Gage County officials approve fuel bid, finalize cemetery maintenance

BEATRICE – Gage County will be paying higher per-gallon fuel costs in a new bid approved Wednesday. The Board of Supervisors approved the lone bid received for diesel and unleaded E-Ten fuel submitted by Sapp Brothers Petroleum.

The per-gallon cost for diesel charged to the county will be just under $2.60, compared with nearly $1.87 cents of a year ago. The unleaded price approved Wednesday is about $3.04 a gallon, compared with nearly $2.06 per gallon in the previous agreement.

The county doesn’t pay state or federal tax on diesel fuel but is charged state tax on unleaded.

The county will purchase about 68,000 gallons of diesel and 32,000 gallons of unleaded, under the bid approved…making the total contracted amount at just over $294,000.

The Gage County Board has renewed agreements with groups that provide mowing and maintenance at fifteen pioneer or abandoned cemeteries in the county.
The agreements, with Boy Scout Troops maintaining eleven of them, pay $500 per cemetery to mow and maintain them throughout the warmer seasons…mowing at least five times.

Supervisors Chairman, Erich Tiemann said, "I will say, from somebody who does lawn care...that's a lot of work for that amount of money...I mean, all the headstones and all of the hand work."

County officials may have the issue on an upcoming committee agenda, to discuss whether the amount of compensation should be changed.  State law sets a limit of $1,000 that can be paid. Gage County Clerk Dawn Hill says the last time the amount was adjusted was in 2007, when the dollar amount increased from $350 to $500.