Clay County commissioners approve IT firewall purchase, road contract voucher and law‑enforcement feasibility study

Clay County commissioners on May 5 approved a series of routine and capital items, including a purchase of replacement firewall hardware, final payment on a road‑overlay contract and a feasibility study for the county law enforcement center.

IT staff requested replacement firewalls to handle increased bandwidth and to better segment county and criminal‑justice traffic. The meeting record lists three vendor quotes; the lowest quote was presented from High Point Networks and is shown in the transcript as $93,37 (the meeting transcript formatting for the amount is incomplete). Commissioners approved proceeding with the lowest quoted option by voice vote.

Public works staff presented the final contract voucher for the Milan overlay (SAP 014‑634‑32) performed by Central Specialties. Staff said the project bid and final voucher were close to one another; the transcript records values in the 1.846 million range (transcript numeric formatting was inconsistent). The board approved the final contract voucher by motion.

County Administrator Steve Larson briefed the board on a proposed feasibility study to evaluate options for expanding or reconfiguring the Clay County Law Enforcement Center; staff said the facility was originally constructed with an option to expand roughly 15,000 square feet. The board approved the feasibility study and authorized $10,000 to fund the study from county reserves.

Commissioners asked about firewall lifespan (staff noted typical five‑year service life), how increased cloud and state traffic contributed to slowness in courtrooms and other county systems, and how law‑enforcement building changes could affect debt service and the contract with the city of Morehead. No recorded roll‑call tallies were included in the transcript; approvals were recorded by voice vote.