Over 1,400 square feet were cut from the building, as well as other economizing measures were taken by the architects with the new jail plans.

Head architect Mike Carroll said the bids on the previous plans were well over budget.

In fact the bids had been totaled over $5.7 million on a project that had originally been presented as $3.8 million or possibly as high as $4.2 million.

Along with shrinking the footprint the roof was lowered in several areas and major changes were made to the electrical system as well as the heating and air conditioning systems were made.

He and representatives from Branscum Construction said the new round of bids could be opened before Thanksgiving.

The court was told by the project bonding agent that they have $4,571,770 for construction of a jail.

The court approved the state's expenditure to pave roads in the county, though it was not the list of roads proposed by the magistrates.

Tourism board members Joey Hoover and James Gray were reappointed.

The addition of another contractor to the county's dead animal removal program was approved, following the conservation district's approval of that contractor. Farmers in need of that service can contact the district for more information.

Then discussion of the county's administrative and personnel manual were protracted and varied.

The fist proposal was aimed at reducing the number of sick days that a retiring individual could apply to that retirement. The code allows workers to accumulate 180 sick days and to apply them all to their retirement, which the county must pay.

It was suggested that limiting the number of days that could be applied to retirement would save the county money. Those days not applied to retirement would be paid out as a lump sum.

The court approved a measure to limit people hired after the first of the year to 100 days of sick time accrual and only half of those could be applied to retirement.

Another sick time issue addressed was donation of sick days. The court approved allowing workers to donate sick time to other workers who run short, providing the worker donating would end up with at least 75 hours of sick time.

No action was taken on a recommendation to bring the county's holidays in line with the state holidays.

No statement was entered regarding the requirement, or lack thereof, for advertising job openings.

Vacation accrual was changed to require a worker to be on the job 15 days in the month before they earn a vacation day, and one day per month would be awarded.

Previously workers received 12 days, but they were all available on the first day of the year.

Vacation days had also been doled out on the half-day; that was changed to allow workers to take as little as a half-hour off.

As the meeting drew to a close the court transferred $189,166.86 from the county road funds to the general fund in order to maintain the county's solvency.