Vol. 32 No. 8 AUGUST 2003

HIGHLIGHTS OF THIS ISSUE

P I L T FUNDING

HOMELAND SECURITY FUNDING

GPS REPORT

RURAL HEALTH CARE

COUNTY WEBSITES

DROUGHT

COUNTY NEWS

ERGONOMICS IN

HEALTH CARE

HUMAN RESOURCE FUTURE

W I R

DO-NOT-CALL

WATER RESOURCE KITS

PUBLIC LAND, P I L T

and

FUNDING LOCAL GOVERNMENT

Western states’ taxation (state and local) as a percent of personal income is as high or higher than other states. 13 western states average 11.1% of personal income going to taxes; the 37 other states average 10.9%. However, western states have large amounts of land owned by the federal government, which is not taxed.

If a line were drawn vertically from eastern Montana to New Mexico, no state west of that line has less than 27% of its land federally owned.

Alaska 62%

Arizona 44%

California 43%

Colorado 36%

Idaho 62%

Montana 27%

Nevada 83%

New Mexico 34%

Oregon 52%

Utah 64%

Washington 28%

Wyoming 49%

The average acreage of federally-owned land in the western states is 51.9%. Of the 37 other states, only 4.1% is federally owned.

Enabling Acts

A state enabling act is the congressional act that admits a state into the Union and outlines related agreements. Most western states’ enabling acts promise percentages of the proceeds from the sale of federal land. However, the federal government has abandoned its original policy to dispose of public lands. If the federal government maintained its policy to sell federal lands and sold the same amount in each state (4.1%) at $525 an acre, 5% of the sales would generate a one-time amount of $576 Million for Montana and the property could become taxable.

Property Taxes

If 4.1% of Montana’s federally owned property were sold and valued at $525 an acre, the property tax would generate approximately $196 Million each year. PILT payments to Montana for FY 2003-2004 will be $16,874,448—only 8% of this approximate property tax revenue.

Natural Resource Royalty Payments

The federal government shares less than half of its royalty revenue with the states and often attaches “strings” on the use of the funds. Federal lands are less likely to be developed, further reducing royalty income. If these lands were privately owned or became state lands, the estimated royalty and land lease revenue to Montana could be $62 Million annually.

Sections taken from “The APPLE Initiative,

Action Plan for Public Lands and Education”

Utah Legislature; www.le.state.ut.us

Attorney General

OPINION

Volume 50 No. 2

Question: When a municipal police officer receives a salary and workers’ compensation benefits pursuant to MCA 7-32-4132, how is the one-year period calculated for termination of the obligation to pay the difference between the officer’s net salary and the amount received from worker’s compensation benefits?

Held: When a police officer is injured in the line of duty, the employing city’s obligation to supplement the officer’s workers’ compensation wage loss benefits by paying the difference between the benefits received and the officer’s net salary pursuant to MCA 7-32-4132 ends after the city has paid benefits for a total of one year. That period may consist of aggregated periods of disability of less than one year resulting from the same injury and may extend beyond the one calendar year from the date the disability begins.

Requested by: Robert M. McCarthy

Butte-Silver Bow County

ITS-GPS Roads Inventory Project

By Skip Nyberg, Department of Transportation

The collection portion of the project has come to an end. The process was successful primarily because of the counties’ dedication. The value of the work is already being felt, when we consider that requests for the road data are daily occurrences in this office.

However, the project is not polished until the road names are correct and the counties have agreed that all the proper roads have been collected. To help in this endeavor, the MDT RIM section is producing paper maps and providing Arcview shape files on the MDT ftp site. Go to

ftp://ftp.mdt.state.mt.us/countygps/load/data/<county name>/line_work/ .

Part of this project includes outreach and training. So, we will be gearing up to do workshops on such items as:

1. How to build an integrated data road infrastructure:

E-911, sign inventory, safety, bridge and road management, using the road inventory for an integrated system.

2. How to maintain and incorporate current data holdings:

Tying legacy data and systems to spatial data.

3. How to implement a successful GPS project:

Ideas from the school of hard knocks and from seven years of setting up collection; processes that worked, what didn’t and why.

We are hoping that such outreach will be forthcoming sometime in the fall after the MACo convention.

“Citizens of Berbar County are faced with a tax increase. Most of the money raised will be used for five foot policemen.”

