Union County Sole Commissioner Harold Collins approved a pair of large capital project expenses in his January regular meeting, including a contract award notice for $475,000 to replace the aging roof on the Union County Courthouse.
Nine bids came back on the project – none of them local to Union County – with Dusty Greer Commercial Roofing being awarded the contract. The Winder-based company submitted one of the lower bids and scored highest among the metrics used to select a bidder.
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The contract will include asbestos removal, which was discovered in the roof lining of the original part of the courthouse, with isolated spots of asbestos found in the lining that covers the courthouse expansion area that was constructed years ago.
Because the roof is flat, the company will have to complete the job in sections, pulling off small areas of old roof to re-roof the same day. The entire project is expected to take about three weeks to finish, weather pending, County Manager Tony Hughes said.
The construction timeline will be more defined soon, Hughes added.
Collins also accepted a $418,766 contract with Square Deal Enterprises Inc. to replace the Canada Creek Bridge in Suches, with old bridge demolition expected to begin soon. The new bridge should be fully installed by July 2, and residents will be using a temporary bridge in the meantime.
Bids for this project ranged widely, up to $1.5 million, with Square Deal coming in on the lower end. The White County-based company is the same outfit that replaced the bridge at Fisher Field Road in 2024.
Both the bridge and roof replacement projects will be paid for using Special Purpose Local Option Sales Tax proceeds.
The commissioner accepted multiple telecommunication agreements for the new Union County E-911 Center that is being built on Shoe Factory Road. Construction continues apace with a current completion estimate of July.
Once construction wraps up, E-911 will test the equipment before officially switching all communications over from the old nursing home location on Hunt-Martin Street, also expected in July.
Among other business, Collins accepted an agreement with Rushton & Company to audit the Union County financial statements for Fiscal Year 2025.
The agreement will not exceed $75,000 for the Financial Statement Audit, plus an additional $8,000 for a “Single Audit” related to the county’s use of more than $750,000 of federal funds. The Single Audit is required “for an accurate accounting of federal funds,” Collins said.
In his Commissioner’s Comments, Collins introduced new county employee Megan Kimsey to meeting attendees. She has joined the Commissioner’s Office as an executive assistant to County Clerk Jennifer Mahan and will be the new Short-Term Rental Enforcement Officer.
Kimsey is known in the community as a co-owner of Grandaddy Mimm’s Distilling Co. and serves on the Blairsville Downtown Development Authority Board.
Collins thanked outgoing Short-Term Rental Enforcement Officer Laura Jenkins, who left the position on Jan. 31.
After adjourning the meeting, Collins announced that he had pulled records pertaining to fuel usage for 2024 and 2025. The records showed that the county used 2,524 fewer gallons of gas last year, during his first year in office, than in 2024 – a savings of more than $80,000.
The commissioner reiterated that he does not drive a county vehicle, which directly contributed to that savings, and he said he has been asking county employees to be more responsible in terms of fuel consumption.
“So, I want to thank all the personnel in the county that pitched in to try to save the taxpayer money,” Collins said.
During Q&A, a resident asked about an apparent $20 million difference in SPLOST V project costs as reported in the FY24 county audit versus the estimated total published in the legal organ December 2025, making for a very large “delta” over a single year.
To get an answer to his question, the resident was advised to make an appointment to speak with Pam Hawkins, who oversees SPLOST projects for the Commissioner’s Office.
The newspaper contacted Hawkins after the meeting, who said she had called the county auditors “to ask why the audit report differs in the current estimated cost column total by that much money with what we report in the North Georgia News in our required yearly report.”
“I was told that the (Georgia) Department of Audits and Accounts’ instructions for the audit report are different than what the county year-end report guidelines are,” Hawkins said. “That is one reason why there are always going to be differences in those two reports.”
