Council pays police overtime, makes town appointments

At a well-attended Saratoga Town Council meeting the most contentious topics were the hiring of a new part-time police dispatcher, part-time patrol officer and the wording of Ordinance 829.

According to Chief of Police Knickerbocker, there has been significant overtime pay due to Saratoga police dispatchers and patrol officers over the last couple of years.

Discussing dispatchers Knickerbocker said to the town council, “As you are aware, right now, we are paying dispatchers 20 hours overtime per pay period with the current 12-hour schedule. This (the revised dispatcher schedule) will bring it down to eight-hour shifts, no more than 40 hours a week. While working on this schedule (dispatch) we also have an overtime issue with our officers,” Knickerbocker said.

The new dispatcher and patrol officer schedules developed by Knickerbocker and Capt. Robert Bifano should cut out any overtime hours provided one additional part-time dispatcher and one part-time patrol officer are hired.

Knickerbocker suggested hiring Cindy Talbott as a dispatcher and Bobby Chitwood as a patrol officer. Both job candidates have applied for positions in the department within the last year and still need to be vetted fully before they can be hired. There were some objections from the citizens at the meeting about not posting the job opportunities publicly before trying to hire Talbott or Chitwood.

The second public reading of Ordinance 829 was scheduled for Tuesday’s meeting, but the legislation met with some opposition and the council opted to table the reading until the Feb. 3 meeting.

Local apartment owner Nancy Jansa asked the council to reconsider the definition of a “Single-Family Residential Unit” and the implications of water and sewer fees for apartment owners.

The town passed Resolution No. 2015-01 - Financial Assistance for Communities with Populations Between 1,500 and 5,000. This resolution allows for the Wyoming Department of Transportation to provide financial assistance in the amount of $20 per capita annually for snow removal, street cleaning and maintenance of storm sewers in a town the size of Saratoga.

In another action, the town council approved the update of the Caselle administrative software system Saratoga currently uses. The software update is expected to cost $8,000.

The next regularly scheduled Saratoga Town Council meeting is 6 p.m., Feb. 3 at the Saratoga Town Hall.