“Our paper carried the notice last week that Oscar Hoffnagle is a defective on the police force. This was a typographical error. Mr. Hoffnagle is a detective on the police farce.”

from “Anguished English” by Richard Lederer

RURAL HEALTH CARE

Montana Faith-Health Cooperative

The Montana Faith-Health Cooperative (MTFHC) was formed by fifteen organizations which began working to address the unmet needs surrounding the farm/ranch crisis. The Cooperative represents both the health care industry and the faith community and is housed at MSU-Bozeman. The mission is to improve the health and social well-being of Montanans and their communities.

Within the last year, MTFHC received a major federal grant to help build and expand health and social services to Montana’s most needy people.

For information about the Cooperative and its services, go to http://faithhealthcoop.montana.edu

or phone 994-5553.

SCHOLARSHIP DONATION

MACo recently received $1,700+ from the Montana Elected County Officials Association (MECOA).

Years ago, MECOA functioned as an umbrella organization for county elected officials. In 1997 the MACo Board of Directors expanded to include representatives of all elected officials and MECOA no longer continued.

The MECOA funds were held in a mature Certificate of Deposit until the recent donation, spearheaded by Great Falls Senator (and former Cascade County Clerk and Recorder) Joe Tropila. The funds will be earmarked for the President’s Scholarship Fund for graduating high school seniors from the current MACo President’s county.

9-1-1 GRANTS

The Public Safety Foundation of America (PSFA) grant guidelines and pre-applications for wireless 9-1-1 projects are available at www.PSFA.US, by email (PSFA@APCO911.org), by phone (386-322-2500) or by FAX (386-944-2730). Once the pre-application is accepted, the agency is assigned a grant number and a full month is allowed to complete the application. Pre-application is due September 5 and application is due October 3.

Health Network Development Grants

Network Development Planning Grants provide funding to plan integrated healthcare networks in rural communities and to strengthen the rural health care system as a whole. Application deadline is September 10, 2003. For more information, visit http://ruralhealth.hrsa.gov or call Michele Pray-Gibson at (301) 443-0835.

COUNTY WEBSITES

ANACONDA-DEER LODGE www.anacondamt.org

BEAVERHEAD www.mtrdp.org/beaverhead

BROADWATER www.mtrdp.org/broadwater

BUTTE-SILVER BOW www.co.silverbow.mt.us

CASCADE www.co.cascade.mt.us

DAWSON www.dawsoncountymontana.org

FERGUS www.co.fergus.mt.us

FLATHEAD www.co.flathead.mt.us

GALLATIN www.co.gallatin.mt.us

GLACIER www.glaciercounty.org

HILL www.co.hill.mt.us

JEFFERSON www.co.jefferson.mt.us

LAKE www.lakecounty-mt.org

LEWIS AND CLARK www.co.lewis-clark.mt.us

LIBERTY http://co.liberty.mt.us

LINCOLN www.libby.org

MINERAL (coming soon)

MISSOULA www.co.missoula.mt.us

PARK www.parkcounty.org

PONDERA www.ponderacountymontana.org

RAVALLI www.co.ravalli.mt.us

RICHLAND www.co.richland.mt.us

SANDERS www.co.sanders.mt.us

SHERIDAN www.co.sheridan.mt.us

SWEET GRASS www.ttc-cmc.net/~sgcounty

TETON www.tetonmt.org

VALLEY www.glasgowmt.net

YELLOWSTONE www.co.yellowstone.mt.us

DROUGHT CONDITIONS

Beaverhead and Lincoln Counties have Severe Drought designation and 32 Montana counties were designated with Drought Alert status on July 17. Counties added to the Drought Alert Status designation are Broadwater, Butte-Silver Bow, Gallatin, Garfield, Jefferson, Lake, Liberty, Mineral, Missoula, Park, Pondera, Powell, Prairie and Toole. Counties continuing their previous designation are Big Horn, Carbon, Carter, Cascade, Chouteau, Custer, Flathead, Glacier, Golden Valley, Lewis & Clark, Musselshell, Madison, Petroleum, Powder River, Sanders, Teton, Stillwater and Wheatland.

The designation carries no formal status or eligibility for federal or state disaster assistance programs, but can be helpful in documenting eligibility for federal programs.

