The Williams County Commission learned Tuesday it’s not easy to staff the Williams County Sheriff’s Department.

Sheriff Scott Busching informed the commission he is about to lose Larry Lambert, who is retiring later this year. Lambert works in the Ray area for the department.

Not only is the department losing Lambert, it is losing more staff in the next five years.

“A lot of them are right there at that number,” Busching said, referring to retirement age.

It’s been difficult to recruit people to the department. In some cases, those who apply are willing to move to Williams County, but their spouses nix the idea. Potential law enforcement employees also prefer to live and work in larger communities, “to be where the action is,” he said.

The commission approved advertising for Lambert’s position.

In an unrelated matter, the commission approved purchasing a Ford F-350 truck for $28,548 from Select Ford in Williston to pull the special operations trailer housed at the Williston Fire Department. The trailer holds hazardous materials incident equipment.

The truck is part of a Homeland Security grant for the creation of a county-wide hazmat incident response team. The grant also funded the purchase of equipment to replace the outdated hazmat equipment.

Although the trailer is housed at the city fire department, the county is the fiscal agent for the grant.

In addition, the commission:

• Authorized Richard Ryan, the county building inspector, to negotiate with Pherrin Township regarding building inspections.

The township isn’t part of the county’s building inspection plan and had requested Ryan’s services. The county prefers the township be part of the county’s building plan.

• Heard the sheriff’s department received about $56,000 in stimulus money for videos for squad cars and for a new squad car.

• Approved moving the human resources and vector control offices to the second floor of the county courthouse where the county superintendent of school’s office is currently.

The county superintendent of school position was recently dissolved.

It was decided human resources needed the privacy the space provides, and vector control needs space for its secretary because the shop space is too small.