County recreation fees going up

The Iredell County Board of Commissioners approved a slate of fee increases to programs offered by the county’s recreation department.

At its regular meeting Tuesday, the board unanimously approved the fee hikes after Recreation Department Director Robert Woody explained that they are being caused primarily by two factors: fuel and food.

“Part of the increase is just that the cost of running the programs has gone up due to things like the rising cost of fuel and food for some of the summer camp programs,” Woody told the R&L prior to the meeting.

He explained that another reason for the hike is that a fee is being charged for allowing people to apply for the programs online.

“We haven’t raised our fees in about three years,” Woody told commissioners. “We’re trying to keep the fees to the cover the costs of the programs.”

The average increases range from $3 for fees at the Outdoor Education Center to a $225 increase on the costs for the Camp Excursion summer program.

Woody explained, however, that the increase for Camp Excursion is largely due to the program going from one to six days in duration to 10 days.

Also at Tuesday’s meeting, commissioners unanimously approved:

-- The renewing of a contract by the Sheriff’s Office with a company called Securus Technologies to provide continued inmate telephone service at the Iredell County Jail.

Sheriff’s Capt. Mike Phillips told commissioners the plan allows the Sheriff’s Office to collect 66 percent of the profits gained from the inmates’ calls. An overview of the plan supplied to commissioners by the Sheriff’s Office states that the average profits kept by other counties is in the range of 49 percent to 60 percent.

The new contract is for three years.

Also, the board approved the acceptance by the Sheriff’s Office of $25,000 in funds seized during drug busts.

-- A new contract with the Hickory-based accounting firm Martin Starnes & Associates CPAs P.A. to perform the state-mandated annual audit of the county’s books.

Finance Director Susan Blumenstein said the new contract of $41,000 is $1,000 more than last year’s deal but, she added, the extra costs were needed to cover additional work caused by the imposition of new federal regulations.

-- The receipt of nearly $718,000 in federal funds by the Department of Social Services to be used in three different DSS programs.

Almost all of the money, however, was divided between two programs that are in place to help low-income families pay their utility bills.