The Hall County Board of Supervisors says they won't pay the state Department of Roads $5,000 for recent bridge inspections Hall County employees could have completed.

The inspections had already been completed when the Board of Supervisors received a contract informing them of the bridge work.

"They pretty much had agreements with contracting firms, sent them out to do the work, without ever even talking to anybody from the counties," Hall County Public Works Director Casey Sherlock says.

The contract also asked for $5,000 to pay for those inspections.

"In the past, we have been able to use soft match dollars to pay for this," Supervisor Pam Lancaster says.

The county currently has about $700,000 of soft match funds available. They've been earning those since 1992 by using their local budget to fund bridge projects.

Now the state is saying those funds can't be used to cover the inspection costs.

"Because they started the bridge inspections and started that work prior to putting the soft match portion credits into the agreement, they can't go back now that the work's done and say now we can use soft match on that project," Sherlock says.

He says that means the county would have to pay the $5,000 in cash.

"We just don't feel like it's necessary to do that," Lancaster says.

Especially because Hall County officials say those inspections could have been completed by county employees.

"We have a certified bridge inspector on staff," Sherlock says. "Why would we have sent him to the two weeks of school, and all of the continuing education and re-trainings, and all of this process to have him certified to inspect these bridges and then them not allowing us to use him, it just doesn't make any sense."

It's not making much sense to any county officials.

"We've always had a really good working relationship with the Department of Roads, and I have no idea what's going on right now," Supervisor Steve Schuppan says.

"Whether the county likes it or not, they're just pretty much adopting these mandates and making us abide by them without any consultation whatsoever," Sherlock says.

But the Board of Supervisors isn't giving into the state's requests yet. They'll continue the discussion at their next meeting.

Sherlock says surrounding counties are also concerned with how the bridge inspections have been handled across the state.