The Clinton County Sheriff’s Department has recently received a grant from the United States Department of Agriculture for $50,000 in order to go toward the purchase of three new patrol vehicles.

Emergency Management Services Director Lonnie Scott helped push the grant through more than a year ago and just recently the grant was finalized with the delivery of the third vehicle to Sheriff Jim Guffey.

“We started this process in January of 2015, right when Jim got into office,” Scott said. “They (USDA) actually came down in January and wanted to meet the new people in office, the sheriff and judge. They wanted to start the process and the sheriff’s cars were our top priority. We didn’t hear of a confirmation that we got the grant until October of that same year.”

Scott said the grant was a competitive grant process which means Clinton County had to provide reasons why the money was needed to fund the new patrol vehicles.

“We had to convince them why we were in worse shape than everybody else,” Scott said. “We had to prove that we needed it. It’s a pretty complicated grant process.”

The vehicles are 2016 Dodge Chargers, all equipped with decals and light packages. Scott said the light packages and decals cost somewhere around $5,000 for each vehicle.

“These are all-wheel drive and they are going to benefit the county in the winter time,” Sheriff’s Deputy David Bookout said.

“As long as the snow isn’t too deep that we can’t go,” Guffey said.

Guffey said the vehicles have already cut costs in the department.

“There is nothing to do to them right now except an oil change as far as maintenance is concerned,” Guffey said. “They handle better … to me personally, they are an all around better vehicle.”

Guffey said the county is constantly looking for grants in order to get better equipment to better serve the people of Clinton County.

“You don’t have to worry about a break down if you have to take someone to Lexington on a transfer,” Guffey said. “Everything is up to date.”

The total for each vehicle was $32,926.62 for a grand total of $98,779.86 for all three vehicles.

“The vehicles that we had were older vehicles and had very high millage on them … lots of maintenance,” Guffey said. “The cost was very high on them for maintenance.”

The fiscal court picked up the remaining funds after the $50,000 USDA grant was used for a total cost from the county of $48,779.86.

Scott said the grant was a big help in getting the new cars for the Sheriff’s Department.

The name of the project from the USDA is the Rural Development Community Facilities Grant Funds. Even though the grant didn’t cover the entire cost of the three cars, Scott said the decision to get three was based on what the department needed and what the fiscal court could afford.

“They are pretty good looking cars,” Scott said. “Their other cars had several miles on them and anytime you have a vehicle with that many miles, it’s going to nickel and dime you to death on maintenance. These vehicles should be dependable for several years.”

Scott said he and the Sheriff sat down and itemized everything that went into the cars to ensure the department was getting all the items needed in each vehicle.

“They finally gave us a firm quote on what we were getting and I told Jim that we were just going to take a road trip. I took him up to get the first two and he was pretty much thrilled to death.”

Clinton County Sheriff Jim Guffey, right, and Deputy David Bookout are shown above with the fleet of three new cruisers that were recently put into service.

The new vehicles were made possible after the county earned a USDA grant to help with the purchase.

The new vehicles feature new graphics, shown at left, and a host of state of the art emergency equipment.