Commissioners OK grant proposal from HCSO; hear update on OneOhio

Highland County commissioners Brad Roades and Terry Britton authorized the Sheriff’s Office to apply for COPS (Community Oriented Policing Services) grant funding to help offset the salaries for additional personnel during their Wednesday, Feb. 12 meeting.

Commissioner David Daniels was absent.

Highland County Sheriff Randy Sanders said he was seeking commissioners’ “blessing” before his office begins pursuing the grant opportunity, as he said applications are expected to become available in March.

According to the Department of Justice, “COPS Hiring Program (CHP) is a competitive award program designed to provide funding directly to law enforcement agencies to hire and/or rehire additional career law enforcement officers in an effort to increase their community policing capacity and crime prevention efforts.”

Although Sanders noted that this year’s guidance has not yet been released, last year’s rules stated that “Each award will support up to 75 percent of an officer or deputy entry-level salaries and fringe benefits for three years within a five-year period of performance to accommodate time needed for recruitment and hiring. There is a minimum 25-percent local cash match (cost share) requirement, unless a waiver is approved. The maximum federal share per officer position is $125,000 over the three-year period.”

“It’s 75/25 for three years,” Sanders told commissioners. “After that, we're required to pick up that position for at least 12 months, ourselves.

“We won't know all the details until the grant does open, but it will open in March.”

Sanders asked if commissioners would be “on board for the 25 percent if we do” obtain one or more of the competitive grants, as he said they were interested in applying for “probably two, with your blessing.”

Roades and Britton indicated that they were in favor of pursuing the opportunity.

“From listening to you talk in the past, you’re needing the help,” Roades said.

In other discussion:

• Two local representatives on the state OneOhio board — Highland County Probation Department Director of Programming and Clinical Services Tonya Sturgill and Hillsboro Police Chief Eric Daniels — met with commissioners to alert them of changes to the board’s bylaws and to ask for assistance in recruiting a third local member to the board.

As previously reported by the state, “The OneOhio Recovery Foundation is a private, nonprofit foundation created under the leadership of Governor Mike DeWine and Attorney General Dave Yost, and other state and local leaders, with the mission advancing Ohio’s addiction prevention, treatment and recovery efforts now and into the future.

“The Foundation is governed by a 29-member board from across Ohio and is funded by 55 percent of settlement funds that Ohio is receiving from the pharmaceutical industry as a consequence of its role in the national opioid epidemic. Funds support local efforts to prevent and combat addiction and are also invested to support those efforts for the long term. Visit OneOhioFoundation.com for more information.”

There are 19 OneOhio “regions,” and Highland County is in Region 9, along with Adams, Brown, Fayette, Pickaway, Pike, Ross and Scioto counties.  According to Sturgill, the bylaws allow for a township representative to the board as well as the county (Sturgill) and city (Daniels) representatives. Now that the board has completed the first round of grant awards, Sturgill said the group revised their bylaws to try to ensure each region has sufficient representation.

“We've talked about the struggle with getting a township trustee involved, and some of the other counties have had that struggle as well, so we actually made the change to our bylaws,” Sturgill said. “What we changed the bylaws to last week states, ‘if a respective government unit does not fill the vacancy within 60 days, then the remaining participants within the county where the vacancy exists may fill the vacancy.’

“We would like to mark today as that 60-day notice for the townships, and if they do not fill that within the 60 days, then we would discuss and agree upon who that third person would be to represent Highland County.”

After some discussion among Sturgill, Daniels and commissioners on how best to communicate with the township trustees, Daniels said he would try to attend the next meeting of all area trustees to explain OneOhio and to try to recruit a representative. Commissioners said they could also email the information to the trustees.

“They [the townships] have their own separate pot of money that, to my knowledge, is just sitting there that is not being used, because it does have to somehow be related back to the opioid crisis,” Sturgill said. “We definitely need more communication with them, because they can push that money over for someone else to use, if they're not going to.”

