Hart BOC Considers Change in Rec Dept Team Uniform Purchasing Policy

Hart County Commissioners have put off a recommendation to change how team uniforms are purchased at the Rec Department.

At their meeting Tuesday evening, the board considered a request to bid out basketball uniforms.

However, commission chair Joey Dorsey recommended the board consider stopping the practice of having the county pay for Rec Department team uniforms and leave that to the parents and coaches.

“We’ve had multiple recommendations from the Advisory Board and other groups wanting to change designs, wanting reversible jerseys. I think we ought to look at possibly reducing the sign-up fees and let the individual coaches and teams worry about getting their own uniforms and not have the county involved in it,” Dorsey proposed.

Dorsey said Rec Department staff have more important things to do in maintaining local parks and grounds than chase down uniforms.

Commissioner Jimmy Carey agreed, pointing to a problem this season with the uniforms for the Rec Department’s football teams and said the county should use local people, which he believes would eliminate some of the probem.

“We  need to change what we’re asking for and start using local people,” he said. “That way we can eliminate these problems because then whoever locally gets the business and fix the problem and get them on their way.”

Hart County administrator Jon Caime said local vendors have always been invited to bid, but Carey said there are stipulations in the RFP’s local companies can’t meet.

But Dorsey said problems arose with the football uniforms this season, which took a lot of time on the part of county employees to resolve.

“I’m looking at it from an efficiency standpoint and trying to get things done,” he said. “My understanding is we chose Dillards for the football uniforms. Well come to find out they subcontracted out to somebody else. There were a lot of issues with sizes, with letters not matching and being different colors. That took a lot of the staff’s time last week. And that’s time that could be spent on other things.” 

But commissioner Bill Meyers said making coaches deal with getting uniforms would place too much of a burden them.

“Having been a coach that worked with youth ball for many, many years, a lot of coaches have a tough time just showing up and it’s not fair for them to have to run around dealing with jerseys and things,” Meyers said.

Meyers also said reversible jerseys are needed so teams don’t show up to a game with the same colors.

But Carey said when he lived in Gwinnett County, Rec Department teams would have uniforms that included a number of different colored t-shirts, each with the team name on the front and a business sponsor on the back.

Commissioner RC Oglesby suggested the board hold off and bring the matter up to the Rec Department Advisory Board before making a decision, but Dorsey said there was no need.

Commissioner Meyers then motioned to go ahead and bid out the basketball uniforms as requested and delay any action on change to how uniforms are purchased until the Rec Department Advisory Board has a chance to weigh in.
Meyers’ motion passed four to one with Commission chair Dorsey voting against.