Umatilla County continues its trend of transferring certain employees to the state.

In June, the county board of commissioners moved the watermaster division staff to the Oregon Water Resources Department. While the county hired and paid the employees, they had effectively been doing work for the state.

The board last week approved a similar shift for four clerical workers in the Oregon State University Extension Service.

County counsel Doug Olsen said the employees fill three-and-half positions with a collectively salary around $137,000 a year. Rather than pay for staff, he said, the county is going to provide the money directly to the extension service.

Commissioner George Murdock said Jan. 1 is the target date for the transfer, but he cautioned that was a “soft date” and the plan is to complete the process as soon as possible.

The board also gave thumbs up to a plan to use a Blue Mountain Community College student to design a website for the county’s Human Services Department, which provides addiction treatment and veteran services.

Department director Amy Ashton-Williams said when she came on in June, the department’s mission statement was three sentences long and did nothing to appeal to people. And employees did not know the mission statement, she said, “because they didn’t help build it.”

Ashton-Williams led workshops where the employees established the department’s vision and core values and crafted the new mission statement and slogan, “Helping real people make real change.”

But the department’s website also was a clunker and needed to change. Ashton-Williams said she attended a meeting where BMCC president Cam Preus offered the college’s services to take on the task. Blue Mountain recently started a website development course, and student John “Ed” Galjour of Milton-Freewater is advanced enough to handle the job, which doubles as his final degree project.

Galjour works three hours a week for 14 weeks to redesign the website in exchange for one college credit, according to the training agreement, and he does not receive any payment.

Ashton-Williams praised Galjour’s efforts and said they deliver the benefits of giving him a valuable experience he can tout on a resume while providing the county with a better website that doesn’t come with a high price tag for taxpayers.