Facilities director reports maintenance backlog, cemetery repairs and a three-year gas contract saving $6,600 annually

Belknap County’s facilities director provided a departmental update to the Board of Commissioners describing high maintenance spending, deferred repairs at the jail, cemetery restoration work and a new natural-gas contract.

The director said the department’s 2025 budget is about 80% expended and noted one vacancy posted for recruitment. He detailed recent expensive repairs: replacing a toilet (including demolition and asbestos abatement) cost about $8,800; sending five locks for refurbishment cost approximately $4,043, with replacement of each unit estimated at $2,921. He said invasive plumbing repairs embedded in masonry have required jackhammer work because the jail cannot relocate inmates during downtime.

The director reported that a newly installed sewage grinder (referred to colloquially as the “muffin monster”) is operating properly. Seasonal preventative maintenance for county heating systems was scheduled for the week of the meeting. He said inmate work crews completed landscaping and parking-lot projects and that cemetery volunteers helped clean headstones; the director said 41 cemetery stones remain broken or snapped at the base and that replacement (included in the 2026 budget request) would be cheaper than repair.

On utilities, the director said he secured a three-year fixed natural-gas contract at $6.48 per dekatherm, down from the $7.04 per dekatherm the county had been paying, which he projected would save about $6,600 annually if usage remains the same. Courthouse lease negotiations with the state AOC remain pending, he said.

Commissioners asked follow-up questions about the gas contract and suggested the paper run a before-and-after feature about cemetery work. The board did not take formal action on facilities items at the meeting.