Ondrea Elmquist, Boone City Administrator, August 26, 2026

And today on our program, we are visiting with Andrea Elmquist, Moon City Administrator, who just plug it all up, she’s going, hey, but I know last time we didn’t, I didn’t really ask you last time about it, the time before I had, but you know, you had been out there looking for a finance officer, you didn’t get a couple of applications, hopefully they met what you were looking for, and you got a chance to take a look at the position, but still working on it? Yeah, we’re still working on it. We had put together a hiring committee of different executives or leaders throughout the state, actually. And we interviewed what we thought was our top three candidates, we will be taking our recommendation to City Council on the September 7th Council meeting to get direction on where they want us to go from here. Okay, you already have an assistant, though, that you had asked the council, could we get an assistant at least to start the process of getting somebody into that position? Yeah, this, the assistant finance officer will be actually doing some doing primarily the accounts payable and payroll, one or the other, not both at the same time, which is what we have done in the past. And then her other primary duty is to track all of our projects in regards to the expenditures going out, the revenues coming in, where we’re sitting in regards to the bid amount, how much is left, those kinds of things. We have a lot of projects going on. And I feel like that’s more than even just a finance officer can do with her regular duties. Sure. Years ago, we had a $17 million sanitary sewer project. And at that time, I used interns when I was a finance officer. So this is not something that we have not done. This is a permanent position. However, we do have a lot of projects that she will be tracking. So and there are, yeah. And by the way, folks, if you’re wondering, who was doing this before? Myself or the previous finance officers. It was, yeah, it’s been, I mean, we’ve had to you got to keep doing it. I mean, it’s part of the business. Yeah, so part of the business. So yes, that’s what I do. Long days. I put in some long, long, long weeks. Anyhow, we were moving ahead with this. So some of the big things have, okay, projects in particular, we’re starting to hit some of the big infrastructure projects now that are tied one way or another. We’re two days. Obviously, the lift station project that we did last, last regular council meeting and the forest main. Now it started out, you were going to do the lift station anyway, a couple of years ago. But then when Daisy decided to come, then the taking a look at it, you didn’t want to redo it and then have to come back and redo it again right away. So just wouldn’t have been wise, wise choice of expenditures. Right. So upsized it. We have sized it just not for Daisy, but also for future expansion in that area. And then decided and then the recommendation actually from engineers at the time was go with the forest main, keep it out of the city system. Because then you could end it up with all kinds of issues going on for residents down on the south end. Right. So we’ve got a forest main project, ended up being a little higher than expected. I know the council was not particularly happy with that. But for a variety of reasons, it did. It came in at 7.1 million. So there we go. Yeah, that was a little more than expected. It’s unfortunate. The economy that we’re in, the situation that’s where we’re in a lot of projects, just like when you go to the grocery store, what you used to be able to buy for 50 bucks is now going to be 100 bucks. It’s just unfortunate. And a lot of our estimates are two years old when we started working on these projects. And the world has changed over those two years. And but in the one the part I looked at, because you had three beds, and they were actually all relatively close. They were. So I’m going, Okay, so this is more of the true figure that we should be looking at at this point in time. Right. And some of it is is that the forest main, their claiming is is more difficult than what maybe the engineers predicted. Yeah, well, they got to go through some rough territory on the south end of McCose Park to get to the plant. So that will take a little more there. That part is going on. We’re not done. Because the next big infrastructure part is going to be the North Transmission Main. This is going to be a waterline. And we touched on this before, too. Again, we’re talking another $7 million project. Yeah. Yeah, that one is being looked at at an alternative route. So I’m not 100% sure what that new estimate will be because we’re working through that. Okay. So but that’s moving forward. And that’ll be one of the next big ones. And then we’re not quite done because you still have other substantial projects like particularly, I think at wastewater, where you’re going to be doing some improvements down there in the process that we have. Yeah, we got several different projects going on at the wastewater plant. We also had had works will be starting this winter. That one has been bid. We also have the well number 30 that we’re going to be bidding and the water tower. And that’s another big one. Yep, those are both on our next bidding schedules. So a lot of these tie do tie in with Daisy, in particular, meeting capacity and things like that you need. So we’ll just keep working at it. Trugging along. Okay. So the September meeting, one of the things you have on there is the hearings on going