Insuring the county’s assets is not a cheap undertaking.

Sequoyah County’s bill for liability and property and whatever else needs protection is $351,127 for the current fiscal year, which ends June 30, 2025.

“They’ve had to do this across the board,” District 3 Commissioner Jim Rogers told his colleagues at their weekly meeting last Monday.

“Probably some of that went up, too, because we did finally get probably a good assessment on all the properties we have in the county.”

In previous years, District 1 Commissioner Ray Watts surmised, the county had been under-insured, which resulted in a more affordable insurance premium.

Although expensive, Watts noted that the Association of County Commissioners of Oklahoma-Self Insured Group (ACCO-SIG) advised there are no other options for counties, because “there’s no commercial company out there” willing to insure counties.

Counties have recently faced debilitating lawsuits, such as Ottawa County’s $33 million judgment and Watts’ revelation that “a lawsuit is fixing to come down on another county … it’s gonna be big.”

But the county’s protection is capped at $2 million, so any liability in excess of that amount shifts the burden to taxpayers, in general, and property owners, in particular. “There’s no telling what that’s going to do to the property owners there,” Rogers said in May of the Ottawa County judgment, “and three years is the max they have to pay that. It’s a tough situation right now.

“There’s just a lot that goes on that a lot of people aren’t aware of if it’s not happening in your county, but it still affects us when it happens in the other counties,” said Rogers, who is also president of the ACCO, which has the benefit of him being in on the ground floor when there’s new information for county commissioners.

“Now they’re looking at possibly going down to just a million-dollar coverage, and then there may be some jails that we may not be able to insure, and then that’s gonna fall on the back of the other counties.”

In addition to the higher premiums — which the county expects to pay in installments of $173,486 and $177,641 — deductibles for the county has increased from $25,000 to $70,000, which is high, but Rogers said he understands there are other counties with deductibles of “about $150,000.”

The much higher deductible, as Undersheriff Charles House pointed out, means the county will be required to shoulder to a greater extent the cost of claims up to $70,000, such as extensive damage to a sheriff ’s vehicle, which are generally worth less than $70,000.

And while insurance costs have turned up the heat on county governments, Mother Nature’s natural summer heat is creating far-reaching concerns.

Hot, hot, hot

Stephanie Six, administrator for Northeastern Health Systems Sequoyah, told the commissioners the hospital has encountered plenty of heat-related health concerns.

“There’s lots of heat problems going on. Heat strokes, overheating, dehydration. Just be careful out there,” Six cautioned.

She also related an experience she encountered at the Dollar General store in Vian, which she said has no air in the building.

Unfortunately, the corporate office, she was told, mandated the store must remain open for business until three separate thermometers in the building registered more than 95 degrees.

At the time Six was at the store, two thermometers registered 100 degrees, and the third registered 94 degrees.

“That’s dangerous. That is extremely dangerous,” she said.

District 2 Commissioner Beau Burlison said the Dollar General situation “has been that way for a few weeks, it seems.”

Rogers summed up the heat experience as “that’s crazy.”

Meanwhile, Sheriff Larry Lane said his deputies “had a busy weekend. The heat’s making everybody pretty irritable — lot of domestics, lot of people causing problems.”

Then House told of “one of the craziest things” that happened recently.

“We had a pursuit the other night, ended up on the other side of Checotah, about 60 miles away. It was a ‘sure-enough bad guy,’ feds wanting him. Right now, Jeremy’s got two ‘sure-enough bad guys’ in a cell together,” House reported.

House said “one of the things we learned in this pursuit is that with this heat and the ground just being so dry,” that when Creek Nation Lighthorse Police spun the car out into the dead grass, because the car had no tires and was running on rims, “within about 15 minutes, the whole car’s engulfed. Of course, he got out of it, he had enough sense to do that.”

Other business

In other business, the commissioners approved: • Surplussing the temporary wooden ramp at the north entrance to the courthouse, now that a permanent concrete ramp is complete on the east side of the building

• A revised Oklahoma Department of Transportation Federal Emergency Relief Project damage statement for Site A in District 2 in excess of $993,000

• A claim for Little Skin Bayou project reimbursement for water line engineering fees in District 1 for $3,105.

• Surplussing a CAT motor grader from District 3, which will be sold to District 2 for $180,000. “This grader’s gonna be $200,000, $220,000 if I buy it from somebody else,” Burlison said. “It is a good deal. The two graders that I have that it’s replacing are 2004 or 2005 models that we’ve got almost 20,000 hours on one and almost 14,000 on the other. This is a big upgrade for us, so it’s something we need, and we’re fortunate enough to have one here right down the road. I appreciate that.” “That actually is a good deal for them. That’s a nice grader,” Rogers added.

The commissioners then approved surplussing the two CAT motor graders from District 2, which will be sold via online auction.

• Several accounting adjustments, including transfers within jail accounts and within sheriff office accounts, as well as paying purchase orders and vouchers issued in Fiscal Year 2024 from FY 2025 funds.