Municipal News & Jobs

Studying the use of hybrid vehicles by the Reno County Sheriff’s office, Automotive Department Director Kyle Berg found they didn’t provide quite as much savings on gas as projected. However, the combination of gas and electric engines cut down significantly on engine idle time for the patrol vehicles. That prompted Berg to recommend the county extend the replacement schedule for those vehicles by a year, from four years to five, which could save the county substantially more. The only issue, Berg noted, is that other county departments often add the vehicles to their fleets as replacements when they’re retired by the sheriff’ s office, so he wasn’t sure how it would impact operations overall.
Source: Hutch News.

Members of the Reno County Commission agreed Tuesday that rates need to be significantly increased sooner, rather than later, for patrons of the rural Yoder and HABIT sewer districts. What they did not agree on was how quickly that should be or how much rates should rise. Public Works staff have been working for more than a year studying how to address the deteriorating and inadequate Sewer District 201 and 202 systems that serve about 100 residents in the Yoder area. That included asking the city late last year to allow the systems to dump into the city’s sewer plant. “Regardless of where we think, ultimately, we’ll see rates are going to be, it might be time to just increase them to a reasonable rate immediately,” Commissioner Daniel Friesen suggested Tuesday morning.
Source: Hutch News.

Jobs have increased in Finney County over the past five years and more workers are needed. Shannon Dick, Director of Analytics at Finney County Economic Development Corporation, found that on average 126.6 new jobs are coming to the county year over year based on numbers from the Bureau of Labor Statistics from 2015 to 2020. The biggest job growth was in the manufacturing, transportation and healthcare fields, Dick said.
Source: GC Telegram.

The interest rate table above illustrates recent changes in a sample of MBIS “investment grade” yields. Every issuer’s credit is different. For rates that may be applicable to your municipality, contact our Municipal Bond Advisors, Larry Kleeman and Beth Warren.

The Reno County IT department has created a dozen different maps for how Reno County could be divided if voters should approve going from a three- to a five-member County Commission in November. Each map is drawn intending to create commission districts that are as equal in population and contiguous in boundaries as possible but that also follow existing voting precinct lines, said County Clerk Donna Patton. The commission on Tuesday asked county staff to send copies of all the maps to each commissioner to select their top three for consideration at the next commission meeting, to see if they could then reach a consensus on one.
Source: Hutch News.

The interest rate table above illustrates recent changes in a sample of MBIS “investment grade” yields. Every issuer’s credit is different. For rates that may be applicable to your municipality, contact our Municipal Bond Advisors, Larry Kleeman and Beth Warren.

Smoking may soon be banned in parks across the city of Salina after a vote by the city commission Monday. The ban, which saw its first step forward by a 3-2 vote by the commission Monday, will apply to smoking, the use of electronic cigarettes and other tobacco products in outdoor recreational areas in the city. … ‘You have to set the norm somewhere,’ Commissioner Trent Davis said. He said it is similar to other places in the city, like at Salina Stadium. ‘We don’t have police walking up and down the aisles, it’s just accepted that you don’t smoke (there),’ Davis said.
Source: Salina Journal.

The Baldwin City Council is moving forward with an ordinance to ban private water wells in the city, but the action may come too late to prevent the first active well from being dug. … The ordinance was drafted in the wake of two recent applications to dig water wells in the city. The permit applications by the owners of the new car wash on U.S. Highway 56 and by resident Dan Nelson, 102 Dearborn St., were made with the county health department, which has the jurisdiction to issue well permits in Baldwin City because there is no local ordinance giving the city jurisdiction over water wells. That was a concern to council members because the county’s control of the permit process created doubt about whether the city could monitor backflow devices designed to prevent untreated well water from mixing with city-treated water in the “cross connected” systems of residents or businesses.
Source: LJWorld.com.

The interest rate table above illustrates recent changes in a sample of MBIS “investment grade” yields. Every issuer’s credit is different. For rates that may be applicable to your municipality, contact our Municipal Bond Advisors, Larry Kleeman and Beth Warren.

The interest rate table above illustrates recent changes in a sample of MBIS “investment grade” yields. Every issuer’s credit is different. For rates that may be applicable to your municipality, contact our Municipal Bond Advisors, Larry Kleeman and Beth Warren.