to the state revolving loan fund. And basically bottom line, you’ve already gone into the state revolving loan fund on a couple of projects already, I believe. Yeah, all of the projects, all the planning and design loans are 0% interest through the state revolving fund. So we’ve taken advantage of that. Any of the most of the ones that we have already let have also been state revolved funds other than we did do a it is still state revolving fund, but it’s a GO state revolving. Okay, so we did another one there. paying for it with receipts again, a lot of the state revolving loan fund, people don’t understand the other part of the state revolving loan fund is they you have a requirement, they make you they make you meet certain thresholds as far as income. Right. It’s a 110, which means that we have to show a 10% more in revenue than expenditure. So just like you’re buying a house, you know, they look at a loss income ratio type of item. So we have to have a 110 is what they call it, that our 10 our revenues are temperate 10% more than our daily operations for our plants individually. So we can’t combine water and sewer, you have to look at your water receipts versus your sanitary receipts, and then those expenditures. And some of the other things is that the state revolving fund requires certain things like environmental reviews, which is a hearing on September 7. There’s a lot of additional requirements that we have to do through there. But the benefit is is that one, like I said, the planning and design is a 0%. We don’t start repaying those until the projects are 80% complete. So that has allowed us to build up some of our cash reserves, which has now allowed us to use some of those cash reserves to reduce the amount of bond that we’re taking out on that Livestation and Force main to keep that within what we originally had planned. Again, the original budget was like had $5 million or so somewhere in there. So and that’s the other thing too, people go, Well, you had all those reserves in there. That what you end up doing, I think if the city has done this previously to you, if you do have those reserves, when you get to the end, and you’re trying to do the final bonds, you buy it down as much as you can, again, try to avoid the debt. Yeah. And on the state revolving, because it’s not a traditional bond in where you get the money up front, you, you don’t get that money until you actually spend it. So it’s a reimbursement, kind of like a grant. So what we can do is at the end of the project, instead of, say, if it’s a 5 million dollar project at the end, and we have $2 million sitting in our cash, we can only, we can choose to only take 2 million of the $5 million and then only repay that amount instead of the full amount. So again, there’s it’s all taking a look ahead and looking at planning and the big thing. And I think even when we were getting started on this, you said the big issue is going to be timing on everything. And that’s the big, the big challenge for you. Yes. Yes, it’s a matter of when does Daisy come on and start paying the water bills and the sanitary sewer bills versus when those bond payments start becoming due. And most of those projects are expected not to be done until August of 2028, which is also the same time Daisy is expected to go online. So we should, in theory, be be good there. She says, in theory, that’s the plan. Yes, that is the plan. That’s what we do. So we keep working out it too. So all of that’s going on. Again, that’s just on the infrastructure for water and sewer and stuff. We got a few other things that are going on. First of all, the while all of this is going on, we still have regular water tower maintenance that’s going on. We still have other things that we have to continue to do. I know down at the water plant, waterworks, they have their usual routine of well maintenance that they do. People don’t may not realize that they go in and maintain wells. They have a rotating basis for doing this and keeping them up to up so that we get the production out of them that we need. Yeah, the industrial tower, industrial park water tower is been is going to be bid for rehabilitation, which is basically sandblasting, or not sandblasting, but painting, cleaning, repairing. That project is expected to happen here in September. The bidding part of it, we have chosen due to the fact that the amount of money that we’re estimating that that to come in at, we’re going to have to split that over two years. So we’re expected to bid it this this fall. And then the work would begin in the spring, summer, so that we can spread the cost over fiscal year 2027 and 2028. And that’s kind of done that in the past, we’ve had that happen previously to working with a little different engineering firm on this, they do specialize in water towers. And once again, you’ve used SEH for a lot of different things that we’ve had WHKS doing some more other work for us and things like that. But so this is another different one, but they do specialize in water towers, this is their thing. Yes, this is what they do. And they’ve done a Whalen, our public works director was very impressed with their report. They he felt that it was very thorough. It certainly did come back with a lot more work that needed to be done than a previous company had suggested. So I think we’re we’re looking at being able to get this one done and being good for hopefully the next 20 years on the industrial park water tower. Well, we keep our fingers. Yes, yes, we do. It’s all part of it. And I know that sometimes