Brad Bentley, county public facilities director, said he is trying to find a balance of running a department and finding potential savings during the coronavirus pandemic. Bentley is pictured with Michele Westphal, Chautauqua Area Regional Transit System senior project coordinator, discussing grant funding during a meeting in February. P-J file photo by Dennis Phillips

Chautauqua County’s public facilities director said he is trying to find the right balance in maintaining highways, county facilities and employees during the coronavirus pandemic.

“Just getting a building cleaned is a monumental task right now,” Brad Bentley said during Tuesday’s meeting of the county Planning Board.

The planning board on Tuesday discussed how it will prioritize proposed 2021 capital projects. Usually each year, county department heads and other organizational leaders submit request to the planning board for capital project funding for the following year.

Bentley said, along with submitting capital project requests, he is also dealing with the task of potentially eliminating half of his budget this year because of the pandemic.

“What work do you cut?” he said. “How do I not lay off people?”

Bentley wanted the planning board to know department heads and organizational leaders have even more responsibilities to handle than they typically do because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

“It has been a monumental task to deal with this chaos,” he said. “Looking forward to next year? I’m trying to survive today.”

During the meeting, a couple members of the board did ask the question of whether they should prioritize the list of capital project requests because so many are dependent on state of federal funding, which local governments might not receive because of the loss of revenues and the costs of the pandemic.

Doug Bowen, planning board chairman, said they’re still going to review and rank each capital project submission like they would any other year. He said once the planning board ranks the projects, it will be the responsibility of the Chautauqua County Legislature to determine where the funding will come from for the projects.

The timeline for the planning board to prioritize the capital projects will include time for each member to review each project and submit questions to department heads. The department heads will then have time to answer the questions prior to the planning board’s next meeting June 2, which is when they will talk about the projects.

The planning board members will then rank each project and submit them to county officials by June 9. Then on June 16, the planning board will meet again to finalize its rankings of projects. The planning board has until July 15 to present its report to the legislature.

Melissa Keller, county Planning and Community Development junior planner, said 53 projects have been submitted for review.

Normally each year, department heads or organizational leaders asking for county capital project funding present their project in-person to the board. Because of the mandate for no public gatherings, the live presentations were canceled this year. However, it was determined by the planning board and staff that if more information is needed on a project, an online virtual meeting could be scheduled with a group that has submitted a proposal.