Keweenaw Report Your Source for Local News and Sports
Baraga County has a new Equalization Director.
At last night’s board meeting, commissioners approved a contract with Patrick Osterman to oversee the Equalization Department. Osterman has previously served as the department’s assessor and field specialist.
He will be paid $58,606 per year.
In other action, the Baraga County board approved a three-year labor contract with sheriff’s deputies and corrections employees.
Kate Beer was appointed to the Baraga County Memorial Hospital Board of Directors.
Beer is the Health Officer and Chief Executive of the Western Upper Peninsula Health Department.
She will fill the term of Jim Dougovito, which expires at the end of 2023.
Lance Heikkinen was reappointed to the Veterans Board.
The board agreed to extend its relationship with the MSU Extension Service, at a cost of $37,325 – the same amount as the past several years.
Commissioners approved a $5,000 contribution to Upper Peninsula Enforcement Team West, which provides drug enforcement services in Baraga, Houghton, Keweenaw and Ontonagon Counties.
And, commissioners supported a resolution encouraging the state to resolve the ongoing pension shortfall leftover from the old Western Upper Peninsula Manpower Coalition.
The coalition, and others like it across the state, were dissolved in 2015.
Although it was a state program, the unfunded pension liability has remained on the books for Gogebic County.
The liability has now grown to nearly a million dollars.
Gogebic County is suing Baraga, Houghton Keweenaw, Ontonagon and Iron Counties for their shares of the bill.
Several years ago, the state paid off the bill for the Eastern U.P. coalition, and others in the state.
Only the bill for our region remains.
Money earmarked to resolve the situation was included in the current Michigan budget, but was eliminated by the State Administration Board as part of Governor Gretchen Whitmer’s cuts last October.
It has not been restored.
