Board of Supervisors Agenda and Minutes - Regular Meeting

Good morning. It's 9:00. I'll call to order the Dallas County Board of Supervisors meeting. Um, item two, I need to remove item 15 from the agenda. It's premature. We need to do it next week. So, we'll put that item back on for next week. That was the only change I had to the agenda unless anyone had anything else. Which item again? Item 15. So, if there's no other changes, I'll ask for amending the agenda. Go ahead.

Go ahead. Go ahead. I move to approve the agenda as amended. Second. Any discussion? All in favor say I. I. I. Motion carries. Um, please join me for the pledge of allegiance. I pledge algiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Is there anyone to speak in open form today?

Okay, we'll move on to the consent agenda. Move to approve the consent agenda. Second. Is there any discussion? All in favor say I. I. I. Motion carries. Move down to item six, supervisor minutes from 323 and 324. Approval. Second. Any discussion? All in favor say I. I. I. Motion carries. Let's go to payroll change forms.

Good morning. Um, first we have a new employee starting in our auditor's office and the last two are receive and file. We have a seasonal worker starting in conservation and a new appraiser starting in the assessor's office. Is there any questions for Beth? Move to receive and file the assessor's payroll change notice. And conservation and conservation second. Any discussion? All in favor say I.

I. I. Motion carries. Move to approve of the balance of the payroll change notices. Second. Is there any discussion? All in favor say I. I. I. Motion carries. So we'll go down to item 8 A, which is our capital projects, local options sales tax bond workshop.

Melinda's going to pull up a presentation that um will get discussed by our uh bond attorney and our financial adviser. Um, and this is to kind of educate you and the public on the funding option that we're looking at for the ambulance building.

I do have a hand in case you don't want to follow. Thank you.

Hello. Um, thanks for having us come. Travis Squires at Piper Sandler. Uh, partner of Tim Oswald in our office. Have Garrett Poke here. Um, we're both uh work in our De Moines office with uh county government entities and city schools as well. Uh, we're working here on the school project um as well on the new high school. So, it's been exciting to see all the things happening in Adel right now. Um, in terms of just kind of walking you through this, uh, we thought just a quick overview of the history of your local options sales tax funding here. And remember, when we talk about loss tax, it's generated, you know, really through a couple different means. Um, so you're talking about a baseline of property taxes going back decades. Um, and then a division of a portion of the loss based on that. And then based on your population, um, in terms of looking at your historical collections, um, you know, it's obviously a little bit hard to draw draw a line after all the disruption in 1920 and 21, but for the most part, you know, local option sales tax have remained uh really strong. Um, if you look at your receipts in that second column there, uh, that's the amount that the county is receiving. Um so you can see actual uh you know receipts there uh upwards of 7.2 million estimated here for this current year. If we kind of track through this you know I think it's as you think through your your ballot language and you know the amount allocated there to tax relief um this year and you can see that growing from about 2.5 2.8 million in 20 and 21 up to 3.8 8 3.9 million of that local option sales tax going towards tax

relief um for for the citizens of the county. Um then what remains is items that can be allocated then you know based on your ballot um and in this case you know you're looking at about 3.2 million of nonpropy tax relief funds for the county. So when we start talking about, you know, available resources, that's the, you know, the bucket that we're looking at. Um, in terms of annual revenue growth, we did throw percentages there off to the right. Um, you know, as as we look at projections here, um, we're tempting to be fairly conservative when you talk about project funding. um you know, we're not anticipating massive amounts of growth and if you're trying to access the the capital markets, uh they're not going to allow you to use those projections or at least they're not going to rely upon them. They need to see a a baseline of affordability based off of current revenues. Um, I'm going to turn over, um, I'm going to give just kind of a real quick overview on authority and then going to let Eric kind of speak into to this component as it relates to more the the legal side. But, you know, a couple things to to note here. Um, you know, cities and counties, you know, cannot bond against the property tax relief portion. So, you know, when we talk about pledges of revenues for debt obligations, we can't use the 7 million number. we we're stuck with what's left over. Um, you know, in in effect, as you would think about it, that property tax relief has this first lean pledge on those revenues. Um, so then what's left over, you know, we have to work through, um, what we call typical kind of lending requirements in your case, uh, went through a coverage ratio, um, attempting to get a high bond rating last year. and you have a, you know, an example here would be for any

