TEXARKANA, Ark. - Insurance money needed to pay for the Miller County Courthouse's water damage restoration now has a home right inside the county's current annual budget.
Miller County Quorum Court members unanimously approved a measure Monday evening, to set up a separate line item fund within the county's overall budget. It has been designated as the "Courthouse Restoration Fund."
The county's justices of the peace, who gathered inside the Texarkana Arkansas City Hall's second floor Board of Directors' meeting room, can eventually move $5 million in property damage insurance money into this account.
Of that amount, at least $150,000 is immediately available to help reimburse the county's general fund for money the county has spent to pay for pre-restoration cleaning measures. One of those measures included several weeks of heated air drying of all five of the courthouse's floors as well as the building's basement following the courthouses Feb. 20 flooding. Several days of below-freezing winter temperatures caused water in the building's pipe system to freeze and rupture the water lines.
With as much as $4.8 million remaining in this account after the county draws out $150,000 for reimbursement, at least $1 million of that amount could be drawn down soon to start on the courthouse's restoration, said Miller County Judge's Office Administrative Assistant Carla Jenkins.
The courthouse's next cleaning process before restoration, will be the clearing out any and all asbestos found on the building's second and third floors as well as in the basement, a process that could take from 20 to 25 days. During the last few months, wet ceiling tile and carpet have been removed from all three of those areas, Jenkins said.
The courthouse's total restoration is still projected to cost ultimately between $7 million and $10 million and plans still tentatively exist to have the courthouse's re-opening in January of 2022.