FARMINGTON — “We’ve all outgrown our spaces,” Franklin County Emergency Management director Tim Hardy said. He asked if the county commissioners saw any value in meeting with department heads to discuss the long-standing problem of office space.
Since there are known issues with the air quality in some of the offices, along with small office spaces limiting social distancing, there is a possibility that the American Rescue Plan Act funds could be used to address the problem.
Over the years, many different possibilities have been discussed. For example, the dispatch center was built with the ability to expand the space. There is enough space behind the dispatch center and the sheriff’s office to build a larger building that could hold the sheriff’s department and the district attorney’s office, and other county offices if desired.
The conversation has been ongoing for years; most recently, the commissioners asked to negotiate the lease for the district attorney’s office to allow them to end the five-year lease early if they made a decision to relocate that office.
The commissioners agreed to hold a meeting to discuss the needs of the different departments and brainstorm ways to move forward.
Also during the Jan. 18 meeting, Sue Pratt requested a larger segment of time in an upcoming meeting to allow ARPA fund applicants present their proposals to the commissioners. Some of the proposals in the works include the World War One memorial, a medical and psychological addition to the county jail, and laptops for certain county employees to allow them to provide services on site or remotely. The complete proposals will be presented at a later date for the county commissioners to review.
Several housekeeping items were addressed: Heidi Jordan was added to the Probate Surcharge bank account and new finance manager Diane Dunham was added to all the county bank accounts at Bangor Savings Bank. $239,000 from funded and underused TIF accounts was transferred to replenish negative balances in other TIF accounts.
Lt. David Rackliffe requested that the commissioners approve a transfer for roughly $110,000 from the county general fund to the Stonegarden grant fund. In fiscal year 2013, the auditors apparently moved $110,000 from the Stonegarden fund to the general fund at the end of the year, operating under the misunderstanding that the account had to have a zero balance at the end of the year. The funds were mileage reimbursement for the patrol work near the border, and have been used in the past to purchase a new patrol cruiser without additional burden on the taxpayers. The grant account can carry-over from year to year, so the transfer was unnecessary. The commissioners approved the transfer request.