sort of debt that's backed just with local options sales tax revenues, you you're needing to have 1.5 coverage. Um, which essentially amounts to your payments can only be about 67% of your total available revenue. So, in the case of, you know, a million-doll revenue stream, your maximum payment would be about 667,000. Um, typically you'll see reserve funds created for revenue bonds. Um, the IRS has a certain uh, I'll say kind of prescription for a test there. So, typically you're going to work uh, through one year's bond payment. Um, that is county money. Um, you continue, you can earn interest on it. It essentially acts as a layer of security um, for the bond holders to basically give you the lowest rates possible. uh you don't know if things are going to happen legislatively and the bond holders don't know this if you know we have a different set of uh you know call it property you know that might be exempt or type of sales that might be exempt from sales tax it does give them some protection if there was some major shifts um in the the the lost collection um you know I guess another thing that you would say you know there there's some standard covenants that we have to to do um and I and I do think you know when bonds are outstanding you know the the tax can't be repealed without you know a first you know retirement of the bonds. So you do end up with a contractual obligation. So any sort of you know potential repeal of the tax gets gets erased until bonds are paid off. Um, in terms of authorization on, you know, two different bond options, um, you're going to have kind of a standard bond, um, that can just be paid with a loss tax. Um, and then you're going to have a bond that's paid with a loss tax, but then has sort of what

we'll call the added security of a property tax backup. Um, there's a little bit of different hearing requirements and I'll let you know, Eric kind of walk through a few of the legal things and then I figure we'll just tag team through the rest. So, Eric, pass it on to you. Thank you, sir.

As Travis discussed with the bonds issued last year for the courthouse and other capital projects um with the 150 coverage requirement that is to protect those existing bond holders. Our understanding is that you're looking at an ambulance uh facility, storage facility, new in the ballpark of you just met with the engineers. Is the new number do we know? Uh it we don't know exactly yet. Um they're still working on the numbers, but um it was originally um estimated between six and $8 million.

Right. Okay. So, let's just go on the high end. Let's say we needed $8 million. Um I think later in the script goes down to show the coverage perhaps. Um so with the the 3.1 3.2 two estimated uh available. Uh that's showing what what we need. The bond, the 2025 bond has a $2 million maximum uh amount uh of debt service in the aggregate or or over the life of those bonds, leaving a a smaller portion available uh to pay the 2026 bonds. And as a result with that 150 coverage, if we only pledge the local option sales tax in a purely revenue bond, which is exactly what you did last year, uh then it's that will support approximately $2.6 million of additional debt um short of your six $8 million need what we discussed. So you would have to come up with other cash with that. So, if you want to go that route, it's just a public hearing just like last year, just a straightforward 4 and 20 hearing. You you hold that and and go, but you'd need to um cash flow the delta between the eight needed and the 2 uh six that can be generated. The alternative that we suggested is Iowa code chapter 423b. The local option sales tax uh statute allows an alternative issuance that is effectively a geobacked local option sales tax meaning that there is a backup debt service levy. Um, in that case, you are first pledging in the first instance all of the local option sales tax. We would still need, if that local option sales tax were pledged on the

same basis as the 2025 bonds, a first lean, we'd still have to meet that 1.5 coverage. What we're suggesting is the 2026 be issued on a subordinate basis, but with the GEO backing. And let me explain what happens then. The 2025 bond holders are protected. They have the first claim and right to all of the local option sales tax. At that point, the 2026 bonds would be then paid from any surplus local option sales tax that's available. And as we showed, it was I think we'd have to go back up a little bit on the Oh, nope. Nope. You had it right at the very very top there. Yeah. So, we have 3.2 estimated. Um the 2025 bond maximum is 2 million. So that leaves about a million2 uh after those 2025 bonds are paid off. The million2 supports a larger bond than the 2.6 because we don't have to uh because it's subordinate the local option sales sector. are not subject to the 1.5 coverage. From the market's perspective, because we are also adding in a backup debt service levy, the market often prices these and looks at those as a geobacked. And I'm going to look at Travis just to confirm that that's exactly they see that imposition of the debt service levy and say, "Oh, wait. Well, ultimately if all else fails, we have the debt service levy to fall back on. And we know that property taxes can be collected and and paid if needed. But the beauty here is that there is adequate projected revenue to retire the 2026 issue up to the amount that you need. In fact, more than uh that 8 million if you actually needed it. But um the process for a geobacked

local option sales tax bond is slightly different. It is a hearing as well. Now we can go back up to a little bit of the uh first page on the process right the bottom right there. Yep. Perfect. So the first number one there is just your local option sales sack revenue just a hearing. The second is with the backup debt service levy. It's a hearing, but a 10-day notice instead of 4 and 20, and a right to petition for an election. And that petition has to be amassed during that publication window uh and and filed with the county prior to the date of the actual hearing itself. Uh the petition has to be signed by 3% of the registered voters in the county. Um and if received then you would face the question of do we call an election or do we abandon this proposal. Um elections as noted there due to uh house file 718 a couple years ago all uh all bond elections are in November. And so if you went that route we would not know until uh in until November. But lots of information that I just threw at you guys. Let me uh stop and say call up my friend Travis here. but also what questions might might you guys have? So, we've covered a little bit of coverage uh a little bit of process uh and then also security between the two.

Um you you mentioned adequate adequate protection. So, under the rating thoughts, so it would be we would have availability up to 4.9 million. I I guess I'm just trying to not sure. Let's go down. Um that was on the second page.