they’ve been talking about do we take the Green Street water tower out of service? Do we? Obviously, if we have a new one that’s going to be out there by around Daisy or out by the business park out there, that’s again, going to add to your supply issue. Right. So right now, the Green Street is not expected to come offline. We are expecting to continue to use that at this time. That can always change. We’ll keep working. Yes. Let’s see, let’s talk about Hancock Drive, because we thought that might be done by now or a couple of months ago. Still not. Still got some things to take care of there. Yes, we’re still plugging away at that one. I did see that absolute concrete was out working on it last night. So hopefully the substantial completion is in November. So let’s let’s hope that that meets those deadlines. So we’re going, yeah, everybody was thinking, well, they’re going to be way ahead of the schedule here. They had other things they were doing as well too. So they were really busy last year and got a real good head start. And we just have been delayed with rain and other things. So we still have to put traffic signals in out there too, right? We do. We do. That’s another part coming folks. It’ll be there. So yes. Oh, well, we keep plugging along. Make it. We’ll get there. Yes, we will. Some of the other things. What other things have been happening? I’m trying to keep track of all the different things you got. Oh, let’s talk. Let’s talk about the Street Sweeper Farm Progress Show. This was the most recent thing they came up. This had started a long time ago. I mean, a long time ago where the city made the Street Sweeper available to do clean up the streets out there. And they had asked for more. And this has been a muddy year. So but the downside is as public works just had with retirements and stuff, we don’t have the people to operate it the way we used to. Correct. The two individuals that used to operate that have retired. So we have two new guys that can do that. However, one is on leave. So that left us one left. And so and with everything else that’s going on in the city, the public works director just felt that he was running pretty thin and could not provide the full week’s worth of street sweeping that they’ve done in the past. So the idea was after a much longer meeting, I thought, than it was I originally expected. But anyway, it turned out to be a lot longer. But we do have kind of a plan to put together a working arrangement and agreement. Yes. So we did sign an agreement. The agreement is for just one day out there to get the streets cleaned prior to the show. There is a fee schedule set by ordinance that they will reimburse the city for those those services. And you’re working with Central Iowa Expo, the actual Central Iowa Expo board on that. In the future, that’s who we’ll be working with this year in order to get it handled. It is with farm progress. Okay, so work, work our way through this to yep. All right, we got that part. And people need to remember the police department did say, we are going to have a lot of traffic issues next week, the first, second and third. And their big thing was not so much in the morning. It seems like the morning they feel you can make your commute. Again, safety first when you’re entering down there on Highway 30 at Corporal Sned and Drive or Crown Flare. But the big one is going to be when things let out in the afternoon. That’s when we tend to get a lot of build up. Yeah, and we’ll have officers there on Highway 30 to help direct traffic. So that’s something they will take care of just plan ahead. Yes. And at the same time, we have people moving into the south side of town. Yes, it’s going to be super national. Yes. That comes up the hole next week. We have a very busy September with the farm progress, super nationals, preferably days. We are a very blessed community to have so many things happen in one month. So we got or are or if you ask public works, are we really, they’ve been trying to struggle with the weather and everything to get the painting done on the lines on the streets because it is typically the time of the year they do that. And every time they were turning around, they were getting downpour. So yeah, we had a lot of rain this summer that we’ve had to deal with. We had a clarifier at the wastewater plant that we were trying to get sandblasted and repainted and that got delayed because of all the rain. So it’s been an interesting summer. So we haven’t had any like really the flooding things though. I and I work that’s going on now this next phase or the eighth phase of this. We have seen a lot of water, a lot of stormwater makes it way down there, but not near what we were looking at 10 years ago when we started. Right. Yeah, no, it’s just a matter of if having one clarifier down does just cause a little bit of an issue down there. So we got that. It’s all done. It’s all back in the running. So we’re back. We’re back up and going. Okay, keep it working. People tend to forget but US water is a contracted service for operation. They think that the city again, some of them refer to it as the city sold the plants. No, city owns both the water and the wastewater plant. They just contract the operations. Correct. Yeah, operations and maintenance. We use US water, which is a national company that does several plants around Iowa. It just so happens that they hired a lot of our people. Yes. And so they still we still have the same people that are working there. Some of them. Yeah, some of them have retired. Some of them retired