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RandolphCommissionersApril

Board of Commissioners approves two economic developments

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ASHEBORO — The Randolph County Board of Commissioners met Monday, April 3, with various public hearings and property matters on the agenda.

The first action the board approved was to allow the exchange of property between the Randolph County School Board and the City of Archdale.

“At our last Board of Education meeting, our board declared a piece of property as surplus, but before we can make this exchange with the City of Archdale, we have to give you [the board of commissioners] the first right to this land at either fair market value or a value agreed upon between the board of commissioners and board of education,” said Randolph County Schools Superintendent Dr. Stephen Gainey.

The board also approved the reclassification of two soil and water positions.

“We are requesting to reclassify the Soil and Water Administrator to a Soil and Water Environmental Education and Support Coordinator,” said Soil and Water Department Head Kaitlyn Johnson. “That position would start identifying more educational opportunities in the county and work to provide new educational programs, classroom activities, teacher workshops, and even adult education programs.

“The other position would be transitioning the Environmental Specialist to a Soil and Water Director role. That would still allow us to provide the technical assistance that that position has typically always done as well as just oversight of the office and supervisory functions that are needed to keep the office progressing.”

The board also was presented with the proposed renovation plan by Smith Sinnett Architecture for the Northwest Human Services Center.

In the 15,825 square foot building, the plan lists 14 offices, eight on the upper level and six on the lower, three areas of open office space, a break room, a mailroom, two conference rooms, one training room, and a large multipurpose area with a final cost estimate of $3,120,000.

“When I was reading this, I was glad I was sitting down because we paid $1.5 million for the building, and I wasn’t thinking that it was going to take twice that to renovate it,” said Vice Chair David Allen.

As such, the board requested for the firm to break the costs down between the two floors and see about having the bottom floor listed as a bid alternate expenditure cost and then for that plan to be brought back before them at a later date.

The board then approved the awarding of a contract to Garanco Construction for the Health Department Renovation Project. According to County Engineer Paxton Arthurs, the base bid for Garanco is $1,975,200 for construction costs, but for all the alternates, the cost would go up to $2,351,500.

The board was then presented with two economic development opportunities, one for Project Spring and the other for the Caraway Speedway.

“[Project Spring] is a Texas-based manufacturing facility that has been in business for several years,” said Economic Development Business Development Director Crystal Gettys. “Their product and their business in sales has been expedited to the point where they feel the need to have a second facility to cover east of the Mississippi. This has been a search for an existing building over the last six months or more across multiple states. They have narrowed that pool down to the top two, and Randolph County is in that top two.”

According to Gettys, the incentive package includes $33,340 over a five-year period, and the state of North Carolina will also provide incentives, including a OneNC grant and a building reuse grant.

The board approved the economic development incentive package following a public hearing.

“In expending its Coronavirus state fiscal recovery funds, the state of North Carolina created something called the Motorsports Relief Fund,” said Associate County Attorney Aimee Scotten. “The purpose of this fund is to enhance amenities and increase the opportunities for events at motorsports venues in recognition of the impact that those events have on the local tourism, travel, and hospitality industries. Randolph County received a grant from this fund specifically for the benefit of Caraway Speedway in the amount of $485,000. Caraway plans to use that money to replace some aging and kind of dilapidated seating and to repave certain sections of the track.”

The board also approved the use of the Motorsport Relief funds for the Caraway Speedway.

The board then held public meetings for the restructuring of five Fire Tax districts – Coleridge-Erect, Fairgrove, Julian, Northeast, and Staley – in line with the other dozen or so that have already been restructured. 

There were no comments made for or against the restructuring, and so following the hearings, the board voted to abolish and then reform the districts in order to remove the $0.15 tax cap.

The change is not a direct tax increase but simply gives the district the ability to ask for a higher tax rate from the county commissioners should the need ever arise. The new districts also cover the exact same area as before.

The board finally approved a budget amendment to cover a change in the schedule for USDA debt service payments in relation to the Farm, Food, and Family Education Center.

“Last year, we got approved for two $2 million loans through the USDA going through REMC,” said Assistant County Manager Will Massie. “Since going through the approval, REMC has been trying to work with USDA to get the funds down here. Currently, they’re not down yet. We don’t have the loan and haven’t closed on that, but they think they’re pretty close. One of the things that the USDA has requested is to have monthly payments rather than annual ones. If we do close this month, that would indicate that we would have a debt service payment in May and June.”

The Randolph County Board of Commissioners will next meet May 1.

RandolphCommissionersFeb

Board of Commissioners presented with design for Health Department renovations

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ASHEBORO — The Randolph County Board of Commissioners met Monday, February 6, where they were provided updates on two of the county’s major construction projects.

The first item of new business was an update on the Health Department renovations.

“Last summer, you awarded a contract to Smith Sinett Architecture to design a renovation to the health department, which is located at the Ira McDowell Center,” said County Engineer Paxton Arthurs. “Since that time, Smith Sinett has worked to finalize the design and put together the bid documents.”

The current Health Department space is 16,000 square feet, with 35 offices, two dental offices, ten general exam rooms, a pharmacy, a laboratory, and supply storage.

“The building was built in the early ‘80s to the best that we can determine, so it’s about 40 years old,” said Robert Carmac of Smith Sinett. “During that time, it only had some minor renovations. No major renovations, improvements, or reorganizations of the space have happened since then, so it’s badly needed to improve the workflow.”

The new projected site plan will feature three additional offices, an independent dental suite with three additional exam rooms, six additional general exam rooms, additional and organized storage, a dedicated check-in/check-out area, one additional break room, a fitness room, and secured circulation corridors.

