MOULTRIE — Moultrie City Council’s first meeting of 2026 revolved around money — money they’re spending, money they’re getting, money they hope to get, and money they moved around to keep the books straight.

Purchases

Two significant expenditures will benefit the city’s sewage system and the Moultrie Fire Department, but the largest approved Tuesday will help rebuild Spence Field’s runway.

The council approved a contract with Cassie Contracting Inc., from Mason, Michigan, to construct a runway extension and widening at the former air base. At its height the runway was one of the longest in Georgia; while part of it is still in use, much of it has deteriorated over the years.

The project is valued at more than $1.55 million and will be paid for with funding from the Georgia Department of Transportation and the city’s Transportation Special Purpose Local Option Sales Tax revenues.

City Council approved the purchase of generators for the city’s lift stations, which pull sewage from residences’ plumbing and direct it to the waste water treatment plant.

“I don’t need to explain to you why you want the lift station to have a generator if there’s a power failure,” City Manager Peter Dillard told councilmen.

The generators will cost about $529,000, but Dillard said $450,000 of that will be paid by a Hazard Mitigation Grant that the city received. The remainder, about $79,000, will come from the city’s Water/Sewer Fund.

The city council also approved purchasing computers to go in some of the city’s fire trucks. Computer Aided Dispatch terminals in the trucks will give firefighters quicker access to information from the E911 dispatchers, Fire Chief Chad Kilgore said.

The sole bid for the computers was from i3 Verticals of Nashville, Tennessee, with a cost of $42,857. It will be paid from the city’s Fire Department Capital Outlay Fund.

Kilgore said the purchase will be for five computers that will go in the department’s “front run” trucks — the ones they have in primary service.

He explained that currently, a 911 dispatcher rapidly switches among talking to the caller reporting an incident, typing information about the incident into the computer system and talking to responding units on the radio. The computers in the trucks would give firefighters the information the dispatcher is typing into the system rather than having to wait for her to cycle back to speaking on the radio.

The Moultrie Police Department and Colquitt County Sheriff’s Office both have similar systems in their patrol cars.

Kilgore declined to estimate how quickly the computers could be purchased and installed after the council’s approval.

Infrastructure

Dillard told the council that the city has been approved for a $685,000 federal grant to extend a water line along Highway 133 South from Regency Village trailer park, where it currently ends, to Citizens Business Park. The overall project will cost $865,000, Dillard said, with the city funding the difference.

Citing rising costs, Dillard said, “Without a grant you can’t expand our water system.”

Meanwhile, the council agreed to apply for a $2.9 million grant alongside the Moultrie-Colquitt County Development Authority.

If approved, the grant would fund infrastructure improvements throughout Citizens Business Park, including roads, curb and gutter, electricity, lights and more, according to Amy Johnson, president of the Development Authority.

Also at Tuesday’s meeting, the city council rezoned a portion of Citizens Business Park from C-3 (Commercial District) to M-2 (General and Heavy Industrial District).

Budget adjustments

The city council also approved two budget adjustments.

The city had agreed to pay for concept drawings for a downtown hotel at a cost of $35,000, which was supposed to be split between last year’s budget and this year’s. The purchase wasn’t made last year, so the paperwork was adjusted to show the full expenditure coming from this year’s budget.

The other adjustment may be more significant. The council approved paying for a $20,000 study on the feasibility of releasing treated wastewater into the Okapilco Creek. Currently, the city releases the water into the Ochlocknee River only.

Dillard said Moultrie is currently in compliance with environmental regulations, but those regulations are scheduled to get stricter in two years and Moultrie will not be able to comply with those new regulations as regards phosphorus discharge.

If Moultrie can split its discharge among the two waterways, it is hoped that neither will exceed the stricter limits. The study is intended to determine if that will work.

Otherwise, Dillard said, the city will have to fund a $20 million upgrade to the waste water treatment plant to bring the discharge back into compliance. The plant underwent a major upgrade only 10 years ago, he said.

Moultrie Observer

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