County pursues $8 million in grant money

MOULTRIE — Colquitt County is pursuing as much as $8 million in grant money for improvements and repairs at both the county jail and prison.

County Administrator Chas Cannon told the Commission, “What’s happened is that the Feds allocated a gazillion dollars for ARP (American Rescue Plan) money and people are having trouble with spending it So, we just found a way to, basically, get some more money.”

The COVID-19 Mitigation in Georgia Confinement Facilities Project Grant, through Georgia Southern University and the Georgia Department of Public Health, gives funds to confinement facilities to assist in reducing the transmission of COVID-19 through renovation projects and mitigation items like gloves and cleaning products.

“We’ve gotten, so far, about a million dollars worth of it. Potentially, $8 million more,” Cannon said.

He showed them a break-down of where the money would be spent and which contractors they had chosen to do the jobs. The money would be spent on plumbing and HVAC in the jail and kitchen equipment, floor coating, painting and HVAC in the prison.

Mac Lawson, head of the county’s Facilities Maintenance Department, said, “So what we’re trying to do is get approval on this and then move forward with it. We’ll have the paperwork ahead of time. Everything has to be completed, invoices received and we submit it back to Georgia Southern and we will get funds in net 30. So, we get reimbursed 100%.”

He said that this was money that the county would have to eventually pay anyway for repairs but if they do it through the Mitigation Grant, it would save them money in the long-run.

Cannon said that he had asked Lawson if this was synchronized with what they were doing with the jail renovation.

“The question is: Are we going to tear those pods down?” he said referencing the parts of the jail that might be demolished during the renovation.

Lawson responded that, even if the jail renovation project goes out for bid now, it’s going to be two years before the pods are torn down.

“You’ve got some equipment that’s already aging and it’s going to cost you. We’ve already seen failures. So, it’s going to replace all of that. If they do still come down later (the pods), this equipment can be harvested back out and we can reuse it, repurpose it in the remaining pod. and it will work in the new super-pod. … It’s not a waste of money,” he said.

Lawson went on to say that there would be a lot more failures of the boilers that are in the jail, now, before the renovation was finished in two years.

He said the window was closing and everything had to be completed and submitted by July 1. He also said that he has contractors waiting that said they can make it happen.

“We need approval to pull the trigger on these and get them moving,” Lawson said.

Cannon asked County Attorney Lester Castellow to update the commission on the discussion that was had about the process.

“You’re not going to have time to go through the ordinary bidding process,” he said, which usually applies because the cost is more than $100,000.

So the question is, he said, whether it’s an emergency or not, and it’s an emergency if the Commission deems it to be one.

He went on to explain that an emergency was defined as any situation resulting in the imminent danger to the public health or safety or the loss of an essential government function.

“It’s my understanding from Mac, if we don’t go ahead and spend the money on it, you’ve got the risk of the loss of an essential government function,” said Castellow.

He also said that if they go through the regular process, there’s no way that they would be able to bid it out, get the job done and have it finished, and submit the invoices for reimbursement by July 1.

Lawson said that the funds were there allocated to them and would not go away because Georgia Southern had approved the grant money already.

Commissioner Mike Boyd asked if Lawson had said that they could reclaim some of the material. Lawson responded that if, they tore down Pods 2 and 3 later, all of the materials would work in the super-pod or the remaining Pod 1.

Commissioner Marc DeMott confirmed with Lawson that the materials in question were boilers.

Cannon said that what they were looking for was the Commission to approve the projects as emergency expenditures and give the go-ahead on any future projects that were also approved by Georgia Southern for reimbursement.

“It’s a lot of money. A good bit of grant money that’s coming to us through the Fed,” he said.

Commission Chairman Denver Braswell said, “If we could, try to guide as many of these projects towards things we’re not going to tear down.”

Lawson assured him that they had and HVAC-related projects were the main thing that they were going for because they have some older systems. He said they put anything on the project list that was wearing out and they knew that they would have to replace.

The commissioners approved going forward with the projects and any future projects, as emergency expenditures, that were approved for reimbursement through the COVID-19 Mitigation in Georgia Confinement Facilities Project Grant. “If we didn’t hit the jackpot, we got close to it. … It’s a lot of money for us to upgrade some stuff at no cost to us,” said Cannon.