All Montana counties continue to cope with impacts associated with four or more consecutive years of drought. According to Jesse Aber, State Drought Committee, “The combination of accelerated drying factors brought low stream flow and fire season two to three weeks early. There is no reason to expect relief before mid-September.” Globally, El Nino is dissipating, but an unusual swing to negative sea-surface temperatures may develop a La Nina event. La Nina typically brings cooler and moister-than-average winters to Montana.

State-owned reservoir storage levels are significantly less in the Musselshell and Smith River basins than elsewhere in the State. Two river basins are extremely dry—the Bighorn River below Bighorn Lake and the Beaverhead River.

Local committees and watershed groups are asked to provide regular reports to the State Drought Advisory Committee (next monthly meeting August 14). Contact person is Jesse Aber, DNRC Water Resources Division (jaber@state.mt.us or 444-6628).

Reports will also be posted on the Drought Monitoring Internet site. The site contains moisture and water supply data, information on sources of assistance, information from local drought committees and watershed groups, and water conservation links. http://nris.state.mt.us/drought

Sections from State Drought Report and from letters to counties from Lt. Governor Karl Ohs

MONTANA COUNTY

SOIL CLIMATE NETWORK

By Ed Diemert, Liberty County

Twelve Montana counties have implemented a pilot project, the Montana County Soil Climate Network (MCSCN). Participating counties are Blaine, Cascade, Choteau, Fergus, Glacier, Hill, Liberty, Pondera, Stillwater, Teton, Toole, and Yellowstone.

After several years of drought, the Commissioners from Toole and Liberty Counties were frustrated with the current formula and policy of the Farm Service Agency (FSA). FSA uses precipitation that occurs in a four-month running average as the basis for determining a drought disaster threshold, defined as 60% or below normal precipitation. This formula only considers rainfall and does not consider stored soil moisture.

Participating counties have either purchased and installed new weather stations in their counties or are in the process of doing so. Some counties purchased the weather station equipment with county funds and a few applied for matching grants. The weather station equipment, manufactured by Davis Instruments, is uniformly the same to maintain consistency. The weather stations collect the usual weather data and, most importantly, track soil moisture. The stations use soil moisture sensors at depths of 6”, 12”, 18” and 30” and place one soil temperature sensor at 6”. The counties are collecting data with the cooperation of landowners who will maintain and care for the weather stations.

The National Weather service in Great Falls has also installed a weather station and is sharing soil moisture conditions with the State Drought Committee.

MCSCN has gathered national and international attention. Several other western states are following the example and in Canada, they are also putting in soil moisture stations. The original counties that started this project are in the process of securing federal funding to help other Montana counties and to have the weather and soil data included in the federal policies that are used to determine drought status.

The website, www.mcscn.com, presents the data from Montana’s county weather stations. (Please contact Ed Diemert , Liberty County Commissioner, for more information.)

COUNTY NEWS

FALL DISTRICT MEETINGS

August 13 Districts 8, 9 & 12

Meagher County Courthouse

August 14 Districts 10 & 11

Ravalli County Courthouse

August 18 Districts 4 & 5

Lobby Cafe, Conrad

August 20 Districts 1, 2 & 3

Catholic Hall, Ekalaka

August 21 Districts 6 & 7

Grand Hotel, Big Timber

1. District Chair Election

2. MACo Officer Nominations

3. Workforce Investment Board

4. NACo Full Membership

5. Mental Health Summit

6. Homeland Security Grants

7. MACo Conference Update

8. PILT Assessment; Dues

9. Fire Suppression Costs

10. District Court Reimbursements

COUNTIES WORKING TOGETHER

MISSOULA, MADISON and RAVALLI COUNTIES and the Attorney General’s office have agreed to split the costs associated with the prosecution of a case involving the three counties. The AG’s office is included because Highway Patrol officers were involved in the pursuit of the accused man. The case involves a murder in Madison County, the wounding of a deputy sheriff in Ravalli County, leading officers on a 50-mile car shase ending with arrest on the Idaho border and housing the accused in Missoula County. The county cooperative effort is to keep a single county from bearing the potentially high cost of the case.

BUILDINGS

RAVALLI COUNTY agreed to purchase the former Marcus Daly Hospital, which it has been using as an administration building. The County will save $60,000 a year because the payments are lower than the current lease.

