By Kendall Patterson
Editor
After the Chester County Commission meeting on Monday, Nov. 14, $310,468.37 of the ARPA funds remain from the total amount of $3,359,739.
All of the projects that were voted to receive funding were requested from the Governmental Affairs Committee that met on October 4 and October 25. Therefore, no second motions were required; just roll call votes.
The most expensive project the money was designated for was $1.3 million for the construction of an election commission facility that will be located in the place of the old medical building once it is demolished.
Not only was it the most expensive, it was also the most controversial.
It passed with a vote of 11-5 with commissioners Bubba Edgin and Tim Crowe being absent.
Commissioners who voted against it were commissioners: Kevin Faulkner, Jerry King, Andrea Holland, Carolyn Higgins and Ann Moore.
A lot of discussion broke out regarding this vote.
“I’m not against any building, but I just think that 1.3 million is a little steep,” Commissioner Andrea Holland said.
Commissioner Barry Smith mentioned that a metal building could possibly be done instead similar to the A1 Pools building.
“The last time we wanted to buy a building all we heard was no more bricks and mortars. No more bricks and mortars. That’s what we heard. So why bricks and mortars now for 1.3 million,” Commissioner Carolyn Higgins said. “Our other offices need space too. The election commission is not the only office that needs space.” she said.
“We have to have something for the election commission,” Commissioner Renee Phelps said.
Commissioner Bingham mentioned how more office space will be available when they move out of the courthouse.
Phelps response is coming from the fact that the Homeland Security Department of Tennessee gave the election commission 17 pages of findings that they saw as issues that needed to be resolved. The Election Commission, by law, is required to be maintained by the county as Tennessee codes states: “TN Code § 2-3-107 – The county election commission shall designate as polling places only rooms which have adequate heat, light, space and other facilities, including a sufficient number of electrical outlets where voting machines are used, for the comfortable and orderly conduct of elections.
“(2) Upon application of the commission, the authority which has the control of any building or grounds supported by taxation under the laws of this state shall make available the necessary space for the purpose of holding elections and adequate space for the storage of voting machines without charge.
“TN Code § 2-12-109 – Except as otherwise provided by law, it is the responsibility of the county to fund the operations of its election commission. If a county fails to appropriate funds sufficient to pay expenses that are reasonably necessary for the discharge of the statutorily mandated duties of its county election commission, such commission may petition the chancery court of the county in which such election commission is located to compel the appropriation of such funds.”
There was also a mention of lowering the cap but it remained at $1.3 million.
Another project to receive funding was a 1,500 square foot addition to the Chester County Library that was capped at $600,000.
It passed with a 15-1 vote. Faulkner was the commissioner who voted no.
The other request for funding was the purchase of Chester County Highway Department equipment at a cost of $446,926.28. All commissioners who were in attendance said yes to the request with a vote of 16-0.
In addition to the ARPA funds that were designated, $250,000 of Governor Lee’s grant money was allocated for the UT Extension Center’s 100×200 foot arena and the Chester County saferoom.
This was brought to the commission by Chester County Mayor Barry Hutcherson. Even though Hutcherson was asked about how much money was left of the grant by Kendall Patterson of the Independent along with commissioners Renee Phelps, Dwight Bingham and Johnny Garner, he was unsure at the time of how much was left of the funds but knew there was plenty to cover it.
The roll call for the item was 16 for it and none against it.
After further research, it was confirmed that there was $581,203 left of the grant. An amount of $331,203 remains of the grant after the $250,000 allocation.
Also during the mayoral report, Mayor Hutcherson mentioned how the goal for broadband was to have it available to everyone in the county within a year.
He also mentioned his opinion of making the STEMC/Aeneas internet also available to those who cannot afford the service.
“In my opinion, we should have access to every child here in the county, regardless if the family can afford it or not, and I’m working with Southwest HRA, and they have a program that helps families and all assist and possibly getting the internet into the house. If you would like to ask about it or if you have anyone interested in y’alls district that’s interested and it might possibly put a hardship on them to have internet, or they might cannot afford it, they need to call and apply for this program. The number they can call is 989-5111,” he said.
