The Jackson County Board reversed course Monday night and voted to rescind its previous decision to spend up to $22,000 on a strategic plan consultant.

Following a closed session meeting, the board voted to discontinue the use of the Chamness Group, which it had hired in April, Dennis Eberhardt, county board chairman announced.

"We felt we could accomplish the things within the committee and using department heads to do this on our own," Eberhardt said.

Earlier this month the county's Executive and Finance Committee met with Diane Chamness of the Chamness Group to review goals and objectives of a strategic plan. The county board voted last fall to create a Strategic Planning Process Committee, which recommended the idea of an outside consultant.

Eberhardt said the initial meeting with Chamness convinced the board that it could accomplish the planning without a consultant, saving the money. He also said the strategic plan committee will be reformed to oversee the process, which had been set for completion by the end of the year.

The plan would identify possible areas of combining services to save money and also to examine the county board size and its committee structures.

Ho-Chunk land trust request

The board considered a request from the Ho-Chunk Nation through the U.S. Department of Interior Bureau of Indian Affairs to purchase six acres of land in the town of Brockway for a childcare center/Montessori school for tribal members.

Corporation counsel Paul Millis said the land is near the Red Iron Road by existing tribal buildings. As part of the request, the county is invited to submit comments to the Secretary of Interior on the impact of removing the land from tax rolls, land use and any other potential comments.

Millis suggested that the county, the town of Brockway and the Ho-Chunk Nation form a planning committee to discuss an intergovernmental agreement between the entities that would be used to address these kinds of land use issues.

Millis said future applications by the Ho-Chunk have identified 862 potential acres to be added to trust land.

The board passed a resolution to request an extension with the Bureau of Indian Affairs to allow for comments and to pursue the possibility of forming a planning committee.

In other business Monday, the board:

-- Learned that initial cost projections for remodeling for the county clerk's office and to remodel some conference rooms are higher than the $85,000 budgeted. The remodeling for the clerk's office would be $92,000, plus $16,500 for furniture, said supervisor Roger Stevens, Property Committee chairman. Additional conference room remodeling in the basement and on the third floor would total $150,500.

Stevens said bids will be sought on the whole project to see if costs will come in lower than anticipated. Bids will be opened Sept. 10.

-- Approved a contract with the Department of Health and Human Services professional union that calls for a 9.98 percent total package increase over 2008-09. The contract provides for salary increases of 2 percent in 2008 and 2009, along with an insurance increase of about 5.5 percent. The employees' share of their insurance costs will be 8 percent for 2008, which increases to 9 percent in 2009. All new employees will have to pay 10 percent of their insurance costs. Chairman Dennis Eberhardt noted that the total package came in under the requested 10 percent. Supervisors Steve Aldach and Robert Galster voted against the contract.

-- Approved the hiring of Randy Bjerke of Black River Falls as the county's Veteran's Service Officer. Bjerke will replace Margaret Garvin, who resigned May 23. Bjerke, who retired from the military in 1994, topped a field of more than 30 candidates.

-- Approved plan in the Department of Health and Human Services to reduce hours for a public health nurse position and apply them to an environmental health sanitarian position to make that full time.

-- Approved a six-year proposed project list for the Black River Falls Area Airport to be submitted to the Department of Transportation Bureau of Aeronautics.

-- Recognized the 30 years of public service for Richard Horn.