Loan provider selected

Jay County Commissioners selected the lowest interest rate for a loan totaling around $43,000 after reviewing quotes from six local banks this morning.
Jay County Surveyor Brad Daniels presented the commissioners with rates from the banks — Pacesetter, MainSource, Old National, First Bank of Berne, Bank of Geneva and First Merchants Bank — to provide a loan of $42,878 to purchase two new backhoes for the department.
Daniels is using $50,000 out of the county’s backhoe replacement fund and is financing the remaining cost over the next two years. Although the backhoe fund has enough to cover the entire $92,878 for the two Caterpillar backhoes, he wanted to leave some money in the fund in case of emergency.
Interest rates for the loans ranged from 3.9 percent to 3.099 percent, which was quoted by First Merchants Bank.
The commissioners, who were pleased with the low rate, decided to take the loan from First Merchants.
In other business this morning, the commissioners:
•Were informed by Daniels that an extended warranty for the two new backhoes may be purchased anytime within the first year of ownership. The commissioners will decide at a later date if they want to purchase an additional 4-year, 3,500-hour warranty at a cost of  $2,189 each.
•Agreed to a contract with Beam, Longest and Neff to extract information from the county’s old watershed program into a Microsoft Excel format.
•Signed encumbrances for wages for the Jay County Retirement Center ($11,764.42) and the Jay County Courthouse ($482.54).
•Heard a presentation from representatives from A&Z Engineering, Fort Wayne, about civil engineering services they offer.[[In-content Ad]]