Commissioners commit $750K in ARPA dollars toward Roberts Lane extension; approve vendor contract for recorder's office

Highland County commissioners Terry Britton, David Daniels and Brad Roades reconvened Wednesday afternoon, April 5, to commit $750,000 in American Rescue Plan Act funds toward the City of Hillsboro’s planned Roberts Lane extension.

The commission voted 3-0 to pass the resolution in a two-minute session at 2:15 p.m., ahead of the Hillsboro Finance Committee’s scheduled meeting at 6 p.m.

“They are coming on to a financial meeting that they need some information from us on when we were going to get back to them, so we've decided to go ahead and do the resolution for that to them,” Britton said. “We will be doing the agreements probably within a week or two that we have to do.”

Last May, the county commissioners and American Rescue Plan Act funding coordinator Nicole Oberrecht heard several different proposals for using the county’s ARPA dollars. Representatives from the City of Hillsboro submitted a $3,160,152 request to help with infrastructure development costs of the proposed Roberts Lane extension project. The money would be used for roadway, storm sewer controls and water/sewer services, according to the project description.

Since last May, the city has purchased a 69-acre lot for the expansion, entered an engineering contract for its design and obtained funding from several sources, including $2.3 million from the State Controlling Board. The city also has low-interest loan agreements from the state water pollution control revolving loan and water supply revolving loan in the amount of $3.7 million (for storm and sanitary sewers) and $1.2 million (for water), which are pending council approval and up for a vote next week. The city also committed over $700,000 in American Rescue Plan Act dollars toward the project.

In their regular 9 a.m. meeting, the commission voted to approve a contract renewal with the software vendor for the Recorder’s Office, following a meeting with county recorder Chad McConnaughey Wednesday, April 5.

McConnaughey said his office has been working with GovOS (formerly KoFile) since 2018. Their five-year contract is due to expire, he said, and he was seeking the commission’s approval for a five-year renewal.

“GovOS is the vendor that does all of our recording,” McConnaughey said. “They take care of all of our images, all of our storage.

“This vendor is completely paid for through my recording fees, so it doesn't cost the county additional, extra money, but I still want to watch this money. I want to make sure that the vendor is doing right by us and there's not another avenue we should look at.”

McConnaughey said that he has been “really happy” with the current vendor and recommended staying with GovOS for another five years.

“If we don't renew with them, I've got to find somebody else, another vendor,” McConnaughey said. “Then all of my data has to be shipped out to the new company, it’s got to be built into a new system, and then we have a whole new training process that's going to go in with my staff and anybody else that uses it.

“I’ve not shopped around. I’ll be honest, I don't really want to. I think the other options out there are pretty comparable with what I've been told. You can go cheaper, but you also don't get the support, and you also don't get the backup.”

Daniels asked if there’d be “a cost associated with switching” to a different vendor, which would likely “offset” the contract increases with their current provider.

“Their original proposal to our sales rep was doubling our price, and I said absolutely not, and he said absolutely not,” McConnaughey said. “That would have that would have prompted me to start looking. You're right, there's a cost in that. We're not talking apples to apples here with these companies.

“Not only that, but the time down for me in switching everything over because that's a day shut down, at least. You're bringing in 10 new pieces of equipment, setting everything up. So I feel like this is a good deal.”

With the new contract, he said they will pay $4 per document (the same price they have paid for the past 10 years, since McConnaughey took office in 2013) for the first year of the contract, then see a five-percent increase per year for the each of the next four years.

“At the end of the contract in 2027, we will be up to $4.86 a document,” McConnaughey said. “It hasn't went up for 10 years, I still didn't like it, and I tried to negotiate that a little bit more, but I think this is the best deal we're going to get.”

The five-year contract renewal also includes the recorder’s office officially acquiring the hardware in their office — “10 stations, two copiers, two scanners and two label printers,” McConnaughey said — which is currently leased through GovOS.

“All of the equipment in my office that runs this software is leased, and it's part of that $4 per document,” McConnaughey said. “They're not doing that anymore, so what they're going to do, and what they're proposing, is they're going to write that equipment off to me, as part of this deal, free and clear.

“I've talked with our IT guy here, and I think, if you guys are in agreement to continue this contract and renew it, I will probably run every last ounce of juice out of that equipment that I can and I'll replace it as needed out of my equipment fund. Slowly, we'll upgrade and change when we need to.”

Daniels asked what the cost to replace that equipment would be. McConnaughey said it would be “probably 800 per PC,” and that they would be “under the $100,000 range” for all equipment.

“I’ll watch my equipment fund, obviously,” McConnaughey said. “If I'm having to buy equipment and that fund’s going start to come down, then I may need to ask for an increase in what we're withholding, but I don't foresee that right away. I don't spend money out of that fund very often.”

Britton asked if there was a “maintenance agreement” involved. McConnaughey said that since the equipment will be owned by the county, they will be responsible for taking care of it. They will also need to purchase “licenses for virus protection,” he added.

McConnaughey said the contract also had different options for daily records backup, with one being PDF archival cloud storage instead of film, which has been historically used, for their “third backup” option, due to supply issues with film.

