OSAGE COUNTY  — Bartlett & West Project Managers Austin Johnson and Robbie Miles updated commissioners last Tuesday on the status of the Pentecostal Bridge replacement.

“(We) like to see people in person,” admonished Presiding Commissioner Darryl Griffin. “We haven’t seen Austin since we signed the agreement, and that’s been over a year.”

“Yeah, we’re not feeling the love, boys,” agreed Western District Commissioner Dale Logan.

“The environmental is all clear, which you guys are aware of,” Miles said. “The game of hurry up and wait that we played with the Missouri Department of Transportation (MoDOT) for an entire year got all the environment clearances out of the way. Right-of-way plans and preliminary bridge design are complete. Negotiations are complete. You guys made quick work of that. Easements are being recorded, then we’ll certify the right-of-way. So, once we get those recorded easements from you all, we will send them to MoDOT, and that will finalize right-of-way. We’ll be able to do the job.”

Miles said Bartlett & West planned to have the final design to MoDOT by Aug. 1, after which it could take the agency as long as four to six weeks to approve.

“I don’t anticipate many comments,” Miles said. “We’ll turn those around pretty quick, in a couple weeks, and then we’re targeting mid/late September to advertise for bids.”

A bid opening is anticipated in early November.

“Our tree-clearing window, because of the bats, is November to March,” Johnson added. “So, that gets them approval to get out there, just when they’re actually allowed to do work. I’ll be honest with you; I like winter bridge construction. I think you get slower cure. The streams down; you’re not in the water. Concrete cures well. It’s a good time to bid bridges.”

Johnson and Miles said they had staff checking with regional concrete plants regarding lead time for the large concrete girders, which Miles said were the only potential long lead time item. Assuming no issues, construction of the bridge should take approximately five months.

“So, if your contract award (is) early November, notice to proceed (in) mid-November, that would put us probably (at the) end of April, we would want to see substantial completion.

The anticipated cost for the new bridge is approximately $2,200,000.

Logan mentioned that commissioners had learned not to print right-of-ways double-sided, which was done by a county employee, not Bartlett & West, and warned the pair to advise other clients not to print double-sided in the future.

Griffin asked why Johnson was replaced with Miles after the project began. Miles advised that he had other projects on his plate that he was afraid would keep him from giving the Pentecostal Bridge the amount of attention it needed, so he asked Miles to help out.

• Congressman Bob Onder’s Constituent Services representative, Sarah Williams, addressed the commissioners as well.

“The commission had expressed some concerns regarding Medicaid tax cuts and everything that’s going on in D.C.,” Williams said. “So I did get a little bit of information regarding that, because a lot of people are talking, and there’s a lot of fear going on in social media, that everyone’s going to get this huge cut into the program.”

“Medicaid experiences get more fraud, probably than any other program, compared to other government programs,” Williams said. “A little over $1.1 trillion in improper Medicaid payments have been made in the last decade alone. There are 6.6 million ineligible patients enrolled in Medicaid, costing roughly around $36.9 billion in annually.

“The Wall Street Journal put forth an article and says that there was $4.3 billion in duplicative payments from patients enrolled in Medicaid in multiple states,” she continued. “California alone spends roughly around $8.4 billion annually on Medicaid for illegal immigrants. Further in, the ‘Big, Beautiful Bill,’ includes overdue reforms to address and to continue some of this and to combat some of that wasteful and fraud spending.”

The following statements were made by Williams regarding the bill (if signed into law) that have not been fact-checked.

It would require states to check eligibility every six months to ensure that those that are with other insurance are no longer training from this program. It does require address verification to ensure that patients aren’t enrolled in multiple states. Also, includes a provision making it easier for providers to see out of state Medicaid patients.

It would require states to check death certificate records and disenroll deceased individuals.

It would prohibit illegal aliens from qualifying for Medicaid. States that provide health care for illegal immigrants would be liable for more than the 10% of their state’s Medicaid budget.

It would lower the Medicaid prescription drug costs.

It would include financial penalties for states with high, inaccurate payment rates.

It would reverse a (former President Joe) Biden nursing home rule that resulted in a shortage of staffed beds.

