Lowndes County Sheriff’s Office will start applying for a $58,000 federal grant to install computers in police vehicles for report filing, following the board of supervisors’ unanimous vote to approve the application Monday morning.
The grant, dubbed “the Coronavirus Emergency Supplemental Funding Grant,” is set up by the Bureau of Justice Assistance to help with law enforcement amid the pandemic, said Sheriff Eddie Hawkins. The county doesn’t have to spend any money to match the grant, he said.
The funding, if approved, would help pay toward Hawkins’ plan to install computers inside investigators’ vehicles, patrol vehicles and special units – 30 in total — which would allow them to file reports directly from the field, Hawkins said. The project was one of his long-term goals when he took office in January, The Dispatch reported. The entire project is expected to cost $232,000.
None of the police vehicles is equipped with a computer, and officers have to drive back to the department to sit down and write up reports. The computers would save the county roughly $50,000 a year on the “wear-and-tear” of the vehicles of traveling the distance, as well as man hours, Hawkins said.
“It keeps the deputies in the field where they can write reports from Caledonia, New Hope, across the river,” he said. “They can respond quickly to the calls and cut down on the gas we are burning driving back and forth.”
The cost of the annual upgrade of the system could be covered by inmates who pay to communicate with their loved ones through a kiosk machine at the jail, Hawkins said at the meeting. The county receives approximately $45,000 to $50,000 each year from that revenue.
“Let the inmates pay for the upgrades of our technology of our equipment,” he said.
Aside from the $58,000 grant, the department now has roughly $17,000 in the bank from the state Department of Public Safety’s Wireless Commission. To completely fund the project, Hawkins asked the county to amend the budget for this fiscal year for about $157,000. But the supervisors rejected his request.
District 5 Supervisor Leroy Brooks said he fully supports LCSO, but the uncertainty of the pandemic worries him as well.
“We don’t know where we are going with this pandemic,” he said. “We need to tread lightly.”
Brooks said the decision to fund the project could be made step by step.
“Once the grant is approved, then let’s talk about amending the budget,” he said. “That’s quite a bit of money.”
Board President Harry Sanders echoed Brooks’ point during the meeting and said the board will reconsider covering the rest of the cost if the grant is approved.
In other business, the county also awarded bids to several companies for the upcoming road plan, which covers 43 roads across the county.
APAC-Mississippi, an asphalt paving company, will be responsible for the overlay of roads that need paving, said Purchasing Clerk Pat Tuggle. The company set the price of asphalt at $95 a ton, she said.
Kimes and Stone, a Mississippi construction company, will be paid $424,104 for resurfacing and J.C. Cheeks Contractors, another company specializing in road construction, will be responsible for road striping at a price of $44,263.
County supervisors also gave the green light to Emergency Services Director Cindy Lawrence to purchase three 6-by-12-foot storm shelters at $25,000 for road department employees and first responders in districts 1, 2 and 4. Road department locations in those districts, where workers couldn’t take shelter in threatening storms, will be furnished with the new shelters.
Yue Stella Yu was previously a reporter for The Dispatch.
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