By NICK GOSNELL
Hutch Post
HUTCHINSON, Kan. — Reno County Commissioner Daniel Friesen admits that he hasn't had as much time thus far to work on how best to use technology to help save the county money as he thought he might when he ran for office.
"I think the county is still way too heavy on physical paper, not enough digital, paperless transactions," Friesen said. "I think, along the same lines, I think we can continue to capitalize on the lessons we learned through COVID-19 and the things that we can do that don't require us to be physically present."
He admits that working through those issues is a challenge, but he wants to see the county take it on.
"I see us kind of moving back the other direction," Friesen said. "There's certainly going to be some incentivization that I plan to do during the budget discussions and seeing if the other commissioners would agree to incentivize departments to look towards paperless and virtual services from the county."
The challenge with any new proposal before the commission, however, is that commissioners can't discuss it ahead of time, as because they are a three person board, two of them constitutes a quorum so any outside discussion would run afoul of Kansas open meetings statutes.
"We walk up to these meetings and can be surprised at each other's opinions," Friesen said. "I urged the other two commissioners to continue to work on consensus and compromise and certainly it's something I can do, as well."
The commission also has reduced its time together from weekly meetings to two meetings in most months since Friesen started on the board.
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