Yeah. Yeah. Thanks for tag teaming that part, Eric. Um in terms of thinking about, you know, that revenue stream. Uh if we look at the difference between the 3.2 2 million of current expected revenues and 2 million 6,000 of max payment. Right now, if we look at your revenue stream over a 20-year period of time, um we would see access there, I'd say roughly uh 15 to 16 million of project funding available. Um and that would be if you used all of the surplus revenues between the the 3.2 2 million of expected revenues and the 2 million of existing payments and looked at that over a 20-year period of time. Now, you do not have to leverage that high obviously and you can look at, you know, is this 20 year, is this 10y year, how much surplus, you know, if you think about your construction cycle, you may not borrow for the full thing. You might set aside surplus over the next year to put towards that project. So in in terms of rating thoughts um here, you know, I I think we're as we looked at kind of your overall picture of your bond rating, we didn't see this amount of leverage impacting the county's bond rating. Now, rating agencies will do what rating agencies will do and they'll analyze it and take a fresh set of eyes, but in terms of overall capacity, uh you would not be coming uh close to your overall capacity with the project sizing we're talking about. Um and then in terms of you know thinking through you know opportunities here um you know when you start looking at these these two pledges one of the advantages of kind of pushing forward um with the second option is a lower cost of borrowing for your your county's residents. So part of

the decision-making a year ago with the revenue bond at that time and having the higher coverage ratio was trying to look at lowest cost of capital um for the county's residents. Um and and so this would be along those same lines. You could look at various options with a straight revenue pledge, but now you're starting to talk about a subordinate revenue pledge with no backup. And at that point, the county's residents would end up paying higher interest rates. So part of this machination through the the multiple options is try to trying to focus in on lowest cost of borrowing uh for the county's residents if that's the route the supervisors choose to go with this project. So hopefully that that's a little bit longwinded to your short answer, but to give a little bit more context on kind of the rating process and how we see the the pledge of security playing out.

Rob, anything? Yeah. you talk about um functionality and how it would work and how how the backup pledge works when we're doing our budgeting process.

Yeah. So, um, Eric probably jump in here a little bit too, but as as you kind of think through, um, the the pledge of revenues, um, when you go through the process, um, you would want to have funds on hand at the point of your budget adoption, uh, that would be set aside to make the next year's payment. You know, it allows you to kind of move forward without the need for a levy when you adopt your budget in April um, for the next year's budget cycle. Um, so you would be looking at, you know, your balance sheet at the time you're approving the budget to make certain that you have available resources set aside to make that payment. Now, you do not have to capture that in a deposited escrow or anything along those lines, but you will need to uh be able to certify when you're approving the budget that you have resources on hand to make that.

We're thinking we're thinking about a reserve.

Yeah, reserve. Yeah. So, as Travis mentioned in the authorizing resolution to give the comfort to the 2026 bond holders, there will be a levy schedule imposed. But it states that this will be in the event that the local option sales tax proves insufficient, then you have the power to levy that tax. as Travis mentioned, well projecting that in April when you're doing your budget, are we going to be okay in the coming year because it covers that coming fiscal year. Um, one of the brainstorms that we had was in addition to this being subordinate and a geo backing to go ahead and have a reserve fund uh basically equal to one year's debt service. If you draw on that reserve fund, if sales tax proves insufficient from some for some reason to retire the 2026 debt, you can draw on the reserve to make sure that you don't default. At which point you've now on alert, okay, we need to include that levy in the next year's budget and both replenish begin to replenish the reserve as well as then pay going forward. Um, you know, the ultimate expectation is that you'll never access that debt service levy, but it's in place and available to incorporate into your budget if needed. And and the existence of it then is interpreted by the market as that geo backing, we're going to give you the better pricing associated with GEO. And I'll just kind of add add maybe one other further point there. you know, if you think through your available surplus revenues, um, you know, an an extra added layer of protection might be that if we're looking at 8 million, you could probably come up with a schedule where you could pay that off over eight years. Well, you may choose to do that over 15 years with

the ability to prepay in order to give the uh in this case your your taxpayers a little bit uh more distance between ever having to draw on that GO backup. Um so you you might still have what we'll call a 125 or 130 coverage ratio even on this debt. We just gave you the numbers for the full amount. So there are other added ways that you know we typically have not seen these even get close to any sort of uh property tax draw for backup. Um it is a very effective tool when you start talking about you know saving 0.2.25% um in terms of you know interest cost is kind of just an estimate. You know it does matter for your taxpayers and that's that's what we're kind of looking at for lowest gas cost of capital. And and one final uh comment that I think's resilient. Uh the statute and the authorizing resolution in the event the property tax were accessed, the debt service levy, it requires that future sales tax replenish back into the debt service fund to repay that. So ultimately the debt is paid from your sales tax in the real time. If there is a blip in a given fiscal year collections, you have that debt service levy to back up to make sure that you don't default. But then future sales tax is captured, utilized and applied to make that debt service levy whole, which would then in that fund be applied to some other uh geo debt. from a scheduling perspective and obviously not um binding on you, but

what was discussed is if if at the April 14th meeting uh action were initiated to fix the date for the hearing, that hearing could be held on April 28th. Uh and remaining actions. They're sort of laid out in context of the offering document, the official statement, uh choosing an underwriter or uh lender pricing that authorizing issuance ultimately landing in in closings in um do we have closing? Early July, I believe. You scroll all the way down the window.

