Floyd County Supervisors handle money matters at weekly meeting

By Bob Steenson, bsteenson@charlescitypress.com

Issues involving money were on the agenda at the Floyd County Board of Supervisors meeting this week.

The board set a public hearing for an amendment to keep the county Secondary Roads Department’s budget in balance, approved the contract for a large drainage district project, and paid the latest legal bills for the county’s representation in the carbon dioxide pipeline project hearings process.

County Engineer Jacob Page said there had been a change in the way funds for county bridge projects are handled, requiring a $1.7 million amendment to his budget.

The amendment wouldn’t result in any change in the amount of money the county was spending on the 155th and Victory Street Bridge project, or on the amount of money it was receiving toward that project, Page said, but will affect the timing.

“Previously, all bridge projects were paid directly out of the Highway Bridge Program when the state was doing the oversight on our projects,” Page explained at the meeting Monday morning.

This year, the oversight changed from the state to the federal government. Now the county has to pay contractors through its Secondary Road Fund, then that fund is reimbursed by the Highway Bridge Program.

“That project was let for $1,699,701.65, so my budget is going to be incorrect by that amount,” he said. The budget amendment accounts for the $1.7 million in additional revenue and the $1.7 million in additional expenditures.

The board set a public hearing for 9:15 a.m. on Monday, Oct. 30, regarding the amendment.

The board also approved a contract for $414,750,60 for a Drainage District 3 main ditch repair project. The district is owned by the property owners within the district and the property owners will be assessed for all the costs, but the supervisors act as trustees for the management of the district.

“We got a very good bid on that and we want to get this contract signed so this can go out and we can get this project started,” said board Chair Mark Kuhn. “Hopefully we’ll get some work done on this in this fall.”

The contract, with Larson Contracting Central LLC of Lake Mills, was about 30% less than the drainage engineer’s estimated price of $590,000. It requires the project to be completed by Sept. 30, 2024, with a daily penalty of $500 for each day beyond that.

And the supervisors also paid the latest bills from Ahlers & Cooney, the Des Moines law firm the board hired to represent the county before the Iowa Utilities Board regarding permit applications for the proposed Summit Carbon Solutions and Navigator CO2 Ventures carbon dioxide transport pipelines and to help the county write a new zoning ordinance regulating pipelines in the county.

Floyd County is one of seven counties being represented by the firm in this matter, so it pays 14.29% of the bills each month for those items that all seven counties are involved in.

The first bill was for $62,142.34, mostly for attendance and for questioning witnesses at the Summit hearings in Fort Dodge. Floyd County’s share of that is $8,880.14.

The next part was $455 for legal services in connection with the Navigator project. The county’s share of that bill was $64.97.

A third bill, only for Floyd County and for $105, was listed for “pipeline and ROW (right of way) ordinances.”

Kuhn said he questioned that bill, because the county had put work on that ordinance on hold while it awaited rulings in federal court on other Iowa counties’ efforts to regulate pipelines through zoning, and other information.

“So I’d like to just defer action on that $105 until we get confirmation from Ahlers & Cooney as to exactly what that was for,” Kuhn said.