If approved by the board of commissioners, Dawson County residents will be able to save on prescriptions and medical expenses.

Thats because Coast2CoastRX, a prescription discount card program, would offer discounts on lab, imaging, dental, vision and hearing medical expenses.

And the program doesnt cost the county nor the citizen a penny.

"Coast2CoastRx requires the commission to adopt the program and wants us (Dawson County) to endorse the program," County Manager Cindy Campbell said at Thursdays work session. Coast2CoastRx is endorsed by the Association County Commissioners of Georgia.

"Any citizen can use this card for non-covered items as well," Campbell said. "This is not just for county employees."

According to 2011 estimates, Coast2CoastRx saved program participants an average of 55 percent on prescriptions.

Any prescription filled using the discount card gives the county a $1.25 royalty.

"I recommend the commission approve this since there is a benefit to our citizens and no cost to Dawson County," Campbell said.

"It's a good program," Chairman Mike Berg said.

Campbell also presented the commission with the 2012 Fiscal Year Budget Amendment Resolution.

The original budget for 2012 was $20,902,956. The final budget for 2012 was $22,368,492. The increase was 7 percent, or $1,465,536.

A total of $1.1 million of the increase was from a wetlands credit sale. The wetlands credits were set up in a mitigation bank to offset the environmental impact of construction. According to Matt Peevy, partner at Mitigation Management in Atlanta, anytime a water or stream is impacted by construction a separate site must be restored. The site restored by the county is behind Rock Creek Park. The county can then sell credits of the restored land to other entities that will be impacting waters and streams with construction. In this case, the county sold credits to the Georgia Department of Transportation. The county used the money from the sale to pay down debt, Campbell said.

Commissioner Gary Pichon said he thought the 2012 budget was a good one.

"You go through and you scrub all the numbers; from a public standpoint, we had a good, tight budget," he said. "We came very close to that budget. ... We got a million dollars we weren't counting on and we went and we paid down debt with that. I think that's a good thing. I think that's a good budget."

Also at the work session, Purchasing Director Davida Simpson recommended the commissioners reject all the bids received for the equipment shelters for the county's radio communication system project.

Simpson said the county had budgeted $60,000 to build two equipment shelters. The most qualified bid Simpson said she received to build the shelters came in at $161,325.49, almost two and half times the amount budgeted for the project.

Simpson told commissioners she would like to release a new bid nationwide requesting estimates for only refurbished telecommunications shelters, which would be much closer to the county's needs and budget.

The commission is expected to vote on these issues at its next session, Thursday, June 6.