There we go. Yeah, June. Uh well, authorizing June. Closing early July. Correct. And all of that is if that schedule doesn't work for you, we that was just kind of based on a discussion today thought process. Your next uh potential option to get started would be that 14th. So,

I knew you had something to say. Where does that leave the county in terms of overall debt and debt service? And so, what might be rolling off? books during this period of time that we're talking about. So, um, currently are you talking any debt or are you talking general obligation? Talking about leverage, you know, we get, you know, we have a relatively low debt service

percentage anyway, but um, where does that leave us in that conversation? So we have um and maybe Travis you can speak to the ability of how much we can bond if we would want to. Um but we have outstanding our our oldest bond is the bond that we issued to fund the law enforcement center um about almost 10 years ago now it seems. Um, and that one rolled that one was when it was issued was a 20-year bond. And that was issued over two series. And the first series has about uh three or four years left on it. And then we get into the second series that runs out for the rest of the 20 years. So we have altogether about 12 years I think left on that bond. And then we have the bonds that we issued last year um to fund the three projects which are not general obligation bonds. They're local option sales tax bonds. Those were also issued as 20-year bonds. So at original issuance the law enforcement center was 22.5 million. I think we are down to 13 million or so. I'm going off memory. I can pull it up and look for sure. And then of course we have the full 25 million left on the local option sales tax.

Um legally I think we have the ability to issue 5% of your of your valuation which would be massive. Um now a geo a purely geo issue for this type of facility ambulance uh facility would require an election. There's not a and that would be in November 60% approval and then just a tax uh I'm sorry debt service levy imposed.

So if the if the county you know a year from now or whenever needed to borrow for something we there's adequate capacity there to do that. We're not tying our hands. So uh to I think to Travis's point earlier um this uh mechanism this this way methodology of it leveraging the rest of our available local option sales tax bonds has the ability to generate about $16 million. Yeah. 15 to 16 over a 20-year period.

Over a 20-year period. So, if we were to issue, say, I'm just estimating 6 to 8 million in that neighborhood for um an ambulance building, that would leave based on today's assumption 8 million.

And that's that's only looking at the loss pledge. Yeah. You know, the the debt service pledge, um the ability to use, you know, urban rural and other uh fashions could still be accessible. And again, I didn't pull the number, but it's up definitely hundreds of millions of of dollars of debt limit capacity. Now, whether you would want to just look at an analysis of, you know, as the law enforcement comes off, what would be our capacity to extend at that same level, we could certainly provide that type of information for you. But, um, in terms of, you know, your overall debt profile, I I mean, you're one of the fastest growing counties maybe not just state but in the country you know you end up in a position where you have a highly uh rated credit. So so from that standpoint your debt burden is very low and that is one of the factors that does come into play when they look at your bond rating.

Um and we don't see this amount of leverage you know $68 million project changing that overall picture especially at the rate you're paying off debt. Um and uh you know not saying you have a limited amount of projects in the future, but you know there's nothing major pending you know right now that's coming on the debt rolls in the next year or two that would um that is planned that would necessarily impact bond rating to the to the size of a you know shifting your your ratios out of line with a rating category. Um, I apologize that I need to stop this discussion for a minute because we have a public hearing at 9:30. Okay.

So, if you could just hang loose for a minute. Sure. Thank you. Um, I would and I just looked at my watch. Um, it's 9:30 and we will need to open our public hearing for the Lumen Specialy phone lines contract. We are having this public hearing because this um contract for our phone system rolls over fiscal years and it was published in the paper on March 26th. March 26th. Have we received any comments? No.

Um and so I'm opening this up to public hearing. Um Dallas County public hearing rules are um this is the time and place for the public hearing as advertised in the matter of our phone contract for Lumen. It has been published in the paper. We have not received any communication and is there anyone to speak on this matter? If so, come forward to the podium, state your name and um ask your question or have any comments. board, do you have any other do you have any questions about this? We've had this in front of us already.

And then Cliff, did you have anything to say? I can just give an overview if you want. Yeah, sure.

