Wanted: Court design-builder

Hancock County officials plan to pick by mid-April a firm to design and build a new Probate/Juvenile Court building, Commissioner Timothy Bechtol said Friday. The Hancock County Board of Commissioners is asking firms to submit their qualifications by March 16. The commissioners hope to interview at least three candidates in early April and then make a selection soon after that. "It is very important in this time frame, with construction costs all over the board, that we get a good, quality design-build contractor on board who will help us with pricing this very major project out to bid for the individual components," Bechtol said. Bechtol and Commissioner William Bateson spoke at the Hancock County Republican Party's First Friday Luncheon. Preliminary plans call for construction of a two-story, 25,000-square-foot building at the southwest corner of Main Cross and Cory streets for an estimated $9 million. It would be across the street from the Marathon Center for the Performing Arts. The Ohio 3rd District Court of Appeals, in Lima, has ordered the commissioners to provide suitable space for court operations by Dec. 31. The commissioners are hoping to get construction started this year and completed in 2023. The existing court building, at 308 Dorney Plaza, has been deemed too small by all officials. Separately, Bechtol expressed optimism that staffing at the Hancock County Sheriff's Office's will be boosted before long. A shortage of jail staff has forced the remaining officers to work a lot of overtime and also forced a reduction in the number of inmates at the jail. The county also has been sending more offenders to other county jails in recent months. Bechtol said the sheriff's office has been hit by a "perfect storm with the number of retirements that would happen sooner or later, anyway, and also some employees' turnover that went on to seek other employment." Recruiting and keeping jail staff can be a challenge. It's no gravy train. "I don't wish for anyone to have to spend a night in the jail, but in my time as a commissioner and different renovation projects we've done at the jail, the sheriff's office and the deputies that work in corrections try to make that as pleasant a situation as possible, but unfortunately inmates are not on the same track there," Bechtol said. "They're not there to make it a pleasant situation for the deputies. "So, as we keep everyone in our prayers I wish we would also keep our sheriff's deputies in our prayers because they have a hard job," he said. "They have a tough road to hoe." Getting the sheriff's office back to full strength will take time. "I know that they continue to look for replacement deputies, and there's a certain amount of time training. Obviously we can't just put a new person in there and expect them to pick up where someone who retired had left off," Bechtol said. "We're going to get back to where we need to be with employment numbers, but it's going to take some time to recover from some of those losses." Separately, Hancock County's sales tax revenue rose 12% last year to $17.8 million, Bateson said. Sales tax is the county's largest revenue source. Sales tax revenue rose by 20% from 2016 to 2021. Hancock County's 1% sales tax is the second lowest in the state, Bateson said. When consumers pay for goods in Hancock County, they pay a 6.75% sales tax. However, the county only receives 1%; the rest is collected by the state. Wilin: 419-427-8413