Martin County court approves FY2025 budget, awards road contracts and school demolition, authorizes pool negotiations

The Martin County court on May 30 approved its fiscal 2025 budget and a slate of procurement and personnel actions, including awarding a demolition contract for the old Grassy School, selecting vendors for gravel and asphalt, and authorizing staff to negotiate pool‑and‑splash‑pad proposals.

The court approved the second reading of the FY2025 budget after reviewing technical recommendations from the Department for Local Government. Speaker 1 said the budget largely mirrors last year’s plan but includes modest targeted pay increases for long‑service county road employees (general raises described in the meeting as about $1 per hour for staff with more than four years’ service and $0.50 per hour for recent hires). “We do have enough, we believe, to cover these, modest increases,” Speaker 1 said. The court approved the budget by voice vote.

On procurement, the court accepted the low bid from J & M Monitoring of Pikeville to remove asbestos and other hazardous materials at the old Grassy School; the bid was announced in the meeting as $102,225 and the court voted to accept the low bidder. An alternative bid from Aegis Environmental was presented at roughly $104,000 with an optional lead‑paint stabilization line item of about $17,000 if required.

The court opened and later resolved multiple road‑materials bids. Staff recommended comparing delivered and nondelivered unit prices rather than evaluating items individually; after staff review the court voted to take the lower product rate from Mountain Materials (Brushy Creek/Brushy Quarry) for gravel (meeting discussion cited a dense‑grade delivered price near $31.80 per ton) and to award asphalt work to BTI Contracting. Speaker 3 summarized pricing structures and tonnage thresholds that affect delivered cost and discount eligibility for larger spots.

On recreation, the court reviewed four pool/splash‑pad proposals, including an Aquatics Construction quote of about $161,234.84 and several turnkey or material/installation options from DWR Aquatics (options in the transcript ranged from roughly $440,900 for materials up to about $990,000 for a turnkey renovation). Speaker 1 recommended authorizing a county representative to negotiate with proposers to try to reduce costs; the court approved that authorization.

Other actions approved by the court included a second reading of a road ordinance clarifying authorized ATV operation on listed county roads (the ordinance, as presented and passed, applies to specified traveled roads rather than every county road), adoption of budget amendments to recognize unrealized receipts, adoption of the annual salary schedule, removal of “Combo Road” from the county road plan (after members noted it functions as a driveway), approval of personnel status changes (two part‑time hires at $11/hour), and approval of the claims and appropriation‑transfer lists.

Public comment included a presentation by Zach Wright (identified in the meeting packet as representing the rural secondary program/transportation office), who outlined the county’s allocation for the rural secondary program and named priority road segments for patching and canopy reduction work. The transcript contains numeric figures presented by Speaker 5 that were difficult to parse verbatim; those figures are reported below as presented in the meeting packet and discussion.

The meeting also addressed public‑safety conditions at Turkey Park, where repeated flooding, debris, and hanging electrical lines prompted the court to vote to close the park pending further action. "It's essentially become more of a liability," Speaker 1 said during that discussion.

Votes at a glance (all by voice vote as recorded in the meeting): minutes approved; J & M Monitoring low bid (Grassy School demolition) approved; authorization to negotiate pool proposals approved; second reading of road ordinance approved; FY2025 budget approved; budget amendments approved; salary schedule approved; removal of Combo Road approved; personnel changes approved; claims list and appropriation transfers approved; gravel contract awarded to Mountain Materials (Brushy/Brushy Quarry) for product rate; asphalt contract awarded to BTI Contracting; motion to close Turkey Park approved.

The court adjourned after opening the floor for magistrates and public comment; Speaker 5 concluded the rural‑secondary presentation with recommended project priorities for the county.