Grants, plan on the agenda

Published 10:50 am Wednesday, July 10, 2019

The Lunenburg Board of Supervisors is set to review state and federal grant awards, in addition to holding a presentation about management in the event of natural disasters.

The meeting is scheduled for Thursday, 6 p.m. at the Lunenburg County Courthouse.

The board is expected to consider the award it received from the Virginia Department of Criminal Justice Services (DCJS) for a School Resource Officer (SRO) in the amount of $42,234. There is a local match not included in the approximately $42,000 of $14,266, making the total SRO program budget $56,500.

“The School Resource Officer grant revenue is not in the adopted budget for a full fiscal year,” documentation from the county cited. “We budgeted the staff expenses as the prior grant had not yet expired (DCJS changed the grant period for application to fiscal year, whereas our prior agreement went from Oct. 1, 2018, to Sept. 30, 2019).”

The current grant award, according to county documents, extends from July 1 to June 30, 2020.

A grant award of approximately $71,000 for the county’s Victim Witness Program is already included in the adopted FY20 budget, according to county documents.

The grant of $71,027 from the Virginia DCJS is to “provide direct services for crime victims.”

Of the $71,027, $53,270 is from federal funds and $17,757 is from state special funds.

In addition, the county will also review bids for the Gary Road convenience site, which was the subject of a non-mandatory pre-bid meeting June 28.

According to the Lunenburg County Board of Supervisors meeting board packet, supervisors are also set to review a debris management plan for the county, which had been drafted by the Commonwealth Regional Council (CRC). A debris management plan is employed when a natural disaster occurs that exceeds the emergency management capacity of the county or region.

“The CRC completed the Debris Management Plan utilizing State Homeland Security Program (SHSP) grant funds,” documentation from the county cited. “Debris management planning is a priority and one of the top recommended items from emergency management experience in Appomattox County after the Evergreen tornado disaster a few years ago. Our regional emergency management professionals utilized the grant fund from SHSP through CRC and the work of Todd Fortune and the committee.”

Documentation cited that Rodney Newton would be available to provide more information about the program.