The purchase of a $23,000 paint chips tester was discussed and approved at the Wednesday morning meeting of the Highland County Board of Commissioners.
Mark Current, the Highland County Community Action Organization (HCCAO) housing director, said when HCCAO does an inspection for a Community Housing Improvement Program (CHIP) job, if they have to observe any type of paint, they need to do a risk assessment to see if there is lead-based paint or not.
He said right now they have to take a paint chip sample which takes time. Current said that’s because they need to not get the wood, but also get all the paint in a specific square-inch section of the paint surface.
Current said the type of products they were talking about getting to replace the current process were kinds of XRF, an X-ray fluorescent device that the worker holds up against the paint surface and then pulls the trigger, which then in seconds says whether or not it’s lead-based paint. He said that in comparison to the way the samples were done previously, where they could only take a dozen or two dozen samples, the new device could take samples and the results would be known right away.
However, he said the reason HCCAO didn’t have one previously is that they’re expensive. There were two types of scanners that HCCAO looked at.
He said the first was one uses cobalt, a radioactive material, that degrades over time and must be resourced every two years. He said that one would cost $17,000 and about $4,000 more every two years to get re-resourced.
Current said the second type was an electronic X-ray tube. He said they last about 10 years before the tubes needs replaced. He also said that type costs about $23,000 and about $3,000 to have the tube replaced about every 10 years.
Current said the Department of Development and Department of Health were collaborating and said they would provide funding for $23,150, which would include the $150 shipping for the more expensive version. He said HCCAO would like to purchase that one because in the long run it would be less money overall.
He said the item would be the county’s property, and HCCAO would develop a Memorandum of Understanding they would use for CHIP purposes and would also store and care for the device.
In other news, commission president Jeff Duncan said, concerning the fair attendance, that he hadn’t yet talked to the fair board yet but was there several days of low attendance.
“It appeared to me that their attendance was kind of awful at the beginning of the week because of the weather,” Duncan said. “But, I did talk to one of the fair board members I guess towards the end of the week, and Friday and Saturday are typically big days for them, and the weather was supposed to cooperate, so they were hoping for good attendance for that. Of course, I’m just judging by what the parking lot looks like and the crowd, but it looked like they had pretty good attendance for those two days.”
Commissioner Dave Daniels said that it usually takes the fair board about a week to 10 days to figure out the sales numbers and statistics.
In other news, the board of commissioners approved the renewal of a maintenance agreement contract with Weller’s Plumping.
Commissioner Terry Britton said this is an annual contract the county has with Weller’s for planned maintenance throughout the year with all of the county’s facilities. He said the planned maintenance takes care of all of the HVAC maintenance in all of those facilities, as well as monthly filter changes and similar work.
Britton said the cost of the contract went up “due to the inflation issues that we’ve got throughout the country.” He said it went from $28,661 last year to $39,024 this year.
In another development, the board approved the promulgation for a Hazmat plan with the Highland County Local Emergency Planning Agency.
The commissioners also approved two authorizations to execute, the first being satisfaction of mortgage with Raymond and Jeretta Ballein, and the second being a quotation for IP Intercom and a Synitel Control System Upgrade with Stanley Convergent Security Solutions, Inc.
There were two resolutions approved by the board:
* Res. No. 22-154 is an agreement for the board of commissioners to be the grantee for the partnership of Highland County and the city of Hillsboro and to appoint the Highland County Community Action Organization to submit an application for XRF analyzer funding on behalf of the CHIP program and administrator.
* Res. No. 22-155 is an authorization for the execution of a local jail capital project grant agreement with respect to the Highland County Jail Facility.
There were also four contracts approved by the board of commissioners, which are as follows:
* Contract 75 is between the commissioners and the Highland County Senior Citizens Center for a subgrant agreement for American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) Funding for home delivered meals and the meals program.
* Contract 76 is between the board, the state and the Department of Rehabilitation and Correction for the local jail capital project.
* Contract 77 is between the board, Fortress Technologies and the Highland County Sheriff for a service contract beginning on Sept. 21, 2022, until the contract was terminated.
* Contract 78 is between the board, Highland County Board of Developmental Disabilities (DD) and the Department of Developmental Disabilities (DODD) for a Standard Affirmation and Disclosure Form for governing the expenditure of public funds on offshore services and response.
Reach Jacob Clary at 937-402-2570.
