The Vermilion County Board Finance and Personnel Committee has committed $281,000 in APRA COVID relief money for the purchase of seven new vehicles for the Sheriff’s Department.
Committee Chairman Steve Miller says this will give Sheriff Pat Hartshorn some additional flexibility.
AUDIO: This was originally budgeted in his regular budget. But we have a chance to spend ARPA monies on this to preserve county funds.
County Board Chairman Larry Baughn says perhaps now the Sheriff’s Department can purchase some special safety equipment, now that ARPA funding has helped with the annual vehicle purchase.
AUDIO: The quarter-cent public safety sales tax is normally what is earmarked for that. Every year we buy squad cars, and the sheriff tries to keep it around that earmark of around seven. This will give him the opportunity to maybe; we’re looking at some new bullet proof vests, body armor for the department. Again, that’s not something we buy every year, it’s something we buy every 15 or 20 years. So that will free some of that money up to maybe help purchase items like that.
The purchase of the vehicles will be on the next Vermilion County Board meeting agenda.
In a nutshell, however, the county still has about 10 million dollars of COVID relief money to delegate, after an initial four million was used for various projects around the county. The main holdup is the wait for “request for proposals” for projects the committee definitely wants done at the Joseph G Cannon – Vermilion County Administration building. The three big projects are for the elevators, doors, and windows. Chairman Larry Baughn says there’s a lot to figure out with the RFPs.
AUDIO: And it’s not like we just have companies sitting around town sometimes, right, that are able to do those projects. We certainly want to spend our money here. But again these are some big projects that just take a little bit more planning. Again, we’ll be those RFPs hopefully by the next finance meeting, and be able to move forward with those.
Meanwhile, numerous requests have been made to the county and continue to be discussed at each committee meeting. Just two examples are the Village of Indianola wanting help to repair their village hall, and the continued request from the Land Bank for $500,000 for the rehabilitation of homes around the county, allowing residents to stay in their homes and keep the homes on the tax roles. There’s still plenty of time. ARPA money needs to be allocated by the end of 2024, and spent by the end of 2026.
