Heap to get help

By Dan Hust
MONTICELLO — HEAP’s getting some extra help this year.
The locally-administered but federally-funded Home Energy Assistance Program fell short of its goals last year, to heavy criticism from those within and outside county government.
In a year fraught with fuel fears, county officials are intent on not courting disaster, and so legislators on Thursday unanimously agreed to hire extra staff for the program.
With salaries to be paid by the feds, a full-time account clerk, a full-time senior social welfare examiner and two full-time but temporary account clerks will be hired to supplement the two existing clerks.
In other business
• County Manager David Fanslau warned legislators that “our indications for the rest of 2008 are that all of our major revenue lines are going to stay flat, if not decline.
“The prognosis for 2009 is not much better,” he added.
Division of Public Works Commissioner Bob Meyer put it in even starker figures.
“Probably as much as fuel prices are going up, asphalt prices are going up,” he said.
Substantially so – blacktop has risen by $5 a ton in just the last two weeks, and Meyer expects another hike in August.
• Legislator David Sager’s resolution to have the county’s volunteer Board of Ethics review the Code of Ethics got the green light Thursday.
The board will now have to meet to (1) review regional and state codes of ethics, (2) recommend revisions or even a complete rewrite to ensure an “appropriate, fair, comprehensive and readily enforceable” code, and (3) determine whether the code should be part of the county’s charter or be enacted as a separate local law.