Chaffee County commissioners held a work session Jan. 12 in Salida, where they heard from different departments and boards.
Starting the morning was landfill Manager Shannon Wilcox, who said the new cell at the landfill will be complete by Feb. 1, and there are plans to work with the shooting range to realign the range and ensure safety for users of both the landfill and the range.
After the landfill was the Department of Human Services, with their primary topic being the letter received by the State of Colorado from the federal government saying four categories of funding will be frozen.
Monica Haskell, director of DHS, said a 14-day protection order was approved, giving the state 14 days to argue their point as to why the funding should not be frozen. She then passed the mic to Alex Markovich, chief financial officer for the department.
Markovich explained that three programs within the county will be affected if the funding freeze is enacted, with the biggest being the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) dollars.
“Last year, we spent almost $772,000 on TANF, and TANF is almost completely federally funded. So, yea. All those funds would be frozen under that letter, and that equates to about $64,000 a month. That includes internal admin things like salaries, actually not that much salary,” Markovich said.
He went on to say that last year DHS spent $80,000 of the $772,000 on salaries, then $90,000 to childcare contracts and $40,000 to youth program contracts.
“The largest portion of it is the benefits portion, paid directly to clients, and it’s over $350,000. That’s the biggest impact if we’re going off last year’s numbers,” Markovich said.
Haskell then chimed in and said the part that is complicating things is figuring out whether counties would need to backfill that funding if it’s frozen, or if the state will backfill some of that. She said at this time the state is not answering that question.
Markovich said the second biggest program which could be affected by a funding freeze is Colorado Childcare Assistance Program (CCAP). Last year’s budget was $300,000, or about $25,000 a month. That program is funded with 70% federal dollars.
The last program Markovich said would be affected by a funding freeze is child welfare. Only about 4% of the funding for that program is federal, or about $90,000. However, that is the biggest program in the county, spending $7,000 a month.
“The state has enough money to pay through the end of the month. If we’re looking at a freeze for a while, it would be tough. I don’t know what they’re going to do, but the only number I got from them is ‘we can cover for the rest of this month,’” Markovich said.
Andrea Carlstrom, director of Chaffee County Public Health, then addressed commissioners about her department. She began her presentation by saying that the federal administration has announced a new childhood vaccine schedule.
“Colorado will not be following that non-science based recommendation. We will be following the American Academy of Pediatrics vaccine schedule,” Carlstrom said.
Also in her report is CCPH’s intent to launch a 2026 community health assessment, and Carlstrom said there was a meeting last week to identify how the different activities will be scheduled and the community survey.
Commissioners then had a formal introduction to the new Emergency Manager William Plackner before hearing updates from the planning department, Chaffee County EMS, Chaffee County Coroner, the Regional Sustainability Committee and the Greater Arkansas River Nature Association.
The planning department reported that safe streets for all is underway, and the timeline has been adjusted based on a delay in federal grants.
GARNA updated the commissioners on the work done by the Chaffee Rec Adopters program and volunteers, including installing fencing and no camping signs at Clear Creek and cleaning the Burmac campsites.
The Regional Sustainability Committee reported that the greenhouse gas inventory is underway, and registered 12 new businesses into the Colorado Green Business Network.
Coroner Jeff Graf said in his report that there were 194 calls last year, which is the most his office has ever done. He then briefly talked about a push from a Pueblo senator to take the coroners office out of funeral homes, and also prohibit individuals who work for or has an association with a funeral home from being coroner.
“That is devastating to rural Colorado on a number of fronts. Most of them (rural Colorado towns) don’t have a morgue, and it’s going to force counties into getting one. It’s going to be pretty hard to be able to do that,” Graf said.
EMS reported that the new ambulance is almost ready to be picked up, so plans are being made to coordinate that, and the building department reported that the electric-preferred amendment process if adoption continues. Buena Vista is set to deliberate the amendment, and has plans to host a public hearing ahead of potentially adopting the code.
