There are a lot of unanswered questions that require answers before it will be clear whether the county is able to support the resettlement of Ukrainian refugees.

County officials are taking steps to get some of those answers.

The county commissioners are moving ahead on an agreement with a consultant that can answer some of those questions. It’s called a risk assessment, but Commissioner Tricia Durbin called it a “resource study” while Commissioner Jeff Eggleston said it will look at “feasibility.”

The idea is to determine the community’s ability to successfully resettle refugees.

The county has worked with MCM Consulting on several prior projects including the county’s hazard mitigation plan and 911 services.

Commissioner Ben Kafferlin said on Monday that one of their staffers is a retired military officer who did refugee resettlement in Bosnia. He cautioned that the assessment “doesn’t lock us into doing anything beyond completing a risk assessment…. They’ve proven to me this is their wheelhouse.”

The agreement is “very standard” with “reduced hourly rates,” Kafferlin said, calling it “probably well worth” a few hours of the consultant’s time.

County officials first publicly discussed the exploration of the resettlement earlier this month.

The team assembled to explore the possibility includes Congressman Glenn Thompson’s office, Warren County School Superintendent Amy Stewart, Warren General Hospital CEO Rick Allen, state Senator Scott Hutchinson’s office, the Warren County Chamber of Business & Industry, as well as employers and local attorneys.

“There is an amazing unifying interest in doing this,” Kafferlin said at the April Council of Governments Meeting. “(We) have had no one say that we should not at least pursue looking into it.”

Kafferlin said there is a “moral rightness” to exploring the possibility but said the effort “could be mutually beneficial,” citing the county’s declining population and an aging workforce. “Some of the businesses in town are looking at moving outside of the area” due to labor shortages.

He described the Ukrainian refugees as a “relatively educated population that is completely disrupted.”

Millions of Ukrainians have fled their homes since Russia’s invasion in late February.

“I think it’s a great opportunity we need to look into,” Kafferlin said.