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Local News

June 24, 2008

Insurance rates go up for county

Tire bids finally sifted through

John Walker

Property and liability insurance for Stephens County was approved Monday during the Stephens County commissioners meeting, and is $14,000 more expensive than it was last year.

Stephens County Clerk Jo Johnson said that the cheapest option will cost about $179,000 and be split among all the accounting funds.

“It won’t just come from the general fund,” Johnson said.

Commissioner Dee Bowen said that every year, the county will purchase property and liability insurance.

“For such things as the courthouse and the fairgrounds,” Bowen said.

In other news, the commissioners opened the last six-month bid Monday and will not have to start seeking six-month bids again until November or December.

They accepted all the bids from four vendors that were submitted for tires to be used on all their equipment.

“We want to ensure if one [vendor] is out that we can get it somewhere else,” Bowen said.

“We needed a tire source for tractors, trailers, graders, etc. There’s a bunch of different tire sizes we need.”

In total, there were about 60 or 80 different tire bids, Bowen said.

“There’s a bunch of them,” Commissioner Chairman Darrell Sparks said.

On the agenda:

n Beavers can be a problem for bridges, and the commissioners renewed their yearly agreement with the U.S. Department of Agriculture to help solve the problem.

When a beaver builds a dam under a bridge, it hinders the flow of water under the bridge, Bowen said.

“The excess water will spread around the bridge,” he said.

This is bad because the excess water on the sides of the bridge can create erosion, Bowen said.

“It’s still just $2,400 for us to use their services,” he said. “It hasn’t gone up in years.”

n Two more contracts for juvenile detention services were approved. One is with Pittsburg County Regional Juvenile Detention Center and the second is Woodward County Regional Detention Center.

Johnson said that there are several juvenile centers that the county contracts with each year.

“I think it’s eight or 10 or 12 facilities,” she said. “We’ve only really used two facilities before.

“But you never can have too many, just in case.”

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