Floyd County approves change in general assistance management, looks at radio tower income options

By Bob Steenson, bsteenson@charlescitypress.com

Floyd County supervisors made another large payment toward the county’s new communications project and also discussed leasing space on the new communications tower near Rockford to provide some revenue.

The board also discussed moving the coordination for county general assistance to Floyd County Public Health and Home Health Care, now that the regional County Social Services organization is being dissolved.

General assistance is available to help low income Floyd County residents who are ineligible for or are waiting approval from federal or state assistance programs. Assistance options include help with utilities costs, health supplies, medical costs, rent and burial expenses.

The program in Floyd County has been coordinated through County Social Services, the 12-county area mental health and developmental disabilities service. But CSS is being disbanded under the state’s consolidation and reorganization of mental health and disability services systems.

Supervisor Gloria Carr had suggested that Floyd County Public Health take over responsibility for county general assistance, as some other Iowa counties have had success doing with their public health agencies.

Gail Arjes, administer of Floyd County Public Health, told the supervisors at the board’s regular weekly meeting Monday morning that she was willing to take on the responsibility, and that her staff should be able to handle the extra work.

Supervisors had previously discussed reducing the Public Health budget for the fiscal year beginning July 1 by $1,210, because the county Board of Health had approved some Public Health staff pay increases that were higher than the 2.75% that the supervisors had established as a baseline for county employees. That reduction had been included in current county budget numbers.

Floyd County Public Health is overseen by an autonomous Board of Health that decides how its budget will be spent. The Board of Supervisors has control over the bottom line amount of funds coming from the county.

With Public Health taking on more duties coordinating general assistance, the supervisors agreed Monday to not change the Public Health budget, but to reduce public assistance funding by $1,210 to keep the overall budget figures the same. Total general assistance for the next fiscal year had been set at about $29,000.

On the communications project, Sheriff’s Deputy Lt. Travis Bartz said Pyramid Network Services, the company that built and installed the new 300-foot-tall communications tower near Rockford, also has a service to market extra antenna space on towers.

Bartz said the proposal from Pyramid was to do all the marketing, contract agreements and technical work to acquire lease agreements on the tower, in return for 20% of the monthly lease payment.

Floyd County already has an agreement with Stephen Schlader, the property owner from whom it purchased the 1½ acres of farmland for the tower location, to pay him 25% of the tower revenue for 30 years.

That would leave 55% of the tower lease revenue for Floyd County if the supervisors approve the Pyramid proposal.

Bartz said the county could potentially get several hundred to several thousand dollars a month in its share of lease revenue, depending on the number and types of companies that might want to lease antenna space.

Supervisor Carr said there are other companies that also do tower asset management, including some she heard about at a recent conference she attended, and she asked Bartz to look into them as well.

The agenda item was for discussion only on tower space leasing, and the board took no action.

The supervisors did approve a payment of $346,048.20, representing 10% of the contract price due on the overall communications project, to Motorola Solutions, the company that helped design the system and provided most of the radio and other equipment.

Carr said the total cost of the county’s new public safety radio communications system for law enforcement, fire, emergency medical services and others looks like it will come in under the approximately $5 million that is available from the county issuing emergency communications bonds, and more than $500,000 could be used toward the annual maintenance costs on the system or for other emergency services costs.

She suggested it could even be used for the county’s share of the cost of subsidizing ambulance service, “as long as it’s emergency services.”

Also at the meeting Monday, the supervisors heard the monthly report from Conservation Director Adam Sears, who said he was working to fill his office manager position, with 26 applicants and seven interviews scheduled, representing “some really good applicants and qualified individuals.”

Sears also said they were doing their annual wood duck house inventory, cleaning them out and repairing them as needed. The county has 67 wood duck houses on county conservation land, and 54 of them had successful hatchings in the past year.

That’s really significant, he said, because this is wood ducks’ native breeding area but there are few of the old dead trees remaining that used to provide their nesting sites. His goal is to get 100 wood duck houses on conservation property.

Sears said anyone who wants a wood duck house for private property should contact the Floyd County Chapter of the Izaak Walton League, which also makes and distributes the houses.

He also said the department is planning training for volunteers at the Floyd County Fossil and Prairie Park Preserve and Center, and can always use more volunteers.

The center will be open to the public on weekends in May, 1 to 4 p.m. daily in June, July and August, then back to the weekend schedule in September.