Um, so this is to replace the hard copper lines up in the EMS station in Perry. they're they quit selling years and years and years ago and this is the new way to provide those analog lines to the building. Um we currently pay 8150 per line. So this would be a cost savings as well um down to 4133 per line. It is 5-year contract and this would move it off of those lines and to go through the internet with a cellular backup. I'll again ask if there's anyone from the public that would like to speak on this topic to close the public hearing.

I'm going to have a question I think before you do. Okay. I'd like to know if the county attorney's office has reviewed this agreement. They did. been reviewed it. Okay. Any comments from the county attorney? All right. So, the action on the floor was to close the public hearing. I'll second the motion. Is there any further discussion? All in favor say I to close the public hearing. I I motion carries.

Is there any action on this item? Move to approve the agreement between Lumen uh specially foam line with a specially line contract and authorized chair sign. Second. Is there any discussion? All in favor say I. I. I.

I. Motion carries. We'll go back to our previous workshop. So, I just wanted to make sure I'm understanding this correctly. If we go through um what we suggest, what you had suggested, it would be paid for through our local options sales tax revenue, but then we would also have a reserve to make sure that it covered it. Correct. You'll borrow that reserve or cash if you want to use cash. Yeah. Right. And that we would need to have that maybe that first year's payment in this budget that we're approving. No, you would not need Nope. Nope.

Okay. I just want to make sure I understood that. And then um the g the debt service would only be if all of that didn't happen. And then even if we did bubble down and use that, we would use the next year's revenue from local future to pay that back in. Correct. Yep. So there's like a couple levels of Yes. protection. So the reserve is designed to give you that sort of heads up that oh wait maybe there's trouble in paradise and we don't have the local option sales tax revenues that we anticipated for whatever reason this year or however because you would miss unless you knew that in April right

you wouldn't be able to include the debt service levy in the budget for the coming fiscal year the reserve gives you that okay if we have to draw down on this you can analyze during the life did sales tech did did collections pick up over, you know, in time and we can replenish that reserve or no, we need to fall back to the debt. We're not even close to the 14 and a half 15 million correct bonding capacity on these re on the revenue we have left over that we're not already bonding on. Exactly. And and all of the projections assume no growth. It's all just flat based on projections. The projections you're doing are is flat like from what we have today. Yep. Correct.

Not okay. Okay, thank you. That helps you figure this out. Yeah. And to answer the dead limit question, uh county has about a $19.5 billion tax base. um before that's assessed valuations before rollbacks creates $980 million constitutional debt limit of which you're using about one and a half% of that.

Yes, correct. I'm gonna

if if we chose to hold a bond election in November and use uh geo bonds, what kind of um interest interest could we anticipate between geo bonds and your option two? Um I think as we as we think through um the pledge, you know, they're going to see through to the GEO pledge talking about current debt right now. Um but it's still going to carry, we'll call it the the hair of having uh local options sales tax revenue in the name. So typically we are going to see, you know, I'd say probably anywhere between like a 0.1 and 0.25% maximum. Um, so I'd say that if you're to look at like the spectrum of of rates, you're going to see the the pure revenue bond as perhaps the slight the highest cost. You're going to see the the lost bond with the geo back up in the middle and then the pure geo bond on the right. You're going to see probably in the neighborhood of 0.25 between those. And so you're going to see a little bit of value, probably 0.1. the shorter your maturity, probably the less val value or cost you would see um from from picking the geo back up with lost or I'd say value of going to the election. If you're going to the election and looking to pay this off over 10 years, you're going to see very probably little pickup. Um and you are going to then absorb some interest rate risk, you know, going from now until November, which risk can go both ways. It could be in your favor. It could go the other direction, but you know, you will have a little bit more of an unknown period before you can lock in rates. But yeah, you'd see a little bit of value from the the pure GIO um over the the geo or the loss with the geo backup.

Thank you. Yep. Do you have any other questions for the team at this time? Anyway, I don't have anything at this time except I I just need a some more reading and thinking. Absolutely. You guys have follow-up questions? Yeah, just pass them through Rob. We'll do our best to get you written answers so that you can have them and absorb them through the before the next time you meet. Appreciate it.

Yeah. Thank you. Yeah. Thanks everyone. Anything else? Thank you. No, thank you. Um we're going to go to item 8B, auditor's um office renovation. We have um about five five six minutes until the next public hearing.

