Coffee County approves permanent debris contracts, adopts disaster overtime pay rule

The Coffee County Board of Commissioners unanimously approved permanent contracts and policy changes intended to streamline the county’s response to Hurricane Helene recovery.

County Administrator Wesley Vickers told the board the county signed emergency agreements earlier with Southern Disaster Recovery, LLC and DebrisTech and conducted a formal request-for-proposals process. Southern Disaster Recovery received the top overall score (92.33) among five proposals and Vickers recommended a permanent contract with that firm; the board approved the award. For monitoring, Vickers said the county received a single proposal from DebrisTech, which scored 90.00; the board approved that contract as well.

Vickers also reviewed a Memorandum of Understanding between Coffee County and its municipalities to coordinate debris pickup and monitoring across the county. He said the MOU may create local cost-sharing obligations that could be offset by documented volunteer hours and that municipalities could reimburse the county for their share. The Board voted unanimously to approve the interlocal MOU.

Finally, commissioners adopted a resolution allowing overtime pay for exempt employees during a declared disaster for a finite period, which Vickers said would make those overtime hours eligible for FEMA reimbursement when qualifying conditions are met and would be incorporated into county personnel policy. The resolution passed on a unanimous vote.

The actions formalize agreements and policies administrators said are intended to improve the county’s ability to recover publicly owned property and to preserve federal reimbursement eligibility; the board did not set specific contract dollar totals in the meeting minutes.