Forsyth County previews Sept. 25 agenda, including firefighters, bond allocations and public‑health contracts

Forsyth County commissioners met in a Sept. 22 briefing to preview agenda items for the Sept. 25 meeting, including a budget amendment to fund five firefighter positions, adjustments to bond premium allocations for county and school capital projects, several public‑health contracts and grant‑funded infrastructure work.

Casey Balzer of the county budget office told commissioners the county approved funding for five additional firefighter positions for the Vienna Fire Department, and that the positions’ associated revenue — to be reimbursed from the Vienna tax district — had been overlooked in the FY26 ordinance. "Total cost of 5 firefighters comes to $334,486 at $66,897 each," Balzer said.

Deputy CFO Lee Plunkett outlined amendments to county and education capital project ordinances to allocate additional net bond premium from a 2025 general obligation bond sale. Plunkett said the sale generated $2,120,000 in premium and, after issuance costs, a net premium of about $1,767,000. When allocated at the board’s previously adopted percentages (county 65%, schools 30%, Forsyth Tech 5%), Plunkett reported county share roughly $1,148,000, the schools roughly $530,000 and Forsyth Tech about $88,000. Plunkett said schools requested that roughly $530,000 be added to an "Ashley" budget reserve; the county would also place about $89,741.99 in a county reserve pending identification of a CIP project.

Public Health Director Joshua Swift briefed a resolution to contract with Medics Staffing Solutions LLC for temporary clinical staff (physician assistants, nurse practitioners and phlebotomists) to cover provider shortages; the contract is capped at $75,000 and the county has used similar vendors in prior years. Assistant Director Nicole Priddy described a contract with Laboratory Corporation of America (LabCorp) to provide specimen testing the county lab cannot perform; staff solicited bids from LabCorp and Quest Diagnostics but only LabCorp responded.

Sharita Sutton, assistant public health director, asked the board to authorize county funding to sustain a community violence intervention program (the Cure Violence model) that began with ARPA dollars. Sutton said the county is currently the program’s sole funder after rollover city funding ended; the program term in the materials runs through June 30, 2026. Commissioners requested and staff said they will circulate the recently completed year‑2 evaluation to the board.

Other items previewed included: renewal of the library’s OverDrive/Libby contract for downloadable content; award of a contractor for STRAP‑funded inspections and repairs to Town Fork Creek watershed dams (STRAP grant $1,000,000; inspection/design not‑to‑exceed fee $203,989); acceptance of additional NCDOT and FAA grant funds and approval of a construction‑phase services task order with Avcon Engineers & Planners Inc. for airfield lighting and signage at Smith Reynolds Airport; a cloud hosting contract for the North Carolina Property Tax System (Farragut Systems); and a surplus property auction via Liquidity Services (GovDeals). The briefing closed after appointments, tax refund notices and routine reports were noted.

No final board decisions were made at the briefing; the items were forwarded for consideration at the Sept. 25 public meeting.