Tjaden updates Lions regarding law enforcement center

By James Grob, jgrob@charlescitypress.com

Floyd County Supervisor Linda Tjaden outlined the county’s building plans for the new law enforcement center — and discussed ways the county is trying to reduce costs — Friday at the Lions Club’s weekly meeting at the Floyd County Historical Museum.

“We know we’re over budget,” Tjaden told Lions Club members. “We’re $4 million over. The thing that we’re doing right now, is to try to come up with ideas to reduce some of that.”

Tjaden said the supervisors are doing all they can to make certain the budget inconsistencies don’t lead to a higher tax burden for Floyd County residents.

“What we don’t want to do is change what our plan was,” she said. “We went in with a $1.08 tax rate … that’s what the general public was notified about. We will continue to do what we can to not raise that at all.”

Floyd County voters overwhelmingly passed a bond referendum in May of 2018, approving the construction of a new county law enforcement center, including a jail, sheriff’s offices and updates to the courthouse.

The now-estimated $16 million project is expected to be finished in early 2021. Courthouse renovations are scheduled to start by November of 2020, while the new addition is expected to be at least 95% complete by then.

Tjaden said the site grading and prep construction work at the new addition is completed, the footings are scheduled to be placed by the end of January, the precast and setup should be completed by the end of March, the roofing is scheduled to be installed in April, and internal wall, construction, framing and finishing is scheduled for November.

Courthouse updates include new windows, a new heating and cooling system, fire suppression sprinklers, and some interior remodeling for office changes, especially removing the existing jail and Sheriff’s Office from the top floor.

Sid Samuels, owner and president of The Samuels Group, has been working on ways to trim costs ever since bids came in September about $4.6 million above the $13.5 million that voters approved spending on the project.

Tjaden said Friday that architects had said $13.5 million, but Samuels Group’s estimates were higher.

Tjaden said that at that point items were pulled out of the project in order to cut costs, although several of those items may become part of a long-term building plan.

The board issued $6.01 million worth of bonds for the project in 2018. In October, the supervisors authorized the process to issue the remaining $7.49 million in general obligation bonds for the $13.5 million total that was approved by voters.

Included in the proceeds of the new issue will be about $1.463 million in reoffering premium, which is additional money the county will receive by offering to pay a premium to bond holders above the regular interest rate.

The effect is that the county will get more money to pay for its project, but will also pay more interest payments on the bonds over their 19-year maturity.

Bids were accepted for the project this past August. The supervisors have worked to come up with additional funding since bids for the project came in significantly higher than initial estimates.

In addition to the $1.463 million additional in bond premium, the county also intends to dip into its general fund reserves by about $2.5 million and look for ways to shave several hundred thousand dollars from the price of the project and to find several hundred thousands dollars in additional funding.

“We’ve got general fund dollars — we don’t want to use them — but we are fortunate to have a good general fund balance, so we may have to use some of that,” Tjaden said.

Tjaden said Friday that there are several value-engineering items in the project — where contractors are finding ways to reduce costs from the architectural estimates.

“We’ve got several of those,” she said. “It’s still not enough, but we’re hoping as we continue the project we will be finding things that can be reduced.”

The county has also been exploring moving some or all courthouse offices temporarily to the 500 N. Grand building to allow contractors unrestricted access to the courthouse for update projects.