County Unsure About Paying For Work It Didn’t Approve

Stephens County Commissioners are still mulling over whether to pay for an unauthorized repair of a vehicle.

On Tuesday, the county commission considered a request for payment from Yancey Brothers Company for a transmission rebuild on the county’s spreader truck in the amount of about $11,460.

County Administrator Phyllis Ayers said the truck had problems and was sent off to be looked at.

“We only have one spreader truck,” said Ayers. “They do not even make it anymore. It is a 2014 model, about 26,000 miles on it, should not be having this much trouble. I have even talked to other trucking industries that are pretty surprised that we have had this much trouble with this vehicle. However, because it is the only one we had, when we sent it off, they did not give us a quote, they just went ahead and repaired it.”

Ayers said that there was never any communication from the company to the county with a quote or any approval by the county for the company to fix the truck.

She went on to say the county has now found out that the truck needs even more repairs in the amount of about another $11,000 and explains that the county would not sink that much money into the truck.

Stephens County Commission Chair Dennis Bell said he does not want to pay for work that was not requested by the county.

“You just cannot get a piece of equipment and fix it without getting approval for it and expect people to pay for it,” said Bell. “I am just dead against paying for something that did not get approval on it.”

County Commissioner Dean Scarborough suggested meeting with the company to try to come up with some sort of compromise.

Ayers said talks along those lines have taken place, but nothing was agreed upon.

Stephens County Attorney Brian Ranck told commissioners they could postpone the matter to allow more time for staff to investigate different options and commissioners unanimously voted to postpone a decision on whether to pay the invoice to allow staff to do that.

Meanwhile, county commissioners did approve on Tuesday a bid from Peach State Ambulance in the amount of $129,568 for a remounted ambulance.

The funds to pay for that ambulance are coming out of SPLOST VI.