Washington County approves $165M budget with compensation for search & rescue volunteers, buys Zion URL

ST. GEORGE — Washington County officials adopted the proposed budget for next year that includes compensation for search and rescue volunteers and a pay raise for county employees.

In this file photo, Washington County Clerk/Auditor Susan Lewis shares a preview of the proposed 2022 county budget with the Washington County Commission, St. George, Utah, Nov. 16, 2021 | Photo courtesy of Washington County / CEC, St. George News

During a meeting of the Washington County Commission held Tuesday afternoon, County Clerk/Auditor Susan Lewis apprised commissioners of additions made to the 2022 budget since it was originally presented last month.

At that time, Lewis told St. George News that certain parts of the budget, which was estimated at around $165 million overall, had yet to be finalized. This included proposed wage increases.

Due to difficulties in recruiting new employees and retention of current ones, inflation and housing costs going up, the county has proposed a wage increase of between 2-6% for its employees in the coming year, Lewis said.

Another item added to the budget was a set rate of compensation for volunteers of the Washington County Sheriff’s Search and Rescue team.

“Depending on their call and their experience, the volunteers will be paid between $50 and $100 for their call-outs,” Lewis said.

In this file photo, the Washington County Sheriff’s Search and Rescue team responds to a call in Washington County, Utah, August 2019 | Photo courtesy of Washington County Sheriff’s Search and Rescue, St. George News

So far this year, the search and rescue team has responded to 148 calls, Washington County Sheriff’s Sgt. Darrell Cashin told the commission. It was lower than 2020, which saw a total of 174 call outs, yet remained higher than 2019 and years previous.

The last item added to the budget was one-time funding to be used to assist with emergency medical transportation on state Route 18 in the coming year.

While Gold Cross Ambulance has provided service on a segment of SR-18, with the remainder covered by Enterprise, the Dammeron Valley Fire District is in the process of taking on ambulance service in the area as well.

“The construction projects, the grants, the other tourism-related projects basically remain unchanged from what we presented in November,” Lewis said.

In other business, the commission approved a map of newly redrawn election precincts within the county that will be sent to the state for review. The precincts needed to be redrawn to accommodate revised Utah House and Senate districts approved by the Legislature in November.

“Once they got that accomplished, they sent us their maps and needed to have our precincts hit the right Senate and House districts,” Lewis said. “Sometimes their line went right through the middle of a precinct, so now we need to split and have two precincts.”

In this file photo, Rep. Walt Brooks, R-St. George, goes over the redrawn Utah House and Senate Districts during a meeting of the Washington County Republican Party Central Committee, St. George, Utah, Nov. 30, 2021 | Photo by Mori Kessler, St. George News

Some precincts also needed to be split due to their size, as they gained more than the 1,250 voter limit per precinct that came with the overall growth in various parts of the county.

The county also bought the URL for ZionNationalPark.com for $200,000 from Zion National Park, LLC.

The URL has existed since the late 1980s, said Kevin Lewis, director of the Greater Zion Convention and Tourism Office.

“Because of the longevity of that URL, it has incredible value as a market channel and tool,” he said. “Zion National Park is within the county, and it fits really well with our Greater Zion messaging, and we can have a site that is specific to Zion National Park.”

The website will tie into the Greater Zion website in order to show visitors what else there is to do in Washington County beyond the national park, Kevin Lewis said.

“I think its a great move for us,” he said.

Commissioner Adam Snow said some may object to the price tag that comes with the URL, yet due to its longevity, the assets that come with it and the national attraction of Zion National Park in general, it was well worth it.

“It’s a good purchase,” Snow said.

Kevin Lewis noted ZionNationalPark.com received the same amount of visitors that Greater Zion did but without the marketing costs that had been invested into the latter. All of the traffic ZionNationalPark.com received was organic, he said.

Copyright St. George News, SaintGeorgeUtah.com LLC, 2021, all rights reserved.

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