The commission approved air conditioning for the museum a few months ago and initially decided to bid the project.
During the Monday, June 25 work session of the commission, however, Cherokee County Administrator Tim Burgess explained that the county could save considerable time and expense by allowing Vaughn, who has done work for the county in the past, to handle the project.
The project falls under the $50,000 bid law for capital building projects, Burgess said, and the county would not have to be concerned with drawing up specs and other requirements for bidding the project.
“First of all let me say it is hot and they do have a problem in the museum,” said Burgess.
“Here is the issue,” said Burgess. “We’ve got a substantial amount of air conditioning we need to put in at the museum. We had a quote from an individual (Vaughn) that is doing our air conditioning work now. The quote was under the bid limit. My concern is if we let it out to bid, we have specifications that need to be written. If we don’t do that, 15 people will present us a bid and we will have 15 different ideas on what we need to do. I think it is our job to set the standards of what we need to do, decisions that have to be made, the amount of duct work, type of duct work, insulation, all these things need to be worked out, based on square footages.”
“That way it is fair to everyone who is bidding and they are all bidding on the same thing,” said Burgess. “If we do get 10 or 15 different ideas, it will come back to the commission and the commission will have to decide whether to take this bid, do that work, this bid and do that work.”
“I am seeing some problems doing the bid unless we get a mechanical engineer to draw us the specs,” said Burgess. “To me that is the only fair way it will be done. That will cost us money to do.”
“The simplest way is just to go ahead and let the person doing our air conditioning work do the project and it will be done a lot quicker,” said Burgess. “You also have a performance bond, insurance and all those things required from a bid perspective.”
“I will add that they (Vaughn) have done a good job,” said Burgess. “We have had good service.”
“I will do whatever you want, but I think we are going to have to have somebody,” said Burgess. “You are going to have to make a decision.”
Burgess praised Curator David Crum and staff at the museum for the excellent job they have done compiling and organizing historical documents which need to be protected. He also noted that working conditions are virtually impossible in the building, particularly in the upstairs portion, with temperatures as they have been in the past few days.
The commission agreed to allow Vaughn Heating and Cooling to proceed with the project.
On another financial matter, the commission agreed to change the biweekly payroll date for county employees from Friday to Thursday.
“Since I have been with county and years before that, our bi-weekly payroll has always been on Friday,” Burgess explained during the work session prior to the regular session. “Back in the old days, and still today, we will hand out those checks Thursday afternoon after 2 p.m. That is because the highway department does not work Friday. An animal has come up called modern technology.”
“Now you can take your check to the bank, deposit it and before the day is over that check has cleared our account,” said Burgess. “That is causing a problem for us in our payroll. Our checks are dated on Friday and we’ve got checks clearing on Thursday night. That is a compliance issue and that is a bookkeeping issue.”
The county, Burgess said, had the option of leaving the payroll date on Friday and requiring employees to wait until Friday to pick up their checks or changing the date to Thursday and giving the checks out late Thursday evening as is done at the present time.
The council agreed to change the date to Thursday.
“It is just a matter of putting a different day on the check,” said Burgess.
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