The Morgan County Board of Commissioners meeting on Tuesday had a full list of agenda items.
The board began its morning with a proposed budget hearing for FY2023, which will be voted on later this month on June 21.
The county’s estimated total revenues next year come out to be just over 23 million dollars, which is almost a 13 percent increase from last year’s fiscal budget.
This includes general funds such as taxes and charges for services.
If approved in two weeks, some of the funds generated would be allocated to areas like the community’s law enforcement agencies as well as public roads and bridges.
Once the budget hearing was completed, the commissioners began hearing new business requests from Tara Cooner of the Morgan County Planning and Development Department.
To start the new business portion of the meeting, Cooner presented a request for Farmview Market to operate an event facility.
The store, located at 2610 Eatonton Hwy., sits on just over 46 acres of land but still needed conditional use approval from the BOC.
“The ordinance requires event sites to be 500 feet from any adjacent residents,” Cooner said. “Farmview does have a residence on each side of it The Planning Commission discussed those houses and thought they were anomalies and the closer proximity would not set precedent.”
With one of the adjacent properties being moved to accommodate Farmview’s construction and the other being a commercial property, the board was able to approve their request.
The board also voted on an alcoholic beverage license for the Madison Country Store, which is located at 3591 Sandy Creek Rd. in Madison.
New owner Shaikh Hafeez applied for the license back in May and his request was approved.
Next, the BOC approved a contract that Morgan County Tax Assessors chief appraiser Robert Bailey presented.
Bailey stated that the county has been working with Al Deen LLC for the past two years, but due to unforeseen circumstances the company has fallen behind on performing personal audits.
So, Bailey suggested that the county switch to working with Traylor Business Services.
“We have gotten about two years behind in our audits for some of our personal property,” Bailey said. “So, what we’re doing is replacing Mr. Dean’s company with Traylor.”
Bailey added that the Tax Appraiser’s office will have a yearly contract with TBS.
“It’s already in our budget (for this year),” he said. “I think $13,000 is our budget. As we come along with properties that need to be audited, we will give it to them and they audit it. Then, we pay the bill up to $13,000.” Bailey acknowledged that the price difference between the two companies was ‘pretty similar.’
“Our budget is $13,000, so we’re not going to go above that,” Bailey said. “But yes, the prices are comparable.”
The BOC liked the fact that the county has worked with TBS before and approved the contract.
Next, assistant county manager Mark Williams presented an item on the new business portion of the agenda about updating the CAD servers at the 9-1-1 call center.
“The current servers at 911 will reach the end of life in 2023,” Williams said on the agenda request. “They need to be updated for the CAD to be able to continue to function and be in compliance with the GCIC. The cost is $18, 740. This will be a FY23 purchase and is included in the FY23 budget.”
Williams stated that he is presenting the proposal because Tyler Technologies is willing to ‘lock in’ the price of $18, 740 if it is approved at the meeting.
He added that 9-11 communications director Amanda Proctor has already made this arrangement with the tech company.
“We can’t actually do the work, though, until we do the hardware upgrade, which is for all county servers, and it is also included in the FY 2023 budget,” Williams said. “So, we’re encumbering the funds, but they’re not going to be paid for until later on in the year.”
District 3 Commissioner/Chairman Ben Riden thought it would be a good idea to go ahead and approve the request since the price of updating the servers might receive a price hike in the near future.
The motion was unanimously passed and there was no further discussion on the subject.
Next, the BOC finalized and approved a road resurfacing project that will begin soon.
“On May 3, 2022, the first package for road resurfacing was presented to the board for approval,” county manager Adam Mestres stated in his agenda request. “That list included approximately 10 miles of roads. The bid was awarded to Pittman Construction based on unit pricing. Due to the current stage of the economy and with the increasing cost of oil and general inflation, we believe it is in the best interest of the county to take advantage of the current unit pricing for the resurfacing provided by Pittman Construction.”
He added, “We have identified approximately 12 additional miles of roadway to be considered for resurfacing as part of the current Pittman Construction contract. The funding for the project would be TSPLOST.”
The total cost for the project, including the additional 12 miles of roadway, is $3,766, 403.
The entire resurfacing project for 21.54 miles of road within the county would be paid off by the 2022 TSPLOST. The original list of roads (9.8 miles) approved would cost a total of $1,861, 991.00. However, the additional 11,74 miles approved would be $1,871,659.00, which would bring the total to over $3 million.
Additionally, 0.44 miles of roads to be paved in Rutledge would cost the county $87,753. That would mean that 21.98 miles of road within the county would cost $3,776, 403.
Lastly, the BOC approved a motion to increase solid waste fees.
“Our contract with Republic (Sanitation) includes an annual multiplier or increase,” Williams said. “On August 1, the fees that we are paying to them for our waste haul and disposal are going up 3.25 percent. So, we need to increase the fees that we charge at the transfer station.”
Additionally, the new mini-transfer waste station at Newborn Road is about to open.
Williams stated that since there are no scales at the location, he proposed a flat fee based on vehicle.
“The fees were based on average charges paid at the transfer station over the last 17 months,” Williams added.
The charges at the Newborn Rd. mini station would be: cars/SUVs ($3), trucks ($10) and trailers ($20).
The Newborn Rd. site will not accept cash or checks and only credit/ debit cards will be accepted.
The site will also offer ‘free day’ on the first Saturday of every month.
The next Morgan County BOC will be on Tuesday, June 21 at 5 p.m.