General County Commission meetings are open to the public. For meeting dates please refer to the County Calendar. All county minutes can be found on the Agenda & Minutes page on the left panel or by clicking here.
- Commissioners are very accessible to the public through phone calls, emails and appointments.
- The public elected to increase the number of Commissioners from three to five in November, 2008.
Additional InformationSheridan County Commissioners are the general administrative body for county government. They are the county government taxing, budgeting, appropriating, and purchasing authority. They hold title to county property. Commissioners also have a myriad of other responsibilities including hearing and ruling on annexations, approving drainage improvements through the petition ditch process, establishing water and sewer districts and making improvements, and providing for solid waste disposal.
Individual commissioners have no power to act independently. All formal and official actions taken by the Board of County Commissioners must be by majority or unanimous vote in a public meeting. Commissioners also appoint department heads of offices for which they have responsibility. They appoint members to a variety of boards and commissions such as the Fair Board, the Hospital Board and the Library Board as well as others. Additionally, the Commissioners serve on boards such as the Juvenile Justice Joint Powers Board, Law Enforcement Center Joint Powers Board and others.
The County’s fiscal year is July 1st to June 30th of each year. Each summer the Commissioners set the budget for the coming fiscal year. A series of workshops are held from March through June for the County Department Heads to review their requested budget with the BOCC. Commissioners must work with all other county elected officials and with judges to assure that they are properly funded to perform their statutory duties. A detailed listing of the budget process can be found on this site and questions pertaining to the budget may be directed to the Administrative Director at (307) 674-2900.
But it is the non-statutory duties of the County Commissioners that make them different from other county elected officials. By necessity, County Commissioners must take a broad view of actions necessary to make the county a better place to live and work. Many Commissioners are thus active in promoting public/private partnerships in human services, economic development, health, and infrastructure development. Commissioners take an active role in improving the environment, promoting job-training programs and improving agriculture in their counties. County commissioners must be astute and have good business sense.
Perhaps the most important attribute of a County Commissioner is the ability to lead; to listen to the needs of the citizens and other elected officials, to compromise, and to develop a consensus on priority issues to improve the county.
Sheridan County’s Board of County Commissioners consists of five members:
- Holly Jennings
- Christi Haswell
- Lonnie Wright
- Tom Ringley
- Nick Siddle - Chairman