Industrial Development Authority Told County Made Its Final Payment To Williams And Associates for Caterpillar Work

The Oconee County Industrial Development Authority has made its last payment to Williams and Associates, an engineering and land planning company, under that firm’s contracts for the Caterpillar project, county Finance Director Wes Geddings reported on Monday afternoon.

Geddings told those attending the regular meeting of the county IDA that actual payments to Williams and Associates by the Oconee County and Athens-Clarke County industrial development authorities was $146,808 less than the $870,079 budgeted to cover the firm’s services.

Williams and Associates was given two no-bid contracts by the two industrial development authorities in early 2012 for a variety of engineering services associated with the efforts by the two counties to bring the Caterpillar manufacturing facility to its current site on the Oconee County and Clarke County border.

IDA Chairman Rick Waller, during his chairman’s report midway through the Monday meeting, applauded the IDA for its work on the project and said that the authority had “followed state law and did everything according to what the mandates and all are in that regard.”

For more on the story and a video of Waller's explanation of the IDA contracts, go to Oconee County Observations.