Highland County commissioners Jeff Duncan and David Daniels formally approved new three-year contracts with the Fraternal Order of Police during Wednesday’s regular meeting, and announced that sewer rates in the Rocky Fork Lake area will not increase in 2021.
Commission vice president Terry Britton was absent from the meeting due to illness.
In discussions concerning sewer rates at Rocky Fork Lake, commission president Duncan said that although the county’s environmental engineering representatives had advised that rates should increase in 2021, it was the feeling of the commissioners that they should remain the same.
“At this time, we feel like — and I feel like — we could get through another year without raising those rates,” Duncan said. “I think we’re going to put some emphasis on working on some delinquencies down there in that area for the sewer rates.”
As for the FOP contracts, Duncan said they were broken down into four separate job classifications to “make it a little easier for those individual contracts to be implemented.”
The new contracts are for dispatchers, sergeants, deputy sheriffs and corrections officers employed by the Highland County Sheriff’s Office.
All four take effect Tuesday, Dec. 1, 2020 and run through Nov. 30, 2023.
Also Wednesday, nine additional appropriation resolutions were approved along with four line item budget transfers.
Other resolutions involved the reappointment of Cheryl Lyle and Matthew Roberts to the Board of Developmental Disabilities for a four-year term ending Dec. 31, 2024; declaring two vehicles not needed for public use to be sold for scrap; authorizing the probation department to purchase a vehicle from Westview Motors, Inc.; and one other authorizing the commissioners to apply to the Water Pollution Control Loan Fund to upgrade existing wastewater facilities in the Rolling Acres subdivision.
In addition to the FOP contracts, one other contract was approved, that being a lease agreement with Tirrell Cumberland for the TC3 basketball program at the North High Business Center.
In other matters, commission president Duncan was authorized to execute the Highland County All-Hazard Emergency Operations Plan revision for November 2020, to change order No. 1 allowing for adjustment of final quantities for the Petersburg Road and Overman Road construction projects, to enter into the Community Development Block Grant allocation program, and the procurement plan for Highland County Job and Family Services.
Reach Tim Colliver at 937-402-2571.
