Everyone knows the answer to the question: When is a door not a door?
When it’s ajar.
However, the question that county officials were dealing with at the Board of Commissioners’ Thursday, July 15 meeting was a different one: When is a call center not a call center?
The agenda called for the board to approve $1.8 million to hire two companies to run a call center for handling calls regarding COVID-19 vaccinations. Many people in the meeting room had the same question that night. The county used to get a great number of calls for vaccination appointments, but now those calls have died down – so, why spend $1.8 million for a call center?
Guilford County Commissioner James Upchurch summed up the question nicely. Even though he’s serving his first year on the board, it was clear he wasn’t just going to follow staff’s recommendation.
Upchurch asked County Manager Mike Halford: “$1.8 million is a substantial amount of money, so can you just explain why we need to spend more money, especially since the number of people coming to us for vaccines is dropping pretty much every day?”
Halford and other county staff had a number of different responses. One was that this won’t be a typical call center that just takes calls, but, instead, a center that conducts outreach to the unvaccinated. The service provided could also mean the outsourced workers go out into the community and help with the vaccination effort.
Halford pointed out that there are still up to 200,000 people in Guilford County who aren’t vaccinated and this effort would be directed toward them.
Halford and Guilford County Health and Human Services Director Heather Skeens both told the board that entering into these two contracts would also allow county staff who are now focused on vaccinations to return to their prior responsibilities.
The county manager said that people of color were generally more hesitant to get vaccinated and added that having a targeted outreach encouraging people to set up vaccination appointments could help address the disparity issues.
Halford also pointed out that the item was for the contracts not to exceed $1.8 million. He said the county could end up not needing to spend all of that money.
It was very strange that such a controversial high-dollar item was placed on the board’s Consent Agenda – an agenda that usually contains no-brainer house-keeping-type items such as contracts to buy copier paper and giving final approval to the people who have been certified qualified to handle fireworks in the county.
Any commissioner can pull an item off of the Consent Agenda for discussion and, in this case, Commissioner Justin Conrad pulled the item, asked a series of probing questions about it and then voted against it.
The motion still passed 6 to 3 with Upchurch, Conrad and Commissioner Alan Perdue voting no.
After the meeting, Conrad said one argument he certainly doesn’t buy from staff is that, since the motion calls for the county not to exceed $1.8 million, the county may spend less than that if it turns out the service isn’t needed to the extent anticipated.
Conrad said that he’s been in county government long enough to know that “not to exceed $1.8 million,” means “$1.8 million.”
Many, many items the board approves have the “up to” clause in there and the final expenditure is almost always that amount. In some cases, prices are even higher and staff must come back to the board with a request for more money for an item.
Conrad said the whole “call center” project presented to the board was “nebulous” and said there didn’t seem to be a clear notion of exactly what the county was getting in return for spending nearly $2 million.
Once again voters get what they voted for in a Skip Alston led commissioners. Spending with little explanation and expanding governmental contractors that have a nebulous unending mission with flexible funding.
While I agree that 1.8 million is a bit dubious, I don’t see any of what you mention. This is a term limited contract with a cap (agree most will send to the cap) and there was a good deal of explanation although we can both agree to disagree with it. Just an odd way to complain given the information provided in the ariticle.
True
When will we as a group of people going to learn that Democrat control means “tax and spend with no control,like a drunken sailor “.I have been voting for a long time and each time we get a Democrat the results are the same.I remember when the Skip show was in during 90’s and early 2000’s.The story was the same .If the people of Guilford County want to be rid of these Exorbitant spending you will have to VOTE out all Democrats,or you will be stuck with SKIP or a group of his comrades that will do the same thing.OK all people of Guilford,please let’s get together and vote out these spendthrift Democrats…
They tried to slide it in and got caught.I do not think most voters know or care.We have slipped over the edge around here.
Pitiful.
Just following the example set by the Knuckleheads in D.C.
Wouldn’t want to be out of lockstep with The Party.
These republicans are at it again. Unnecessary and illegal vote audits, mystery calls centers.
Time to clean house and put in some decent honest people. No republicans, and no republicans who register as democrats just to pass dishonest legislation and blame democrats for it.
Isn’t the great pretender Mr Biden and our federal taxes already doing this? So why do we spend any monies? Just asking
Having spent the past 20yrs in local government, I can assure you that you are correct and without any hesitation whatsoever I can also answer your question. It baffles the minds of many of us daily. It’s a living, but it’s tough to watch the democrats fleece the taxpayers. There is in fact no need to duplicate such a service other than to meet the current popular political narrative. There are funds pouring in from every corner “Coronavirus relief” or “COVID-19 this or that.” There is no free money friends those of us who pay taxes will eventually be on the hook for every penny regardless of the source. You may get a “No increase or revenue neutral” tax rate this year, but I’m betting your paying the same outrageous prices for groceries and gas that I am. Inflation is on the rise, and we ain’t seen nothin’ yet if these clowns stay in control.
Are you really blaming high food prices on local government? MORON
Everything about this stinks. #1 if you have questions call your personal physician. #2 Just where is the county getting your personal info about your health? If you haven’t gotten it by now it’s not from a lack of information. It’s because you choose not to.
Hey, it’s not like it’s their own money. And it’s a safe bet that someone in county government will be a little richer because of it. It has been said that we should not attribute to vice and corruption that which can be explained by sheer stupidity and incompetence, but I don’t believe there is enough stupidity and incompetence in the whole county to account for the way our city council and county commissioners spend our tax dollars.
Anyone who desires to get vaccinated has had ample opportunity to do so. If there are groups of people who are skeptical and do not want to get vaccinated, that is there right. We do not need a bunch of crusaders going door to door. People are allowed to make independent decisions and live with the consequences. That is called “freedom of choice.”
The agenda and the narrative are all too obvious. This is nothing more than the same groups of political activists and community organizers that are already going door to door in another large County just South of here in support of the Marxist revolution fully embraced by the Left. Recon for the 2022 Elections and testing the waters for future door to door collections of something other than information.