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BACKUS - Cass County commissioners voted Tuesday to purchase 10 AED (Automated External Defibrillator) resuscitation units for county buildings at an estimated cost of $14,315.

Auditor-Treasurer Sharon Anderson said there currently is one AED in the land department building in Backus. The additional units will be placed in county government buildings in Walker and Pine River.

Anderson said 13 county employees trained in CPR also have AED certification. She said there will be no training expense, because existing trained employees and free training services will be available to train additional employees.

The commissioners asked Anderson to investigate possible grants to pay for the devices through Central Minnesota Emergency Management Services or the University of Minnesota.[[In-content Ad]]

Anderson also obtained board approval to adopt a uniform policy on how the county will accept citizen donations to the county. She said in addition to giving the county a uniform policy, this also will give donors a record of their donations for tax purposes.

One form Cass will adopt from Stearns County will cover cash donations, while the other will cover donations of land, goods or services. Gifts may be designated for specific county functions or for general operations.

The board approved informational topics to be included with tax statements when those are mailed to property tax owners in March.



Topics will include the county's redistricting plan; reminders on election dates, voter registration and absentee ballot procedures; Cass's Take It to the Box medication disposal program; Cass's prescription drug discount card (available from county health services); and information about how to sign up for the sheriff's Nixle emergency notification service for weather and crime alert warnings.

The board added to that list Tuesday information about DNR-designated impaired waters in the county. Those are lakes where the DNR has found either high levels of mercury or phosphorous in fish take from the lakes.

So far, Lake Margaret has been identified as having high phosphorous levels, while another 38 other lakes have been cited for higher than acceptable mercury. In some lakes, only certain bays have the designation.

Cass is one of 11 counties out of 14 in the Minnesota Counties Information Systems software user group to transfer their property tract indexing services from Fidlar Technologies of Illinois to Computer Software Associates of Billings, Mont.

Fidlar had proposed doubling their per document charge from 50 cents to one dollar this year. CSA will charge 65 cents, Anderson said. Additionally, their program is more flexible and will give Cass more choice in how they use data in the system, according to Recorder Katie Norby..

Second publication rights after Brainerd Dispatch.

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