The Knox County Finance Committee adopted a new food safety ordinance at Wednesday night’s meeting.
Effective on the first of January, the state food safety code will reflect the federal code and the county needed to adopt a new ordinance in order to stay in compliance.
Will Hayes, the Health Department’s Assistant Administrator, told the board that the department shouldn’t be adding any new payroll even though inspection times will be increasing.
“We do believe that initially, at least, inspection times will be longer based on the new FDA code, and what the state has adopted. There’s a little more complicated process,” Hayes told the committee. “We don’t see any direct increased costs, we’re not adding staff or not doing anything in that way. But we do believe that our inspection times are going to be a little longer. So you could argue, ‘yeah there’s a slight increase in expenditure for us.'”
The committee approved the resolution, which now goes before the full board.
The committee also approved an audit of the county’s telecommunications system from Spyglass.
County Clerk Scott Erickson informed the committee that he had been contacted numerous times by the company over the last few years about looking over the system, much in the same way that SmartWatt was overlooking the county’s utility bills.
He said the there would be no upfront costs to the county, and that payment to Spyglass would only be based on the savings for the first year after the recommendations were made.
Erickson said that it had been several years since the county had gone through a similar audit – which led to the entire phone system being replaced.
He said he didn’t think the county would see much savings, but it wouldn’t hurt to let them do their audit.
The finance committee also approved putting out a bid and bring back on farmland near the nursing home and Love’s Travel stop.
Also approved was a five-year contract renewal with DevNet, software used at various county offices, with a 1% increase each year for the duration of the renewed contract.
