Lincoln County Commissioners on Tuesday approved a contract with  union members of the Lincoln County Sheriff’s Office. The deputies and other employees have been working under a frozen contract since October 2015.

The contract is effective Jan. 1, 2016. Union employees will get retroactive pay and benefits from that date. The three-year deal will expire at the end of 2018, and the county will resume negotiations for the next contract in the summer of 2018.

Sheriff Todd Brackett reported that Oxford County’s jail count is significantly above expectations, and that the finance committee at Two Bridges Regional Jail is in talks with Oxford County to obtain the overage charges Oxford County agreed to at the beginning of the contract last September. Brackett also introduced new chief deputy Rand Maker, and discussed hiring John Braley of Bristol as a permanent full-time patrol replacement for Maker; and hiring Jason Nein part-time. Nein resigned last year to take a position with the Secretary of State’s accident reconstruction department. Commissioners approved both hirings. Brackett also got permission to seek a $6,000 grant for highway safety.

Emergency Management Agency Director Casey Stevens introduced his choice for Deputy EMA Director, Melissa Temple, and discussed the status of the simulcast testing, which, after a few initial bugs, seems to be working well. The plan is to bring all the other towers online on Friday, March 10. He turned over the discussion to Ken Desmond, who has arranged the state annual Firefighting Convention in Boothbay and Boothbay Harbor Sept. 8-10. Goals were discussed for the Local Emergency Planning Committee, including identification of all sites with hazardous materials and reviewing evacuation plans and identification for first responders.

Lincoln County Planner Bob Faunce asked commissioners to sign a letter requesting that the state neither do away with technical assistance funding for inland towns, nor divert federal coastal technical assistance funds to the Maine Department of Marine Resources except for a small amount of grant funding. Faunce said he is more concerned about a federal push to do away with coastal studies and science in this year’s federal budget, which would end up doing away with the Maine Sea Grant, which funds aquaculture projects, much of the Darling Marine Center, and University of Maine coastal studies.

Carrie Kipfer, county administrator, asked commissioners to review a new contract used by people obtaining probate documents online, called the ICON system. She also asked the commissioners to sign a purchase order for repairs to one of the recycling trucks. They agreed to do both.

Kipfer announced she had agreed to hire Kristine Poland as county and TBRJ human resources coordinator. Poland has a strong history of working with planning, as a town administrator, and has a lot of experience working in human resources, Kipfer said. The commissioners were happy to hear of the choice.