The Trion Council Thursday night voted unanimously to contract with a private probation service to lighten the workload of police department employees, currently doing that work  and to save money.

From this point on Georgia Probation Services, of Trenton, will provide probation services to the 9-10 probationers the town has each month.

 In other business, the council voted to change its employee insurance plan slightly which will actually lower the overall cost of premiums. According to Mayor Pro-Tem Mickey McGraw, the plan was up for renewal and package the town has been receiving is no longer available. The council selected the closest plan they could find to that through the same provider, Blue Cross/Blue Shield.  The town will continue to pay 84.511 percent of the cost, with the employees share at 15.489 percent. In meetings with employees on the changes, McGraw said they all seemed happy with the plan and he heard no negative comments.

The council also voted to keep council and Mayor qualifying fees the same for the election this year, which is 3 percent of the current salary.

They also voted to budget an additional $25,000 for playground equipment in addition to the $40,000 grant recently received from a Tillotson grant. 

The council also voted to hire ETAC to monitoring the demolition of the Park Avenue apartments which began this week, in reference to asbestos and lead at $475 for day. The town is responsible only for !5 percent of that cost. ETAC did the initial asbestos and lead testing and reports on the apartments. The asbestos and lead abatement process is only expected to last 10-15 days of the demolition project, according to town Superintendent Eddy Willingham.