One after one, county employees and people from the public expressed their concerns to the Marshall County Board of Supervisors Tuesday about the proposed sharing agreement of Geographic Information Services and director Wayne Chizek with Boone County.
Boone County approached Marshall County seeking to share Chizek.
As a way to save the county half of Chizek's pay and benefits, Marshall County is looking into the proposal. The local GIS department provides maps and other data to the county, public and businesses.
Article Photos
T-R PHOTO BY ANDREW POTTER
Wayne Chizek, right, director of Geographic Information Systems with Marshall County, talks during the Tuesday meeting of the Marshall County Board of Supervisors. From left are supervisors Dave Thompson, Denny Grabenbauer and Deane Adams.
It appears many who deal with the GIS department in Marshall County are worried local services would be affected if Chizek could no longer devote his complete attention to the county.
"What I see here is Boone County wins and Marshall County loses and I don't want that," said local attorney Brad Rutherford.
After meeting with Boone County officials, Chizek seemed skeptical that the proposal would work and compared how they did business to how Marshall County does business to "apples and oranges." He appeared to have some apprehension on the time needed to take on both jobs.
"I do have some concerns there," Chizek said.
A total of 10 people aside from Chizek and the supervisors talked about the issue at the meeting as the supervisors sought public input. Most who talked were not fond of the idea of having Chizek being shared with another county.
The supervisors will take the comments under consideration but still plan to meet with Boone County to talk over a possible proposal.
"Our biggest job is the budget," said Denny Grabenbauer, chair of the supervisors. "We've got to look at the bottom line."
Supervisor Deane Adams said in the proposal Marshall County has to benefit or he won't approve it.
"If that can't come out of here, then my vote would be 'no,'" Adams said.
In other discussion, Scott Williams, information technology director with the county, said he is having trouble keeping and attracting talented employees due to low salaries and wants the supervisors to look into ways to set higher salaries for his staff.
"We're not keeping pace with what the industry is doing," Williams said.