On Dec. 20, 2022, Comal County commissioners unanimously redirected $8 million in federal recovery money and $1.2 million in unused salary funding toward the Goodwin Annex, bringing the project’s stated allocation to about $27.2 million. The Dec. 20, 2022 minutes record the unanimous vote.
The vote kept the mental-health treatment facility moving outside the federal recovery-fund plan while concentrating about $27.2 million on the Goodwin Annex and public-health/emergency-management facility.
County staff said the facilities had been budgeted at $350 per square foot, above an earlier consultant estimate of $275, before architect and pricing-consultant figures reached $650 per square foot. The $650 figure included contingency and carrying costs for about a year; competitive bids still had to establish the market price.
The $8 million had been assigned to the mental-health project under the American Rescue Plan Act. Moving that project outside the federal-funding plan made the money available for the Goodwin work. Commissioners also moved $1.2 million left from budgeted project-manager, senior-buyer and attorney salaries. The minutes said a little more than $200,000 had already been paid to architects for the mental-health facility’s design.