GRANITE COUNTY is buying a building in Drummond to renovate for an ambulance garage and meeting space.

GLACIER COUNTY will try another mail ballot next June for a levy to build a county jail. Last November the levy failed by 72 votes.

BROADWATER COUNTY began construction of the new jail when volunteers from a local 4-H club removed sod from the site and delivered it to area homeowners.

LAND SALES

ANACONDA-DEER LODGE continues to sell parcels of an undeveloped subdivision. The last parcel received three bids, so the Commission decided to make more parcels available for the rejected bidders and other interested people.

VALLEY COUNTY is considering another sale of part of its 40,000 acres of leased land.

BUTTE-SILVER BOW wants to donate a former mining property to the Forest Service. The mine, which is surrounded by Forest Service property, went to the County because of unpaid taxes.

GALLATIN COUNTY proposes to sell ten acres of fairground property and buy 52 acres of land for a new road department shop.

PEOPLE AND POSITIONS

FALLON COUNTY has hired a second nurse from the Philippines for the Fallon Medical Center.

TETON COUNTY adopted a resolution of intent to reduce the county attorney’s position from full time to part-time (95%) to allow the attorney to accept private cases.

TREASURE COUNTY Sheriff Steve Wilkins resigned. “It’s harder and harder to do law enforcement,” he said. “It seems like the person getting arrested has more rights than the officer that’s out there trying to do the job.”

BLAINE COUNTY Commissioners participated in a July 4 trail ride commemorating men and women in the armed services.

YELLOWSTONE COUNTY Commissioners, during the week of the Montana Fair, plan to hold their meetings at the Fair.

GARFIELD COUNTY hired a trapper for five months, using the Special Livestock Fund.

GALLATIN COUNTY proposes to hire a nurse practitioner to treat jail inmates for minor ailments, rather than taking them to the hospital.

HILL COUNTY Restitution Officer, Barb Mavencamp, retired. She was the first and only person to hold the position

DANIELS COUNTY is developing a new agreement with the Town of Scobey for cemetery maintenance. The Town no longer wanted to do grounds maintenance, but would continue record keeping.

FERGUS COUNTY may merge the county treasurer and the county clerk and recorder, maintaining the two offices with one elected officer.

CORRECTION

CHOUTEAU COUNTY (not BLAINE COUNTY as previously reported) considered a switch in health insurance coverage from variable premiums based on age to a plan which has a fixed premium regardless of age. (Thanks to Art Kleinjan for the correction.)

Please don’t forget to notify MACo of your increase for 2003-2004 elected officials’ salaries.

NURSING HOME ERGONOMICS

Presented by Emelia McEwen

MACo Assistant Risk Manager

A nursing home in Ohio illustrates how an ergonomics initiative can have a significant effect on costs and staff turnover.

The Wyandot County Nursing Home in Upper Sandusky, Ohio, is a 100-bed, county-run home which employs 90 workers, 45 of whom are nursing assistants. The Wyandot facility crafted a program that is similar to voluntary guidelines issued by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration for nursing homes.

(See guidelines at www.osha.gov/ergonomics/guidelines/nursinghome/index.html)

Before Wyandot implemented its ergonomics program, annual workers’ compensation costs averaged nearly $140,000. In addition, the turnover rate among the nursing assistants averaged above 55%. This meant that an average of 25 new nursing assistants had to be hired each year.

A worker’s back injury that cost the facility more than $240,000 provided significant motivation to find effective ways to address injuries and the turnover rate. In examining injuries, they learned that resident-transfer and re-position tasks presented the highest risk for workers. An ergonomic analyst found that there was an unrealistic expectation about the nursing staff’s ability to manually lift and re-position residents.

After looking into a “no lift” policy and mechanical lifts to aid transfer, the facility decided to launch a full-scale ergonomic program. When employees were asked about the lifting issue, more than 30 workers volunteered to examine the tasks of moving and re-positioning patients. The group decided that better body mechanics was not the answer. They determined that there was no safe way to lift a patient other than with mechanical lifts.

