Lack of courthouse upgrades could cause future lawsuit

Pulaski County Maintenance Director Jeff Johnston approached the county council with his concern that it is only a matter of time before the county is hit with a lawsuit. 
Johnston approached the council with a couple of different concerns during a regular meeting Monday evening.
Johnston approached the council about addressing future steps to become Americans With Disabilities Act (ADA) compliant and also violating building codes. 
The county recently became compliant with ADA documents and training. Now the county needs to look at taking additional steps to become compliant. He said the ADA committee has met and there are a lot of accessibility issues that need to be addressed. Johnston used the bathrooms as an example. Some wheelchairs cannot fit through the door. 
He said he is looking at the council for some direction and decisions. 
The second issue he brought up is the courthouse structure. He said the building is in bad shape and needs repair. There are also several areas in the building that are not up to building codes. Johnston said if building inspector Doug Hoover knows that there is a definite problem or code violation then he has to address it.
Johnston said some of the items on the list may be simple while others are larger. He used the example of the water coming into the courthouse from the town that is supposed to have a backflow regulator and doesn’t. He also said the sewage waste system is not at the correct angle so certain times of the month, every month, the basement is flooded with sewer gas. 
In the past, the council agreed that steps need to be taken but they needed to figure out where the funding for those projects would come from. 
Councilman Mike Tiede questioned why work isn’t being done when there is money in the building budget.
Johnston said he does not have funding in his budget. 
Auditor Shelia Garling estimated that after the bills for fixing the courthouse roof and the justice center roof are complete, there will be about $4,000 in the building budget that has to last until the end of the year.
It was decided that an additional appropriation would be made from the cumulative capital fund. There was a question as to how much it would cost to make the bathrooms ADA-accessible and fix the sewage issue. Johnston said he is not sure what the cost will be. 
Garling said she will need an idea of how much to appropriate this week. 
It was decided that an email would be sent to the council regarding an estimated cost for the two proposed projects. 
Later in the meeting, Garling reminded the council members that they cut about $200,000 from the building department repair budget. It was part of the $2.3 million the state asked to have cut from the budget.