Highland County commissioners move forward with county records storage building project

After more than a year of planning and discussions, Highland County commissioners Terry Britton, David Daniels and Brad Roades voted Wednesday, Aug. 30 to award the new county records storage building project at a total cost of nearly $2.8 million.

Plans for the new facility have been underway since last spring, as commissioners voted in May 2022 to purchase a 0.236 acre lot on Beech Street in Hillsboro for construction of the property, which will be used to alleviate some of the storage issues seen in all county buildings. They also voted in the same month to enter the contract with McCarty Associates, LLC for engineering and architecture design services.

In the past nearly 16 months, county department heads have shared their input for how they would like the building to be structured. A county records manager, Julie Wallingford, has also been hired and has been a part of the planning process.

A bid opening was held July 12, with commissioners receiving three multimillion-dollar bids for “all necessary labor, materials, tools, machinery, warranties and all other items required to construct a new masonry two-floor 13,020 square foot building,” the bid description says.

Since then, architect Doug Karnes of McCarty Associates has been reviewing the bids, as Daniels said “it behooves us and the taxpayers to do a tremendous amount of due diligence” before awarding the project.

On Wednesday, Aug. 30, Karnes told commissioners that he was recommending awarding the project to the low bidder, Alpha Construction Inc., who had submitted a $2,797,000 proposal.

“We've been working the last couple of weeks — actually, the last four weeks — on vetting the bidding, as you know, for the record storage building,” Karnes said. “We have identified the low bidder, we have scrutinized that bid, we've asked some questions.”

Karnes said they had some “concerns” that they believe they “can address,” mostly on the “office administration” side. However, “the field work seems to be pretty high caliber,” he said.

Britton pointed out that Nicole Oberrecht, the county’s ARPA funding coordinator, “will be on top of this thing throughout the process.”

“I have given Nicole the notice of award documents for signature,” Karnes said. “Once those are signed, we notify them and then we'll move forward with contract execution. That's our recommendation today, and I think all of us would like to get that project started, so I think we need to address that today.”

Via resolution, commissioners voted 3-0 to award the records storage building project in the amount of $2,797,000 to Alpha Construction Indiana, Inc. based on the recommendation of McCarty Associates. Also approved was an authorization to execute the notice of award for the project.

“I think we did well and look forward to getting all the logistics figured out with how to get this thing built,” Karnes said. “That takes care of the early part — now the hard part.”

Commissioners thanked Karnes and the McCarty Associates staff for “all the work they’ve done on this” project thus far.

In other county building news, Britton said that commissioners attended a ribbon cutting for the new Highland County Fairgrounds livestock building.

“That's pretty nice,” Britton said. “It’s got great big fans in it, so the kids hopefully won't have to have a bunch of single fans in there for their projects.”

In November, commissioners voted 3-0 to award the proposed Highland County Fairgrounds livestock building construction bid to Perkins Carmack Construction, in the amount of $1.247 million.

As discussed Oct. 26, the county proposed to use $885,000 in ARPA funding plus $275,000 in state funding awarded to the Fair Board, with Daniels saying there is “about a $100,500 shortfall” for the Fair Board to cover. That also includes the Fair Board being responsible for preparing the site for construction.

The building replaced the former dairy barn, hog barn and sheep barn at the fairgrounds. It is now officially called “the Highland District Hospital Livestock Building,” according to the Fair Board, as the hospital contributed $250,000 to the project. Other businesses have also helped offset the costs with various donations.

In other discussion:

• Commissioners approved two contracts for the Highland County Job & Family Services agency during Wednesday’s meeting, beginning with a subgrant agreement for the Family and Children First Council.

“This is the grant agreement coming from ODFS,” Highland County JFS Director Jeremy Ratcliff said. “The commissioners remain the administering agency, and local JFS is the implementing agency. That contract just allows us to serve in that capacity and outlines the rules and regulations that come along with those dollars that allows us access those funds.”

According to the FCFC website, “Highland County Family and Children First Council strives to collaborate among all community partners to provide the best service delivery to children and families. It is our goal to provide opportunities and encouragement so that all children and families may work toward maximizing their potential. It is our goal to provide services in such a manner that will enable families to become increasingly independent and self sufficient and ultimately leave the service delivery system with understanding of how to re-access services if needed.”

Also approved for JFS was a contract with Spectra Contract Flooring for a flooring replacement at the agency’s office.

“This is a contract to replace all the carpeting in there,” Britton said. “That stuff is in really bad shape and worn and all that.

“We ended up looking at two or three companies, and we ended up with this one.”

In other HCJFS updates, Ratcliff said “the work continues” on their campaign for their levy issue, which will be appear on the Nov. 7 ballot.

As previously reported, commissioners voted Aug. 2 to approve a tax levy replacement issue for the agency to be placed on the Nov. 7 ballot, amid rising Children Services cases and associated costs over the past several year.If passed, the levy will reflect a 0.1-mill increase from its existing levy, bringing it up to one mill. Since it was first approved by voters in 2013, the five-year levy has been at 0.9-mill. All revenues from the levy go toward child placement costs, according to Ratcliff.

“We've got a good group of folks together on our committee, and we're looking forward to getting those folks together and spreading the word on the needed services and the funds for our children in care,” he said.

• Commissioners discussed two requests submitted by Highland County Sheriff Donnie Barrera, approving one and tabling the other.

