By Meladi Brewer

DailyAdvocate.com

GREENVILLE — The Darke County Board of Commissioners met Tuesday to discuss the helicopter crash and rumors. Commissioners Matt Aultman, Mike Stegall, and Larry Holmes were present.

“In light of what has happened in the county today, from behalf of the commission board, we feel for the family that was involved with the helicopter accident this morning,” Aultman said.

“It’s traffic,” Stegall said. “I hope everything works out for the very best.”

“We are sending quick healing powers for the family member that survived the accident,” Aultman added.

In an examination and allowance of bills, there is a total of $15,857.44 in the General fund, a total of $106,879.74 in the Outside General fund. These funds combined is a grand total of $122,737.18.

The commissioners approved the fund transfer of $61,392.69 from the county fund to the child services fund. This transfer is part of their standard monthly requirement for the Children Services, and it offers support for the month of June.

A fund advance-back was also approved for the 2019 CHIP CDBG Grant for various CHIP projects. A total of $22,000 was received from the outside fund to the General Fund. The commissioners also received a Fund Advance-Back for the Sheriff-Healing Communities grant totaling $5,615.42 and a fund advance-back for the WAGC Facility totaling $116,672.74.

The commissioners also approved the fund transfer for the 2022 BOE Voting Machines in the amount of $36,000.

“When we bought the voting machine years ago, we were gonna have a yearly maintenance fee on them,” Aultman said, “So instead of waiting for the time where we pay the yearly maintenance fee we’ve made it a thing on our budget to move $36,000 into a fund specifically for those means.”

Aultman said this is a way they can take little bites at a time instead of a big bite all at once. This fund transfer is paying for the current system Darke County has, but it’s for the maintenance.

A letter of recommendation to appoint Busher Electric, Inc to aid in the Construct Airfield Electrical Vault at the Darke County Airport had been approved. The bids were opened at the May 26 meeting, and Buschur Electric, Inc was the closest to the Engineer’s estimate of $215,000 with a base bid of $224,000.

“That is the closest bid I think we’ve ever had,” Stegall said. “It’s really competitive.”

“I would like to highlight that 95 percent of this will be covered by the federal and state grants,” Holmes said. “We will be in for about 5 percent which is roughly $13,000.”

Holmes stated it is a nice leveraging of funds for a needed upgrade.

“It’s nice to see our dollars coming back to us,” Stegall said.

Citizen Fred Dean spoke up and asked the commissioners about some rumors that have been circulating around the county.

“For the public’s benefit, there’s always people talking about how you (commissioners) do all this stuff behind closed doors and then come out here and say ‘yes’ and sign your name,” Dean said. “Is that a fact?”

Aultman spoke up and explained how the budget gets sent out to the notification list prior to the meeting either the night before or on the day of. The commissioners receive the budget at the same time in order to know what is on the daily business agenda.

“We get them the day before. That’s the goal,” Holmes said.

Much of the fund advances are part of the budget when the commissioners work on them in the fall, so they already know they are coming due to the time frames grants and funding require; however, for a bigger agenda piece like the airport projects, the commissioners do have meetings on the days they are here, separate from the regular session meetings.

“The doors are always open, and people are more than welcome to join us when we are having those meetings,” Aultman said. “We talk and get some facts about some of the stuff from the airport because it is a bigger project, but it’s all part of the open meetings.”

He said all decisions have to be decided in the regular session meetings and not in any others. Whoever would like to be put on the list can come be a part of the meetings.

The Darke County Board of Commissioners meets every Tuesday and Thursday at 1:30 p.m. at their office located at 520 S. Broadway Street in Greenville. To contact the office, call 937-547-7370.

To contact Daily Advocate Reporter Meladi Brewer, email [email protected].