Commissioners wrap 2025 with worker's comp account refresh, trailer purchase

The Rogers County Commissioners approved topping up the county workers' compensation account and buying two trailers at their last meeting of 2025.

The commissioners put $200,000 of use tax revenue into the workers' comp account Monday; District 3 Commissioner Ron Burrows said the deposit would bring the balance up to $900,000 and some change.

Burrows said Rogers County used to pay an insurance company to provide workers' comp to county employees. He said that in 2019, the county decided to stop paying for insurance premiums, directing that money instead to fund individual workers' comp claims. It also pays a Tulsa company, United Safety & Claims, a fee to manage claims and keep records.

Burrows said when the county decided to self-insure, it committed to keeping its workers' comp balance around $1 million.

"As we move forward, we may even look at with prices and cost of doing business escalating of moving to a higher threshold than $1 million," Burrows said. "That or near has been able to comfortably make all the claims that we've been faced with."

District 2 Commissioner Steve Hendrix said a perk of self-insurance is the county can usually afford to award $250 safety bonuses to full-time county employees at the end of the year. Hendrix said the county sets an internal threshold for claims based on the account balance and pays out safety awards, as it did this November, if claims stay below the threshold.

The commissioners also bought a pair of trailers for $12,635 to replace the ones used by the Rogers County Maintenance Department.

Maintenance Director Doug Presley brought to the Monday meeting four bids each for a 12-foot and a 20-foot trailer. Claremore-based Select Sales & Consignments offered the low bid for both.

Presley said the department has two trailers of its own, and he plans to put one of them up for auction. Maintenance borrows another trailer from the county emergency management department, Presley said.

He said the new trailers would help transport equipment maintenance struggles to move with the trailers it has now.

"They both have 7,000 pound capsules under, so I can haul, and they are tilt trailers, so it'd be easy to load on our scissor lift and stuff, maneuver it around from building to building," Presley said. "The trailers that I have now, it's not very user-friendly for moving a scissor lift."

Presley said the 20-foot trailer would be big enough to pull the Bobcat skid-steer loader District 1 had loaned to maintenance.

Hendrix said Presley had asked for the trailers during the budget process, but he encouraged him to present them as a standalone request to be paid from use tax.

"We've pushed maintenance to doing more than just courthouse anymore," said District 1 Commissioner Dan DeLozier. "They travel all over to all the buildings, which is getting to be quite a few. He definitely is going to have to have trailers to be able to move stuff."

The commissioners also approved an agreement letter with a Tulsa company, AcrobatAnt, to build a website for Rogers County Clerk Jeanne Heidlage's office.

Treasurer Jason Carini, District Attorney Matt Ballard and Rogers County Sheriff Scott Walton each have office websites separate from the county's own. Heidlage said AcrobatAnt would develop a website for the clerk's office with the same functions as its page on the county website.

According to the agreement letter, Heidlage's office will pay AcrobatAnt about $25,000 to build the site and quarterly payments of $750 to keep it running after it is published.

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