News from Across the Nation - Sept. 19, 2016

ARIZONA

• Matt Rudig, a COCONINO COUNTY, Ariz. poll worker, hikes the eight miles from a main road to Supai, capital of the Havasupai Reservation, on primary election day last month. Located within the Grand Canyon, Supai has been called one of the remotest communities in the Lower 48 states. It’s only accessible by foot, helicopter or pack animal—which is how locals get their mail delivered. The trip includes a 2,000-foot descent into the canyon.

The reservation has a population of about 200, and three people voted on primary day, according to county Recorder Patty Hansen, who also handles elections. Up to 20 or so voters have cast in-person ballots in past elections. Many of the residents there vote by mail, she added.

Rudig says someone else will make the trek in November on Election Day.

 

• PINAL COUNTY won’t become the first county in the nation without at least one Affordable Care Act (ACA) insurer.

Last month Aetna Inc. announced that it was pulling out of exchanges in Arizona and several other states because of rising medical costs that would push the company into the red.

Blue Cross Blue Shield of Arizona has come to the rescue and will offer plans next year in the state’s third most populous county. Approximately 10,000 Pinal County residents had signed up for ACA plans, The Wall Street Journal reported.

 

CALIFORNIA

County jail inmates can’t be denied visits from family members under a law passed by the state Legislature. The bill, which awaits the governor’s signature, would affect up to 11 counties that have either switched to video visitation or are in the process of phasing out in-person visits.

Counties that were planning to install video systems would have until 2022 to change their operations, according to the Los Angeles Times.

FLORIDA

ORANGE COUNTY commissioners have enacted a nine-month ban on medical marijuana operations in unincorporated parts of the county.

During that time, the county won’t issue any development permits for dispensaries, the Orlando Sentinel reported.

The state legalized a low-dose, “non-euphoric” version of marijuana in 2014 to treat children with seizure disorders.

This fall, Florida voters will consider a referendum that could legalize pot to treat other medical conditions.

ILLINOIS

Future County Board members will need to fend for themselves when it comes to funding their retirements. A new state law has abolished Illinois Municipal Retirement fund pensions for new commissioners. It also requires current board members to document their hours worked.

The hours-worked requirement varies from county to county, according to the Chicago Tribune. But generally, for counties that participate in the pension system, commissioners must work 600 or 1,000 hours annually.

Savings to taxpayers could be significant. Statewide, about $10 million is spent each year on County Board member pensions, the newspaper reported.

Fewer than half of the state’s 102 county boards participate in the pension program.

INDIANA

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has awarded the state health department more than $500,000 to expand opioid drug overdose prevention efforts in 18 counties with high overdose rates.

The grant, which runs through August 2017, will serve CLARK, CRAWFORD, DELAWARE, GRANT, JENNINGS, LAPORTE, MARION, MORGAN, PULASKI, SULLIVAN, TIPTON and WASHINGTON counties. Six other counties were already receiving aid.

The money will fund education and training for medical staff and lay people to administer naloxone, an overdose reversal drug.

In 2014, the latest year for which data is available, 452 Indianans died from opioid drug-related overdoses, according to the state department of health.

MINNESOTA

• HENNEPIN COUNTY will use an 18-month state grant of up to $350,000 to help children and adults with autism-spectrum disorder to find appropriate respite care.

The grant will provide increased access to trained, “culturally competent” respite service providers both in-home and outside the home.

• In a back-to-the-future move, some 300 DOUGLAS COUNTY employees will soon begin accounting for their time in a different way: an automated system that’s the equivalent of punching a time clock, according to the Alexandria Echo Press.

A newly approved compensation policy states that “because employees are compensated with taxpayer dollars, and for public accountability and liability reasons, all employees — whether exempt or non-exempt — are required to document actual time worked by timestamp.”

Commissioner Bev Bates, who opposed the measure, said it would make Douglas the only one of the state’s 87 counties with such a policy, which she likened to “micromanaging” employees.

NEVADA

ELKO COUNTY will not retain control of a rural road that has been part of a dispute dating back to ‘09… 1909.

A federal judge ruled county officials failed to prove the road was theirs before President Theodore Roosevelt permanently reserved the remote wilderness. T

he judge also said the Forest Service had no authority to cede control of the land to Elko County in a 2001 settlement agreement granting a rare right of way.

