County will hire young part-time road department crew

Union County government continues to operate with reduced staff and locked offices but supervisors have reported no major problems.

“Not much has changed,” Union County Board of Supervisors President Randy Owen said Monday. “The governor has opened some curbside businesses this week. We’re just trying to abide by what the governor says.”

The county is using the same coronavirus-related restrictions as the governor has issued.

Supervisors again met in the circuit courtroom rather than their boardroom where social distancing could be observed.

While county offices continue to function, the pandemic has affected the workforce that has to mostly work outdoors.

In the past the county has relied heavily on jail trusties to help with solid-waste collection, general maintenance and special event tasks. This helps the county labor pool and allows low-risk prisoners to be out of the jail during the daytime.

With the threat of coronavirus, supervisors are no longer allowed to use trusties and this has stretched resources of the regular road department staff.

Monday, the board approved a partial, if temporary, solution.

They voted to hire 11 part-time employees for the solid waste department.

Board president Owen said the plan is to hire young men of approximately high school senior age for three to four months. This will give them jobs while school is out and will help the county considerably. Those hired may do other roadside work or help Larry Jarvis with general maintenance.

The board approved amending the solid waste budget by moving $75,000 from working cash to payroll to cover the jobs but Owen said the county may be able to get some grant funding to help from Three Rivers Planning and Development District as well.

In one other personnel matter, supervisors approved hiring London Erby as part-time dispatcher in the sheriff’s department.

In other business, supervisors approved a technology upgrade for the sheriff’s department and a protection plan for county-owned buildings.

A low bid was accepted to purchase laptop-type computers to put in the vehicles driven by county deputies.

Sheriff Jimmy Edwards said having the computers will allow deputies to do accident reports, file citations and check for warrants and perform other tasks directly from the cars without having to go through the dispatch office.

The low bid was $49,313 by Howard Computers, which was $600 lower than the one submitted by ComSouth.

The equipment will be paid by using seized asset funds from the sheriff’s department and will not cost the county taxpayers anything.

The board also decided to provide comprehensive termite protection for all county buildings – something that they said has not been done before.

The received bids at their previous meeting and this week took the low bid from Terminix to do an initial protection of the county’s 13 buildings for $14,900 followed by an annual cost of $225 per building in subsequent years. That yearly total is $2,925.

In more routine business, a manual check in the amount of $1,203 was approved payable to the P.I.P.E. (Purchasing Information Purchasing Evidence) fund to replenish money used in narcotics investigations and purchases.

The road budget was amended to reflect some recent purchases. One was $8,900 for a bucket truck purchased from the New Albany Light, Gas and Water Department with others being $4,100 for a grader blade and $1,490 for a crane.

The circuit clerk was approved for payment for holding a brief vacation term of circuit court, beyond the regular court term.

Payment was also approved for the medical examiner-investigator for five death investigations.

Other routine matters included approving a list of surrendered vehicle tags, which must be destroyed by law, approved the month-end March budget report and approved a $5,002 loan from the general fund to the Martintown North Industrial Fund. This is in anticipation of reimbursement from the Appalachian Regional Commission for the industrial road project.

The board adjourned to Monday, May 4, at 10 a.m. The location of the May meeting will depend on the status of the coronavirus pandemic here.