Trumbull engineer plans to switch to new salt-buying consortium

By Ed Runyan

runyan@vindy.com

WARREN

The Trumbull County Engineer’s Office is planning to use a different consortium to buy most of its road salt for next winter: The Community University Education Purchasing Association Program.

Jack Simon, road-use and maintenance coordinator for Trumbull County, said Engineer Randy Smith’s Office will buy 75 percent of its salt through the CUE program and 25 percent through the Ohio Department of Transportation.

Both consortiums involve risk because the engineer’s office doesn’t know yet what the price will be through either one, but the universities, schools and county governments in Portage and Summit counties and other governments that used CUE last year paid only $49 per ton, Simon said.

By comparison, Trumbull County paid $105 per ton for the salt it purchased through ODOT.

The Trumbull County commissioners are expected today to approve the spending of $200 to become a member of the consortium throughout 2015.

In other business, the commissioners are expected to authorize the Trumbull County Sheriff’s Office to award a bid to Global Tel*Link of Reston, Va., for inmate telephone and kiosk equipment and services at the jail.

Tel*Link will install 56 inmate telephones, 24 visitation phones, 21 inmate kiosks throughout the pods in the jail and single kiosks in the booking area and public lobby.

Eric Shay, jail administrator, said the system, which involves no cost to the county, automates inmate accounting for telephone use and the jail commissary. This is so that money inmates bring to the jail with them or money provided to the inmates by others can be deposited automatically through phone or computer, and inmates can access account information on their own using the kiosks.

Visitors also can add money to the inmate’s account by using a kiosk in the jail lobby.

It will eliminate the staff time now used to receive and deposit money orders and cash. The inmates can deposit cash directly into a kiosk that will be available in the common areas of their pod or in the booking area.

When they leave the jail, inmates can take a card with them from the kiosk that they can spend outside the jail.

The kiosk, which works and looks like an ATM, also will provide inmates with a way to access the jail’s rules and grievance procedures and allow them to request a medical appointment without the staff having to provide paper forms and instructions.

Each inmate’s account information will be available to the inmate through the kiosks, eliminating the need for staff to answer inmates’ questions about the money in their account, Shay said.

The system will increase the revenue the jail can get from phone calls from a 49 percent commission to a 90 percent commission.