In a meeting held Monday, August 21, rather than their normal Tuesday, the Gila County Board of Supervisors set a fiscal year 2024 primary property tax levy rate of $4.19 per $100 of assessed value, a rate that has stayed consistent since 2010.

The board approved a one-year, $174,049 service agreement with Linev Systems US, Inc. for a digital security screening system for use at county detention centers. County staff said this system would give detention officers the ability to more accurately detect items hidden on inmates’ persons, decreasing the introduction of contraband into the jails.

The board also approved an amendment for interoperable multimedia communications with Mutualink, Inc., setting a new contract amount of $1.43 million in order to meet the requirements of recently passed state legislation, A.R.S. 41-1733. County staff said Mutualink’s system will create “instant, on-demand cross-agency interoperability between public safety agencies, schools and private community partners that may be called on in an emergency that threatens school safety.”

The board also approved extending a contract with Wowza, LLC, of Miami, Arizona, to serve as a consultant in augmenting the county’s public health workforce. The county originally awarded the contract to Wowza in January 2022; the contract will now run from July 1, 2023, to June 30, 2024, in the amount of $275,000. Language concerning certification of no forced labor was also added to the contract.