By Billy Davis

Panola County supervisors were busily writing bid numbers Monday for an airport hangar project and a contract for feeding inmates during their Second District meeting in Batesville.

The county board took the bids under advisement until they can be discussed and voted on at a July 19 recessed meeting.

Current contract holder ABL Management, Inc. submitted a new bid for a new one-year contract, and four others also submitted bids for the food service.

ABL submitted a bid of $1.0029 per meal, which seemed to be the lowest of five bids that were opened and read aloud.

 “I guess that’s 29-hundreths of a cent,” remarked board attorney Bill McKenzie, who was reading the bids to a crowded boardroom.

Other bidders were Reed Buntin, who had the jail contract for many years, as well as Tiger Correctional Services, Valley Services, Inc., and CBM Managed Services.

ABL and its competitors also submitted bids for sandwiches and for splitting the commission on a jail commissary with the sheriff’s department.

Buntin submitted the highest bid for commission, 45 percent, for net sales of the commissary.

Buntin, ABL and Valley Services all shared the cost of each sandwich — 50 cents.

ABL won the contract last year with a bid of $1.18 per meal and 50 cents per sandwich, nudging past then-contract holder Court Street Catering, which had bid $1.20 per meal and 55 cents per sandwich.

Airport consultant Mike Corkern opened bids from Wright Steel, Panola Construction, Heritage Builders, LLC, Fulwood Construction, Hills Construction, and Ralph McKnight and Son.

In other county business, Panola EMA director Daniel Cole recommended that supervisors allow Panola County’s burn ban to expire Monday following several days of badly-needed rainfall.

Cole said the state forestry commission, which authorizes burn bans in the state, had also recommended to let it expire.

Supervisors agreed to the recommendation.