Iowa County looks for money for communications upgrade

MARENGO — Heidi Kuhl, of Northland Securities, presented several options to Iowa County Supervisors last week by which they could finance their emergency services communications contract with RACOM.

Josh Humphrey, Emergency Management coordinator, told Supervisors in May that the county’s radio contract with RACOM would expire in October 2026.

Iowa County Supervisors must decide how to fund updates to its emergency management equipment — including radios and infrastructure — so the emergency network keeps running smoothly.

Noting that the funds will be needed for fiscal year 2026, Kuhl said the county can bond for the new contract because Emergency Management is considered an essential service by the state.

The county has an EMA bond from 2016 that won’t be paid off until 2032. That paid for the initial radios and equipment.

Ideally the county would have the previous bond paid off before bonding for new equipment, said Kuhl, but the county has no cash with which to pay it off and interest rates haven’t dropped enough that the county can refinance.

The county’s debt service right now is at 31 cents, said Kuhl. Bonding for the new RACOM contract would take the debt service levy to about 56 cents.

“[That] does get you a little under that 60 cents where you were two years ago,” Kuhl said.

The county has $2 million left on the $4 million contract from 2016, said County Supervisor Abby Maas. From a business standpoint, Maas would like to pay it off. It doesn’t make sense to keep paying for something the county is no longer using, she said.

And it would save the county nearly $200,000 in interest.

But the county has no cash and would have to bond to pay off that debt. That would raise the debt service level to about $1.55, said Kuhl.

Though it would be temporary — about a year, according to Maas — Supervisor Kevin Heitshusen doesn’t think taxpayers would approve.

And there’s a cost to bonding, so the savings would be less than the $200,000 in interest, said Kuhl.

Bonding for the new contract while still paying on the bond for the old will still keep the debt service under 60 cents, said Kuhl.

The existing bond did pay for some structures in addition to equipment, said Humphrey, so not everything the county is buying with that money will be discontinued.

Emergency Management pays RACOM $300,000 a year for maintenance on its communications equipment, said Humphrey.

The maintenance agreement extends the manufacturer’s warranty on equipment and covers annual preventive maintenance, Mike Miller, president of RACOM, told Supervisors in August.

Cellphone companies take care of communication up to the 911 call, said Miller, but RACOM takes care of all the communications after that, such as dispatch equipment, towers, in-car radios and handheld radios.

Iowa County’s contract with RACOM went into effect in 2017 and runs through 2027.

RACOM’s maintenance contract with Iowa County doesn’t cover obsolete equipment, said Miller, “and that’s where your current system is today.”

The county can’t bond for maintenance, said Humphrey. It can bond only for actual equipment.

The radios are good for 10 years, said Humphrey, and the maintenance contract is good for 10 years. The infrastructure will be covered for 15 years, he said.

“This is buying everything now, and we pay for 10 years,” Humphrey said.

Maas said she’d like to run some numbers and asked Kuhl work up a spreadsheet with additional information to present at a future meeting.