Good morning. Christopher Orth with Farnsworth Group. Two weeks ago uh we issued the intent uh notice of intent to enter into a guaranteed maximum price contract for the Dallas County Auditor Office renovations project. Uh this document is the next document that we plan to issue with your approval. This is the request for qualifications for construction management at risk services for that project. Uh once we initiate this step, then the selection committee will uh review those statements of qualification. Um we will then issue a request for proposal and potentially do interviews scoring all three of those steps. We'll come back to you then with a recommendation after that process has been um has been gone through. So, um this document is very similar to the request for qualifications we've used previously for the other county projects. Uh we've um made adjustments for this project specifically. Uh noting the different uh buildings uh the existing office of the auditor and the uh new office at 100 North Nile Kinnick. Um we have the the schedule that Melinda had up a few moments ago. will be again with your approval issuing this uh request for qualifications uh later today or early tomorrow. Uh statements of qualifications will then be due on April 23. Uh and then we will uh plan to issue requests for proposal on May 5. uh receive those back on May 14, tenative interview date of May 20, and then come back to you with a recommendation on May 26 and a contract hopefully for approval on June 9. Uh the committee did uh get together to review this document. Uh we've uh

continued on with a a score of 80 as the qualifications threshold. um which is similar to what we've done the last two um construction manager at risk um processes. So any questions I don't believe I have any. Christopher,

I don't either. This is the process we followed before, correct? Did you have a motion of approval? Is that what we did last time? I think so. For this step, just to initiate that this process formally.

Obviously, the intent kind of does that, but I feel like I think we've approved this in the past. Okay. I offer approval of the this request for qualifications that's presented here this morning. Is there place for the I thought I saw No, I don't think we had a N.

Second. Is there any discussion? All in favor say I. I. I.

I. Motion carries. Um, we have about a minute. Yeah. Before our next public hearing. Um, the next public hearing, um, I won't open it for yet another member, but it's a continuation of our public hearing from last week for the 5-year road construction program and budget. And I will open it now because it's 9:45. Um, and this has already been published. We started the public hearing last week. Have we received anything else over the last week? Okay. Roads, have you heard anything else from the public? Um, did you have any other comments before I open up to the public?

Um, we gave kind of a more formal um, presentation of the budget and the five-year program uh, last Tuesday. Um, certainly be willing to skim through that again. Otherwise, I know there's um more more things on the agenda. If you had questions on the budget or specific questions to the five-year program, I'd be happy to answer those. and then we can open it up to anybody here that has any comments.

So, we are in public hearing. If you have any comments or questions, please go to the podium and state your name. I don't I don't have any questions. You went through everything last week. board members. Okay. So, if there's no public comment, we will I'll take a motion to close the public hearing. Move to close the public hearing. Second. Any discussion? All in favor say I. I.

I. We're the public hearing is now closed. Is there any action? Move to adopt resolution 2026-000030. Second. Is there any discussion? All in favor say I. I. I. Motion carries. Thank you for all your work. Thank you. We'll see you in a little bit for all your work that's coming through. Okay, so we have um so Christopher, back to you. Item 8 C

on behalf of the county Farnsworth Group uh requested proposals from five organizations uh to provide asbestous testing and preparation of removal requirements for the three buildings that will be renovating for the county attorney and the auditor. Um we sent it out to five advanced environmental notified us that they did not have someone qualified to prepare the bid documents and so they did not submit a proposal. Uh we did receive proposals from the other four EOCE Hawkeye Environmental Iowa Environmental Services and Teraccon. Um as you can see up here Hawkeye Environmental uh had the uh lowest cost at 7,150. uh they provided a schedule of 10 working days for the initial um testing and report. Uh they did not provide a schedule to generate the um the the bid documents or the the documents for actual removal. I I do feel that given the the schedule of the others, I think they'll be in the ballpark of what those are. Uh which would be about another two weeks to get those removal documents prepared. Uh and so with that, um we would recommend utilizing Hawkeye Environmental, uh for testing and uh providing a report and then bid documents for removals if there's anything discovered that would need to be. Uh Hawkeye Environmental did do the testing uh for the buildings that were demolished in preparation for this building. So they are a familiar entity and I've worked with the county before. Why do you believe there's such a difference in some of these bids?

I don't know. They were all provided with the same information. Um I I don't have a good answer. I I think the difference between Hawkeye Environmental and Iowa Environmental Services is relatively close. Um it could be a difference in hourly rates. It could be a difference in assumptions. Uh some of it could be travel distance that they've accounted for. Um, I'm just not sure. I I don't really get into those kind of questions with them. I just kind of look at what the numbers are and um and make a recommendation. Right. And the time one of them had 12 weeks.

Yeah. That and they had two to three weeks for each step which you know when you take the outside of that was the three weeks and that that was a total of 12 weeks which really seemed significant. But maybe that's part of why they're uh spending so much also with their proposal is they're taking a long time to complete that work.

There is a place for the chair to sign with your approval. I move to approve the professional service agreement between Hawkeye Environmental LLC and Dallas County, Iowa dated 25th of March, 2026 and authorize the chair sign. Second. Is there any discussion? All in favor say I. I. I. Motion carries. Thank you. Thank you. So um I just have one question. So, when um you might not know, but when will this start? When will all this testing?

I would assume fairly quickly. I think we'll get him the notice and it may not be this week, but I would hope maybe as soon as next week they could begin that process to then work that into our plan. Yeah. Okay. All right. Thank you. Very good. Okay. We have another public hearing at 10, but I will move on to item nine, veterans affairs and um AI software contract.

