Calhoun County supervisors approved a request from Bruce Mayor Rudy Pope Tuesday morning to adjust the charge to towns for housing inmates at the county jail to $35 per day.
During the budget process, the board agreed to raise the daily fee to $37.50 following a presentation from Sheriff Greg Pollan in which he said the county loses considerable amounts of money due to the towns only paying $25 per day when it costs the county $41.
“With numbers (of inmates) we’re running now, we’re losing $1,000 per day,” Pollan told the supervisors last month. “With the current status of the budget, I don’t think we can continue operating at that kind of loss.”
Supervisors agreed and decided to raise the fee to $37.50. Mayor Pope asked the board to lower that to $35, because towns can, through judicial order, add that cost to the fine for anyone they arrest and book into the jail.
Mayor Pope and Sheriff Pollan both acknowledged that just because you levy a fine, that doesn’t mean the inmate will be able to pay it and the town will still be responsible for the $35.
In other news, Mayor Pope said his effort to get enough signatures to put legalizing alcohol on the ballot is getting close.
Pope told supervisors they had 1,346 signatures for liquor as of that morning. They only need 1,500. He said the number of needed signatures on the beer petition was within 400 names.
Circuit Clerk Carlton Baker said the deadline to get it on the ballot for this November would be Friday, Sept. 8 at 5 p.m.
“We probably won’t make that,” Pope said. “But we will get the signatures we need to bring it to a vote.”
In other news, County Engineer Chodie Myers informed the board the county has been without an operator for its sewerage treatment plant in Pittsboro for a few months.
“It will start getting checked very soon, and the county will face fines if everything is not in order,” Myers said.
He suggested the board hire Larry Bratton back to manage it with a pay raise. Bratton resigned in June from the post.
“Class II operators are very scarce,” Myers said. “I think this is our best option.”
“If we choose to do nothing we’re probably going to get written up by DEQ,” Board President Barney Wade said. “We’ve looked and there’s nobody else out there.”
The board approved hiring Bratton for $600 a month. He was previously paid $500.
Other news from the meeting:
•No public comments were received during the public hearing for the budget. The budget was unanimously adopted.
•Board approved request from Circuit Clerk Carlton Baker to declare some old computers and printers as surplus property so they can be donated to schools.
•Randy Skinner, emergency management director for the county, explained federal guidelines changed for the new year regarding his position. The total budget for the department will now be $35,000 with the federal government paying half and the county responsible for the other. The board approved the new budget.
Skinner also said the county has been approved for disaster relief reimbursements they applied for, which should almost equal a mil of tax.
•Board approved school bus turnarounds on county roads 115, 123 and off Hwy. 8.
•Board agreed to advertise for a truck for district four.
•Board agreed to raise top amount of purchase orders from $1,000 to $1,500 per new state law effective Oct. 1.
•Allow chancery clerk to request proposals for two year contract from CPAs for 2017 and 2018 audits.
•Supervisor Charles Bobo said he’s been asked by a few churches about fixing the park in Pittsboro so it could be used. He said they expressed interest in using the ball field. Bobo said it needs to be mowed and repair the bathrooms. Board agreed to get them fixed.