Efforts to acquire funding for a new public safety facility in Beaufort County have been slowed by a division of the North Carolina State Treasurer’s office.

The Local Government Commission, an agency established to approve certain types of financial agreements involving local governments and to help counties, cities and other local taxing units set up and maintain their financial and accounting systems, met with the Beaufort County Board of Commissioners Monday in Raleigh to discuss planning and financing for the project, said Beaufort County Finance Officer Jim Chrisman.

“No public financing or debt can be incurred by a local government without LGC approval, which is a division of the State Treasurer’s office,” Chrisman said. “The LGC gave us feedback in regard to the project.”

Chrisman said the LGC gave the board certain requirements before accepting a loan application for the project, including waiting until after the upcoming election for the Beaufort County Board of Commissioners. Other requirements before the LGC would entertain an application for financing were all permits had to be in hand for the project and all bidding finalized. However, Chrisman says the bidding and permit requirements would take until late November or early December anyway.

Chrisman said 95 percent of the planning for the project and design has been completed and the next process would be the arranging of the construction documents and the pre-bidding for construction. The jail committee recommended the board not move forward with authorizing the bidding of precast cells and the early site package because of the financing process, Chrisman said. The commissioners voted 4 to 3 in their last meeting to move forward with the early site package and precast bidding. Commissioner Al Klemm said the meeting with the LGC was productive and that no referendum will be needed in regards to the jail.

“What they (LGC) said was the election was going to be the referendum,” Klemm said. “The only barrier at this point is the election. This shall be one of the major issues of the election and once the election is over, I think, hopefully it will go forward and I think it will be done quickly.

“All the money that was initially authorized solely for the design of the facility and the design is, at this point, 95 percent complete. Now we are looking at going through the thing and looking at cost saving and details within the prints. When you build a facility of this kind, you end up with an immense amount of stuff to review. I’m going to review the package and try to get the facility as good as we can get it and get it at a cost-efficient price. I feel obligated to the public to do the best I can, and I’m sure the other people on the committee do to.”

Thursday morning at the Beaufort County Administrative Offices, the three sitting commissioners — Hood Richardson, Gary Brinn and Stan Deatherage — as well as two Beaufort County Commissioner candidates and Bill Booth, the president of the Beaufort County NAACP, held a press conference to notify the people of Beaufort County of the LGC’s decision to temporarily halt financing. During the conference, they signed a letter of solidarity to the LGC, opposing financing for the project.

“The LGC flatly turned down financing for the jail until the new board of commissioners are seated,” Brinn said. “That’s what we’ve been after all along is to try to slow the process down. If the new board of commissioners come in and they agree the jail must go on, then that will happen, but the LGC said that’s what needed to happen.”