There was some disagreement during the June 4 Jones County Supervisors meeting when it came to approving an addendum to the request for RFPs for a new Public Safety Storage Building.
The vote passed 3-2, with Supervisors Jon Zirkelbach, Joe Oswald, and Jeff Swisher in favor. Supervisors John Schlarmann and Ned Rohwedder were opposed.
During the last board meeting, County Auditor Whitney Hein asked the board to postpone accepting RFPs due to a law change she wanted to follow up on.
When presenting the packet for RFPs, Hein included a rough cost estimate of the construction project, between $1.4 million and $1.7 million. She explained to the board that people had been asking whether a public bond vote would be needed for this particular project.
“I feel that is not the intention of the board,” she voiced of a bond vote. “The main goal was to finetune the evaluation of how the proposals would be evaluated, and to add an appendix to the Sheriff’s drawing of a potential building size.”
Hein also suggested a July 2 due date for accepting RFPs.
Schlarmann questioned including the cost estimate in the packet at all.
“That has been one of the most popular questions asked,” Hein said.
“When the initial RFP went out, we started getting blasted and she (Hein) took the brunt of it with all of these questions,” added Sheriff Greg Graver. “So we reached out to Galloway’s (Mike Galloway, HR) office to get legal opinions on this stuff.”
“I could leave it (the cost proposal) off, but then I would need some direction when people are calling and asking questions in regards to our budget,” Hein said.
Schlarman said he is against spending the proposed cost estimate on this project, much less $1 million.
“I don’t know if I want to put out an RFP for something that high, a budget with that much money,” he voiced.
Zirkelbach said the board could spend another month finetuning the particulars on this project, which would only postpone the project.
“We need to get moving on this timewise,” he urged.
The board did obligate using the county’s ARPA funds toward the purchase of land associated with this project, as well as the land for a possible new law enforcement center. Schlarmann asked Hein if the ARPA funds could go into the county’s General Fund for future expenses.
“You can’t refill the coffers,” she warned. “You still need to obligate the money toward something specific.”
“I’m saying if we spend a reasonable amount of money on this (storage building) and we don’t have anything else ear-tagged for the rest (of the ARPA funds), that we could put that into our budget to pay for something out of so many departments or whatever to help our departments,” suggested Schlarmann.
Hein offered that the idea could “potentially” work.”
Zirkelbach said when the ARPA committee was initially formed, the list of ideas for spending the money did not include splitting it up between departments.
In September 2022, the supervisors voted on and approved the ARPA committee’s list of recommendations, which included purchasing land for a future justice (law enforcement) center/storage building and the construction of a justice center.
Schlarmann said the construction of a storage building is not the same as a justice center.
“This has been a part of it the whole time,” Graver said. “When you look at it, it’s all included. A place to park and store Public Safety equipment.”
Schlarmann said with the state tying the county’s hands in terms of property taxes and spending, the remaining ARPA funds could be better served in the General Fund.
“In my opinion, we put up a respectable building at a respectable price and try to do a few more of these (smaller projects),” pushed Schlarmann. “Right now, the buildings that you (Graver) have aren’t costing the county anything. But now we’re going to go out and spend $1.7 million?”
Graver said his two-stall garage that he has for storage is all there is at the moment, which means some equipment and vehicles sit outside.
“Right now we’re looking for RFPs,” said Zirkelbach. “We’re splitting hairs as far as the numbers. How many times have we sat here and the engineer’s estimate for projects is way above what the actual sealed bids are? It happens.”
Both Hein and Graver assured the board that having the cost proposal in the RFPs does not obligate the county to spend that amount of money.
“It’s not tying you to anything specific,” Hein said. “It’s just giving people an idea of the type of building.”
Hein said the cost proposal was also edited per her conversations with construction firms.
“They’re probably going to end up basing their fee on the total construction costs,” she explained. “A flat fee doesn’t really exist anymore.”
“I just question whether there is a way to make it more equitable for everybody here,” said Oswald.