Committee approves upgrades to veterans office ceiling, lights

The Taylor County Veterans Service Office will soon get a makeover to improve client confidentiality and office atmosphere.

Members of the county’s veterans service committee on December 18 approved using grant funds to cover the cost of installing a drop ceiling in the office located on the first floor of the Taylor County Courthouse.

The office currently has an approximately 12-foot ceiling with a ceiling fan in it. Staff members noted that the hard surfaces create echos making it hard at times to understand what is said especially for those with hearing impairments. Many of the veterans who come into the office for services have hearing impairments. The high and open ceiling also presents a privacy concern especially as clients and staff speak more loudly in order to be understood. This at times makes it so that people in the hallway can hear what is being said in the office as well as those in the office being able to hear what is going on in the hallway outside.

Veterans service officer Shelia Sutton explained that the conversations that go on in their office can involve private financial information as well as personal medical information. “It is all sensitive items that not all of us would want distributed through the courthouse,” she said.

The committee was presented with the option of a drop ceiling at a cost of $2,041.20 or installing acoustic panels that would be suspended from the ceiling at a cost of $2,800.

Buildings and ground supervisor Joe Svejda said there are many other offices in the older portion of the courthouse that have existing drop ceilings. He recommend that option because he said it would accomplish the sound deadening they want without having the gaps between the panels which you would see with the acoustic panels. He recommended installing two foot by two foot panels which would match those used in the newer sections of the building.

He explained that an additional layer of insulation could be put on top of the drop ceiling to further reduce sound from carrying outside the office.

As part of the project, the ceiling fan would be removed. Sutton said that it has a loud hum and has not been used since she came to the county. In addition, the overhead lights will be upgraded in the room to be softer and more efficient. The work on the project will be done by the county’s maintenance department staff with the only direct cost to the department being the purchase of materials.

Committee members voted to go ahead with using grant funds to purchase the supplies for the county crew to install the drop ceiling in the office.

BOREALIS