Good morning, Nick Prasa, Dallas County Veterans Affairs. Uh the first thing we're talking about is Veteran AI. It's a software we've been researching to help become more efficient with the claims that we do with the VA systems. I want to give a big thank you to Ben for helping with this contract process. This was kind of a learning curve for us. uh but he's reviewed everything and it's good to go on that aspect. Uh the nice thing with the veteran AI that we're looking at using, they already have an agreement with the VA. So when a veteran signs up with them through us, all the data from the VA flows into their profile. So it should make us a lot more efficient with the claim aspect. Uh the advantage of this is their prices are very reasonable. Uh each license is $10. So we're looking to do a 100 license to kind of play around with this software to see how we can incorporate it and see how we would move forward in the future with it. Nick, the only thing I didn't see on the agreement uh that was presented to myself anyway is a um effective date. When will this become effective?

Uh as soon as it's signed and I send him the check. I think that's the blank spot of the agreement. It is. So it would be when the board approves it. And is the goal of this to help um when the to processing the claim so they're not because you've talked about how the VA then kicks them back and you have to appeal.

It still could do that but this will keep it cleaner. this this from our aspect of developing the claims will make it a lot more efficient for us because that data from the VA will flow into their profile. So it'll automatically pull all the disability ratings and then the AI will actually look at those ratings to see it'll run to see if that's the minimum rating or it'll flag ratings that need increases. It'll just increase it'll make us more efficient of reviewing the files quickly. Uh they do have the the ability to read C files with their AI software. That is something separate and that's 8 cents a page. We're not going to invest in that yet. But this is basically a database system to where we can work with the veteran. It'll pull all their disabilities in what they want to claim, help them write their statements, fill out the forms, sends it to us for review so we can communicate with that veteran all virtually and then submit the claims through the system. The software is budgeted for

Yes. And it's a yearly. Is it a yearly? This is for one year. And then depending how we feel with the software, playing around with it, if we want to continue, we can adjust the licenses or anything else as needed with the next contract.

Okay. Is this um a different arrangement or agreement compared to other software licenses that we use? being called distributor. Is that is that a different relationship somehow? That might be an attorney question. So, this agreement when we received it was a very different agreement than it is now. It was basically um it wasn't geared towards government basically. It was trying to um have the distributor basically be a deacto marketer for this company. And so we got rid of all that language, but I just left the term distributor because it's just a just a title. It's just a name. it doesn't necessarily mean anything.

Basically, we're buying a 100 licenses and then we assign that license to each license to a specific veteran to create an account in the system. So, we're distributing the license to each veteran and then once that claim is done and submitted, that license then actually gets pulled back to us so we can reassign to another veteran. So, we would have these total 100 licenses over the 12 months. It's it's just a title. So when you look in the underline in the first paragraph, we're just Dallas County for purposes of this agreement distributor is just a title for us because we are essentially facilitating the u the licensing for the the veterans. So don't don't read too much into it, but that doesn't create any extra rights, privileges or liabilities by having that title. It's just a title that we use for Here's an off question. Do you have any idea how long um that license will be with that veteran? It will be depending on the claim because will it you know, you don't know what you don't know at this point.

Correct. Will it be a month? Will it be three months? I've had claims as fast as one week and I've had claims last 18 months. So, it depends upon each veteran. Obviously, this will be more geared toward techsavvy veterans because this will be all digital based. Um, and typically those claims, unless it's something very in depth and a lot of appeals, typically four to six months is what we're thinking. So, it'll be interesting. We'll want you to report back out how it's going to see how um how much it would how much it was helping. Correct. And how many veterans and I get it. You're still so will you your staff have any of these licenses then or does it have to go to the individual?

We we will have an overall user account so we can see everything so that way we can coordinate with the veterans. There's a messaging system everything else and everything runs through us before it gets submitted. Uh this is just basically another avenue for us to become a little more efficient and kind of play around with this new technology to see if it's something we want to adopt going forward. Okay. It's a pilot project. Yeah, it sounds um like it could be very exciting.

You have any other questions? I don't

move to approve the veteran AI software distribution agreement between Dallas County and Veteran AI Inc. and authorize the chair sign and just note the effective date would be today as well. We have a resolution. No, there's no resol. This is just the contract, right? Correct. There's no resolution. The resolution is a second a different item. Correct.

So, let's uh include in my motion the effective date of today's date. Second. Is there any discussion? All in favor say I. I. I. Motion carries.

All right. I'm going to put you on hold for a minute and we're going to get ready for our 10:00 public hearing which is on um final excuse me final plat of Hanging Rock Rock Estates. And this was published in um the newspaper on 3 26 26. And again um this is the time and the place for the public hearing as advertised on this matter. And have we received any um written comments on this? Anybody? No, we have not.

