The Lafayette County Board of Supervisors approved the creation of a part-time Lafayette County Tourism Liaison position at their regular meeting held on Tuesday, April 21.
    The position is meant to partially replace the Community, Natural Resources & Economic Development (CONRED) position with UW-Extension that was vacated by Joyce Gieseke a few months ago. The county’s human resource committee voted not to fill the position after Gieseke resigned.
    “We plan to explore the tourism position on a trial basis,” said supervisor Leon Wolfe, member of the human resource committee. “We’re not giving up on the CONRED position, but trying this as an alternative for now.”
    Wolfe also noted that while the county had paid only 40 percent of the CONRED position’s salary, while UW-Extension covered the remaining 60 percent, there was the thought that approximately 60 percent of the workload went to UW-Extension’s needs as well, rather than the county alone.
    The new tourism liaison position has a proposed salary of between $20 and $23 per hour for a total of 12 hours each week. The position will report to the Lafayette County Economic Development Committee.
    The fiscal note of the resolution detailing the position stated that the position will incur unbudgeted wage and fringes in 2015 of between $9,600 and $11,000, and that the cost of the salary will be covered by the savings generated by not refilling the CONRED position.