It would require states to clean up their Medicaid provider directory, to improve current and adequate Medicaid provider networks.

In regard to work requirements, approximately 62% of able-bodied adults on Medicaid report that they are not working at all. Around 4.8 million able bodied adults without dependents are on Medicaid, and they’re not contributing to their communities through work at all. The “Big, Beautiful Bill” would require able-bodied adults from age 19 to 64 that are receiving Medicaid to work or volunteer at least 80 hours per month. This does not apply to the traditional Medicaid population of low-income children, pregnant women, parents of dependent children, and the elderly and disabled. It only applies to the expansion population.

“In addition, in Missouri, the third congressional district, for the average family of four with the median income of a little over $77,000, they would see a little over $1,600 tax liability increase next year in result of the tax cuts,” Williams said.

Health Department Administrator Kim Sallin expressed concern that lack of transportation and increased telephone hold times may impact Medicaid recipients.

“This seems like a lot of extra duties for the Medicaid employees,” Sallin said. “I know the computers can verify some of this stuff, but some of it’s going to take calling people, to find out if they’ve been employed. I work with a lot of the Medicaid population, specifically with WIC. I know that they sometimes wait six-plus hours on the phone to find out whether their child is eligible or not, or they might have gotten kicked off, but they don’t know why, so they have to call to figure out what that looks like. And this has been pretty consistent. I’ve been there for four years, and this is a very consistent thing.”

Sallin added that sometimes their computer will show someone is ineligible, and the person will have to call Medicaid to correct the issue. “We can’t take care of them that day because they will not be able to get a hold of somebody to figure out what is going on,” she explained. “So, that is very concerning to me, that with all this extra work that would need to go into doing these very appropriate things to make sure that the correct people are getting the correct resources and what they need. But, is there anything in there that says, like, we’re going to give the states more workforce or more money for them to hire people that will do all of that investigating, so that it can be done in a timely and proper way? That’s kind of the first thing that come came to mind.

“And then the second thing that came to mind is, I think it’s fantastic that you know, that an individual contributes to their community, and it’s needed in rural areas like us,” Sallin continued. “But people can’t get places. They don’t have vehicles, they don’t have gas money, and it’s that vicious cycle of, well, go to work so you can have gas money. Can’t get to work, and we only have one vehicle, and that person needs to go here with the vehicle to get to work. So, I definitely see that being a barrier for individuals, because there’s very minimal in rural areas. We have cancellations from appointments for infant vaccines (and) WIC appointments all the time because their vehicle broke down. Somebody unexpectedly had to take the vehicle to work or something that day, and they just can’t, simply cannot, find a ride.”

“I will double-check this,” Williams said, “But individuals can carpool or work a majority of that 80 hours within one day. So, then, you’re only doing transportation that one day, versus, like a standard five or six hours, you know, going back and forth to work every day. So you can make a schedule. And it can be a wide base of volunteer programs. It doesn’t have to be, drive 30 minutes into town to go into wherever.

“But I do understand some of them are more rural residents, myself included,” Williams continued. “Everything’s a drive, everything’s a whatever, but there’s a local church that’s a mile down the road. So, I will look into the implementation, the costs, and the flexibility of the volunteer hours, and see if that takes into account feasibility for rural residents that do have a hard time with reliable transportation, and address that for you.”

ROAD & BRIDGE

Osage County Road and Bridge Foreman Justin Bridges advised commissioners that some of his employees were working on repairing the collapsed bridge on CR 416. The pipe was scheduled to be transported and set on Tuesday, May 20.

• Logan mentioned a call from a citizen regarding gravel on cul-de-sacs, and a ditch with standing water in it.

“That big ditch sits with water in it all the time; there’s no culvert in it,” Peters said. “It was a excavating error when the road was built years and years ago. The ditch is running the wrong way, and she wants us to fix it, but the road’s like 140 feet wide there, and our easements like 30 feet, so we can’t touch the ditch. We can’t legally do anything with it, if that makes sense.”

“Our easement’s 30 feet, and there’s probably 40 feet of road there,” Bridges agreed.

“Or better,” Peters said. “She was actually wanting rock on it to the mailboxes over there, where that’s super wide.”

“Have her call,” Bridges said.

