WINNSBORO – County Council’s Administration and Finance Committee recommended forwarding to full Council more than $1 million in budgeted capital expenditures on Oct. 12, including repairs to the Detention Center roof and a plan to relocate the Sheriff’s Office evidence room.
Detention Center
The Committee, chaired by Carolyn Robinson (District 2) and comprising Mary Lynn Kinley (District 6) and Marion Robinson (District 5), gave their approval to a $26,295 bid from Wilson Refrigeration & A/C Service to replace a cooler/freezer at the Detention Center. Interim County Administrator Milton Pope said the County was currently spending $1,200 a month to rent a temporary unit.
Repairs to the Detention Center roof, meanwhile, will cost the County a little more than half of what they anticipated. Council budgeted $500,000 last spring to repair or replace the roof. A second assessment of the roof, Pope said, put that estimate at just under $270,000. The Committee voted unanimously to recommend Council put the project out for bid, not to exceed $269,088.
Data Servers
While the Detention Center roof came in under budget, the cost to replace the County’s data servers came in slightly higher. Marvin Allen, Director of the County’s Information Technology (IT) Department, told the Committee that the County is currently using several different servers, all of which are outdated and need to be replaced. Allen proposed replacing the County’s various servers with a single piece of hardware, consolidating the County’s data. Council had budgeted $246,000 for the upgrades, but Allen said that price only bought them one year of product support. The three years of support that Allen preferred upped the ante to $247,676. The difference will be made up with an adjustment to the department’s operational budget, Pope said.
Evidence Room
Although the County only in recent years renovated a portion of the bottom floor of the County Office Building to expand the Sheriff’s Office evidence room, already those renovations are no longer meeting the Sheriff’s needs. Council budgeted $295,000 to make renovations to the Sheriff’s Office training facility at 5509 Airport Road, where some evidence is already stored, in order to relocate the entire evidence room there, with the intent to take those funds from one of the economic development general obligation bonds, approved in 2012. Monday, however, Pope asked the Committee to forward the item to full Council for approval with the additional stipulation that Council would ask the Administrator to develop a plan for funding the move. The Committee approved, and Pope said savings from the Detention Center roof, as well as from other areas, could be used to fund the project.
Vehicle and Equipment
The Committee also forwarded to full Council the purchase of a lowboy trailer for the Public Works Department, for the budgeted price of $55,000; and the purchase of a Dodge Charger for $37,700 and two Chevrolet Caprice patrol cars for $68,820 for the Sheriff’s Office. The patrol cars came in under the budgeted $75,400.
A roll-off truck approved by the Committee for the Solid Waste Department also came in under its $175,000 budget at $148,761. The truck will replace the current 2007 vehicle that has racked up more than 261,000 miles and is in need of a new engine that would cost the County $50,000.
The Committee’s recommendations will be presented to the full Council during their Oct. 26 meeting.