The dispute dates to 1998 when the agency announced plans to replace the road that washed out in a 1995 flood with a non-motorized trail, the Associated Press reported. The county and then the Department of the Interior, under both Presidents Clinton and Bush, got involved.

NEW JERSEY

• The 40 people arrested in a drug sweep conducted by police and public health officials in BERGEN COUNTY were given the choice of detox or jail. Offenders weren’t offered deals to drop their charges for entering detox. Of those, 22 chose to go to the Bergen Regional Medical Center, NBC News reported.

• CUMBERLAND COUNTY will undertake road projects over the objections of Gov. Chris Christie’s administration, which shut down those projects after a funding impasse. Safety concerns have driven the county to use its own money for the work, though officials hope the state will reimburse the costs, according to the New Jersey Advance.

NEW YORK

DUTCHESS COUNTY Executive Marcus Molinaro has added a new position to his executive team — deputy commissioner for special needs. The new position, believed to be the first of its kind in the state, will be responsible for coordinating county and community services to meet the needs of families with special needs. It is part of Molinaro’s ThinkDifferently initiative, aimed at changing the way businesses and individuals relate to individuals with special needs, according to HVNN.com. 

OREGON

A plan to seek greater local control over the management of federal lands at the expense of a good relationship with the U.S. Forest Service or Bureau of Land Management failed to get traction with the CROOK COUNTY Court.

About half of Crook County is owned by federal government.

The plan would have required the County Court to be involved in “coordination” with federal agencies in managing hundreds of thousands of acres of forests and watersheds; prohibited retirement of grazing allotments; and called for “the forest industry and the forest products commerce within the county” to be strengthened, the Associated Press reported.

SOUTH CAROLINA

• By cross-checking tax records, CHARLESTON COUNTY officials found 600 cases of fraud totaling $2.1 million over two years.

Those cases involve property owners falsely claiming additional homes as their primary residences to lower their tax bills, which can be nearly three times higher than primary residences, The Post and Courier reported.

Charleston County’s investigation came after similar actions by BERKELEY (188 cases) and DORCHESTER (360 cases) counties, all of which hired the same outside firm to do the investigation.

• The bee population of DORCESTER COUNTY has suffered collateral damage in the fight against the Zika virus. Four Zika cases in the county prompted an aerial pesticide bombing that also killed more than 2.5 million bees, the Washington Post reported.

TEXAS

• Canine officer Lobos kept his job with the FAYETTE COUNTY Sheriff’s Office secure by finding 285 pounds of marijuana during a traffic stop.

A Ford F-150 truck on Interstate 10 had committed a traffic violation and Lobos sniffed out $142,000 worth of drugs.

After obtaining permission from the driver to search the vehicle, the officer noticed that an auxiliary fuel tank in the truck bed had no fuel, according to the sheriff’s office. He opened the compartment and found 16 wrapped bundles of marijuana, the Austin American Statesman reported.

• Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton sued WALLER COUNTY over its decision to ban firearms in the entirety of its main court facility.

Paxton sued under a new state law that allows Texans to challenge the “no guns” policies offered by cities, counties and other government entities, the Dallas Morning News reported. The new law enhanced a 2003 law that said gun license holders can carry at most properties owned or leased by a governmental entity.

VIRGINIA

FAIRFAX COUNTY’s Anne Cahill, manager of economic, demographic and statistical research, was awarded the 2016 APDU Data Viz Award in the State/Local Agencies category by the Association of Public Data Users. The award recognizes top visualizations that use publicly available data.

WEST VIRGINIA

MONONGALIA COUNTY will receive payments generated by West Virginia University’s leasing of tax-exempt property to businesses.

The payments will come from the an increased cost in the lease agreements with WVU. The county tax assessor will survey the space used for commercial purposes and set the payment at 60 percent of the appraised amount for the space. That could total $175,000 annually from one particular commercial area.

“No other county and state institution has entered any sort of agreement that I’ve ever heard of,” County Commission President Eldon Callen told Metro News.

WISCONSIN

In an effort to correct the underrepresentation of minorities in its workforce, DANE COUNTY has launched a new program to help workers obtain a commercial driver’s license.

Two nonprofits identify applicants and hires them as limited-term employees, and trains them to operate county trucks, snowplows and other heavy-duty vehicles.

They can apply for county jobs after completing a 10-week course.

Participants earn $18.95 per hour while in training, the Capital Times reported, and the county jobs pay up to $24 per hour.