WARREN — Four county buildings still will get American Rescue Plan Act funds after the Trumbull County commissioners voted to rescind, then reapprove, funding that was approved last week in the hopes of avoiding a mistake on the county audit.

A resolution adopted March 30, raised the county’s micro-purchase threshold to $50,000, allowing commissioners to make most ARP purchases up to that amount without going through the competitive bidding process, but quotes still need to be obtained. The competitive bidding process takes time and resources, requiring the posting of a job for a certain amount of time and the ranking of bidders. Getting quotes is a less formal process that just requires getting an estimate on the price of a project.

That policy expired at the end of 2022 and the commissioners had not renewed the policy for this year, so they should have gone out to bid. Coming into this week, the commissioners could have, and did, adopt a retroactive policy raising the micro-purchase threshold to $50,000, effective Jan. 1 of this year.

However, an email supplied by a commissioner from the lawyer advising the board on ARP allocations states, “I do not have any information that a retroactive resolution is prohibited, but I similarly do not have any confirmation that it will pass an audit in the case an audit were to occur.”

So, the email continued with three options for the commissioners to consider on Wednesday. The first was to pass a resolution with a micro-purchase threshold valid retroactively to Jan. 1. The second was to pass a resolution increasing the micro-purchase threshold, then revote on the expenditures approved last week. The third was to rescind the approvals and go out to bid, if the commissioners opted not to raise the micro-purchase threshold to $50,000.

“Assuming the board elects to raise the micro-purchase threshold, the second option would appear to be the cleanest for audit purposes,” the email states.

Early in the meeting, the commissioners adopted a resolution declaring the micro-purchase threshold to be $50,000. Commissioner Mauro Cantalamessa pointed out that this is the same number recommended by state and federal guidelines for regular county purchases. Commissioners could opt to create different guidelines for ARP, but opted to keep the $50,000 threshold the same.

Commissioner Niki Frenchko pointed to the attorney’s email and said there is no proof this action would result in a clean audit. She voted against this measure and said she wanted the commissioners to get three quotes for all ARP projects.

Then, later in the meeting, the commissioners voted to rescind, then again approve, a handful of resolutions allocating ARP money.

“If we’re going to do what (our attorney) said is the cleanest way, then that would be doing it this way,” Frenchko said, referencing the attorney.

While this was up for discussion, Cantalamessa said the attorney gave them three options, one of which was adopting the retroactive policy, so he said he does not think the board had to rescind and repass these resolutions. He also pointed out that the attorney provided the board with the retroactive resolution, and said he spoke to the attorney after the email was sent and she was OK with the retroactive resolution.

Board chair Denny Malloy said he agrees that the board was probably OK to just pass the retroactive policy because “all the options are gray.” But, he was on board with rescinding and repassing the resolutions to be safe.

“I believe what we did in item No. 10 would suffice,” Malloy said, referencing the retroactive policy. “But, (our attorney) said there were three options. One of them is what we did in item No. 10. One of them is what we’re doing now.”

“In the letter I read, (our attorney) had three options. (Our attorney) didn’t 100 percent guarantee that any of the options were correct. But, the recommendation was to do one of the three. But, if we do two of the three, then we have a safety net and that appeases a lot of people.”

The Board of Elections building, 2947 Youngstown Road SE, will get a $43,800 electrical upgrade with the installation of an 800-amp panel and accessories from Becdel Controls Inc. of Niles. The roof pipe stacks on the building also will be removed and replaced by Western Reserve Mechanical of Niles to the tune of $25,115.

The generator will be replaced at the Trumbull County 911 building, 911 Howland Wilson Road, Warren, with a new $37,804 generator from Ohio Machinery of Broadview Heights. Because Ohio Machinery does not do installation, Becdel Controls Inc. will install the generator for $13,480.

Phillips Sekanick Architects Inc. will provide engineering services, project designs and plans for an improvement project at the Trumbull County Engineer’s building, 142 E. Market St., Warren, at a cost of $38,625. The project is set to include a new heat pump, air conditioning, windows, bipolar ionization and new electrical panels.

Finally, a transfer switch will be installed on the generator at the Trumbull County Family Court, 220 Main Ave. SW. Ohio Machinery will handle the $24,949 project.

In other action, the board:

• Appointed three members to the Trumbull County Senior Services Advisory Council for three-year terms, each commencing Jan. 1 and ending Dec. 31, 2025. Anthony Laprocina, Dominic Marchese and John Bartko were each approved. Frenchko made motions to reappoint current chair Scott Lehman and to appoint Julie Matylewicz, but neither got a second from the other commissioners;

• Appointed Jake Jones, the executive director of the Northeast Ohio Community Alternative Program, for the Ohio Region 7 Collaborative;

• Appointed Angela Brewer, Tom Harvey, Bret Powell and Rashad Terry to the Workforce Development Board of Trumbull County;

• Reappointed David Detec as a member of the Western Reserve Port Authority Board for a four-year term commencing Jan. 1 and ending Dec. 26, 2023;

• Adopted a resolution allocating $280,000 of American Rescue Plan Act funds to be used for the Morgan History Center Expansion Project at the Trumbull County Historical Society;

• Accepted the resignation of Jane Boutwell as a member of the mental health and recovery board;

• Accepted the retirement of Ronald Simone as a custodian with the Trumbull County Sanitary Engineer’s Department after 21 years of service;

• Approved a professional services agreement with Timothy P. Berghoff of Cincinnati to generate the 2022 Self Insurance Actuary Report for the county for $1,500;

• Tabled a policy that would require all items proposed to be placed on the commissioners’ agenda be sumbitted to the board by 2 p.m. on the Thursday prior to the meeting.