Murray County Commissioners on Tuesday held a discussion on the difficulties of replacing the county engineer at the highway department, bringing up the idea of sharing the position with another county. With the upcoming retirement of county engineer Randy Groves, the position has been advertised with little results. According to Coordinator Sharon Giese, only one application has been received since the position was posted several weeks ago.
Commissioner Dennis Welgraven said he was approached by a commissioner from Cottonwood County with the possibility of having a shared position, as they are also trying to fill an engineer role.
The board will continue to brainstorm ideas.
In other business, the board was introduced to three summer interns. Two are working at the Murray County Medical Center and one is working for Investor’s Choice. Carla Goedtke, who owns Investor’s Choice and is also the chair of the Southwest Minnesota Workforce Council, pointed out statistics of the Murray County Summer Intern Program, which is in its third year.
In the first two years of the program, the interns were fully funded by the county using ARPA monies. With those funds depleted, this year commissioners decided that the county would fund the program at 50 percent, asking local businesses who wished to have an intern to fund the remainder of the program. According to Goedtke, there are two potential interns who have not been placed because the private businesses have not stepped forward to pay the 50 percent cost of employing the student for the summer.
The numbers show that in the first two years of the program, almost three-quarters of the interns were placed with public positions in the county – a majority of them worked at the Murray County Medical Center, with one each at the sheriff’s office, Slayton Police Department and Southwest Health and Human Services. One theology student worked in a non-profit role at a church. Only five of the 15 interns in the first two years were placed with private businesses.
Goedtke pointed out that with more early exposure to what is available in the region, students are more likely to stay in the area.
“We have to control the migration,” she stated.
Commissioners heard an annual update from ACE of Southwest Minnesota. According to Director Michelle Baumhofner, ACE volunteers logged more than 344,000 hours across the eight-county region at a staterated value of more than $13 million.
In Murray County, just under 44,000 hours were logged by volunteers at 56 volunteer stations. Murray County allocated $35,448 toward ACE in 2025.
Commissioners also heard an update on the Murray County Central program Emily’s Hope, which was funded by opioid settlement dollars. The program is geared toward students in kindergarten through eighth grade, but this year piloted expanding the drug awareness education at the high school level.
The commissioners set dates for department budget discussions, approved a new combination on sale/off sale/Sunday sale liquor license and declared certain vehicles from the sheriff’s office as surplus.
