Freeborn County commissioners took cost-saving measures to a different level Tuesday when they discussed eliminating a handful of positions within a few county departments.

Eliminating the positions — specifically of a court security deputy, an information systems technician, a public health nurse and a watershed field technician — was a topic that Commissioner Dan Belshan has been asking to discuss for several months, dating back to when the county started formulating its 2009 budget. He questioned whether the positions were necessary, or if the work could be done with one less person in each of the departments.

Regarding the court security deputy, Freeborn County Sheriff Mark Harig said the state requires counties to provide security in court, whether that be traffic court or criminal court.

“If I don’t have security, am I going to be in trouble as a sheriff with the state?” Harig said.

The sheriff talked of the importance of the court security position, noting that the deputy also has other duties outside of the courtroom.

Freeborn County Attorney Craig Nelson said there is no time when the courts are not in session for more than a few days. There are generally 40 different hearings per day, but that could easily go up to 60 per day.

The court security deputy gets the in-custody people ready to appear in court. That deputy is also good at knowing what types of people can present problems in the courtroom.

His presence in the courtroom “is a definite safety factor for all involved,” Nelson said. The deputy has been called on to straighten people out, but more often than not it’s the physical presence of the uniform.

The deputy is a person who makes the system flow better, Nelson said.

Commissioner Linda Tuttle said she agreed with several of these points. She said it is a positive tool to have a uniformed officer, a familiar presence to most people.

“If you hire an outside firm, they’re not familiar with our community and they’re not familiar with the people in our community,” Tuttle said.

She asked Harig and Nelson whether historically there are more aggressive people coming into the courtroom.

Nelson said there is “on a reasonably increased level,” often among younger people.

“You see a lot of back talk, you see a lot of trash talk going on under people’s breath,” he said. “It’s almost to the point of aggravation toward other people who may be in and around the courtroom.”

That has “definitely increased” during the time he’s been county attorney, he said.

Belshan said there’s no question that there needs to be security in the county’s courts. But between the city and the county deputies and officers is there enough staff who can man the courts to cut one county employee? He asked if that would be dangerous.

Commissioner Jim Nelson questioned whether overtime would be too much for the county if a position is eliminated.

Harig said right now if there’s a blizzard and there are two patrolmen working, and one of those would have to go up to the courts, what would the department do about all the people who are getting into wrecks. Many times the county is assisting the state because they are short as well, he said.

“It sounds to me like we can’t cut that position,” Tuttle said. “We need to have that security and still be able to patrol our roads and keep everybody safe the way we want them to be.”

Freeborn County Administrator John Kluever encapsulated what the commissioners, Harig and Nelson said by adding that one or any number of patrol deputies could be cut, but with that cut would come consequences.

Regarding the information systems technician, Information Systems Department head Scott Woitas said the county has 325 computers, which equals out to about 100 computers per person in his department.

The computers are seven to eight years old, so it makes them take twice as long to do work on them. It also takes the people looking at them much longer to do their job duties.

In the future, they’re hoping to get all of the computers down to two or three servers, instead of having one server per department.

“I can tell you we’re never sitting,” Woitas said. “We have projects all the time. We’re working on everything.”

Recently, the county started taping the county board meetings and will be airing them on the government access channel.

“Right now I need bodies,” he said. “It goes from me being a department head and being able to look down the road to fixing computers. That doesn’t allow me to work on the projects you really need me to work on like saving money.

“Could we get by with less people? That could always happen but I don’t see that happening in the near future.”

Belshan suggested eliminating one of the full-time positions in the department and instead contracting out with two Express Personnel employees.

Woitas said some of the Express employees actually have more skills than the other employees.

“If you can get more bodies for the same price … long term you’d get more done and save the county money,” Belshan said.

Kluever and Commissioner Glen Mathiason brought up making sure there wouldn’t be any liability issues in this suggestion.

After some debate with Belshan about the public health nurse position, Freeborn County Public Health Director Lois Ahern said the lowest she would be able to minimize her staff would be to go from a 32 hour a week position to a 20 hour per week position.

Belshan said he thinks that position needed to be voted on during a future meeting.

Lastly, regarding the watershed field technician, instead of cutting back on a position, Randy Tuchtenhagen, the department head for that position, recommended changing some of the county fees, like with building permits or solid waste fees.

“We don’t want to be more than everybody else, but we need to stay in the average,” Tuchtenhagen said.

Freeborn County has been much lower than neighboring areas, and many of the fees haven’t been changed for many years, he said.

Commissioner Tuttle said she doesn’t think the county should go extreme on its fees for actual citizens, but she noted she does think they could be changed for the business aspect of things.