The Guthrie County Board of Supervisors met in regular session Tuesday.

The meeting began with an informational technology update with David Garland of Guthrie Center Communications. Next, the Board held a joint meeting over the phone with the Greene County Board of Supervisors to approve setting an assessment rate of 3.7% for land owners in a drainage district in the northeast corner of the county. They also approved a 6% waiver rate for those seeking to break up payments over $500. They also approved assignment of a county held tax sale certificate for a parcel at Diamondhead Lake and a 28E agreement with the City of Guthrie Center for the collection of delinquent parking fines.

Next, the Board held a public hearing for the second fiscal year 2019 budget amendment of about $1,010,000. No comments were heard and the Board approved the amendment as presented. Sid Samuels of the Samuels Group then presented a cost estimate to build a new county jail. His total was about $8.1 million, an increase from the approximate $6.78 million number from Shive-Hattery Architecture and Engineering. These numbers don’t account for an additional reconstruction of the main courthouse parking lot, which the Board would like to include in a bond referendum vote next November. Samuels said his budget includes an anticipated inflation in steel costs, “Right now in the news you hear about tariffs all the time, right? What’s one of the major things we fight with China over? Steel, so you’re going to see increases in probably in your structural steel costs.”

The Board took no action following the discussion, and architect Michael S. Lewis is expected to give an update next week. The Board also approved adopting the issuance of $2 million in general obligation bonds from wind farm tax increment financing.