Fall Town Hall

 

 

By Greg Wells

CCN—Editor

 

 

Cumberland County Judge-Executive Luke King received several questions from the audience in an open-format Q&A event last Thursday. Not all of them were actually something he could deal with.

There were several questions about improving Cumberland County Hospital, to which his answers basically boiled down to: the county will help the hospital in any way it can to move forward.

He joked at one point that he should have brought along a Nikirk to this meeting. The hospital is a nonprofit entity, not under the purview of the Cumberland County Fiscal Court.

The questions were about adding specialists and a trauma center to the hospital, though when questioned after the meeting both individuals said they understood that rural hospitals across the country are under threat of closure due to changes in federal healthcare funding.

When the question of FEMA and the county’s coffers came, the explanation was deep and called into question the actions of the previous administration.

King said there was a reason he always wants a bid process anytime major roadwork is done.

“A bid is a bid is a bid,” King said. “You know what the price is.”

He said that was not how the emergency roadwork under FEMA had been carried out in years past.

They would get an estimate and send that to FEMA, King said. The problem, he explained, came when either the estimate was inaccurate, or something different was done. He added that the passage of months or even years between the estimate and the work beginning drastically altered the cost because of inflation.

He gave a couple of examples: repairs on Dutch Creek were estimated at $35,000, but work completed came to over $60,000; estimates on Sulphur Creek were $50,000, but the cost of the work came to over $176,000.

King said the difference, plus the percentage match for the FEMA money, was the responsibility of the county.

Not only that, but King also said that the county had requested both FEMA, federal money, and state emergency funds for the same project, and not just once.

“You cannot get money from the state and from the federal government on the same disaster project,” King explained.

He said that financially, this is not a good situation. “We have to eat it and it tastes terrible.”

He added that there are still fires they are working to put out, even after having written a $100,000 check to pay back money the county should not have received.

“That is money we could’ve used for other things,” King said.

 

 

He then added that a 2-year contract was awarded to a consulting firm 8 or 9 days before the election.

“We had to live with that contract for those two years,” King said.

He next said that state auditors are looking at these issues, including the fact that the previous County Judge-Executive, John Phelps, went to work for that consulting firm after losing the election.

He added that, state and federal eyes are on the county, and that they must cross every “t” and dot every “i.”

Of the $4 million King said a FEMA sent the county, 3 million of those dollars are being looked at closely.

Moving on to happier topics, King said the county has expanded Dumpster Days, more than doubling the amount of time people in the county have to get rid of refuse.

He went on to praise the youth of the county for their participation in county government.

King added that he would be working on a more structured schedule for office availability, but that he was not about showing out and dropping names. He is about the work and getting things done.

When questioned about school taxes, they explained that the county has no input on that.

“If you really look at your tax bill, you will see we, (county government), are the second smallest part of that bill,” King said.

King said that despite the money issues around previous emergency declarations, the fiscal court has reduced county government debt by $600,000. He added that the court has put on record that they will initiate a tax cut when county development debt reaches $250,000. He said another cut was committed to when the county has $250,000 in a rainy-day fund, with no debt.

King concluded the meeting by saying, “If you continue to show up, I’ll continue to be here.”