Carbon County officials released details on their ideas for a multimillion capital investment to provide much needed space to court departments and a strong commitment to the emergency personnel serving the area.

On Thursday, Commissioners Thomas J. Gerhard and William O'Gurek approved four agenda items relating to the refinancing of the county's bonds in the amount not to exceed $14 million. Commissioners' Chairman Wayne Nothstein was absent, but had approved the advertisement of a legal notice to refinance at last week's meeting.The actions included refinancing the county's general obligation bonds of 2011, appointing RBC Dain Raucher Inc. as the underwriter for the bonds, engaging the services of the law firm of Stevens and Lee as the county's bond counsel, and hiring Susquehanna Group Advisors Inc.for the bond issue.Attorney Peter Edelman of Stevens and Lee explained that while the bond issue may be up to $14 million, the projects involved in the improvements won't be that high.He said that now that the commissioners made the move to refinance, the process will take about two months to complete.O'Gurek said that the refinancing will free up about $7.7 million for the improvements, while the rest of the money will be used to pay off the 2011 bonds.Jeff Weiss, the county's financial consultant, added that the county will see approximately $300,000 in savings through the refinancing.The main project proposed in the investment is the construction of a new three-story office building at the site of the existing archives and maintenance building on Susquehanna Street. The new building would shift a few court departments, like adult probation and the public defender's office out of the courthouse but still within close proximity and allow other departments, like the district attorney's office, to have additional space; while also creating the possibility of another courtroom for specialty courts.But all this is hinged on a number of smaller projects that must be completed first, the commissioners said.The county must construct a 7,000-square-foot maintenance garage to house equipment in the upper end of the county parking lot; move the archives department from its current location to its new location on Fourth Street on the east side of Jim Thorpe; and demolish the existing building, Gerhard said.All of this, O'Gurek said, is anticipated to cost approximately $4.85 million."It's aggressive but it's things that have been waiting for years and years and years," he said.In addition to new infrastructure, the commissioners also plan to use a portion of the money on repairs to the courthouse's slate roof.Plans call for updating the county's financial system and providing a new software system for the sheriff's department to continue the efforts to upgrade the department to meet today's standards.The county will use $2 million as a match for grant requirements for the proposed multiuse fire training facility on the Broad Mountain in Nesquehoning."Exciting times are ahead," Gerhard said.Some of these items residents will see completed as early as 2017, O'Gurek added."I think the biggest thing of this is we talked to financial people about structuring the payback of bonds in such a way that the current debt service would suffice to meet our annual obligation," O'Gurek said.The county has approximately $2 million in its debt service account and a 0.25-mill in real estate taxes earmarked for debt services generates approximately $430,000."We know what money we have available and what we'll be doing is stretching out our loan for years to be determined and I think it is a wise move," O'Gurek said."It provides for growth and keep this county moving forward, and most importantly it does not create an additional hardship on taxpayers by putting additional millage on for debt service."One item that is not being touched at this time is the county prison.Gerhard said that there have been many discussions over the future of the prison, which, as of Oct. 19, was operating at full capacity with 223 inmates.However, there are no plans for adding onto the building at this point.The county has been working with the courts for alternatives to incarceration for minimal offenders and will be looking at utilizing programs like the restrictive intermediate punishment program more often than in the past.