With recommendations from employees, the facility purchased several portable mechanical lifts for residents who required extensive-to-total care. The lifts included portable sit-to-stand lifts, walk / ambulating lifts and total lifts. Employees could move each of the lifts from room to room as they worked with individuals. However, many of the employees remained unconvinced of the value of using the equipment. In fact, it was only the workers who had evaluated the lifts who were using them. Many workers said it took too long to use the lifts.

One of the nurses conducted a time study to test how long it took to lift a resident manually, compared to using a lift. The manual lift took about five minutes, but to perform the lift, a nursing assistant had to find someone to help, which took about 15 minutes.

In addition, new beds were designed to replace the old hand-crank beds. The new models lifted from the floor to a height of about 30 inches in nearly 20 seconds. The new beds were also designed so that residents would be less likely to slide to the foot of the bed as they were raised to sitting positions. This also meant that the residents did not need to be re-positioned as frequently.

The keys to success at Wyandot were training and management support.

As they purchased and installed new equipment, workers were trained how to use each piece. Also, guidelines were established for using the equipment. New employees not only learned how to use the devices, they learned whom to ask for further instruction.

Wyandot’s administrator took a personal interest in the ergonomics issue. To address high injury and turnover rates, he participated in identifying and solving problems. For example, the staff had problems rolling the lifting devices to the different wings in the facility. To solve the problem, they tried different wheels until they found some that rolled more easily and turned with less effort.

Wyandot spent $150,000 to buy equipment and has saved $55,000 annually in payroll costs because of reduced overtime and absenteeism. Workers’ compensation costs declined from an average of $140,000 a year to less than $4,000 a year. From the time the sit-to-stand lifts were introduced, the incidence of back injuries stopped and only six new hires were needed the following year.

Sections revised from CTDNEWS

Workplace Solutions for Repetitive Stress Injuries

April 2003; Vol. 12, No. 4

Human Resources in Year 2040

by Phil Rosenberg, NACo HR Doctor

It’s great fun to be a futurist. In fact, public officials should focus on the future and practice their foresight. So, please join me in considering some of the possibilities for Year 2040.

1. Computers will hardly be recognizable. They will be amazingly tiny and feature huge memories with enough power for volumes of written, audio and video materials and astounding access speeds.

Our personal communications devices (‘percoms’) are likely to be implanted in our bodies, perhaps in a tooth filling. The ‘percom’ unit will be our wireless, instantaneous personal computer, our telecommunications device and a great deal more. It will interface with systems to monitor health, to store shopping preferences and to route interpersonal communications. The words we speak can be instantly converted into written documents in any language and transmitted automatically to people we name.

2. Our health monitoring system will be activated constantly and anywhere, so that any anomalies which suggest illness will be linked to our medical history and sent to our personal health professionals. In turn, they will be able to prescribe medication or order new tests or treatments for us. Acute distress readings will be automatically dispatched for emergency aid no matter where we are. If we need surgical treatment, it will be bloodless, robotic and may be done by medical professionals from remote sites.

3. Our reduced work week of 30 hours will occur at remote sites, including our homes. The majority of all meetings will be high-definition three-dimensional video conferences with amazing audio quality, all linked by our ‘percom’ devices.

4. Much of traditional human resources will be outsourced. Record keeping and management of services will occur at employee information centers on a 24/7 basis, located in remote, if not international, locations. Employees will be able to ask questions, receive information, and make changes in personal information. The organization’s HR staff itself will be much smaller: problem-solving coaches, mentors, ‘deciders’ and process leaders.

5. Many governmental services simply won’t exist as we now know them. License applications will be automated and available from any of the future- generation ATM machines, which will automatically recognize a person from their scanning information as they approach. Renewals for fuel cell-zero pollution vehicle registrations, business licenses, or loan and mortgage transactions will all be possible through each ‘percom’ device. Dispute Resolvers will be available by video conference to handle business transaction disputes rapidly and with less reliance on the legal profession. Interagency partnerships and consortia collaborations will be the rule as individual towns, cities and counties realize that not every unit can sustain individual departments and agencies.

6. Shopping for pleasure will replace any need to shop for necessities, as home appliances will all be ‘smart.’ Refrigerators, for example, will sense our favorite foods and will communicate directly with restocking centers. Appliances will self-repair or call for help before any breakdowns take place.

7. Housework will be managed by micro-robotic cleaning devices, which will work silently when the room is unoccupied. Buildings will be smarter in the sense that portions of them will move to track the sun and reduce the need to expend energy for lighting and heating/cooling.