A request to purchase two new commercial-grade dehumidifiers for the kitchen at the Highland County Justice Center was approved at a total cost of $1,219.98, but Daniels and Roades both said they wanted to purchase fans as well.

“Have we thought about putting in fans to move air out there and do some circulation?” Daniels asked. “We’ve talked about this two or three times, and is that a solution that we've even tried or even considered?”

Britton said that Daniels had previously “sent them a note” with that suggestion but “whether they’ve done anything or not, I don’t know.” Daniels added that “maybe a combination of both” the fans and dehumidifiers could help.

“I say try it,” Roades said, and made the motion to purchase both.

The sheriff’s office also submitted a quote for two new vehicles. Britton said the quote they received was $45,796 each or $91,592 for two cruisers.

Commissioners said they wanted to wait to take any action until they verified that the purchases would be for 2024. As Britton and Daniels both pointed out, the county “already bought sheriff’s vehicles” for 2023, which were authorized in November 2022.

They also wanted to get more information on the current state of the HCSO fleet, commissioners said, and which two vehicles would be replaced.

• Britton announced that they are looking for a replacement to take over the Highland County recycling program, as current coordinator Tara Campbell of Highland County Community Action is stepping down.

“I know that in the past, we've hired part-time county employees,” Daniels said. “Maybe if we discuss it, we can find somebody willing to be an independent contractor and come in and do it.”

Daniels asked what the pay range is, and Britton said he thought it was “somewhere around $12,000-$15,000” a year for the part-time job.

“Maybe there's another agency out there we can work with,” Daniels said. He pointed out that that Highland County is a member of the Ross-Pickaway-Highland-Fayette Solid Waste District and said they should see if Ross or Fayette counties could have an employee “willing to partner” with them.

“We’ll definitely have to find a solution,” Britton said. “It’s just a matter of what it is.”

• Joe Sokol attended the meeting to discuss Palmer Conservation Consulting, which is a new offering through the County Commissioners Association of Ohio.

According to palmerenergy.com, Palmer Conservation Consulting, or PCC, serves to help counties with “the development and implementation of a plan to maximize the efficiency of your facilities. We help secure a reliable supply of energy at the lowest practical cost for our clients as well as help identify and assist in the development and implementation of energy efficiency strategies needed to reduce operational costs. Our independent energy expertise has saved our clients millions of dollars in energy expenses.”

Sokol said that PCC started earlier this year as “a sister company” to Palmer Energy, which runs an energy aggregation program for counties through the CCAO.

“That's kind of helping you with everything before the utility hits the meter,” Sokol said. “PCC was developed with the idea of ‘let's help the counties after the meter, at the facilities level.’ It started with energy conservation, and it's morphed into a completely kind of full scale, full-scale professional services offering.”

Some of those services include “procurement of contractors,” “validation of what the contractors are performing inside of that contract; other “contract reviews;” and assistance with structuring bid packages, Sokol said.

“It basically revolves around, if there's a facility upgrade, and you're looking for some expertise on your side of the table, you can give us a call,” Sokol told commissioners. “It's something where if you’ve got something on the capital improvement plan, or you’ve got something in the upcoming budget where you're going to do facilities upgrade, we can come in and kind of give you food for thought, do a walkthrough, have a conversation with your facilities director. That doesn't cost you anything. We do a lot of work on the front end, to see if there's a role we can play in a project.”

Daniels asked if and how PCC works on “local vetting of some of the contractors that might end up bidding” on county projects.

“It’s very much a dialogue,” Sokol said. “We talk with the county and figure out which way we want to take it.

“If it comes down to vetting, especially if you have a preference as far as a local contractor is concerned, we're happy to have discussions with them. We could do a joint walkthrough as far as the facility site, as far as kind of getting an understanding of what the competencies are there. A lot of that's going to come down to the method of procurement that you're going to choose to move forward.”

Commissioners thanked Sokol for the information.

“We’ve done a lot of energy efficiency stuff here in the past, but there's always room for continued conversation about it,” Daniels said.

• At the beginning of the meeting, Britton encouraged the community to support the Highland County Fair, Sept. 3-9.

“That's a big thing for the county and all the participants that take their projects out there, so that's going to be an interesting week,” he said.

• Commissioners issued a proclamation Wednesday recognizing Aug. 31 as Ohio Overdose Awareness Day in Highland County, ahead of a planned day of remembrance and awareness for local overdose victims. For more, go to: https://highlandcountypress.com/highland-county-commissioners-issue-ohi….

Commissioners also approved the following action, each by a 3-0 vote:

• A resolution for a budget modification within the 2000 Dog and Kennel budget in the amount of $10,000.

• A resolution for a budget modification within the 2170 Probation Services budget in the amount of $25.

• A resolution for a budget modification within the 2690 PSI Writing FY14 budget in the amount of $120.

• A resolution for a transfer of funds from Public Assistance Account, 2050 to ChildrenServices Fund, 2115 in the amount of $75,549 for reimbursement of children in custody utilizing Title XXB funding.

• A resolution for an additional appropriation from unappropriated funds in the amount of $6,000 to the 1000 TEC budget.

• A resolution to authorize the establishment of a new line item within the Children Services Retention fund – Transfer Out. Also requested is an appropriation of $39,000.

• A resolution to authorize a transfer of funds from Children Services Retention, 2110 to Children Services Fund, 2115 in the amount of $39,000.

• A letter of support to the Ohio Department of Development for Highland County Community Action to seek Lead Safe Ohio Program funding.