The project is split into seven alternative phases, with the base bid coming in at $1.718 million. With all the additions, the construction cost comes out to $2.483 million, and with all the fees added, the total project budget would be $2.895 million.

“One of the reasons we’ve laid this project out the way we did is one: to help with the budget,” Carmac said. “We know that there’s going to be multiple funding sources for this project, so we’ve staggered this into seven alternates to allow budget flexibility and allow this project to come in budget whether we get all seven or just one or two parts.”

According to Carmac, the projected completion date would be April 2024.

After the presentation, the board authorized county staff to advertise the project for bids.

The board was also given an update on the Farm Food and Family Education Center.

“The architects have just completed the design and development phase of the Farm Food and Family Education Center,” said Cooperative Extension Director Kenny Sherin. “The latest estimate actually came down a little bit from the schematic development phase. Several factors, but the architects and engineers have been working very hard to find cost-cutting measures. They were able to reduce the cost down to $28.9 million. We have secured $28.3 million, so we just need an additional $600,000 to meet the current estimate.”

The final action that the board took was the setting of a public hearing as the first step in abolishing and restructuring the final six fire districts in the county.

“Until recently, fire departments in Randolph County had their tax rates capped at a $0.15 rate, and that’s because of how they were formed and when they were formed,” said Associate County Attorney Aimee Scotton. “Based upon needs expressed by several of our fire departments and the expectation that more would need that in the future, we began abolishing the current capped districts and recreating them without the cap.”

The final six districts that will be restructured are the Coleridge-Erect, Fair Grove, Farmer, Julian, Northeast, and Staley Fire Districts.

The new districts will be exactly the same size and area but will give fire departments the option to raise their tax rate if necessary. This decision itself is not a tax increase.

The Randolph County Board of Commissioners will next meet March 6.

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Commissioners approve new departmental positions and reclassifications

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ASHEBORO — The Randolph County Board of Commissioners met Tuesday, January 3, with a full agenda to kick off the new year.

The board was first presented with its annual audit report, which was conducted by Cherry Bekaert LLC.

“We issued what we call an unmodified opinion on your financial statements,” said April Adams, a partner at Cherry Bekaert LLP who oversaw the audit. “That is otherwise known as the clean opinion. That’s the opinion that you want. It’s the highest level of assurance that we can give you as an audit firm that your financial statements are free from material misstatements.”

Adams stated that the audit found no issues with any of the financials for the county, and the only thing they found was one non-material, noncompliance which was issued for the single audit for one of the 60 employees tested where there were inconsistencies with how they reported their time.

The board was also presented with an update on the Business Gym program they previously approved funding for.

“The Business Gym is basically a learning portal for anyone and everyone, and it’s free, and it’s on-demand training,” said Asheboro/Randolph Chamber of Commerce President Linda Brown. “Just the meat and potatoes, five to eight minute videos, quick, downloadable information packets that they can take, and the beauty of it is it is available 24/7, 365. It’s the same information every time, so it’s very consistent.”

The Business Gym’s purpose is to standardize and streamline the information given to businesses and to be easier to access to a wide array of people.

“We had a 62.5% increase in new business startups in Randolph County, and historically as much as 70% of those businesses will fail if they don’t have some sort of support or assistance. So, we had a two-fold problem, not just people trying to start new businesses, but people who had existing businesses that struggled through COVID and were trying to rebuild and become sustainable once again.”

The board also approved four funding requests, one for $152,265 for the Randolph Heritage Conservancy, Inc., to pay for an engineering study, an environmental study, and a rendering of what architects think the rebuilding outside of the Textile Museum would look like. In addition, the board also approved a $25,000 request for the Trinity Museum, $416,501 for the Sheriff’s Office to purchase nine new vehicles (three 2023 Chrysler 300 Touring and six 2023 Ford 150s), and $161,450 to Dbm Construction for the paving the parking lot of the Sheriff’s Office Fleet Maintenance Garage.

In order to keep funding from the Duke Endowment Grant for a school-based oral health program, the board approved subcontracting the grant to Kintegra Family Dentistry, with whom the board had previously approved entering into a partnership with to take over the county dentistry services. 

“In late 2020, early 2021, our public health dental clinic team applied for a Duke Endowment grant,” said Public Health Director Tara Aker. “The intent of that grant was to be used for us to implement a school-based oral health program to do preventive services on-site at schools. In the summer of 2021, the county was awarded that grant for $375,000, and the intent was for us to do it. But as you may recall, we entered into a partnership with Kintegra Family Dentistry to take over the dental services for the county since we were unsuccessful in finding a dentist. We want those funds to stay here and for Kintegra to assume those funds and implement that school-based oral health program.”

According to Aker, the Duke Endowment is aware and supportive of the plan for Kintegra to assume the funding.

The board approved a request by county staff to add a few departmental positions and reclassify some others.

“Our staff and employees are the ones that provide services that our citizens require more now than they ever have required from county government,” said County Manager Hal Johnson. “The whole role of county government, and in particular Randolph County government, has also been transformational in the last decade, and the citizens turn to the county for so many issues that they didn’t use to do in those earlier years, and this all falls back onto our employees.”

The request approves a $355,307 budget amendment to add 12 new positions and 12 position reclassifications to specific county employees.

Finally, the board approved two building reuse grants for Kraftsman Trailers and Mid-State Trailers, with $140,000 passing through the county for Kraftsman with 20 new jobs being required and $100,000 passing through for Mid-State with 19 new jobs being required, and approved an amendment to the I-74 Sewer Line grants to reflect a change in funding. 

The Randolph County Board of Commissioners will next meet February 6.