
By BOB SHRALUKA
WZBD.com
Now here’s a cost-saving move for you, courtesy of Decatur’s utilities director, Kevin Hackman (photo) and his department personnel.
A sigh of relief was expressed at the July 5 meeting of the Decatur board of works and safety when a bid to perform a project came in right around the engineer’s estimate of the cost.
Even though the only other bid was much higher, the board decided to turn the bids over to Hackman for scrutiny before making a final decision. That turned out to be a wise decision.

Two weeks later, at Tuesday’s meeting, Hackman offered his recommendation: accept neither bid, we will do it ourselves and save the money!
“We’ve reviewed it and decided that we can do it in-house,” Hackman told the board. “We have the equipment, know-how …”
However, the savings of $199,074 which was the low bid, won’t be any sort of bonus; it will merely make up for lost revenue.
According to Hackman, the utilities department has lost approximately $300,000 in revenue since Dairy Farmers of America closed the Dean Foods plant here in June of 2021.
“They were a big user,” Hackman noted.
So doing the project to replace the wastewater treatment plant’s sewer 001 outfall to the St. Marys River will be big help in making up some of that loss.
Eventually, I-O Properties will get its Butcher Shop beef processing facility up and running in the same building and bring back some of the lost revenue.