GREENVILLE — The City of Greenville will need to issue a bond for close to $900,000 if it wishes to pay for improvements to the city’s police and administrative structures, Greenville City Council was told during its Tuesday night meeting.
Safety/Service Director Curt Garrison provided council with estimates for upgrades to the city’s emergency dispatch, heating and air conditioning replacement for the municipal building, and roof repairs for the police annex building.
Replacement of the dispatch communications consoles, 9-1-1 call center and phone system, as well as an upgrade to the server room and building renovations will carry a price tag of $327,775.54. The municipal building’s new HVAC system will cost $491,827, while the police annex roof repair will run $78,806. All together, the improvements will total $898,408.54. All cost estimates have built-in contingencies, council was told.
“On each of these I’ve budgeted in a contingency. We may or may not use that amount. The $898,408 includes contingency money,” said Garrison. “I don’t really want to put us in a position where we’re borrowing money that we’re not using.”
Councilman Tracy Tryon questioned the need for the contingency money — approximately $75,000 — built into the bond, suggesting it could be budgeted from the city’s Capital Improvement Plan (CIP) for 2018. Garrison said removing that money is an option.
“If council’s comfortable with that, we’ll remove any miscellaneous construction costs, and we’ll also remove the contingencies, and we’ll get a bond proposal back to you as soon as possible” he said.
City Auditor Roxanne Willman said the 10-year bond proposal would first need to be approved and prepared by a bond counsel before being voted upon by council.
In other business, council approved an ordinance authorizing appropriations to the Sewage Disposal Fund in the amount of $25,000 for expenses in excess of budget, $14,000 to cover additional cost of an interim Wastewater Superintendent, and $102,400 for the Donald Drive water line replacement project.
Council passed an ordinance transferring $58,250 to cover additional police department overtime and police chief retirement payout and $20,800 to cover benefit costs for a new part-time employee and to cover refunds for 2017.
Also approved was a resolution to accept a bid from Finfrock Construction for the Donald Drive water line project.
Greenville City Council meets the first and third Tuesday of each month at 7:30 p.m. Meetings may also be viewed live or beginning the following day on the City of Greenville Ohio Youtube channel.
