T-R PHOTO BY ROBERT MAHARRY — Marshall County Buildings and Grounds Director Lucas Baedke came before the board of supervisors during Wednesday morning’s meeting to discuss the possibility of hiring another employee in his department.

During Wednesday morning’s regular meeting, Marshall County Buildings and Grounds Director Lucas Baedke approached the board of supervisors about potentially hiring an additional employee in his department to assist with cleaning duties.

Although the item was ultimately tabled, the matter was discussed for about 10 minutes, and Baedke was encouraged to return with more information. Baedke explained that as it currently stands, he has three employees working under him in the department, and they spend 1 ½ to two hours cleaning every morning.

“If we start adding up those man hours, we could really start to justify an employee pretty easily, and what these guys are doing aren’t really to the level of cleaning that needs to be done, that the buildings deserve, that the employees deserve,” Baedke said. “There’s always more that can be done, and I just feel like it would be a big benefit for the county to have that additional employee.”

Sometimes, he added, employees will reach out to say their office didn’t get vacuumed, and while it may have been vacuumed, he hasn’t always felt it was done as well as it should’ve been. Baedke said he had a plan to potentially make the hire budget neutral, which he felt was a definite possibility.

“It would allow my other three employees, who are more skilled in some different areas, to really flex that and utilize that knowledge more and make better improvements around other facilities, the sheriff’s office being a big factor in that,” he said.

Supervisor Steve Salasek asked Baedke if his employees were working much overtime, and he said it was “minimal” at this point despite the fact that it is allowed. Fellow Supervisor Carol Hibbs also sought more details on the budget neutral statement, wondering if that would result in reductions elsewhere.

“I don’t think it’s so much what doesn’t happen. I think it allows us to utilize our staff and not contract out third party as much, which is where we save a lot of money,” Baedke said. “We’re able to tackle some of the bigger plumbing jobs (and) smaller remodel jobs. We paid a lot of money to have the election center kind of redone, and if I would’ve had another employee, we could’ve handled a lot more of that in house. It’s things like that where I think we could really see some benefits. Drywall, paint and carpet aren’t expensive, and that’s what a lot of our needs are. If we’re able to free up those guys to really full court press on some of that stuff, just the time that we could free them up, we could make a lot of improvements.”

When Baedke started as a part-time buildings and grounds employee, the department had seven employees, and the number is now down to four. He credited his staff for getting “just as much if not more” done but added that they feel stretched thin.

In response to another question from Hibbs, he said he believed the hire would allow cleaning at the sheriff’s office to be expanded. Baedke hoped the next steps would be to continue down the path of posting the job, getting some applications and seeing which candidates emerge.

“I think with all the beautiful upgrades of the courthouse, we obviously want to keep up our cleaning and maintenance here. We do know that we’re looking at the potential upgrades out at the sheriff’s office, and if/when that happens, we want to make sure we’re ahead of the game there,” Board Chairman Jarret Heil said. “Or, depending on how things go, that we have maintenance staff out there to adequately take care of things out at the sheriff’s office, and so because of that, I think it’s important to have this conversation.”

Heil added that he wasn’t sure if he was ready to make a decision and would like to see more information on cleaning service costs for outside contracting as opposed to hiring another employee.

“It’s important to keep this place good and polished for the public,” Heil said of the courthouse.

Hibbs indicated that she would like to see a breakout of the hours spent cleaning each county building, and Baedke described the courthouse, the annex and the sheriff’s office as “the big three.”

Salasek instructed Baedke and Sheriff Joel Phillips to have conversations before the next meeting and iron out details with hopes of returning a more detailed proposal in two weeks. A motion to table the matter carried by a unanimous vote.