Smith County Judge Nathaniel Moran, shown at a Smith County Commissioners Court meeting earlier this year. (Sarah A. Miller/Tyler Morning Telegraph/File)

The Smith County judge says approval of a potential $6 million contract related to records preservation will be delayed until money can be appropriated.

Nathaniel Moran said Tuesday that the Commissioners Court would not vote on a contract with the Dallas-based company Kofile that was on the meeting agenda.

The Commissioners Court heard a presentation on the issue July 14, when the company proposed to preserve certain records and potentially place them in disaster-safe binders.

At the time, the company said it would hold the company’s proposed $6 million price on a contract, a 20 percent discount from a higher price, if the contract was entered into by the end of July.

The $6 million the county would spend is money that already has been set aside in a state-mandated preservation fund for this purpose. The state requires a portion of fees paid in the filing of certain court records and other documents such as birth and death records and marriage licenses to be set aside for records preservation.

Moran said at the time he had not put the item on the agenda as a contract approval because the money, which is in an existing fund, had not been approved to be spent as part of the fiscal year 2020 budget.

While he said he intended to spend the money, he also said he did not want to rush a contract in July when the county’s budget is still under consideration, and work would not start until Oct. 1.

“We’re going to put this off until after the budget is approved so that we have not entered into a contract without money being appropriated,” Moran said Tuesday.

“They’ve already committed to hold that 20 percent discount,” Moran said. “We’ll bring this back to you at a later time.”

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