County ready to begin receiving construction project funding

By Bob Steenson, bsteenson@charlescitypress.com

Floyd County will be bringing in millions of dollars in general obligation bond sales to pay for its new law enforcement center and updates to the courthouse, and now the county has a place to park that money.

The county Board of Supervisors moved quickly through its regular meeting agenda Tuesday morning, including passing a resolution to create two new county funds — one to receive the proceeds of bond sales to pay for the projects, and the other to receive the property taxes that will be used to repay the bonds.

County Auditor Gloria Carr said she had talked with Elizabeth Thyer, a partner and CPA with Gardiner Thomsen, the firm that does the county’s annual audits, and they decided to use one fund for both the law enforcement center and courthouse updates projects, but to use different project codes to keep the expenditures separate since both facilities must be maintained on the county’s books as separate assets.

“She also suggested that we set up an additional debt service fund so when those taxes are collected they are not co-mingled with other taxes,” Carr said.

Carr said proceeds from the first $6.115 million bond issue should be received today (Wednesday).

The board also set a public hearing for 9:15 a.m. Tuesday, Jan. 22, 2019, on an amendment to the county budget to let it transfer funds to be used for the construction projects.

Carr said another budget amendment may be needed closer to the end of the current fiscal year, June 30, 2019 when they have a better idea of what project costs will occur yet in this fiscal year.

Also at the meeting Tuesday, the board:

• Appointed Craig Anderson and Amanda McCarty to three-year terms on the Floyd County Memorial Hospital Commission, to replace outgoing members Sue Pump and Jim Moon.
• Reappointed David Tice and Denise Pavlovich to additional three-year terms on the Health Board.
• Approved an intergovernmental 28E agreement to join the Iowa Governmental Health and Related Benefits Program so the county can purchase health care coverage for county employees from that group. The board also appointed Auditor Carr as the county representative to the group.
• Set a 2 percent increase as a guideline for county departments to use as they plan their budgets for the new fiscal year which begins July 1, 2019. Actual budgets will increase or decrease as the supervisors work through the county budgeting process early next year.