Warren County supervisors are expected Feb. 2 to approve advertisements for an architect and a grant administrator in anticipation of relocating handicap accessibility to the Warren County Courthouse and improving courthouse security.

The supervisors discussed both moves at a Monday work session. The discussion followed a presentation on security at the board’s Thursday meeting with Steve Markert, the marshal in charge of security at the Carroll Gartin Justice building in Jackson, which houses the state Supreme Court and Court of Appeals.

County administrator John Smith said after the Monday meeting that security recommendations by both Markert and Warren County Sheriff Martin Pace include closing off the north and south entrances to the courthouse basement. The north entrance, Smith said, is where the courthouse’s handicap ramp is located.

“If we have to relocate it, it will have to be moved behind the courthouse and come off the parking lot,” he said. He said the board intends to seek a Community Development Public Facilities Block grant to help fund the project.

During the work session, District 5 Supervisor Richard George said the board had two issues to consider with the building. “First, there’s the doors in the basement, then there’s the handicap ramp. Can we deal with both?” he asked.

“How do you feel with the money flow, John?’ he asked Smith. Smith said he was comfortable with the county’s finances.

District 3 Supervisor Charles Selmon gave another concern, pointing out that the board is restricted by state law on what in can spend in the final six months of its term in an election year, “especially in reference to contracts, because in the last six months of an election, you can’t do too much. We’re kind of limited.”

“I’ll have to check with the state,” Smith said, “(but) I’ve always been taught that even though they tell you the last six months, (if) you make a factual determination, say, you want to improve the handicap accessibility and relocate, and at the same time you’re also adding to the courthouse security, and the facts and determination are spread on your minutes that that is in the best interest of Warren County, you can do it.”

“We’re in a catch-22 situation right now,” Selmon said. “We realize we have to do something as related to courthouse security. My objective here, basically, is if there’s money available, even if it requires a match, we need to just grab everything we can grab.”

He said the board needs to move forward “and find out what kind of money’s out there and go with it.”

In another matter, the board will renew discussions on a new county jail. The issue of a new jail resurfaced when District 2 Supervisor William Banks brought up the jail during a discussion over the board members’ involvement on city committees discussing a proposed sports complex.

Board President Bill Lauderdale, District 4 Supervisor John Arnold and Smith were appointed by the board to serve on the site selection and planning and feasibility, finance and marketing committees for the sports complex.

“We’ve got more information on the jail than we have on that sports complex,” George said. “We don’t know how they’re going to finance it, where it’s going to be, or how much it will cost to maintain. The only thing holding us up on the jail is the site.”

Smith said after the meeting discussions on a new jail tapered off after 2008 when the county and the nation’s economic situation began dropping.

A committee of public officials, clerks in the judicial system and others met sporadically over the next three years after the study recommended the county build a jail big enough to house 350 inmates. The informal group’s chairman, then-District 1 Supervisor David McDonald, lost re-election and the meetings stopped.

“In 2010, when we commissioned and received that (jail) study and the figures thereof, our assessed valuation was one thing,” he said. “Today, that assessed valuation is $5 million less money than it was then. That ought to pretty much tell you what our economic situation has been. We have had no growth in our rolls.”

He reminded the board the county will have to increase property taxes to build the jail, adding the bonds used to build the new facility would be retired in 20 years.

The sports complex, he said, would be funded by a sales tax, because it is an effort to raise revenue.

“An ad valorem effort can support — I don’t think the taxpayers here can stand to pay through ad valorem — both of them.”

Smith pointed out the board had three issues to consider: the jail, sports complex and a new communications system.

“We have to decide which is more critical,” George said. “Thugs running loose or kids playing ball?”

Smith said he would get the information on the jail ready for the next informal meeting.