Hospital Funding To Be on Ballot

The Jasper County Board of Commissioners held a called meeting Friday to adopt the Board of Education and countywide M & O millage rates in addition to reviewing and approving capital expenditures.

The millage rates approval were quick and to the point with the commissioners approving the tax commissioner to levy the Board of Education millage rate of 13.250 for the 2024 tax billing. Also re-approved was the 9.999 countywide millage rate for tax billing.

Reviewing the capital expenditures dominated most of the agenda of the three hour meeting.

The first of the expenditures to review was that of human resources presented by County Clerk Sheila Jefferson who requested $5,375 for seven time clocks and 100 proximity cards. The areas receiving time clocks will include one each for the Senior Center, Public Works, Animal Control, Recreation and three for Fire & Rescue. Courthouse employees would not need a time clock device as their computers function as such.

Recreation Department Assistant Director Adrian Campbell requested three sets of soccer goals that are regulated to the Georgia Recreation Parks Association (GRPA) standard. He said the current ones in use are not within regulation gudielines which are required for playoff rounds but could be used for practice sessions. The soccer goals were approved at $9,712.

Mr. Campbell also requested the purchase of a new Ford truck, quoted at $48,804 for use at the department. The department currently has one truck which is periodically out of commission due to repairs. The new truck would be needed when either of the three employees have to travel to conferences or any sporting event out of town and not have to use their personal vehicles.

Some discussion ensued about current list of county vehicles and use of shared vehicles. County Manager Mike Benton suggested that the county could look into establishing a shared fleet vehicle. Chairman Bruce Henry noted that the county bought a lot of cars last year and asked why can’t some of them be shared amongst various departments. He then asked the public works director Michael Walsh if any of his department’s surplus trucks would be suited for recreation. He said that most of his trucks are not suited for out of town travel.

Mr. Henry said that he would like to table the recreation truck request.until they got a better grasp on what was needed. Commissioner Sheila Jones asked, via phone attendance, how long would the item be tabled. Mr. Henry suggested until August when more information should be available.

The Sheriff’s Department submitted a request for four fully equipped patrol vehicles at $70,800 for a total of $283,200. Mr. Henry said that the county has been buying four patrol cars each year for 10 years and that he would like to know the status of that department’s fleet. The county manager said that the office would seek a hard inventory of the sheriff department vehicles, and all county vehicles. With that, the commissioners approved the patrol car purchases.

The Public Works Department was requesting one F150 SuperCab at $43,146, one Mack dump truck at $210,000, and one skid steer flatbed trailer for $5,600. Mr. Walsh gave an accounting for some of the vehicles in his department. He said the department had about eight trucks ranging from 2007 to 2023 models. He noted there were four dump trucks—2003, 2008, 2016, and 2018 models. Commissioners approved the purchase of the Supercab with a $45,000 limit and the trailer purchase.

The order of the dump truck was approved but not the payment as the price might flucuate with the delivery being a year out.

The final expenditure presentation of the day was the priciest as it was from fire rescue to outfit the new station. EMS Director Chris Finch requested approximately $398,579 to furnish the new med unit including $330,000 for a new ambulance and $68,579 to outfit it with a new stretcher and loading system, chest compression system, new stair chair, and video laryngoscope.

The director also requested the purchase of a new tanker with an intial quote of $421,717, but noted that prices for such equipment fluctuates especially when delivery can be up to a year out from the order date. New equipment (hoses, nozzles and deck gun) total $22,000 with extrication equipment (full set and two combi tools) valued at $81,824 and turn out gear (18 complete sets, 13 pair of boots, 11 helmets, 17 pair of gloves and 20 hoods) at $62,916. The expendtiure totals $987,036 and was approved by the commission.

Commissioners had some discussion as to how the expenditures would be funded. Commissioner Don Jernigan requested that the first year of the operating expenses for the new station be taken out of the fund balance (county reserve funding) and not covered through a flat fee (taxation by parcels) as previously approved by a vote on July 1. Commissioners voted to approve that revision 3-1 with Mr. Henry dissenting.

Mr. Benton noted that currently the fund balance is approximately around $7.8 million but that was without the half a million building renovations that will be needed for Station 7. He said that generally he doesn’t like for the fund balance to drop below $6.5 million.

Commissioners also voted to put two questions on the November election ballot about continued funding for the hospital at the request of Commissioner Asher Gray. Although wording was not precisely determined for the ballot question, the first question would pertain to continued funding of the hospital by taxpayers and the second question as to how that would be funded, if approved.