During the meeting, the beer board members and audit committee were approved.
The beer board members are Bubba Edgin, Dwight Bingham, Brenda Matthews and Ricky Hardy.
The audit committee consists of Jerry Lowe, Al McKinnon and Todd Lewis.
Though the beer board was scheduled to meet after the meeting, they did not meet due to the withdrawal of an application.
Additionally during the meeting, a series of budget committee recommendations were approved.
See chestercountyindependent.com for the list of approvals.
“What we’re doing of course are just some things, you know, that Gary (CC budget director) has noticed, you know. That he wants to make specific in the ways that we do our books,” Commissioner Barry Smith said regarding the budget recommendations.
Budget Committee Approvals on ll//22
- Each Sheriff’s department employee working a county holiday will receive additional
hourly pay at their normal hourly rate for each hour or part thereof worked. County
holidays include declared and scheduled holidays, days county employees are not required
to report for work due to inclement weather and any other normal working day on which
county employees are not required to report for work.
required to work eight hours on Thursday, July 4h, would receive their normal pay for that
day plus an additional eight hours of pay at their normal hourly rate. Holidays do not
include days on which some county employees are not required to report for work, for
example, employees in a particular building do not report for work due to a loss of
electrical power.
For example, a Sheriff’s deputy - Half of the monthly rent received from the Tennessee College Applied Tech school will be
used for courthouse beautification. - Currently county employees are paid before the pay period ends. To alleviate this, the
committee approved adopting a two week pay period in March, 2023. The proposal for
implementing this is as follows. County employees will continue to be paid as they are now
through February 28, 2023. The next pay period after that will run from March 1, 2023
through March 4, 2023. The pay date for this period will be on March 10, 2023. The next
pay period will run from March 5, 2023 through March 18, 2023. The pay date for that
period will be March 24, 2023. From then on, the pay periods will run for l4 days beginning on Sunday and ending on Saturday. Pay dates will be on the Friday (or the last
working day before that) after the pay period ends. - See Appendix A for budget amendments and journal entries approved by the committee.
- Current county practice allows employees opting out of the county health insurance plan
to be reimbursed for the total cost of supplemental health insurance. State statute allows
the county to pay up to 159% of the premium that would have been paid by the county as
long as the county continues to offer such insurance coverage to its employees.
reimbursement will be taxable income to the employee. The committee approved accepting
the state statute as county policy. - The committee approved setting up additional budget line items for the sex offender registry program. The additional line items are 101-541 60-106, Sex Offender Registry
Officer Salaries, 101-541 60-2 01, Sex Offender Registry Officer Social Security and 101-
54160-435, Sex Offender Registry Office Supplies. This will allow charges directly attributable to maintaining the sex offender registry to be easily documented and tracked. At year end those charges will be netted with sex offender registry revenues in to the sex offender registry reserve account. - See Appendix B for the purchase order policy approved by the committee.
- Budget line item 101-51 720-191, Board of Zoning Appeal, has a budget of $2, 000.00. The
purpose of this line item is unclear. The budgeted amount is approximately half of what is
required to pay the Board members for the anticipated meetings. Pay for all other committee members is charged to l01-51100-191, General Administration Board of committee Members. The committee approved moving the budget of $2,000.00 in line item 101-51720-191 to line item 101-51100-191. - See Appendix C for the proposed Longevity Pay Policy that was approved by the committee.
- See Appendix D for the Finance Office reports showing how much of the budget has been spent by General Fund 101, Library Fund 115, Solid Waste 116, Drug Control Fund 122 and the Debt Service Fund 151 through October 31, 2022 that were approved by the committee.
- See Appendix E. for the BOE Summary Financial Statement by the Fund for the month and year to date ending September 30, 2022 that was accepted by the committee.
- See Appendix F for the BOE TIPS-USA Resolution and TIPS Agreement that were approved by the committee.