Additionally, Sturgill and Daniels asked that commissioners reappoint them to the board, if they so choose, as their terms in office have technically expired under their bylaws. Commissioners said they could put that on their next agenda.

As mentioned, the first round of funding has been awarded, after OneOhio opened their initial application period last spring. Wednesday, Feb. 12 marked the final grant announcements of the 2024 funding cycle. However, as Sturgill mentioned last spring, additional funding will be available over the course of the next 18 years of the opioid settlement.

“The first allocation of money has been decided on, and all of the grant awardees have been nominated,” Sturgill told commissioners Wednesday. “We did choose to gear that first round more toward prevention services, so we should be very well set for prevention services within all of our schools in the community.

“We do not know when the next round of grant money will be eligible to apply for. Of course, we'll keep you posted on that.”

For more information on OneOhio, or to review the list of initial grants, go to https://www.oneohiofoundation.com/.

• A bid opening was held at 9:15 a.m. for the Highland County Engineer’s Office for a road resurfacing project in the area of the Highland Solar and New Market I and II projects.

According to the project description, the bids are to resurface county and township roads in the area of the solar farms in Clay and Whiteoak Townships. All three solar farms have reached commercial operation stage. Prior to construction, developers signed Road Use Maintenance Agreements (RUMAs) with the county to “repair any damage to roadways that are caused by increased traffic because of the construction process,” which is done at the developer’s expense.

The county received five bids, with the apparent low bidder being Miller-Mason Paving at $1,085,362.33. Other bids included Fillmore Construction,$1,174,835.26; The Shelly Company, $1,324,569.60; Cox Paving LLC, $1,424,352.24; and Roberts Paving, $1,516,875.70.

Engineer Chris Fauber and Deputy Engineer Christian Dunlap said they would review the bids and make a recommendation for commissioners to approve at their Feb. 19 meeting.

• Roades reminded the community of the RPHF Solid Waste District’s 2025 Community Clean-Up Grant and Small Business Grant. According to an email received from the district, the deadline to apply for both grants is March 1.

The Community Clean-Up Grant is open to municipal corporations, boards of education, businesses, park districts, health districts and not-for-profit organizations seeking to conduct recycling and litter cleanup and prevention events. The maximum grant award is $5,000.

The Small Business Grant is open to small businesses looking to implement recycling, composting and/or litter prevention practices. The maximum grant award is $2,500.

For more information on both grants, or to apply, visit: http://www.rphfsolidwastedistrict.com/education.html.

• Chris Snider of National Grid Renewables was in attendance Wednesday and gave brief updates on the company’s two area solar projects.

For Dodson Creek Solar — an up to 117 megawatt (MW) solar development spanning approximately 1,429 acres, currently under construction in Dodson and Hamer townships — Snider said he expects it to “be coming online later this year.

“That one should be finishing up,” Snider said. “When that one will be in commercial production — once I get an idea, I’ll give you guys a heads up on that one.”

Fayette Solar, which includes parcels in both Fayette and Highland counties (Madison Township area), “came online back in January,” according to Snider.

“Highland County only has a small piece of that one,” he said.

As was the case with the bids related to other solar projects Wednesday, Snider said he would be working with the county engineer’s office “on getting roads repaired” once construction is complete.

Commissioners also made the following approvals, each by a 2-0 vote:

• An application for payment in the amount of $173,192.35 from Doll Layman Ltd., the contractor working on Rocky Fork Lake Wastewater Treatment Plant upgrades.

• A request from the Engineer for an additional appropriation from unanticipated revenue within the 2065 MVL fund in the amount of $81,473.

• A budget modification within the 1000 County General fund in the amount of $1,118.68.

• An additional appropriation from unappropriated funds within the 5030 Rocky Fork Lake Sewer District fund in the amount of $8,619.

• A request from Probation for an additional appropriation from unappropriated funds within the 2660 ATP fund in the amount of $17,401.94.

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