Maintenance department chief lobbies for new hire

With the acquisition of a new building, Lincoln County’s maintenance chief wants to expand his workforce.

Joe Nagle, director of maintenance, told the Lincoln County Board of Commissioners on May 20 that he needs a second full-time employee. For years, department has made do with one full time employee and a part time staffer owing to budget constraints, Nagle said.

But the lack of manpower has left the department overstretched, he said. Given aging infrastructure and the addition of new facilities, having a bare bones maintenance staff may soon end up costing taxpayers.

“What I was asking for was a second full time employee to better safeguard those investments and to get us away from emergency purchasing, to plan better, to inspect and plan out our purchases,” Nagle told the board.

He pointed to a recent burst pipe at the Libby Branch of Lincoln County Library, which left four inches of water in the building’s lower level. Incidents like that underscored his concern about the county’s infrastructure, Nagle told commissioners.

Hoping to make the proposal more palatable, Nagle said he had learned that a county groundskeeper charged with maintaining J. Neils Memorial Park was retiring. He wants to absorb the soon-to-be vacant position into his department. The move means the full time maintenance employee would come to the county at about 36 percent of the usual cost of a new hire.

“I didn’t want to come to you guys with just a problem without doing my best to come up with a solution to it,” Nagle said.

The addition of another employee also may decrease costs spent on contractors, he said. Nagle estimates the county spent $12,000 in recent years for outside help on maintenance problems.

“If I had the ability to have a third person who had technical knowledge of drywall and framing, that type of spending could be gone,” Nagle said. “I couldn’t say we could build a building, but at the same time we could take care of walls, smaller construction, insurance issues — that kind of stuff.”

County Administrator Pat McFadden told the board that he had encouraged Nagle to come up with an out-of-the-box solution that offset the cost associated with a new hire. He called the idea of absorbing a groundskeeper position from the park “creative.”

“He’s spread pretty thin and he’s found a way to bring on a full time employee at about a third of the cost if we just hired somebody straight up,” McFadden said.

County Commissioner Jerry Bennett (D-2) said the cuts made to the maintenance department were short-term responses to budget woes. Officials planned to reassess after a few years, he said.

“When we went into this process a few years ago, we knew we had to balance the budget and make some pretty deep cuts to do that,” Bennett said. “If we can fund it, I think it’s something that we should be doing.”

County Commissioner Josh Letcher (D-3) agreed. Keeping facilities in good working order could cut down on maintenance and repair costs, he said.

“Coming from a construction background, I know it’s easier to maintain things than build them and if we’re getting behind on maintenance then it would be cheaper to hire another guy,” Letcher said.

County Commissioner Mark Peck (D-1) was not in attendance for the discussion.

Although supportive of the proposal, commissioners asked to review Nagle’s proposal in writing before signing off on a new hire. The board is tentatively scheduled to vote on adding a second full time employee to the maintenance department June 3.