Photo by Michele Newbanks Washington County Commissioner Charlie Schilling struggles to lock the window after Jamie Vuksic, social services director with the Washington County Department of Job and Family Services, pushes the window into place Thursday afternoon at 204 Davis Ave.

The Washington County Board of Commissioners tabled several agenda items Thursday, including two engineer contracts for renovations at 202 and 204 Davis Ave.

The two Davis Avenue properties currently house the OSU Extension office, Washington County Children Services, the Washington County Board of Elections and the Washington County Emergency Management Association.

At the start of the meeting, Commission Clerk Ben Cowdery said a resolution to issue around $500,000 in bonds for the Washington County Department of Job and Family Services facility renovations would be taken off the agenda.

Commissioner Charlie Schilling asked to table the engineer contracts as the bond resolution was removed from the agenda.

“These are contracts for engineering on the project. The (Washington County) Prosecutor’s Office needs to look over these contracts and approve them,” he said.

In the firm’s review of the buildings before writing up the contract it was noted there was “extensive damage” to the HVAC and the western side of 204 Davis Ave., Flite Freimann, JFS director, said.

He noted there were three options for how to move forward with the contract — proceed with it as planned and not address the structural issues, address the structural issues first and delay the renovations, or move forward and use county general funds.

“Which goes against basically everything we’ve told the public the last two years,” he said. “Our commitment has always been that we would do this without expending any county general revenue.”

Freimann said with the second option, they would expand the time length of the project, with structural issues fixed in 2021 and renovations delayed until 2022 or 2023.

When asked about an estimated cost to fix the structural issues, he said it would cost a “ballpark of $300,000.”

Out of the $500,000 for renovations, there are three things that need funding, Schilling said — windows on the west side of 204 Davis Ave., a new roof and a new HVAC system.

Freimann explained when Jamie Vuksic was executive director of Washington County Children Services, he had money each year for maintenance, but had to use it to take care of children.

“It’s not the board or the agency’s fault the maintenance wasn’t done,” he said. “They very wisely, I think, chose to take that maintenance money and use it for children.”

Vuksic, now JFS social services administrator, said the last three years, they would put in their budget for carpet or the HVAC system and they would receive the money. He said sometimes they would have to use a good portion of the money for placement costs.

“There’s no way I can buy carpet when there’s placement costs,” he explained, adding the funds are used to provide placement for any child put into Children Services’ custody.

Vuksic said for the longest time, $20 a day was paid to foster families per child, but for families who were taking care of children with mental or physical issues, it would cost well over $50 per day, sometimes into the hundreds of dollars.

In other commission news, a purchase request from the prosecutor’s office for 90 shelving units at a cost of approximately $7,000 was tabled until next week. Schilling said they would approve the request, but with the dollar amount involved, there were things that needed clarified.

Michele Newbanks can be reached at mnewbanks@mariettatimes.com.