clay county comission 

Cari Drees 

A slate of appointments and job openings filled the County Commission meeting Tuesday as County Administrator Stephen Larson requested to identify and approve voting delegates for the Association of Minnesota Counties as well as requesting that two citizens be appointed to the Moorhead Joint Airport Zoning Board. Both requests were filled with support for each individual appointee. The appointment of Ashley Heng for her first three-year term on the planning commission was also enthusiastically approved.

 County Attorney Brian Melton also requested to fill a vacancy for an Assistant County Attorney position. In a turnaround from a commonly faced problem for employers in the area he then submitted that a previous Clay Count attorney who had moved to Minneapolis had contacted Mr. Melton and would like to return to the Moorhead area after a short time in the Minneapolis area. The pay grade will be bumped to match the incoming attorney’s salary at this time.

 The ongoing shortage of RNs continues to plague the county as yet another request to fill an RN vacancy came from Public Health Administrator Kathy McKay and Detox Director Troy Amundsen. While the ideal situation is to have multiple RNs available, the directive to have a nurse on every shift is currently filled by LPN positions with an RN available in an on-call capacity. Both McKay and Amundsen talked at length about licensing concerns through DHS. One glaring problem was the current fact that a nurse professional who is licensed in ND is not able to work in MN – the licensing does not cross the river. Commissioner Campbell requested that a letter from the entire commission be drafted, signed and sent to the various entities who are able to impact this issue.