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By Shiann Sivell

The Troup County Board of Commissioners approved two funding requests for the Troup County Sheriff’s Office at its meeting Tuesday night.

The first was approval for $223,630 to purchase five new Ford Police vehicles, averaging about $44,700 a piece. The funds will come from the county’s capital fund, said County Manager Eric Mosley.

TCSO Major Keith Flory said his department traditionally uses Chargers as its patrol car, but due to ongoing shipping and manufacturing issues, the department has had complications getting newer units.

“[Earlier] this year, I talked to somebody who had them [and] give me a price and time when we could get them, and they couldn’t give a price [or a] time,” Flory said. “Toward the end of this year, they said they didn’t even know when they’d be making them again.”

TCSO currently has 15 Crown Vics in its fleet that average 176,000 miles each, Flory said, adding that the repair costs for the vehicles goes up as more miles are put on the vehicles.

“With the Kelly Blue Book value on these cars, you’re looking at $1,000 to $1,500 a vehicle, and you’re dumping money into them, and it’s not even worth it,” he said. “When we go to sale them, we’re only getting maybe a $1,000 out of them.”

The second approval was for $113,100 to replace a portion of the jail annex’s roof. The portion needing replacing is over a section of the jail’s building that houses work-release and work-detail inmates.

The roof at the annex has not been replaced in at least 20 years, said Capt. Sadie Lee. A portion of the roof was replaced about five years ago. The current portion of the roof that needs replacing is covered in rock to prevent the roll off of water seeping into the building, a measure that worked initially but no longer does.

The bid for the project was approved for Roof Technology Partners, which is also renovating the roofs of the Government Center and Juvenile Court.