Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...

The Clark County Fiscal considered the need for payroll backup and funding for the Clark County Detention Center during its latest meeting last Wednesday.

Currently, Janet Townsend serves as the Clark County Human Resources Administrator.

However, in the event of being on vacation, an unanticipated circumstance, or a different reason, she spoke on the need for someone to fulfill the duties of the position.

“There’s only two things I’d like to request. It’s that whoever the court decides or designates…that we put it in that person’s job description,”  Townshend said. “Secondly, remember that whoever you do designate [needs to] have access to its benefits portion because we have a difference of platform on this payroll…there has to be a level of comfort with whoever you choose.”

Clark County Judge-Executive Les Yates and the magistrates of the Fiscal Court discussed possibilities while also receiving input from Clark County Attorney William Elkins.

“I think it needs to be a Fiscal Court employee. Personally, I don’t know if the treasurer [Alicia Mayabb] can do it because of the segregation of duties,” said Magistrate Chris Davis. “To me, the obvious person would be Mary [McLemore], the director of finance.”

Though a different motion was initially put forth, Elkins suggested an alternative route.

“I think the proper amendment would be an admin code,” Elkins said. “I think that raises a larger question [of], ‘Do you really want to do that?’. If you are [going to] do it, you have to wait until July to do it.I don’t think you want to [amend] the director of finance ordinance, because that relates to occupational taxes and a lot of other things.”

While the amendment to the administrative code may still need to be set forth, a motion was made to allow for training so that tasks are better known by the time the amendment takes place.

“I think we can go ahead and authorize [McLemore] to be the backup and start the training process, and then we amend it whenever you present the admin code,” said Magistrate Dan Konstantopoulos.

The motion passed unanimously.

Later in the meeting, when discussing budgetary considerations and more about the Clark County Detention Center, Treasurer Alicia Mayabb spoke.

“I would like to propose a budget amendment for the [Clark County] Detention Center to increase their appropriations,” she said.

However, Elkins encouraged using caution.

“I think it’s important to consider that the legislative process always, or many times has a fiscal impact,” Elkins said. “I think it’s easily understood what the legislation being considered is, but I don’t think the fiscal impact can be clearly understood just from an arm’s length discussion.”

The possibility of it being brought up at a future meeting was not unwelcome, but it was requested that any detailed information get provided well beforehand.