Mutual aid agreement for water services approved
The Shelby County Commission approved a resolution supporting ACT 2020-93 allowing for mutual aid and support for water and other utility services throughout the county.
County Manager Chad Scroggins said that this would allow municipalities or other board partners that have water and sewer services in Shelby County to work directly with each other in the event of an emergency, and costs could be shared or repaid back from one to the other.
“This is a mutual aid agreement, it’s similar to what we do to fire services,” Scroggins said.
“The legislative delegation in Shelby County supported and sponsored this, and the legislature passed this for Shelby County only. The work done by [County attorney] Butch Ellis and [water services manager] Michael Cain helped to get this put together and it has been significant.”
Ellis said that Cain has already adapted it for all the other utilities in the county so they can pass similar resolutions urging voters to vote yes on the amendment,
It is not so much about giving aid, but being able to get into contracts. The structure put in place has protocol for emergency calls for help and has a contract for reimbursement.
“It’s a pretty efficient operation that has finally come to fruition,” Ellis said.
Scroggins said the EPA is recommending this type system throughout the United States, some of the different areas have a little bit of friction. He said the good thing is, Shelby County started doing training amongst all of the water services and utilities within the county and a meeting has already taken place that had representatives from the 14 water service systems and 17 sewer/water systems.
During the county managers report, Scroggins recognized that the M4A (Middle Alabama Area Agency on Aging) received a national level achievement award from the dementia training program. The program allows them to have information on hand and available for people with family first responders why the sheriff's office allows it to get back to family quicker. A virtual ceremony was held on Sept. 22.
Sheriff John Samaniego said that they trained their department on how to deal with dementia patients, and Shelby County was the first sheriff's office in the state to be dementia friendly.
During the financial review, Scroggins said that while things are holding tight, the top 10 sales tax revenue producers have changed and that online sales tax has been very strong.
CFO Cheryl Naugher said that sales for August 2019 and this year are still in the positive and heading in the right directions. Rental tax had a slight increase from prior year of $80,000 but is still behind year to date actuals. Lodging is still 22% under budget and gas tax percentages were up a little, right at 6% under budget for the year.
In his county engineer’s report, Randy Cole said a vacation and acceptance of right of way has taken place at the intersection realignment of County Roads 12 and 22. The county also received a $1.1 million grant from the state to do a roundabout at the Shelby County Airport. That project is currently being advertised for bid.
A resolution was passed for grant funds for the Shelby County airport to add another hangar. Scroggins said they will be utilizing FAA funds to add hangar storage. The FAA will pay 90%, and the state and county will each pay 5% of the cost.
The commission also approved a resolution declaring Sept. 28 as Family Day and Sept. 27-Oct. 3 as Family Week.
The next commission meeting will be held at 6 p.m. Oct. 12 at the Shelby County Administration Building in Columbiana.