County approves moving forward with multiple revenue projects

Story by Shannon Taylor Senior Investigative Reporter

The Financial Management Committee met Jan. 3 to discuss and move forward with multiple revenue projects for the county.

The first, a CDL training center, would help locals not have to travel over an hour away to get their CDL license and it would also bring in customers from surrounding counties.

Director of Schools Randy Frazier spoke on the CDL project stating that, “We have been a testing site for several years there’s a $250.00 license fee due every January and we have gone ahead as a school system and paid that, so we’re ready for next year.”

Frazier further noted that he spoke with someone at the State who has a training program for a testing director and that training would be for late April or early May and they have saved a spot for Weakley County.  Moving forward the position would need to be posted and applications taken to hire someone and then they could be accepted into the training, which is a free two-week training program. The only expense would be for a hotel stay and travel expenses due to the training being in Nashville.

Frazier said, “I see this as being revenue neutral and maybe even bringing in a profit for the County.”

A motion was made to open up that department for a CDL testing center and posting a position—both of which passed unanimously to move forward and get the position posted so that someone could be hired by March.

The second project, a passport and fingerprinting facility, would also help Weakley Countians not have to travel an hour away for a fingerprinting facility as well as bringing in revenue.

The fingerprinting would bring in $3 per person and passports would bring in $35 per person in revenue for the county.

For fingerprinting there would be no start-up costs, flexible days and hours and Giles County reported an average revenue of $600 a month according to the research secretary Lauren Rush did.

For passports, there would be no start-up costs, flexible hours and days, no special equipment needs, and Rush reported other counties that do passports receiving between $1,000 and $10,000 a month in revenue.

A motion was made to pursue both fingerprinting and passports, which passed unanimously.

The third, a fuel system project, could potentially turn into revenue for the county. Frazier said, “We have a fuel management system that we’ve been overseeing as the school department for the entire county for several years. Our vendor that we use has been out of Florida and for the past several years they have quit servicing any equipment so when something happens, we have to try to figure out how to service it and a lot of times it’s above our skill level to take care of that.”

Frazier said that they pay around $8,000 a year just for the software fee to this company. Frazier wanted the committee to approve them pursuing obtaining a different vendor and is meeting with someone Thursday, but their license with the other software company has to be renewed by the end of January so Frazier stated that they would need to move quick.

If the county was able to get other agencies to use their services instead of going elsewhere it could, potentially, bring in revenue for the county.

A motion was made to pursue the county having their own fuel service and change vendors quickly which passed unanimously.

Allison Whitledge was reappointed as the county attorney.

The County Commission meets on Jan. 17 at 5 p.m. at the County Courthouse.