New Homeland Security director hired

WORLAND – A new Homeland Security and emergency management director will start mid-November after the Washakie County Commissioners approved a motion to hire an area resident.

Jeff Schweighart, who grew up in Thermopolis, accepted the commissioners’ offer via telephone at Tuesday morning’s scheduled commissioner meeting. Currently Schweighart resides in Meeteetse.

Washakie County Commission Chair Aaron Anderson discussed commute and a timeline for relocation and it was decided Schweighart will have until the end of the year to relocate, granted he commutes to work daily.

He is anticipated to start Nov. 14. Schweighart said he is happy to come on board and help out.

Other business Tuesday included a clarification on finances by Brad McCaslin with Banner Health Development and Construction and Washakie Medical Center CEO Jay Stallings regarding hospital contingency funds.

The discussion was necessary over concern of contingency usage. McCaslin said looking at the contingency funds it looks like the project is over budget, though it is not.

McCaslin said contingency funds were established in the beginning of the project. He said there is a little bit over $300,000 in contractor’s contingency and $137,000 in owner’s contingency. The two funds were in Layton Construction’s guaranteed maximum price (GMP) contract.

“We establish those funds with the GMP contractor to cover those unforeseen situations and items that come up during the construction project,” McCaslin said.

McCaslin said currently Layton classifies items that go under owner contingency as scope changes and contractor contingency is for stuff they missed. Right now, the owner contingency is over budget but because the contractor contingency is under budget the overage will be covered there. “If we go over on one, we just move it over to the other one,” McCaslin said.

Stallings said originally there was a weekly meeting set to discuss finances, but it has since waned out. “I want to be able to assure you that we continue to provide transparency, but improve our level and frequency of communication to you,” Stallings said.