Floyd County will use former county engineer to help with budget

By Bob Steenson, bsteenson@charlescitypress.com

The Floyd County Board of Supervisors agreed Monday to work with the previous county engineer on a temporary contract basis to help put together the Secondary Roads Department budget for the next fiscal year.

But the board will hire an outside firm to handle the engineering duties of the department as the county looks for the former county engineer’s replacement.

The supervisors are seeking a new engineer after accepting the resignation last week of  Dusten Rolando, who resigned from his shared county engineer position in Floyd and Chickasaw counties after being charged with second-offense OWI two weeks earlier.

Legally, the county needs a licensed civil engineer to sign off on various road and bridge projects, and time-wise, work needs to begin fairly soon on the new Engineering and Secondary Roads Department budget for the fiscal year that begins June 1, 2022.

Rolando had offered to work out a temporary contract with Floyd County to help with the budget and to act as engineer to sign paperwork on projects.

Supervisor Roy Schwickerath said hiring Rolando on a temporary basis for budgeting and engineer services would be the easiest path, and also likely the most cost-effective short-term solution for the county because of his familiarity with the department.

“My opinion is if we can figure out a reasonable contract with Dusty it just makes it cleaner for us,” Schwickerath said. “We’ve got one person up there who’s in charge of the engineering and the budget. I think the budget is the lion’s share, actually.”

“I really think that’s the smoothest way for this thing to work out,” Schwickerath said a little later in the meeting.

But Supervisors Linda Tjaden and Doug Kamm said while they valued Rolando’s experience putting together the department’s budget and that was probably the way to go in that area, they wanted someone else involved in the engineering duties.

Scott Sweet, a civil engineer who lives south of Charles City and who is a principal with WHKS Inc., an engineering firm in Mason City, has offered to help with engineering duties on an hourly contract basis as needed, similar to what he did with Cerro Gordo County when that county was looking for a new engineer.

Sweet said at the meeting Monday morning that he worked for Cerro Gordo County for 10 weeks, and billed 39 hours, but Cerro Gordo had more projects going on at that time than Floyd County does.

Sweet’s suggested contract calls for a fee of $220.50 per hour, with a total not to exceed $17,640.

Rolando offered to work for the county for $50 an hour, which is what he said is about the average hourly salary for area county engineers.

All three supervisors stressed that hiring Rolando for the budget work was just an interim measure.

“Last week we took action,” Tjaden said, referring to accepting Rolando’s resignation. “This is just an interim that we need to figure out until we get the hiring going.”

“I like Dusty, but it’s time to move on,” Kamm said. “We need to come up with something that’s going to take us forward.”

Tjaden moved and Kamm seconded a motion for Kamm to work with the county’s labor attorney and the Floyd County Attorney’s Office to come up with a contract to hire Rolando to put together the department’s new fiscal year budget, but to hire Sweet at WHKS on an as-needed hourly basis to handle required civil engineering duties.

The motion passed 2-1, with Schwickerath voting against.

Kamm will also act as a liaison with the engineering office and the Secondary Roads Department if they have questions, and will lead the process of looking for a new county engineer.