The Greene County Board of Supervisors met Thursday for a budgetary session.

During reports, Greene County Sheriff Jack Williams told the Board that one deputy and two Jefferson Police Officers were injured from assaults and that the deputy would be out for a while because of the injuries. 

Then, the Board held a discussion about the county jail project bids. DCI Representative Nick Bruck, who is the construction manager at-risk, presented the Board with the base bid for the jail of $10,954,488. To date, the total amount of money that has been spent is $724,567. The Board was also presented with an alternate of adding two more jail cells for over $410,000. The Supervisors talked about the additional money for design costs for the architect firm ISG and indirect costs to the county.

It was mentioned during the discussion that over $568,000 was borrowed from the general fund to pay for initial expenses and that the State Auditor’s Office recommended a resolution be passed by the Board declaring that they wouldn’t need to pay back the general fund the money that was borrowed. Bruck said he was never given a budget to work within ISG because he was hired six months ago. The current bids were valid for 30 days, which started on January 23rd. 

The current plan had 15 cells with a capacity to hold 30 inmates. The Board felt that they should add two more cells so that the facility would qualify to hold federal prisoners. Sheriff Williams said the rate is much higher for federal inmates than holding inmates from other counties, but his initial intention for two years was to catch up on individuals that still needed to be arrested and those that still needed to serve a jail sentence. 

The Board also discussed the HVAC project for the Greene County Courthouse. The topic of using the additional money in the general fund to pay for the additional costs of the jail was more warranted than doing the HVAC project. However, the county has designated about half of the HVAC project cost with its $1.7 million of American Rescue Plan Act funds, which need to be spent by the end of this calendar year or those funds would go back to the federal government. 

Supervisor Chair John Muir said they should do what is best for the county as Supervisors Joe Gannon and Dan Benitz agreed and wanted to follow through on what voters had approved, which was a $10 million bond to build a new jail. Supervisor Pete Bardole was nervous about the higher than expected bids for the jail and mentioned that the HVAC project should also happen and both the heating and air conditioning was economically more feasible to do at the same time. Due to Supervisor Dawn Rudolph being absent from the meeting, these two items were tabled from final decisions until next week.

The Board also heard 2026 fiscal year funding requests from Information Technology and Drainage, as well as non-departmental budgets and general services. No action was taken following each presentation.