LISBON — The Columbiana County commissioners won’t be meeting this week, but on Monday decided to close the downtown courthouse and all county government offices and courts completely on Wednesday, which is Christmas Eve.

All county offices and courts will be closed on Thursday and Friday as well, which was the plan all along. The county Department of Job and Family Services will now be closed Wednesday, Thursday and Friday, the same as all other county offices and courts.

Originally, the commissioners said the county offices would be open until noon on Wednesday and originally, DJFS planned to be open on Friday, but all that changed after President Trump declared Dec. 24 and Dec. 26 as federal holidays in addition to Christmas Day. The county Board of Elections and the county Treasurer’s office had already announced plans to close all of Wednesday before Trump’s announcement.

During last week’s commissioner meeting, Commissioner Mike Halleck announced plans to update the county’s personnel policy, saying he had DJFS Director Rachel Ketterman review the policy. He said the policy needs updated, for example, regarding artificial intelligence, noting the policy needs to keep up with technology.

Halleck also said the commissioners are in charge of the courthouse and oversee all county buildings. The commissioners set the hours for the courthouse, but Halleck said some offices go off on their own.

“In the spirit of fairness, we need to have one policy,” he said, adding the policy will address some things they’ve been a little lax on.

“It’s imperative that we all be on the same page and be consistent,” Commissioner Tim Ginter said.

When asked after the meeting for clarification, Halleck first pointed to the treasurer’s office being closed on Christmas Eve when everyone else was just closing at noon (now that’s changed), but then he said they’ve received some complaints recently about some offices closing at lunchtime. The Clerk of Courts office on the third floor of the downtown courthouse closes from noon to 1 p.m. every day and has been doing that since Covid. Just recently, Probate Court started closing its door from noon to 1 p.m. every day.

“We have had several inconsistences with how county government is operating,” Halleck said. “The public deserves to have consistency.”

In other business, commissioners established a new capital projects fund which can be used for building projects or other capital needs, approving a fund transfer of $5 million into the new fund. Halleck explained that the money is from carryover. The commissioners also transferred $100,000 into the dog and kennel fund, $1 million each in two separate reserve accounts, $500,000 in anothe capital projects fund, $1 million in the reserve balance fund and $400,000 in workers compensation.

“The board has done a good job of keeping our finances in order,” Halleck said, adding with the capital projects accounts, “we won’t have to borrow money for building projects.”

The next meeting of commissioners will be 9 a.m. Dec. 30, which is a Tuesday.

mgreier@mojonews.com