Month: March 2011

>Mar. 17, 2011

The Garrett County commissioners held their first quarterly staff meeting of the year last Tuesday morning, hearing reports from 14 county department and agency heads. Topics discussed included Roads Department budget issues, Community Action funding problems, the new Dove Center, and Garrett College expansion projects.

Roads Department

General roads superintendent Jay Moyer reported that the Roads Department was winding down winter operations and was beginning its spring cleanup of tons of antiskid material.

“This is a drawn-out process, and, hopefully, we won’t receive too many more snow events that require antiskid to be put down,” Moyer said.

He noted that sweepers purchased a couple years ago enable his department to recycle much of the material for reuse.

“Anything that we can pick up that doesn’t contain leaves, sticks, or a lot of dirt, we recycle,” Moyer said. “We don’t throw away any more than we absolutely have to.”

As of March 6, he said, the county has received 145 inches of snow, according to the State Highway Administration. Last winter it received a total of 264 inches.

Moyer noted that most of this year’s snow/ice events have occurred on weekends, resulting in much overtime for crews.

“As of today (March 8), we have used 11,311.5 man hours of overtime, and that is roughly half of what we had last year,” he said.

Moyer added his department has spent 75 percent of its budget, even though it is 67 percent through the budget year.

“That occurs annually because of the fact that the vast majority of the budget is for winter operations,” he said about the inconsistency.

Because of overtime, the cost of antiskid, and other factors, his budget is $95,000 in the red. Moyer noted, however, that amendments can be made to level out the budget.

“I’m hearing good things about how the roads are this year,” Commissioner Bob Gatto told Moyer.

Community Action

President Duane Yoder reported that Community Action recently weatherized more than 300 Garrett County homes. He noted that local home improvement contractors were utilized and funding for the work came from the federal stimulus program.

Yoder reported that his agency had also recently received $1 million from the federal government to install renewable energy systems in the form of wind, geothermal, and solar power to local homes. That project will begin this spring.

Though Community Action received much federal funding for projects in recent years, it could be facing a large cut in Community Services Block Grants (CSBG). President Barack Obama noted in his state-of-the-union address that he wants to cut the grants to help reduce the federal budget deficit in fiscal year 2012.

“The only program that he mentioned in that whole speech that he was going to cut was Community Action,” Yoder said. “It’s interesting because the Community Action program, as he defined it, really has very little impact on the deficit, the reduction.”

Nonetheless, Obama wants to reduce Community Action Partnership block grants nationwide from $700 million to $350 million.

“It has some pretty serious consequences,” Yoder said about the proposal, noting that the CSBG Program has provided core funding for community services for several years.

The local agency receives about $250,000 from the program each year.

“That’s the flexible money that we use to subsidize programs that we support and build,” Yoder said.

He said if that funding were to disappear the local Community Action would still able manage its assets and its housing developments because of long-term commitments from private investors, but the loss would probably change its involvement in communities and new projects.

Yoder said he did not know yet how Obama’s proposal would “play out.” He noted, however, that the minute Obama made his announcement, House of Representatives legislators made plans to “zero out” CSBG.

“We’re going to make an effort to try to convince Congress and the president that we should at least try to preserve the Community Services Block Grant,” Yoder said. “We’ll probably be asking for letters of support from the community partners that we have here in Garrett County. Part of what we want to do is make the point that Community Action’s role in Garrett County would be hurt a lot if we aren’t allowed to do what we’ve been doing.”

Commission chair Gregan Crawford said the commissioners would be happy to write letters and make calls in support of Community Action.

Dove Center

Executive director Heather Hanline presented Dove Center statistics for January. During that month the shelter served 57 domestic violence clients, 10 rape clients, three homeless women, and three persons in its batterers’ program.

In addition, five adults and one child were sheltered for a total of 106 bed nights, and 58 domestic violence hotline calls were handled.

She reported that construction of her agency’s new facility is about six weeks ahead of schedule.

“The building crew has been great,” she said. “The exterior of the building is almost finished. Wiring and plumbing is almost done. They’ll be drywalling before we know it. So we’re very happy about the progress.”

A ribbon-cutting ceremony is planned for October.

Hanline noted that the location of the facility, which will include a shelter and counseling/administra-tive offices, will be known to the public.

“In the past, domestic violence shelters have tried to keep their locations confidential, but that philosophy has changed through the years,” she said. “Now it’s sort of seen as the more the public you are, the safer you are, the more people who will be looking out for you.”

She noted, however, the new building will have a very sophisticated security system.

Garrett College

President Richard Mac-Lennan reported that enrollment at Garrett College was still strong.

He also noted that renovations at the Southern Outreach Center have been completed, nearly doubling the college’s space at the facility. Plans are also under way for Phase II of the Career Technology Training Center in Accident, which will add about 5,000 square feet for educational programs.

“And when the Community Aquatic and Recreation Center comes on board, those three additional facilities and some other renovation work we’re going to have done will triple the college’s footprint in terms of physical space,” MacLennan said.

The president said construction of the recreation center has suffered a little bit because of winter weather, but a Sept. 1 opening is still planned.

Full article here.

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