By Michael Mee
News-Aegis
Pell City — The FY2010-2011 budget will be given its final look-over by county commissioners today. The Administrative Office has been crunching numbers for the past several weeks.
The county is looking into going forward with securing a bond to help provide the Dept. of Human Resources with a site to locate its offices. The county would own the new building, since DHR cannot lease a building of its own.
The money will be channeled through the Public Building Authority, which would perform a bond to fund a new, larger building.
“Because interest rates are so low now… they can get a new building that they need,” County Commission Chairman Stan Batemon said last week. He said no money from the county’s general fund would be used for a new building.
Batemon said, “what we’ll be giving them is the site… the county won’t put any money into it (the building).”
Veterans Affairs Home
The county is getting the process started on changing the ownership of a road leading to the new facility. By doing so Pell City will be able to go through with work at the new site.
County Engineer Dan Dahlke said that he is meeting with the tow firms that will perform work to make sure everything is in place.
Chairman Batemon said last week that he would contact Pell City Mayor Bill Hereford about variances for work done at the site. “It’s going to end up being a Pell City street that the city has money in. The city needs to start as soon as possible to accept that road and get started.”
He said that there are “a lot of things that we can do to get things done instead of throwing barriers up” for the new V.A. home and St. Vincent’s St. Clair hospital site.
The following also took place at last week’s meeting:
Road work on Beaver Mountain: $26,300 to B.R. Held Construction, a local bidder.
Ragland Tennis Courts: $20-22,000 estimated cost. Money could come from a special fund allocated from Montgomery.
Printing Emergency Management Agency calendars: $22,073 for cost of printing for calendars that will be mailed to county residents. The bid was offered to all local bidders, but was awarded to Birmingham Printing and Publishing, as no local bidders could produce the volume needed. The calendars contain information on awareness of emergency services and situations.
Jail fire system: $13,000 to replace the fire alarm system at the jail in Pell City, which was struck by lightning. Insurance will reimburse the cost.
County coroner’s office: $3,300 for ambulance service/transportation for the remainder of the current fiscal year. Autopsy services are not included in the added cost.
Abate $900 in mapping fees for the Ala. dept. of Transportation for crash data. Crash data is used to determine federal funds distributed after a statewide analysis.
County Day Program: $500 to District Judge Phil Seay for cost of Juvenile Day Program and Juvenile Drug Court graduation.
Three year bids: 11 merchants’ services will still be used for the county engineering dept. Services include: pipes, signs, asphalt, plant mix concrete, uniforms and other needs.
