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The Coffee County committee that oversees the upkeep and maintenance of all its municipal buildings has pledged the county to take on its share of the Manchester Coffee County Conference Center’s capital projects.

Conference Center General Manager Rebecca French spoke to the Capital Outlay Committee during its meeting June 1, sharing a list of $218,000 in capital requests that include roof work, HVAC units and various other repairs inside the center.

The county is only being asked to shoulder half the expense for the facility that it co-owns with the city. The committee approved to move the matter to the Budget and Finance Committee to allocate those funds. 

French said that the building is 22 years old, with equally old air conditioning, freezer and cooler.

“The roof is a little over 10 years old, but it has deficiencies in it,” she said. “There are deficiencies that exist from the original build.”

French said at this point, maintenance is reactive –meaning issues are discovered as they occur rather than having someone maintaining the building or proactively searching for potential problems.

“I feel like we do a really good job, but we’re not industrial maintenance people,” French said.

Located at 147 Hospitality Blvd, Manchester, the Conference Center was originally operated in a joint-venture between Coffee County and the City of Manchester with oversight provided by the Coffee County Public Building Authority. In 2020, the City of Manchester completely took over the expense of running the center and the Manchester PBA was created.

Despite this, the county and city still share ownership of the building.

Capital Outlay Chairman Dennis Hunt said figuratively it’s time the county claimed its stepchild. Hunt was concerned, however, that the language of the 2020 contract could limit if the county could fund those repairs.

“We own half the building; we’re going to bear half the cost,” he said.

Commissioner Tina Reed questioned if some of the items listed as capital request should fall under operation expenses and not as building upkeep.

“Are we liable for the dishwasher, the icemaker, the tables,” Reed asked. “Is that really part of Capital Outlay? I was thinking it was like the structure.”

Commissioner Tim Brown compared the situation to a renter’s agreement.

“If we have a rental house, we have to fix the refrigerator or whatever breaks,” Brown said.

Director of Maintenance Rick Soucy said that if any other of the county’s buildings had a dishwasher that broke the county would replace it, but he also noted that with facilities like the Coffee County Senior

Citizens Center, which leases the county building, would be responsible for that replacement.

Soucy advised also that the before the county agrees to fund repairs someone should review the requested repairs.

Hunt suggested that each individual project would need to be approved on a case-by-case basis and committed Soucy to represent the county in the matter.

In a hard-fought debate that hinged on conference center funding, compromised recently by a narrow majority to pass a first reading of a budget that cut the center’s allocations to $300,000, which does not include any funds for capital improvements. Last year’s allocation did include capital improvement funds.