Local & State Headlines

Lee millage set at 28.166

• Lee County commissioners table an action to reinstate county health insurance for two contract employees.

Susan McCord

LEESBURG — An audience of several newly elected Lee County officials, the presumed winners after Lee’s Republican-only primaries last week for sheriff, clerk of courts and three county commission posts, were spectators Tuesday at a subdued meeting of the Lee County Board of Commissioners.

During the regular meeting, the board set the county’s overall millage rate at 28.166 mills, which includes the county’s tax levy of 12.766 mills, unchanged from 2007, and the Lee County Board of Education’s total levy of 15.4 mills, which is an increase from 14.75 mills last year.

Sheriff-elect Reggie Rachals, commissioners-elect Betty Johnson and Bill Williams and clerk of courts-elect Sara Clark observed the board take a handful of other actions, only one of which elicited much discussion.

The board voted to table a decision on whether to reinstate the county health insurance of two contract attorneys, Hugh Morris and Patrick Eidson, an item that was cut during earlier budget discussions.

Commissioner Dennis Roland said although he’d previously indicated the two men ought to retain the insurance, which covers their families, he’d changed his mind since learning how much contract work the lawyers do for Lee County.

Last year, Morris performed $13,000 in work, while Eidson performed $54,000 in contract work, Roland said, both for Lee’s magistrate and state courts.

Other employees who are not insured find it unfair, Roland said.

Commission Chairman Morris Leverett, who was defeated for re-election last week by newcomer Rick Muggridge, said the commission was bound by its word, though it was probably the word of previous commissioners.

“That’s your word,” Leverett said.

“I’d like to know who told them they’d be furnished county insurance,” Commissioner Ed Duffy said.

Commissioner Wally Roberts, who is seeking election this year to the state Senate District 13 post, said he thought the insurance ought to be reinstated.

Morris said he’d known when he took the position that his predecessors also had county insurance and that it would be difficult for his family to become self-insured if their county insurance was cut.

In other business, the board voted to install a three-way stop at the intersection of Appalachee and Cuante streets, a measure requested to slow speeders by resident Seaborn Goff during a previous meeting, and authorized the purchase, using sales-tax funds, of a $104,700 ambulance and power stretcher for the county’s Palmyra station.

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