On Tuesday, the Troup County Board of Commissioners took the next step to enable improvements to the building where the Troup County, City of LaGrange and Troup County School System records are stored.

TCSS and the City of LaGrange have approved funding for major renovations to the storage facility known as Fort Georgia, and the county approved the funding and an intergovernmental agreement on the project on Tuesday. 

County Manager Eric Mosley said that the TCSS has already paid for their portion of the project and the county expects to receive funds from the City of LaGrange once the intergovernmental agreement is approved by all parties. Mosley said that the city wanted to know what would happen to the facility if the archives ceased to use it before approving the agreement. 

The expansion has been under discussion for some time, and once complete, it is expected to optimize archive storage for roughly 40 years. 

According to Shannon Johnson, the executive director of the Troup County Archives, the majority of the funding will go toward mobile shelving, with some funding also covering items like paint, lighting and a heating and air conditioning unit.

According to County Clerk Valerie West, the upgrades would also mean more transparency from the county, thanks to easier access to the information, and county employees are receiving in-depth training on what documentation they need to keep and for how long.

“It made our process quicker and easier and more transparent as well because we’ve already worked on getting our minutes digitized,” West said. “We’ve gone back to 1869 in getting those digitized.”

West said the software used for the records will be able to integrate with software already in use at the county.

“You can search by a keyword, and every time that key word was utilized in the minutes, you could pull up every single file with that key word,” Mosley said. “Valerie and I receive countless numbers of open records requests on a weekly basis, and it would really aid in providing a quicker response.”

Other actions taken on Tuesday included: 

• The Troup County Board of Commissioners congratulated Sandra Taylor for her appointment to serve as the Troup County solicitor general.

• The board approved a mutual aid agreement with Fort Benning, which would make it possible for the entities to lend support to one another if needed.

• The board of commissioners approved a budget amendment to relocate money currently allocated to waste management to another portion of the budget in order to allow for an already-approved purchase for the department. 

• The board of commissioners approved the rezoning of 1135 Kimbrough Road and 518 Lower Glass Bridge Road from Planned Unit Development to single family (SFMD). According to information shared in the meeting, the rezoned property will more closely match the current zoning of surrounding properties.

The Troup County Board of Commissioners will meet again on Aug. 1 at 9 a.m. at 100 Ridley Avenue.