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BY IVAN SANDERS
STAR STAFF
ivan.sanders@elizabethton.com 

The Carter County Commission approved a new animal shelter agreement on Monday.

The agreement, which will reset a new board of Jan. 1, 2022, calls for funding to be divided between the county and the City of Elizabethton on a 60-40 percentage.

The Elizabethton council will review the agreement and vote in its November meeting.

“There will be two city council board members, two county commission board members, and one at-large board member,” said Josh Hardin, county attorney. “The four board members would select the at-large member in their January meeting and the fifth member would not come on board until the February meeting.”

County commissioners voted 17-4-1 with two members absent in support of the plan.

The agreement brings to close issues with the governance and funding of the animal shelter due to the absence of term expiration for the agreement and a funding equation that would help to clarify just how much each governing body was expected to contribute on a yearly basis to meet the shelter’s budget.

The total operating budget for the shelter is expected to be $425,000 with all donations earmarked for the shelter going into its budget line item.

Other business that the commission acted on included:
– Moving $50,000 from the Highway Department asphalt line item to the stone line item.
– Approved up to $17,000 for paving and line marking at the new Planning office that includes adding a new parking lot at the facility.
– Approved $137,000 for two new dump trucks for the Highway Department from the Governor’s Grant. The dump trucks will be used to spread salt and chat during winter weather.
– Approved $300,000 for asphalt to be used for county highway paving with $50,000 of that amount set aside for schools’ paving projects which have yet to be determined.
– Approved $15,030 annually for a three-year contract for Carter County’s warning system Everbridge which will help avoid the yearly increases of the program for that three-year timeframe.