The Morgan County Commissioners authorized the purchase of two new county vehicles this past week.
Two Ford Escapes were purchased for just under $56,000 from Westown Ford in Jacksonville at fleet pricing for the county.
Morgan County Commissioners Chair Brad Zeller says it will help out with one county office and the county’s elected officials’ travel on county business: “We have needed a vehicle for the Assessor’s Office for a long time. They have operated with the Sheriff’s leftover cars, and they just require maintenance all the time. We can’t keep that vehicle on the road, so we purchased one for their full-time use. Then, we purchased a second one also for the Assessor’s Office to use on a temporary, part-time use when they can get two crews out in the county to help expedite the reassessment process. Then, we will have the other vehicle to use for elected officials and employees to use when they have to travel to educational seminars and continuing education. This will be a really nice purchase for the county, and we were really pleased to purchase them locally.”
In other business, the board approved just over $2,500 to pay an engineer to begin the planning stages of upgrading the lighting and electricity in the main courtroom at courthouse. The money was allocated out of the county’s over $207,000 of monthly bills.
The board also approved the final fund transfers from last year’s budget on Monday. The most significant were for over $36,000 into the animal control budget. Zeller told the commissioners an additional revenue stream needs to be explored for Animal Control as fines and fees aren’t keeping up with operational costs. The other significant transfer was over $38,000 into the County Jail budget. Zeller says that utilities and operational costs increased significantly at the jail during the last fiscal year.