The Platte County collector’s office received a bid Thursday from Dunbar Armored to provide courier service for the office to replace a courier service that stopped on Sept. 10.
As soon as the commissioners approve the contract, then Dunbar will be able to begin carrying the deposits for the collector’s office. Altogether the county will be paying more than $13,000 a year for armored courier service for service to Platte City and the Annex office in Platte Woods.
This contract will allow Dunbar to make same-day deposits from the Platte City office. The price listed on the contract is $614 per month and there is the possibility of other charges such as a fuel surcharge.
According to Donna Nash, county collector, her office has never had to pay a fuel surcharge in the past and does not expect to with Dunbar.
The new contract only covers the pick-up at the Platte City office and does not cover a pick-up at the Annex office in Platte Woods.
There is a separate contract with Dunbar to cover the Annex office.
According to Nash, this contract for the Annex office is for $294 per month or $3528 a year. This cost is less than the current cost of $365 per month with Garda Enterprises. Because the cost of service for the Annex office is low, the service was not offered for bids.
“We will be saving about $900 a year,” said Nash. “We called everyone we could think of to get prices for the service and got the cheapest.”
The county is also still paying Garda Enterprises for service to the treasurer’s office in Platte City. That contract is worth $220 per month or $2640 per year.
However, the treasurer’s office is currently looking at a new system to make deposits online, which would then not require the use of the armored courier.
Bonnie Brown, county treasurer, expects the new system will take a couple of months to implement after it is approved.
As exclusively reported in last week’s Landmark, for about a week after the armored courier service stopped on Sept. 10, individuals from the collector’s office were personally taking deposits to the bank each day. The collector’s office now has an armed escort from the sheriff’s department for deposits.