“We don’t know who widened that so the school bus could drop on and off, and we only rock the road so far. We can’t go 100 feet,” Griffin said.

“See, what happened is, they got cars parked on one side to pick the kids up, on and off from school buses,” Peters explained. “And then the school bus is on the other side, and there’s still plenty of room for cars to get by,” Peters explained.

“I have no idea what to do with that,” Bridges said.

“If the subdivision wants to pay it, we might spot them a little rock, if they want to pay you guys to do it,” Peters said. “Otherwise, it’s on private property. We can’t really do anything with it. It wouldn’t be the right thing to do. It’s illegal, actually.”

Peters said he would contact the citizen again to discuss the issue.

“We’re not even going to touch that until something else is figured out,” Bridges said.

“I wouldn’t even do the cul-de-sacs until I get an answer on that,” Peters agreed. “That way, we’re not going out there twice.”

• Griffin said a citizen at the Chamois city meeting brought up an issue on CR 412.

“This person brought up a concern that the road and bridge (personnel) went on their property, and there was a telephone pole there, and they wanted to mark it so they didn’t hit it, but it was on their property, and spray painted orange, and they didn’t appreciate it,” he said.

“If that did take place, and I’m pretty sure I saw orange paint out on 412, it was not us that did it,” Bridges said. “If it was us that did it, it was certainly not under my direction. And it’s not something I’ve ever heard of.”

“Who was out there working,” Griffin asked.

“I have no idea,” Bridges responded. “But it was not us.”

Bridges said if one of his people did that, it was without his knowledge.

During Tuesday’s meeting this week, Bridges said that after questioning his staff, one of them had painted the pole orange without discussing it with anyone. Bridges told commissioners that Road & Bridge personnel will correct the situation.

• Peters said CR 731 at Cooper Hill looked good.

“Tell your guys, man, you  keep on rocking it,” Peters said. “Keep up the good work.”

“Keep rocking it — is that pun intended?” Sallin joked .

• Quarry rock was hauled on CR 412 (689.22 tons), 503 (52.16 tons), 508 (16.26 tons), 512 (17.81 tons); a culvert has been replaced on CR 711; a tree was removed from CR 531; work was done on CR 412; and grader operators have been active as follows: G01 (CRs 503, 504, 505, 612), G02 (CRs 701, 702, 708, 709, 711, 712, 715, 722, 751), G03 (CRs 211, 212, 801), G04 (CRs 520, 522, 524), G05 (CRs 412, 413, 414), G06 (CRs 241, 317, 319, 321).

• DT27 (2000 Sterling Single Axle), PT47 (2009 Ford F450), and T49 (2015 Kenworth T800) were in the shop.

• Citizen contacts included issues on CR 512, culvert installation on CR 711, access road installation on CR 741, driveway installation on Hwy Y (advised to contact MoDOT), private culvert installation on CR 651, speed limit sign on old Hwy 50, work on CR 512, and dust control on CR 522.

HEALTH DEPARTMENT

Sallin reported good attendance for the child and babysitting class, with 14 attendees for the first session.

“Since (Linn Fire Chief) Ron (Hoffman) is here, I have to brag on him,” Sallin said. “Ron came over yesterday with the fire truck, and he has this little tin pan that he puts fire in, and all the kids had the opportunity to use a real fire extinguisher and put that fire out.”

Several participants were not able to attend the second day, which included CPR training.

Griffin mentioned the county might like to have fire extinguisher training for county employees, as well, if Linn Fire Protection District was willing to partner on that.

• Sallin had 12 hours of overtime due to their staffing shortage and because other employees had personal events to attend. She warned commissioners to expect Kandiss to have overtime while (Sallin) is on vacation, as the additional hours will likely be necessary to accommodate patient needs.

• She reported that a lot of good questions were asked at the Chamois city meeting, and she was glad to be able let more people know about services the health department offers.

911/Emergency Management

Osage County 911/EMA Director Ron Hoffman was asked to provide more information regarding changing CAD systems from SOMA Global to CentralSquare. It was determined that they would readdress the issue at 8:45 a.m. during the May 27 meeting.

FINANCIAL

• Commissioners approved time sheets.