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Newton County Board of Commissioners recap: Feb. 20, 2024.
County - LOCAL

NEWTON COUNTY – The Newton County Board of Commissioners held its regularly scheduled meeting on Tuesday, Feb. 20.

The board heard from Mauldin & Jenkins, who conducted the FY23 audit for Newton County. The audit was said to meet all the proper standards and considered to be a “clean” audit.

Also, the board heard from a representative from iParametrics – the firm that is assisting the county with dispersing its ARPA funding. Discussion of this matter spanned through two agenda items, and was met with heavy deliberation from commissioners.

A number of items were voted on, too, and they are as follows:


  • An application for FY25 state accountability court grant through the Council of Accountability Court Judges (CACJ). This will be to continue the day to day operations of the Newton County Adult Felony Drug Court (Approved 5-0).

  • An approval of permission to apply for the FY25 grant. This would provide the operating budget for Alcovy Resource Court (mental health) accountability court for FY25 (Approved 5-0).

  • An approval of permission to apply for FY25 accountability court funding for Newton County family treatment court. The funding is to provide services to program participants such as treatment, drug testing, transportation, assessments and surveillance (Approved 5-0).

  • An approval of permission to apply for FY25 accountability court funding for the Newton County juvenile behavioral health court. This funding is to provide services to program participants such as treatment, drug testing, transportation, assessments and surveillance (Approved 5-0).

  • An approval of the Feb. 6 minutes (Approved 5-0).

  • An amendment to the agreement for the ARPA consulting services. This amendment would increase the amount paid to iParametrics to $1,040,000. The increase was done to account for the $5 million allocated to the senior home repair program, which was not the initial figure. Due to the figure increase, the county is required to meet the “not to exceed” 10 percent figure that is required to be contractually compliant (Approved 3-2; Alana Sanders and J.C. Henderson opposing).

  • A final reading for an alcohol license of Shell Food Mart located on 5870 Salem Road (Approved 5-0).

Also read was the January 2024 financial report, which discussed the year-to-date numbers as well as money left from the 2011, 2017 and 2023 SPLOSTs.