Jones County commissioners approve project list, direct intergovernmental agreement with city

Jones County commissioners on July 21 approved a prioritized list of capital projects and voted to include those projects in an intergovernmental agreement with the City of Gray as part of planning for a proposed sales-tax referendum ("splash"). The board directed staff to take the list to the county attorney to draft the intergovernmental agreement for formal approval at a future meeting.

The decision matters because the project list will form the basis for ballot language and bonding decisions tied to the county's proposed special-purpose local option sales tax (referred to in the meeting as "splash"). Commissioners debated which items to fund outright, which to bond, and which to treat as debt-service-only to preserve capacity for other priorities.

Commissioners and staff removed two items they said already had separate funding or prior agreement: a $5 million allocation intended for the development authority (to be funded from excess collections) and the courthouse project, which county leaders want to treat as a separate level-1 priority rather than include in the 1-to-10 ranking used for other projects. The meeting record shows the courthouse had a pre-COVID space-needs estimate of $10 million to $12 million; staff…