Putnam County Needs Additional Funds For Health Department Expansion

The Putnam County Health Department expansion on hold as county officials wait on guidance from the state.

A $600,000 state grant and $850,000 of the county’s federal COVID money was budgeted for the project. Mayor Randy Porter said the anticipated cost increased to some $3 million causing a pause in the process.

“We’re looking to see if the state will give us any more money to help with their portion of the project,” Porter said. “We’re also working with our architect and engineers to see if there are things that we can do to decrease the cost of the project.”

Porter said he wants the project to move forward, but the county at this time can not afford the work. Porter said finding interested contractors to construct the addition has been a challenge as well.

“The state is doing a lot of health department projects across the state, even building some new health departments totally,” Porter said. “So, we’re wanting to see if they are going to have money left over or not, and if they do, will they be willing to put more to it.”

The project would add a clinical wing that separates sick patients from other visitors. Porter said architectural drawings were completed and a construction manager was appointed before the project lost momentum.

“We didn’t get very far at all until we figured out the pricing was too high,” Porter said. “We’re starting to see a leveling off. We saw a leveling off with real estate, and I think we are seeing a leveling off with construction on the residential side. So we are hoping that will spread over into the commercial side.”