8. Pets will be amazingly smarter. They will provide not only companionship, but also will be able to interact by playing games and running errands. Robotic pets will teach new skills or languages as well.

9. Many physical disabilities will be eliminated or diminished significantly. Spinal cord injuries will no longer be paralyzing. Hearing replacement and sight replacement devices will mean that the number of people who qualify for coverage under the Disabilities Act will be greatly reduced.

10. Commuting will be a byproduct of the denser populations in cities that will grow ‘up’ rather than ‘out’. This will make automated mass transit more practical and convenient.

11. People’s time will be free to become involved in community organizations, to constantly learn new skills and to engage in the arts. People will retire repeatedly and explore new areas for work and enrichment. The role of libraries will expand to become human interaction centers more than just places to get information. The role of the librarian will change to be that of a network manager of human interaction, linking people with information and with each other.

12. In a world of instantaneous access to information, local governments will be called on to deliver services. State governments will be too large to effectively manage individual citizen problems and too small to manage the more global problems. The same paradox will apply to federal governments. The ancient concept of summer harvest-time breaks in school schedules will be a thing of the past.

Before you consider laughing at these predictions, let’s agree, in perhaps 40 years, that we will meet in person to share cups of specific genetically engineered health enhancers tailored for each of us individually. Let’s discuss what the world of public administration has come to be. I’m looking forward to our meeting!

Western Interstate Region

(WIR) Conference

The Public Lands Trust Fund has a shortfall in funding. WIR member states contribute $22,000 annually to the fund. Montana pays $1,500, in addition to WIR dues. However, due to increased spending for travel in support of public lands issues, combined with decreased revenue from investments, the trust fund balance slipped from over $50,000 to $29,825 at the end of 2002. A committee recommends maintaining a $75,000 balance and to increase assessment to members to $47,000 annually for two years (with the intent to decrease after that) and assess non-member PILT recipients a one-time fee. Montana’s assessment will be $4,129 for 2004 and 2005, with a decrease to $2,661 in 2006. MACo has been paying the dues and the Public Lands Trust assessment for its counties. A proposal to MACo members is for each county to contribute according to PILT receipts.

Water 2025 is a Bureau of Reclamation proposal designed to mitigate water conflicts to year 2025. The process is to identify spots throughout the West where the Endangered Species Act and water rights may conflict. Regional consulting sessions will be held in each state.

Wilderness Study Areas will not be managed as wilderness until the public planning and resource management planning is completed and “wilderness” has been selected as proper use of that land.

Road Access on Public Land in Utah led to development of a Memorandum of Understanding between the State and Department of Interior. The Department will begin accepting applications from other states on behalf of their counties on roads that meet certain requirements.

The Healthy Forest Initiative and the Restoration Act should expedite small timber removals and strengthen the use of grazing as a national forest management tool.

Sections are from a report by Connie Eissinger, McCone County

REGISTRY FOR ‘DO NOT CALL’

The Registry is designed to stop most telemarketing businesses from calling your phone no more than three months after you’ve signed onto the list and is enforceable by penalties up to $11,000 per unwanted call.

To enter your phone number(s) on the National Do Not Call Registry, visit the Federal Trade Commission’s website at http://www.donotcall.gov or phone 888-382-1222.

NOTE: Enrollment in Montana’s Do Not Call list (as a result of HB 424) will begin in January, with enforcement to begin in April, 2004. If Montana phone numbers are entered on the National Registry, they will automatically be on the State Registry.

WATER RESOURCE KITS

As a service to counties, NACo is sending a CD copy of NACo Source Water Information Kit for Local Government Officials as part of a NACo membership package to the more sparsely populated counties in the country.

The Source Water Kit contains documents, fact sheets, and brochures that present information on tools, techniques and strategies to help county and local officials, especially those in rural areas, protect drinking water supplies. It also provides examples in which both public, private and community interests are involved in the drinking water protection process. NACo sends the CDs to those counties because protecting drinking water is a serious issue to rural counties across the country.

For questions about the CD or the distribution, contact:

Andrew Goldschmidt James Davenport

202-942-4221 202-661-8807

agoldsch@naco.org jdavenpo@naco.org

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