Benton County discusses central EMA/public-health storage and hears insurance update including Medcor triage and rising work-comp costs

County supervisors spent substantial time discussing whether Benton County should provide heated storage space for emergency-management and public-health supplies and how construction or reimbursement would be handled.

Multiple commissioners said they supported helping create a single, centralized staging area for pandemic and emergency supplies but stressed the county should not bear long-term financial responsibility if outside organizations benefit. One supervisor summarized the county’s stance: the county could provide land but ‘‘Dwayne Arnold needs to put the money in, and it shouldn't be Benton County that puts the cost of that, just because we're being a nice neighbor.’’ Commissioners asked staff to contact Dwayne Arnold and the sheriff’s office to clarify needs, possible locations (courthouse-adjacent lots, maintenance garage, or another county property), and insurance/liability implications; floodplain and heating logistics were repeatedly cited as constraints.

In a separate presentation, insurance staff and coordinators updated the board on Heartland pool business. They said Heartland approved a rate study that will be presented in October and that the pool approved Medcor for work-comp triage. An insurance coordinator explained the Medcor terms: Heartland covered the initial setup cost (recorded as $250) and the annual fee is $250; each triage call would carry an $84 charge billed to the claim file. Staff said implementation would be county-by-county and that a June 4 call is scheduled to explain details to local insurance coordinators.

Insurance staff also warned the board that Benton County’s workers-comp mod factor rose from 0.78 to 0.97, increasing premiums (staff estimated the premium impact at roughly $40,000 annually on current exposures). Officials highlighted safety-committee work, return-to-work programs, and a proposed mock-OSHA visit as measures to lower future costs.

Board members did not take formal action to commit county funds to a storage building; they directed staff to continue discussions and to present specific options and cost estimates.