BY TRACY LEE TATE
Times Staff Writer
LAKE BUTLER — Union County has received a grant from the Florida Fire Marshall’s Office, funded by an appropriation by the Florida Legislature, for $305,000 for the purchase of needed firefighting equipment.
One purchase planned for these funds is the purchase and installation of a water storage tank, to be located at the intersection of C.R. 239A and C.R. 239, and the construction of a water recharge station to refill trucks should they need water. The land to be used for this project is owned by the county and is located near the Harmony Freewill Baptist Church.
Other items are also critically needed by the Union County Fire Department, including a new brush truck. The conditions of the grant that that all money much be spent within the state’s fiscal year and items needed be deliverable within that time span.
Both County Coordinator Jimmy Williams and EMS Director Toby Witt spoke to the board about the ongoing supply chain issues still being encountered with equipment. Appropriate equipment is hard to find, orders may take a year or more to be delivered and the limited availability makes it difficult to acquire what is needed.
“When we find what we need, very often the seller will not hold the item to give us time to wait for the next board meeting for approval of the purchase,” Witt said. “We need flexibility to be able to jump on the purchase of this equipment as we find it.”
Williams and Witt asked the board to waive the usual purchasing policy, which requires getting bids and bringing each item before the board at its regular monthly meetings, just for the use of this grant. Motion was made by Commissioner Mac Johns to approve allowing Witt to purchase equipment as needed without waiting for the usual process, which may take more than a month.
One upcoming purchase discussed with commissioners at the July 17 meeting was the purchase of a new brush truck. Williams and Witt have located a suitable unit. It is a new Dodge Ram 3500 Crew Cab Mini Pumper Brush Rescue truck, fully outfitted and ready to work. The unit is a four-wheel drive and comes with all the equipment and safety features needed for such use, including a 13,000 lb. winch and 150 feet of hose.
The cost of the truck is $139,500, plus registration and tags. With the commission’s approval of the special waver of the purchasing policy, they said they would be purchasing it (before someone else got it) the morning after the meeting.
The Florida Senate was good to Union County this session, including about half of the funds needed to construct the new jail/public safety complex ($6.93 million) and $374,000 for the historic restoration of the Union County Courthouse.
The courthouse was built in 1929 and has seen two renovations in its history – the addition of two wings to the structure in the 1960s and an addition to the rear of the building in 2000 – but little other renovation has been done, with work mainly being necessary repairs. The current grant will fund windows and general building rehabilitation and repairs.
In a boon to the county that Williams has been pursuing for several years is a payment in lieu of taxes from the Florida Department of Corrections. FDOC owns 29 properties in Union County that have a combined assessed value of a little under $68.1 million which, if taxed as other properties in the county, would produce estimated annual taxes of $1.15 million.
Besides the large areas of land used for the Regional Medical Center and its work camp and West Unit, and the Union Correctional Institution and its work camp, FDOC also provides a total of 247 housing units for correctional personnel. The county with the next highest number of housing units provides only about 40 units. This means that the county and school district are missing out on about $320,000 in estimated annual ad valorem taxes.
In addition, these properties pay no special assessments for emergency medical services, fire services, solid waste management or local law enforcement through the Union County Sheriff’s Office, but they still receive these services.
In the period from May 2021 to May 2022, the UCSO responded to 197 calls for service via 911 dispatch, EMS responded to 175 calls and fire services responded to two calls. Since response to 911 emergency calls in mandated by state law, and these services are paid for by special assessments, these calls cost Union County taxpayers about $200,000 for the one-year period. In addition, Union taxpayers pay an estimated annual cost for waste management services for these properties of $16,598.
FDOC is the largest employer in Union County and provides jobs for many people in the surrounding area as well. Staff housing is provided at competitive rates to employees, but they still pay rent for the housing. The FDOC collects this as revenue. The upside is that families can have an affordable place to live, and the institutions have a reserve of employees on site should an emergency occur requiring people to be called in to work on short notice.
The county, on the other hand, loses about $1.4 million per year due to the lack of ad valorem income and the cost to the county of the services it is required to provide. In a larger county, such a financial hit might be easier to work around, but in a county the size of Union it is a serious matter.
The payment in lieu of taxes approved by the legislature is $300,000 a year. It is a recurring appropriation/grant, meaning that it will be sent to the county every year without going through a legislative process – in essence, it will become part of the state budget.
Another new grant the county is receiving is the Resilient Florida Planning Grant in the amount of $300,000. This grant is to fund a study of flooding potential and flood mitigation in the county and its municipalities. The grant is being administered by Jones Edmunds Engineering firm. When complete the county will know which roads are most likely to flood, which culverts need to be replaced and retention ponds in need of attention. Future grants may be available to finance mitigation of the mapped flooding.
Currently the county has 10 open/active grant projects in the works (not including the public safety complex or any funds from FDOT) totaling approximately $3,409,000. These include projects like the courthouse restoration design, the addition to the Agricultural Learning Center, the broadband initiative and the Brownfield program. There are also a little over $16 million in FDOT SCRAP and SCOP grants funding the needed paving of county roads.
Finding and applying for grants is a large part of Williams’ job, but he must be selective in those he applied for. With the county’s tight budget, grants that require matching funds are usually ruled out, as are many that only pay for the project when it is complete, with the county having to pay the costs of the work up front and then wait for reimbursement.
Williams said he had a “full plate” right now keeping up with schedules, deadlines and other requirements and will not be spending so much time looking for more grants in the near future.