“It would start out at $492 a year,” McConnaughey said. “I’m currently paying about $300 for my film storage in Montgomery County, so obviously, when we build the [county records storage] building, and I'm bringing that film back, I'm not going to be spending that money.

“Each year, it's going to increase a percentage to where in 2027 to ’28, it would go up to $550 a year.”

He added that he thought he “could manage that” out of his budget and recommended the commission accept that option.

“It would take out film from here on, and it would put these in the cloud,” McConnaughey said. “Paying for the cloud storage is what we're doing. If I ever needed one of those, I would have a login into the cloud storage. I print the document, and then I've got a copy if I needed it.”

The other option would be backing up all of their online data for $14,000, McConnaughey said, but he wasn’t “comfortable” with the more expensive route at this time.

After speaking with McConnaughey, commissioners said they had “no problem” with the contract proposal.

“It seems like the contracts that we've seen here in the last few months, they're all going to this three- to five-percent increase per year,” Britton added.

Commissioners voted 3-0 to approve the contract, including the cloud storage backup option, for the next five years.

In other approvals:

• After months of discussion, commissioners voted 3-0 to accept an energy quote from Muirfield Energy.

As previously reported, commissioners met with Phil Dysard of Palmer Energy and County Commissioners Association of Ohio Assistant Director John Leutz to discuss the CCAO’s energy program during their June 15 meeting. They voted a month later to execute a participation agreement regarding energy purchasing programs of the CCAO Service Corporation and an Electricity Purchasing Program agreement, both with Palmer Energy.

In October, the commission said they felt there was no rush to make a decision because the rates would not become effective until mid-2023.

“That’s coming up here soon, and we need to figure out what we’re going to do,” Britton said.


In October, Britton said the difference in costs between the Palmer Energy estimate and the quote from their current provider, Muirfield Energy, is negligible.

That was still the case as of Wednesday, as Britton said they have received updated quotes from Muirfield Energy, Palmer Energy and AEP.

“There’s not quite a penny difference,” he said.

Britton asked if the commission wanted to seek prices again before making a final decision.

“Those prices are set the day you go out to bid, so there can be some fluctuation if Company A went out on the first of the month and got a price,” Daniels said. “I mean, we’ve been with Muirfield, but we do have a connection with CCAO and the products they sell.”

Britton said his issue is “just like insurance, you’ve got to sign it over, and that gives them the right to do anything and takes it away” from the county.

“We’ve got to turn the lights on, so whatever we do, I really don’t care,” Daniels said.

Britton made the motion to “move forward with Muirfield’s price and get it locked in,” which passed, 3-0.

• Commissioners voted 3-0 to approve the Ohio Department of Agriculture’s recommendation of Chad Hamilton as county apiary inspector, with an adjustment to the payment process.

Britton said there is $1,000 appropriated for the position, and the county previously paid $50 per hive. He said the ODA is “recommending $5 to $8 per hive so that more inspections can be done,” plus mileage, according to Daniels.

“Their thought is that by doing that, we would have more money to get more hives inspected,” Daniels said. “We're dealing with a certain amount of money here that we've got in our fund, but maybe if we switch to that method, we get more inspections.”

 • Commissioners authorized, via resolution, an additional appropriation from unanticipated revenue to Commissioners, Other Expense (1000-11005-56000) in the amount of $23,100.

• Commissioners approved a resolution for a request  from Probate Court for a budget modification within the 1000 Probate Court account in the amount of $300.
 
• Commissioners approved a contract between their office and the Ohio Department of Development for the PY 2022 Critical Infrastructure grant, April 1, 2023 to May 31, 2025, for Sycamore Circle in the Village of Greenfield.

In other discussion:

• Britton invited the community to attend the ribbon-cutting and open house for the Highland County Dog Pound, set for Friday, April 7 at 10 a.m. The new multimillion-dollar facility is located at 9480 North Shore Dr., Hillsboro.

“It's been a long time coming, but I think we’ve got a great facility for the county, and it should be there for a long, long time,” Britton said.

The commissioners’ office will also be closed Friday morning during the event, Britton said.

• Commissioners held two separate work sessions Wednesday morning for their ongoing plans for the records storage building (with Julie Wallingford) and for the Rocky Fork Lake and Rolling Acres sewer upgrades (with Steve Canter of Environmental Engineering).

“We're getting there,” Britton said. “This financial package that we're trying to put together for this sewer upgrade at Rocky Fork Lake and Rolling Acres is challenging, but we want to try to make sure that we do all our due diligence to make sure we're not putting the burden on the end user, as much as we possibly can.”

• At the start of the meeting, Roades donned a pair of red high heels, at the request of Alternatives to Violence Center representatives, to read a statement in honor of “Walk A Mile In Their Shoes” for Sexual Assault Awareness Month. Read more (and see the photos) at: https://highlandcountypress.com/Content/In-The-News/In-The-News/Article/Commissioner-wears-heels-to-raise-awareness-for-Alternatives-to-Violence-Center-s-Walk-A-Mile-In-Their-Shoes-campaign/2/20/89436.