Kesling looks ahead to 2025 county projects

Kesling
ELKINS — Randolph County Commission President David Kesling said he is proud of what the county accomplished in 2024 and is aware of some of the hurdles he and his fellow commissioners will have to clear in 2025.
Kesling, who was elected as Commission President for a third time last month, said he continues to be extremely proud of the Prevention Resource Officer program that the county has with the Randolph County Board of Education.
“Our continued partnership with the Board of Education and our PRO officers is something we are very proud of,” Kesling told The Inter-Mountain. “We have three PRO officers now and they are doing great things in the schools. When we started this program, we started off with just one deputy in one school. Now we have three officers in three different schools and they are making a difference.”
Kesling said he is happy that the Commission has been able to assist the Randolph County Sheriff’s Office as a whole, giving them the resources they need to fight crime in the county.
“We were able to help the Sheriff’s Office with several things last year, including the addition of the county’s second K-9 officer,” said Kesling. “We always want our officers to have what they need, to not only keep themselves safe, but the public as well.”
Kesling stressed how the Commission worked hard to keep all of the county’s facilities in working order over the last year.
“Our continued upkeep of the main Courthouse and other buildings on campus are important,” said Kesling. “We did a lot of repairs last year, including getting the Lady Justice statue fixed. Going forward we are going to continue infrastructure updates to the main courthouse.”
Kesling said another thing the County Commission was tasked with in 2024 was having to construct new facilities for the county’s second judge.
“We are happy that the legislature gave us a second circuit judge in the county, but the commission was tasked with paying for all those facility upgrades,” said Kesling. “So we’ve been working on that for some time now and we will be finished with that sometime in the beginning of February.”
Kesling noted he was happy to be re-elected for a second term in November and said he is proud of the effort all of the county’s employees put forth in 2024.
“All of our county employees worked hard for the betterment of Randolph County in 2024,” Kesling said. “We are proud of all of them and I know they will continue to work hard. I really like working with all of them.”
He said there are several obstacles the county must face in 2025, but he is most concerned about the county employees’ insurance.
“We need to find funding for the PEIA insurance that the county provides for its employees,” said Kesling. “It saw an increase and we are looking at different options or possibly going to another party. But once you leave PEIA now, you can’t go back to them. So that’s a big thing and we are looking into some different plans and things of that nature.”
Paying off what it cost to construct the new circuit judges’ chambers and offices, and coming up with a plan for a courthouse campus expansion project are two other key items Kesling said the Commission will have to address in 2025.
“We will look at everything we need to do and start our budget process in March,” said Kesling. “There’s a lot of things we are already looking at going into this year.”