Burke County commissioners on Monday reviewed multiple consent- and decision-agenda items, including budget amendments that would allocate state grant and special-adoption funds, transfer capital reserves to replace county vehicles, authorize automated surplus-property sales and add medical support to the county’s opioid project.

County manager Brian Manning described budget amendment number 6 as a $136,000 request to budget two funding sources: a $20,000 grant from the North Carolina Department of Military and Veteran Affairs to support local veteran services, and roughly $116,600 from state special-adoption funds to cover outside counsel, travel to a national adoption-legal conference, training supplies and advertising/storage costs.

"This $20,000 is for local veteran services," Manning said, and he added the special-adoption funds will pay for outside counsel where in-house attorneys have conflicts and for related training and travel.

Manning also presented budget amendment number 7 to accelerate replacement of county vehicles after recent breakdowns and a crash. He said the county seeks to budget $37,400 in insurance proceeds for a crashed vehicle and transfer $168,000 from unreserved capital to expedite purchases across departments (approximately $80,000 for EMS, $70,000 for the fire marshal’s office and $55,400 for animal services).

The manager described a resolution to allow staff to declare real property surplus and post it on GovDeals, an online auction platform, to streamline dispositions and reduce advertising costs; individual sales would return to the board for final approval after the bidding period and any reserve requirements are met.

Katie Samuels, opioid settlement coordinator, briefed the board on a resolution to spend about $8,100 to add Dr. Thomas Meek, an osteopathic addiction-medicine specialist, as an assistant medical director for the opioid project team.

Routine appointments and reappointments across boards were previewed by the clerk, including tourism-development authority seats and multiple advisory-board terms; the board also reviewed options to fill vacancies on the board of adjustment and the board of equalization and review.

On recorded votes, Commissioner Burns moved to accept the DSS departmental report; the board approved that motion 5–0. Commissioners also moved to examine and approve the county public-officials bonds and recorded the vote in the affirmative.

What’s next: Many of these items remain on the consent or decision agenda and are scheduled for formal action at the regular Dec. 15 meeting. Staff will return with RFQ materials on foster-care procurement if the board directs proceeding at that meeting.

Numbers, authorities and sources: Manning cited session law "2023 dash 134" when summarizing the $20,000 veteran-services grant and referenced county procedural statutes as "1 60 a" and "1 53 a" when describing surplus-property and ordinance hearing procedures.