The Barton County Health Department will be up to date after the County Commission approved the purchase of new computer equipment Monday morning.
Bought were eight new desktop computers from Hewlett-Packard, two lap-top computers from Office Products Incorporated of Great Bend and 10 copies of Micosoft Office software from SHI. The total cost was $9,007.90 and the money came from the department’s Equipment Replacement Fund.
“We’ve been working on this for a while,” said department Director Lily Akings. The new machines should be in service for at least three years.
John Debes, county information technology director, spearheaded the process. He told the commission he’d also received bids from Dell and from Central Plains Computing Service of Great Bend.
In other business, the commission:
• Barton County Sheriff Greg Armstrong told the commission there are 20 inmates from Rice County being housed in the Barton County Detention Facility after the Rice County jail was damaged in Saturday night’s tornado. He said Barton County has mutual aid agreements with all the surrounding counties which work together in case of such emergencies. Should the local jail come under threat of a twister, Armstrong said there is a plan to keep the inmates safe and to call in extra deputies to maintain order.
• On April 2, the commission approved the buying of a used trash roll-off truck for the Barton County Landfill for $75,000.  Monday morning, commissioners had a chance to examine the truck which landfill Director Mark Witt brought to Great Bend last Friday.
 Through Robert’s Truck Center in Salina, Witt located the 2003 Kennworth in Phillipsburg, Mo. It has 200,000 miles, and is out of warranty, but is very sound, Witt said. He went to see the truck and said the dealership agreed to fix any problems it might have. It had been used extensively in the clean-up efforts after the Joplin, Mo., tornado last year.
County officials went with a used truck since the landfill only makes occasional trips over the road to haul recycling materials (such as old mattresses to the Hutchinson Correctional facility and bicycles to the Ellsworth Correctional Facility) and most of the use would be within the landfill itself.
It will also be used in disaster clean-up efforts and to clean up illegal dump sites, Witt said. It will work with the roll-off containers already in service at the landfill.
It can be serviced locally and should last 10-15 years. The truck replaced a 1982 International bought in 1987.
• The commission approved orders for abatements and refunds on 2011 taxes. The two abatements had a tax value of $10,072.73 and an assessed value of  $60,616, and were ordered by the county appraiser. The two refunds had a tax value of $9,366.53 and an assessed value of $56,075, and were brought about by appeals.