A school’s out when it comes to squirreling away piles of Douglas County government’s official-yet-unessential paperwork

Instead, county commissioners are promising to speed up plans for putting up a combined maintenance/storage building at the Douglas County 4-H Fairgrounds in east Lawrence.

The project, estimated to cost $640,000, in recent years has been mired near the bottom of a mounting priority list for major construction projects. Commissioners approved the concept a year ago, only to back off as the county faced a deepening budget hole.

It won’t happen again, commissioners pledged Monday — especially now that staffers had begun exploring short-term relief options, such as leasing part of Centennial School to stow boxes of tax documents, election ballots and court files.

“Whether it be Centennial or East Heights (School), it would be a very, very short-term — or it ought to be a very short-term — thing,” said Bob Johnson, commission chairman. “Long term, I don’t think it’s in the school district’s best interests for either of those buildings to become storage buildings. And, certainly, it’s not in the best interests of the neighborhoods for that to happen. And I don’t want to be a party to that.”

Instead, commissioners said they would work to have a project ready for construction by early next year. Commissioner Jere McElhaney wants to be seeking bids from contractors by January, so the county could be among the first in line to hire companies hungry for work next year; such companies would be expected to make low bids for the work, thus ensuring savings for taxpayers.

¢ 6News video: County commission rejects proposl to turn closed school into storage

The county is mandated by state law to retain its paper copies of certain documents, including court records, tax receipts and dozens of other categories that fill hundreds of boxes — and show few signs of letting up.

But the county’s running out of room. The sanctuary of a former church at 1242 Mass. already is filled with stacks of shelves. The basement of the Douglas County Judicial & Law Enforcement Center, 111 E. 11th St., is packed, with spillover into the mechanical room.

A county-owned house across the street from the law enforcement center is packed with court documents, and a rented self-storage unit in southeast Lawrence is running out of room.

The new storage space — taking the “walkout basement” of the planned maintenance building — would be different, Johnson said.

“It would be as convenient as any place, other than right here,” he said during Monday’s meeting at the County Courthouse, 11th and Massachusetts streets. “You’re talking about a storage space that should serve this county well into the future.”