Krysta Swartz, of Great River Engineering (GRE), presented the commissioners with the bids for the Smith and John Coleman Road bridges on June 2 for them to approve and award.

Submitted bids for both bridges were first announced during the May 19 meeting, with BuildTec Construction having the lowest bid on both bridges.

For the Smith Road bridge, they bid about $470,000, and the project was estimated at approximately $538,000 by GRE’s engineer.

Swartz said that MoDOT shouldn’t have any concerns about the bid and asked the commission to approve GRE’s letter of recommendation, which will be sent to MoDOT requesting concurrence.

A motion to accept the letter of recommendation was approved with a 3-0 vote.

For the John Coleman Road bridge, the estimated cost was approximately $682,000, with BuildTec Construction bidding about $650,000.

This bridge doesn’t require MoDOT involvement, so a motion to accept and award the bid to BuildTec Construction was approved by a 3-0 vote.

Both bridges have an Oct. 30, 2026, contract completion date.

Sheriff Darin Layman announced that the Crawford County Jail is currently in the process of renegotiating its federal contract.

Using a company called JailGeek, they will negotiate on behalf of the jail with no upfront costs.

Layman explained that they get paid the overage of the renegotiated contract for a span of 90 days.

“The way that the payment to them works is, let’s say we’re currently at $75 a day. If, just for simple math, if they renegotiate at $95 a day, you know, and we have 40 federal inmates, that’s roughly ($72,000) over three months,” Layman said. “For 90 days, they take that overage, that extra $20. That’s how they get their payments.”

In other business, Collector Pat Schwent presented the commissioners with a tax redemption for John Cowsert, in the amount of $25,760.10 in surplus funds.

A motion for Cowsert to receive these funds was approved with a 3-0 vote.