Todd County Attorney Charles Rasmussen and Todd County Sheriff Peter Mikkelson made preliminary budget presentations to the county commissioners on Aug. 4

As part of their budget presentation both men talked about the purpose and goals of their departments. Rasmussen said the general purpose of the Todd County attorney's office is to provide legal representation to the state and county as well as to county personnel. Mikkelson said that the primary goal of the sheriff's office is to keep the citizens and property in Todd County safe.

Both the sheriff and county attorney said that the only increases in their proposed 2010 budgets would be for increased costs related to supplies and employee salaries. Both offices have employees with union contracts in them. Mikkelson said his budget would increase by about three percent.

The draft sheriff ' s budget for 2010 is $1.65 million. The draft 2010 budget for the county attorney is $433,000. The 2009 budget is $420,836. The 2008 budget was $410,319 and the 2007 budget was $373,000.

County administrator

The commissioners approved a resolution adapting a cellular telephone policy for county employees. The policy, which was presented by County Administrator Burkett, limits personal use of county cell phones by county employees to personal emergencies.

Burkett also asked the commissioners to sign a letter of support for a broad band network communications grant proposal to the United States Department of Agriculture, by the Mid State Education District. If the grant is approved it could lead to the creation of a 1,500 square mile wireless broadband communication zone that would include Todd County. It would provide high speed broadband communications for area hospitals, clinics, schools, businesses and others in the three county area. The grant money is available through the President's economic stimulus legislation.

County web site

Todd County's official web site had 3,569 visits from county residents in the last five months, Chris Pelzer, the county MIS Director, told the commissioners.

The estimated number of visits does include more than 1,000 visits from possible non-county residents in the cities of Swanville, Sauk Centre, and Osakis, Pelzer said. Fifteen hundred visits from Long Prairie provided almost half of the visits whereas Eagle Bend generated only 21 visits during the five month period. Browerville had 60 visits and Staples had 440, or approximately three per day.

The web site apparently is used extensively by Todd County employees, who visited the web site more than 20,000 times during the five month period.

There were also 2,700 hits from Minneapolis, 1,600 from Alexandria, and over 600 from the state of California.

In other matters, the Todd County Board:

o AUTHORIZED Cheryl Schneider from Public Health to apply for an $11,608 grant to support senior citizen public health nursing and educational clinics.

o ACCEPTED Burkett's suggestion to pay South Country Health Alliance its fee early. The early payment will save Todd County $4,000 to $6,000 in interest costs.