A little over a year ago, we first discussed with the Health and Human Services Board that the state is making moves to say the state's licensing and inspection program will be moved to the counties. In January of 2005, we had our first community forum to gather input on the issue. |
Basically, we wanted to be proactive. Not wait for a state mandate and all of a sudden we have to scramble. |
If there's changes that need to be made to more clearly define what is a resort, we would be willing to be flexible and discuss that. |
No one else should be authorized to do that. |
The easiest way to look at it is that if you're currently inspected by the state, you will continue to be inspected under this code. And, unfortunately at this point, we are only looking at environmental health and sanitation. But at some point, yes, it is possible that we could handle more of the licensing. |
We do think there's a need. There's a lot of establishments that fly under the radar, that could be inspected more. That's why we're doing it. All revenues that were paid to the state will be kept locally. We're not adding to the taxes. |
We don't intend on making things more difficult for you. We see it as a partnership; we have to have inspections and licensing, and we inspect you as owners, so we're going to do what we can to get as much input and feedback as possible. |
We have to be flexible, so yes. |
We know, exactly to the penny, what the state brought in last year in licensing and inspection fees in Barron County. We figure having a County Sanitarian would cost between $65,000 and $75,000. We're comfortable with that. |
We made sure to check finances to see if there are enough licenses in place to support the position. We feel good about this. The position will be fully funded through the revenues from the program; it shouldn't cost taxpayers anything. |
We've included more definitions, as well as a timeline and just process. If we're going to deny your license or revoke it, there's a specific timeline in place. |