Washington County narrows ARPA options

WASHINGTON — After a lengthy work session and months of standstill, county supervisors slashed down their list of possible ARPA projects from 23 items to five.

Still, supervisors said they did not expect the county’s roughly $4 million from the COVID relief legislation to cover all that remained.

“It’s all going to be gone in a heartbeat … It’ll be well over the $4 million we’re getting,” Board of Supervisors Chair Richard Young said. “We’ll go with the top five for now, and see where we’re sitting.”

Phone upgrades take priority

While upgrades to the county phone systems were not the most popular item on internal rankings from county officials, supervisors said they would move to the top of the list as a quickly attainable project with a relative popularity.

“We should get quotes and … keep this ball rolling,” Young said. “If we know it’s going to cost us $100,000 … let’s get this phone system, where we get complaints all the time, taken care of.”

County officials said agencies could switch to a VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) phone system, allowing staff to take calls without extra landlines and regardless of their location.

“I’ve had one now for going on five years, and I love it, it’s fantastic, it’s easy,” Supervisor Marcus Fedler said. “You don’t have to run new wires to get a phone, just a data line and that’s it. It’s a complete change of thought process … literally everybody that’s got a computer at their desk could have a phone, and it would be their phone.”

Building project covers several concerns on lengthy timeline

A new office building on county property at Orchard Hill is among the most popular items for county department heads.

The space would check off several high-ranking proposals on the committee’s initial list, including a county-owned location for Public Health and administrative departments outside of the courthouse. The county has worked with Carl A. Nelson for several weeks planning such a project.

“Their plan is to provide us with as many options and maybe stages that we could do,” said Fedler, county’s point of contact with the company. “When we put this list together, that shook to the top almost immediately … the rest of it has a lot to do with the build out at Orchard Hill.”

The move would nullify several less popular alternative ARPA projects, like buying the Federation Bank Building which currently houses the county’s public health department.

“We need to find a home for Public Health, but (I’m) not sure that this building is the right answer,” an anonymous response to the department head survey said. “The building is very old with lots of problems.”

Despite its popularity, constructing a new building is a time-intensive and expensive process. Supervisors said it would likely take several years and more money than what’s available through the American Rescue Plan Act.

“The building’s going to be a long project, and we’re going to have to bond for that probably,” Young said. “There’s no way we can do that without it … if the public says no, then we start back to the drawing board.”

Digitized records

Proposals to digitize county records with ARPA money were only briefly discussed, as plans to do so have already been approved paid for over two years, the first funded entirely by departments, the second cushioned with the relief money.

Young stressed that the county’s current arrangement would only digitize the oldest and highest-use documents.

“What we assigned wasn’t for all the records,” he said. “I think some people misunderstood that this was going to take care of all those books up there, and it’s not. Some day, but it’s going to be in stages. We got it rolling.”

Marr Park improvements include broadband, shower house, but expense looms

While internet at Marr Park’s camping area was another popular option, supervisors worried about the cost, estimated at $30,000 per mile to bring KCTC coverage the necessary eight miles up the road.

County Conservation had also requested $100,000 from ARPA for a $600,000 shower house project. While the original memo suggested a plan to add FEMA grant money, county officials said mixing the federal packages may not be possible.

“You can’t get FEMA funds if there’s ARPA funds used for it as well,” Emergency Management Coordinator Marissa Reisen said during the work session.

Engineering items stay on list, but construction costs risk trade offs

The lowest-ranked items still on the list are a mix of requests by the county engineering staff.

The top of that group is a new engineer shop in the same place as the rest of the department staff in Washington.

"The building is priority to me, that’s my office,“ County Engineer Jacob Thorius said. ”If there’s leftover money, I’ll take what you can give me.“

Paved shoulders along G36 are next in the running according to Thorius, despite a hefty price tag at roughly $300,000 per mile.

“It’s a road we have nearly 4,000 cars a day on,” he said. “We have not had any serious accidents, we’ve had a lot of near misses. As with any road project, there’s not enough money going around … the worst stretch is Redwood to 218, so that’s about three miles.”

Another is replacing the department’s sheds in Rubio and Riverside. Thorius said necessary relocations and fixes would take about $600,000.

“We started talking about the possibility of moving out of those,” Thorius said. “We’ve got two buildings from the mid-70s. Tried to do some repairs on the Rubio one, the posts are rotten. The Riverside one has no water … we have a facility that’s outdated for housing equipment and for operations of personnel.”

Four miles of roadwork near Wellman comes last. Thorius said it was already in the five-year road plan, but that funding wasn’t.

“We’re working toward Wellman road in a couple years or so,” he said. “We’re just trying to find stuff that was realistic and throw ideas out there.”

What’s coming off the list

The ARPA committee’s initial list of 23 items included a range of allocations to groups outside of the county government, including small business pandemic relief and assistance to Highland’s recently contracted wastewater plant.

Child care assistance remains in limbo as supervisors await more information. The item ranked 19th out of 23 on the original list shared with department heads.

“I don’t have any information on that,” Young said. “I don’t know if (WEDG) has done anything on that … I’ll put a question mark by it.”

Lower-ranked items like assistance to local businesses hit by the pandemic and overtime pay for county employees were ruled out unceremoniously.

“Overtime pay is probably not going to happen,” Young said. “Funneling money to small businesses, I would say, is not going to happen … there’s other ones that have higher priority.”

Comments: Kalen.McCain@southeastiowaunion.com