County OKs budget amendment; LEC decisions continue

By Bob Steenson, bsteenson@charlescitypress.com 

Floyd County supervisors authorized spending an extra $1.5 million Tuesday morning, to start paying for expenses associated with the new law enforcement center project and courthouse updates, and to pay county secondary road costs including repairing damages caused by flooding.

The county board held a public hearing on a budget amendment, then, after receiving no written or oral comments, approved a resolution increasing expenditures by the county engineering department by $1 million, and general services by $500,000.

The budget amendment also recognized $425,000 in extra revenue coming to the county engineering department, from the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

That FEMA money will help pay for road and other infrastructure repairs caused by severe weather in June and July.

President Trump declared Floyd and 29 other Iowa counties as federal disaster areas, and Floyd County Engineer Dusten Rolando said FEMA is expected to cover 85 percent of the $500,000 county costs attributed to those weather events.

Another $100,000 will be used to pay for weather-related damage that occurred prior to the time period covered by the presidential disaster declaration, and $400,000 will be used as Floyd County’s share of a joint road project with Cerro Gordo County that had been left out of the original department budget, Rolando said.

The additional expenditures in the county general services fund will cover such law enforcement center (LEC) and courthouse expenses as purchasing and then demolishing two residences along Jackson Street that are needed to make room for the LEC. The cost for that, including removing asbestos in the residences and other expenses, will be about $374,000.

An additional $100,000 will go as a payment to Prochaska and Associates, the Omaha, Nebraska, architectural, design and project management firm that the county is using to design the LEC and courthouse changes and help guide the project.

The extra money is coming out of unspent fund balances, said County Auditor Gloria Carr, but the expenditures needed to be approved through a budget amendment because they were not originally included in the fiscal year 2018-19 budget passed this past spring by the supervisors.

The LEC project money will be repaid to the funds when general obligation bonds are sold to finance the bulk of the LEC and courthouse project. Voters in May authorized the county to sell up to $13.5 million in bonds to finance the project, of which about $10 million will be for the LEC and about $3.5 million will be for courthouse updates.

Carr said additional budget amendments will probably be needed as the LEC and courthouse project proceeds.

At a supervisor planning session Monday morning, Supervisor Linda Tjaden said that progress continues in making decisions on courthouse changes included in the project.

Some of the big-ticket items that had been anticipated all along include new windows in the courthouse and a new heating and air-conditioning system that will be shared with the new LEC.

Other expenses involve making the connections between the existing courthouse and a new atrium and lobby that will join the courthouse to the LEC and will include new separate public and jail detainee elevators and new handicapped-accessible restrooms for each floor of the courthouse.

Connections will need to be made through the west exterior wall of the courthouse on each floor to provide access to the atrium, and some interior corridor and room changes will also be needed to accommodate those connections.

In addition, a number of county departments will be relocating as the county jail and Sheriff’s Office are removed from the fourth floor and located in the new LEC.

The County Attorney’s Office and the Clerk of Court’s Office will both relocate to the fourth floor, and minor changes are anticipated for the third floor, where the district courtroom and related offices are located.

The fourth floor and third floor floor plans have been approved by the affected departments, Tjaden said.

On the second floor, the County Recorder’s Office will move across the hall to where the Clerk of Court’s Office was, and the County Assessor’s Office will move into the space where the County Recorder’s Office was.

The small second floor boardroom currently used for Board of Supervisors meetings could be taken over by the adjoining County Auditor’s Office, and options are being looked at for a more secure space for the county’s computer servers and related equipment within the auditor’s office, Tjaden said.

Tjaden said some of the decisions that have been made regarding courthouse changes will likely cost less than originally anticipated, but others may cost more.

For example, she said, the Floyd County Department of Human Services and Mental Health, currently located in a building at 1206 S. Main St., may move into the courthouse, into the space on the first floor currently occupied by the County Attorney’s Office.

If that happens the county would likely try to sell the building at 1206 S. Main St., and Tjaden said County Auditor Carr is looking at possible cost savings from no longer having to maintain that building and from selling it.

The Department of Veterans Services could also move up from the ground floor into the county attorney’s space on the first floor.

On the ground floor, a new supervisors boardroom will be built where the current assembly room and garage are located, on the northwest corner of the courthouse.

“We’re waiting now for Prochaska to tell us what the estimated costs are going to be” regarding department location changes and other changes, Tjaden said.

If the changes suggested can’t be done within the $13.5 million budget, decisions will have to be made to cut costs, she said.