prior to US water taking over. But yeah, we still have a couple of them. Josh Sheetak was a former city employee and he is now running the water plant. And he is, he did get up to be a grade four operator, which that’s that was the challenge that the city was looking at back at that time, finding those qualified operators. Yeah, you know, I think all businesses can can relate to that, especially right now is trying to find qualified employees to fill positions. Or even if you’re not a business owner, I think that even finding a contractor to do some work is sometimes difficult with our workforce that we have currently. Well, one of the things we touched on earlier, I did ask about it, and you said, Well, no, when we start doing our budget, but we see that City of Des Moines is looking at doing away with some of their incentive packages, some tax abatements and stuff. Moon has always had a number of these programs available. And I know you had said, Well, we’ll have to have the council really take a look at the impacts of the numbers again with the property tax changes that are coming up. One of them, you get to go to the supervisors today that’s been in place for a while. A whole different board of supervisors at the time, I think when it was first approved, they did buy into helping or joining the city into incentivize some residential construction, as they were thinking, bottom line is in the end, we’re going to have more taxable base. Yeah, you’re talking the housing incentive. It’s a $10,000 grant, basically, if you build a home between $200 and $400,000. These can be custom homes. If they’re custom homes, the home buyer gets the full 10,000. If it is a developer building a spec house, the developer gets 5,000, the purchaser, the home buyer gets 5,000. And then also in addition to that, the developer gets their building permits refunded also. So yeah, I’m going to the county, I think there’s some interest in making it a countywide incentive program that they would offer to other cities within the county. So we’ll see. And again, I know that’s something that brought up and since we’ve already gotten one in place, I don’t know how often we’ve used it, but it’s been something that’s been out there. It’s one of those incentives again, that are it’s there. Again, it’s a matter of are people going to go ahead and use it? Yeah, we initially put a $100,000 set aside on that. And we have gone through our first 100,000 and another 100,000 has been allocated to continue that program. And I believe we have done 12 homes now. Okay, so good. Yeah. And and for those that wonder, no, we don’t, you don’t allow developers to double depth and things like that. That’s that’s one thing that people will while they’re getting double advantages. No, no, that part doesn’t happen. No, and even on the homeowner side, there’s two programs, there’s the what we call the jumpstart boom, which is a tax abatement. And so if you’re a homeowner, you have to decide whether you’d rather have the tax abatement, which is the foregoing of taxes on the improvement of up to $75,000 on the value, or the 10,000 upfront. So we keep working on there are things that are still out there still available. We’ll have to see if we keep doing it. Yeah, and that incentive is not the tax abatement is affected by the new tax laws. The housing incentive is not because we’re not using TIF dollars. The housing or the tax abatement and the TIF is where we’re going to need to sit down with the council and look at maybe modifying that agreement. What’s going to be going on there and how we’re going to be able to do that. And we do have again, one of those that is coming up is is Erby Estates, Erby Park Estates. I know they are looking for a development agreement there. That one’s been done. That’s been done. So that doesn’t run into this. Correct. So they’re they’re the first ones that won’t receive or that the city won’t get LMI set abat. Okay, that is low to moderate income funding. In the previous laws, whenever you did a housing incentive or tax increment financing that was for market rate or executive homes, you had to put a certain percentage of those dollars aside for you to do a low to moderate income projects with the new law that takes that out. So you were really disappointed by that because you did use that. Yes, we use that quite often. We’ve done incentives for the housing on 22nd Street, and we did it on the housing apartments across the street from Fairway. We’ve done sidewalks with those funds. And so some of the kind of tied in with some of the sewer work. I think back in 1215 years ago or something like that. Yeah, so so we have been one of the cities that have continuously used those dollars. So I was disappointed to hear that they took those away. So some cities weren’t. And that was part of the issue was not everybody used it the same way. No, correct. Oh, well, we keep working. Yeah, again, busy meeting coming up here. Again, we’ve got a lot of things happening. Again, farm progress shows going to be going on. I’m still waiting to see if they if Graebaugh is able to keep going and get that stage completed before before September one. I don’t know if that’s going to happen. But once again, they did run into some rain, but the steel structures up. So now it’s just a matter of getting it completed, doing all of that. So we’ll work and then get the streets all all the lines painted going on to we have a lot happening. There’s a lot going on. Andrea, I’m close to our guest on our program today. Thanks for joining us. Thank you.