County Upholds Awarded Bid

CANTON—Van Zandt County Commissioners have declined to rescind a bid awarded last month to Securus for the inmate phone system at the county jail.

The item appeared on Tuesday’s court agenda after another company who had given a competing proposal, Value-Added Communications, protested the county’s award of the contract.

Van Zandt County Auditor John Shinn told the commissioners’ court that the recommendation from the county’s legal counsel was to re-bid the service and possibly clarify the list of factors being considered in the award.

However, commissioners were concerned doing so would delay a contract from being signed, possibly until April. Securus, the current provider of the inmate telephone system, is continuing to operate on a month-to-month basis under the terms of the now-expired contract.

Van Zandt County Jail Administrator George Flowers also objected to another round of meeting with telephone system representatives at the jail. He commented such guided walk-throughs were a drain on jail manpower, saying that company representatives "just show up instead of making an appointment."

Also in Tuesday’s meeting, the county added another piece to a technology upgrade for the sheriff’s department by accepting a $70,000 Edward Byrne Memorial Justice Competitive JAG Grant from the Office of the Texas Governor’s Criminal Justice Division.

The money, supplied by a federal program but administered through the state, carries no match requirement, Van Zandt County Sheriff’s Office Lt. Steve Allen said. It will be used to purchase six addition in-car cameras with digital recording capability, plus a 12-terabyte server for video file archiving.

In other matters, the court took the following action:

— Approved financing of two dump trucks through BancorpSouth Equipment Finance for Precinct 3.

— Tabled a proposal to set regulations for speed limits on four county roads.

— Approved the purchase of storage containers from Grimes Crane Service for the Van Zandt County Jail.

— Ratified county bills already paid.

— Gave approval for district and county courts to collect a court cost fee of $5 for each civil suit filed in the county court, county court-at-law, probate court or district court for the Twelfth Court of Appeals, and to establish an appellant judicial system fund as set forth in the Texas Government Code, Sec. 22.2131.

— Approved an emergency budget amendment to transfer $5,804 to the library fund for money received from the Loan Star Libraries Grant Fund.