From left, Commissioners James Booth and Kevin Ritter and Washington County Fiscal Manager Ben Cowdery review information about the Healthy Aging Grant and the programs that will receive funds during the commission meeting Thursday. The county will award grant funds for a digital literacy program and fraud classes for seniors and for a program to help fund repairs to seniors’ houses.

Washington County Commissioners discussed how funds from a Healthy Aging grant through the state will be used to assist seniors Thursday.

Commissioner James Booth said they will give approximately $48,000 each to Washington-Morgan Community Action, a nonprofit that helps underserved individuals and their families in Washington and Morgan counties, and the O’Neill Center, which is a senior center.

Digital literacy and senior fraud programs will be offered through classes, according to Booth.

The other part of the grant funds, approximately $96,000, will be given to the Buckeye Hills Regional Council to administer. The commissioners will ask each township to provide the name of one senior that needs help with small household repairs, such as handrails and ramps. There would be about $4,500 per household.

Washington County Jobs and Family Services Director Flite Freimann thanked the commissioners for including the people they did in the decision-making process for what agencies would get the grant money.

“This is a tribute to the collaborative nature of how you guys operate that everybody got to come together and the actual experts, the folks who are on the ground, working with seniors every day, that’s where these suggestions came from,” Freimann said.

According to Booth, the funds need to be spent by September so the money will be awarded in about a month or so.

“There will be a lot of seniors being helped out very, very quickly, which is our goal, and it will be a lasting difference,” Booth said.

In other business, the commissioners:

Approved paying bills totalling $799,039.36.

Approved a resolution to create a new fund for the H2OHIO Grant. The Ohio Department of Natural Resources will provide $410,000 to restore approximately 1.6 acres of wetland habitat and create approximately 5.65 acres of native riparian buffer along County Home Creek, according to information included with the meeting agenda.

Approved a request by Washington County Public Transit to dispose of two Community Action Bus Line (CABL) buses. One will be donated to the Washington County Home and one will be auctioned.

Agreed to table discussing a proposal by Burgess & Niple to provide professional services associated with the design of the County Home Creek Restoration project because the proposal needs to be reviewed by Washington County Prosecutor Nicole Coil.

Approved three change orders for the Devola Sewer project, one for $8,383.57 for more sewer tanks, one for $2,724.07 for an isolation valve and one for $7,806.25 for a valve for each air release assembly, of which there are 25.

Approved paying a pump station project invoice for $480,850 to Veregy.

Michelle Dillon can be reached at mdillon@newsandsentinel.com