County road projects put on hold
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The funds amount to almost $650,000, including $518,000 from state-aid and $129,000 of matching funds from the county.
The paving projects the funding was originally slated for, including Ivy Bluff Road and various safety projects, have remained uncompleted because Road Superintendent Harold Glenn has reservations about the current bid holder for county paving. The Hillis Group, operated by Stan Hillis, was the low bidder in 2001 and was awarded the county paving work for that year, which ran from Nov. 1, 2001 to Oct. 31, 2002.
No state-aid paving projects were completed during this period, which has caused concern.
“What we’re concerned about,” Commissioner Gary Prater said, “is some of this money is getting old. Some of this money is as much as 13, 14, 15 months old.
“Our paving projects were pretty much put on hold last year on account of the bid process,” Prater continued. “There was a lot of roads that should have been paved that didn’t get paved. There was a lot of safety projects that didn’t get done, that should have been done.”
Prater was most concerned with the safety projects, noting he had consulted County Attorney Larry Stanley who indicated the county could possibly be liable if an accident occurred on one of these roads since money was available.
“I want to, some way or other, get this committee to recommend to the superintendent of the roads to let the contractor that was awarded the bids to start paving,” Prater said.
Prater had documents provided from the records of Director of Accounts Linda Hillis, who it should be noted is not related to Stan Hillis of the Hillis group, that showed a wide disparity of work awarded depending on who won the bid in a particular year.
In 1996-97, when APAC-Inc. won the bid, $218,950 in state-aid work was done. In 1997-98 when Custom Construction had the bid, no money was spent on state-aid work. In the three years from Nov. 1, 1998 through Oct. 1, 2001 when APAC-Inc. won the bid all three years, a total of $499,067 of state-aid work was done. In 2001-02, when the Hillis Group was awarded the bid, again no state-aid work was done.
This disparity led Budget and Finance Committee member Michael Martin to question assistant superintendent Levie Glenn, who attended the meeting to represent his father, road superintendent Harold Glenn, about the difference.
“Every time we had some state-aid money, APAC paved the roads. Custom didn’t get any, Hillis didn’t get any,” Martin said. “What’s the reason?”
Commissioner Prater was even more direct.
“Levie, can you explain to us why you don’t want to use the Hillis Group,” Prater asked.
“The superintendent tries to spend the money the best way that he can and gets the most for his money,” Glenn said. “In the past year the paving has been unsatisfactory to him on material and workmanship. That’s the reason maybe he didn’t do more and that’s the reason the purchasing committee was aware of it ahead of time.
“Did it not meet specs?” Prater asked.
“Well, it depends on what you call specs I guess,” Glenn answered.
Prater then asked the director of accounts, Linda Hillis, if the small amount of non-state-aid road work the Hillis Group had been allowed to do for the county had been within specifications according to state inspectors.
“The testing reports that we got, they did meet specs,” Hillis said.
And according to Prater, the Hillis Group has also done various projects locally for the state on state roads, and in other counties, and has had no problems or suffered any penalties.
The Hillis Group was also awarded the county paving work when he again submitted the low bid in November of 2002, which would generally run for a year, from November to October of the next year.
Even so, Glenn said the problem was not some kind of personal vendetta.
“He’s got nothing against the contractor,” Glenn said. “He just wants good mix.”
Meanwhile, Prater says the problem is that if the $650,000 in state-aid money is still unused by July 1, the state may not allocate any more state-aid money to the county this year since the money already there is not being utilized.
“We just want to get the work done,” Prater said, “and not lose any of our state-aid money.”
Ready and waiting
Warren County has money earmarked and waiting for road construction:
State funds: $518,795
County funds: $129,494
Total: $648,494
• A 5 percent engineering fee must be subtracted from the total