Likely final payment made on Floyd County Law Enforcement Center and courthouse renovation project

By Bob Steenson, bsteenson@charlescitypress.com

(Updated Wednesday, March 26, 2025)

Floyd County made what is likely the final payment on the Floyd County Law Enforcement Center and courthouse remodeling project at its regular meeting Monday morning. 

The project was approved by voters in 2018 and began construction in November 2019, but a few items had remained unfinished years later because one of the contractors had stopped working on the project. 

Sweeper Metal Fabricators Corp. of Drumright, Oklahoma, had won a contract after bidding $1.27 million for jail detention equipment and electronic security systems, but as early as the fall of 2021 the company was well behind schedule and not responding to requests for information from the county or from the construction management company, county officials said. 

Supervisor Gloria Carr said Monday that the final items in the LEC jail cells had been completed and the final items for the holding cells outside the courtrooms on the third and fourth floors of the courthouse had been completed. 

The Board of Supervisors approved paying the last of the retainage in the account to construction management company The Samuels Group, in the amount of $79,385.56. 

That brings that company’s total – the amount it paid out to contractors for work and materials and the amount The Samuels Group charged to manage the project – to $16,085,857.40. The Samuels Group was paid about $300,000 of that. 

One item still remains, Carr said, which is wiring a small heater that is located on the wall in the entrance area on the first floor that is no loner used as an entrance. 

The room where the heater is located needs heat because there are now fire suppression sprinklers in that area and the temperature can drop below freezing when it is cold enough outside. 

Carr said she had talked with Sid Samuels, the owner of The Samuels Group, who had promised to get that last item done. 

She said it was important to make the final payment on the project now because most of the final funds will come from the country’s remaining federal American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) dollars, which must be spent before March 31. 

The total ARPA dollars remaining was $74,674.37, so $4,711.19 of the final payment will come from the county’s general fund. 

Carr said now that all the ARPA dollars have been spent the county will produce a report showing how all of the county’s more than $3 million in ARPA funds was used. 

More than $2 million of the total has gone toward the LEC and courthouse project. 

During the discussion on the payment, Gordon Boge, a rural Floyd County resident who is president of the group called Concerned Citizens for Better County Government and who was listening to the meeting remotely, said he didn’t know “how anyone would pay anything when it’s not done.” 

He cited unfinished ceilings on the second floor where ductwork and pipes are visible, but Carr said putting in drop ceilings were never part of the project, having been deleted during initial cost-saving decisions. 

Boge also alluded to the project being millions of dollars over budget, but Carr said that is not true. 

It is true that the project cost significantly more than the initial estimates from the architectural firm, which had projected a construction price of just under $12 million.  

When bids were opened in September 2019 the combination of the lowest bids in each of nine different categories, plus other costs including a contingency fund and The Samuels Group’s construction management fee of $298,099,  was $16.417 million. 

The supervisors at the time decided to go ahead with the project, knowing that the construction costs would be more than $16 million. 

They cut $800,000 in costs and came up with additional funding, including $2.5 million from the county  general fund,  $1.919 million in bond premiums, $200,000 in interest on the bonds, and $50,000 from Floyd County 911 for the dispatch center in the courthouse. 

The total paid to The Samuels Group of $16,085,857 was less than the original construction bids. 

The total project price, including more than $1 million in architect fees plus land acquisition and other costs, is about $18.8 million. 

The project includes the Floyd County Law Enforcement Center, which includes the Sheriff’s Office, the county jail, dispatch center and the Emergency Management Agency’s emergency operations center and which opened in January 2022. 

In the courthouse it includes all new windows, new heating and cooling systems and fire suppression sprinklers throughout the building, relocating several offices and other changes. 

The project also includes the atrium between the building with two new elevators – one for the public and one for the Sheriff’s Office to move detainees between the jail and the courtroom in the courthouse – and handicapped-accessible restrooms for each of the five floors of the courthouse.