and resignations. This week’s consent agenda contained a handful of the so-called green sheets and pink sheets dedicated to personnel changes.
One item was removed prior to the agenda approval, and that was a resignation from Huerfano County’s Communications Manager Courtney Royse. No action was taken on this particular pink sheet which indicated a resignation effective date of May 31, 2022, and no explanation was presented as this is a personnel matter.
However within the consent agenda approved this week were the resignations of both Isiah Vigil and Cory Wilkins as dispatch officers within emergency services, both effective May 24, 2022.
When asked about the issue during the commissioners meeting, Huerfano County Administrator Carl Young said the majority of people leaving the dispatch center were taking other jobs, noting that both the cities of Pueblo and Trinidad are recruiting emergency dispatchers. The Colorado State Patrol is also heavily advertising for employment applications within their emergency dispatching services across Colorado.
The commissioners are aware of these trends and said Tuesday that higher competitive pay scales offered by other agencies and local housing shortages may be some of the reasons that people are resigning from county positions.
Sheriff Bruce Newman told the World Journal that the E-911 Center is not under the banner of the sheriff’s office’s responsibility and had no comment about its personnel issues.
The high stress work environment of both emergency dispatching and jail detention are showing effects nationwide with shortages of applicants in both fields.
Sheriff Newman said in the arena of detention officers, there is currently an issue with low staffing, although he stopped short of calling it critical.
The recently hired Huerfano County Jail Administrator Nathan Walter resigned after one week on the job. Newman said Walter was a recently retired Colorado Department of Corrections employee with 27 years on the job. Newman said Walter, after his recent retirement, found the position in Huerfano County too stressful for a post-retirement career.
Newman said he is currently advertising for a jail administrator and for detention officers. He said between two and four times a week he has had to use sheriff’s deputies to fill in for detention shifts at the jail. Newman also noted the age requirement for detention officer employment in Huerfano County has been lowered from 21 to 18-years old.
In Other Business:
• they appointed Kathy Faggiani as an alternate member of the Spanish Peaks Library District Board of Directors with a term ending May 31, 2023.
• approved agreements with Leon Gutierrez as a contractor to operate the county’s Waste Transfer Station, and the Thorne Ranch agricultural lease agreement with Scott Hawkenson.
• approved the quote of $760 for sodium hypochlorite, used in the water treatment plant for the Gardner Public Improvement District.
• approved the purchase of an electric motor for the county’s stone crusher from Mountain Industrial Power for $592.
• approved liquor license renewal for Gardner Liquor.
No action was taken on a special event liquor license request for Sonic Bloom as staff had discovered the property had not be properly posted for the application. The physical posting needs to occur for 10 days prior to the request being considered by the board of commissioners.
The board voted unanimously to go into executive sessions at 10:17 a.m. for the purpose of determining positions relative to matters that may be subject to negotiations, developing strategy for negotiations and/or instructing negotiators under CRS 24-6-402(4)(e); the topic being the E 911 agreement. The executive session’s second topic this week was for discussion of a personnel matter under CRS 24-6-402(2)(f) and not involving any specific employee(s).
Board Chairman Commissioner Gerald Cisneros said no decisions or votes would be made at the conclusion of the executive sessions.