Okay. All right. Go ahead, Samuel. I'm going to present Belinda maybe. There we go. All right. This is the final plat for Hanging Rock Estates. It's zoned A2 with a tiny bit of A1. It's in Union Township section three. It's about a mile west or sorry, mile east of the city of Redfield. um along it's on the south side of 310th north of the north rac south raccoon river. It's about 41 acres. They are proposing to split it into three lots all of which are right around 13 to 14 acres. Uh they include outlots that contain the flood plane along the south raccoon river. Uh they all have entrances that have been approved by secondary roads. They've been reviewed internally uh and they meet the standards of chapters 40, 42, and 45. Reviewed by the city of Redfield and approved and staff recommends approval. Happy to answer any questions. Um and we are in public hearing. Anyone who would like to speak um as a public

can please go to the podium and state your name. Samuel, is there a conservation easement associated with this?

There is not. They had comments at the very end.

I saw those. call for questions again. Um, does anyone have any comments for the public? Any public comments? Sorry. anyone. You don't have to, but you're more than welcome to, sir.

I really don't know what what needs to be addressed on. Okay. Board, do you have any other questions or comments?

Move to close public hearing. Second. Any discussion? All in favor say I. I. I the public hearing is closed. Is there any action on this topic? Move to adopt resolution 2026-0036. Second. Is there any discussion? All in favor say I. I. I. Motion carries. Thank you. Thanks for your presentation. Thank you.

Okay, we'll go back to um item 9B. So this is the proclamation for homebased Iowa. Uh the program requirements have changed a little bit over the years now. Uh whereas the financial incentives on us have become greatly reduced. We meet a lot of the requirements to implement this program now as far as supporting veterans uh different things that the county offers and then uh veteran hiring preferences and such as those. Uh the only cost that really would come to my office is the placement of two signs. Those signs are $85 each. Uh we would have to do two of them and then per the DOT installation would be free on a stateowned highway.

And do you have money in your budget to cover those signs? Many of the communities within the county already are homebased Iowa communities. So with the businesses that are already enrolled and those communities, all those requirements are met. So any other questions? But there will be some um you talked about earlier when I talked to you about this some kind of event.

Correct. Uh once once this is all approved and all the uh all the details are hashed out and done, we will actually have like an event to announce it and have like a little veterans event to announce the homebased Iowa and get all the details out. But this is the first step to get everything moving. Okay, great. Move approval of resolution 2026 0035. Second. Any discussion? All in favor say I. I. I. Motion carries. Thank you. Thank you. I know that was a state goal. Okay. We'll move on to item 10, National Public Health Week Proclamation.

Hi, I'm Abio Coder. I'm with the Dallas County Health Department here. Um, and so this is our annual request for a National Public Health Week proclamation. Um, National Public Health Week just brings to light what we do in public health. Um, this one at a national level, but also locally. And so, um, earlier I had emailed out to everyone in the county kind of a schedule of activities and I have some hard copies if anyone wants one. Um, this year we um are very busy for National Public Health Week. We are starting the week with a handsonly CPR and AED training up in Perry. Um this has come at the request of members of the community up there wanting more heart health education um a couple years back and so um we're continuing on with those efforts and hoping to do some skill building there. It's not a certification class. It's for anyone training to learn um handsonly CPR and just become confident to to respond in a cardiac event. Um later in that week on Friday here in this building we'll be having opioid overdose education and nlloxxone training. Um we've had uh multiple initiatives to bring Narcan and Nlloxxone availability to to the county. And so we're wanting to build the confidence and um for people to be able to use it in the event um that they would need that and then have um have it in their first aid kits at home just in case. Um, and so Zion, um, Integrated Behavioral Health Services will be helping us with that. U, the Iowa Heart Foundation will be helping with the CPR training. And then in addition to those two initiatives, um, we'll also have staff at the the state public health conference that week presenting um, on emerging health topics um, and on a panel for for that. So, that's kind of some of the things we have going on for National Public Health Week. So, we're looking for a proclamation to declare it for Dallas County. If there's any questions,

are you doing your walk this year? We do not have a walk schedule. Maybe when the weather gets a little better. Yeah. With the conference, we uh we had limited days that we could do things on. Sure. Well, thank you for all you're doing. I would move to approve the 2026 National Public Health Week Proclamation. Second. Any discussion? All in favor say I. I. I. Motion carries. Thank you.

And we'll move on down to item 14, secondary roads. All right. The first item that we have here is um awarding the the contract to Herburgger Construction for our H Avenue bridge project. Um we received three bids for the project um at our leting last week. Um bids looked pretty good. Uh pretty well in line with what our estimate was. So we Yeah, I don't really have anything to share.

Were you plugged in first? Nope. I don't I don't have anything to put up on the screen. Okay. All right. Fine. I thought maybe you did.

So, yeah, the the low bidder was Herburger Construction on this project. Um, we've worked with Herburger many times before. Um, all three companies that that bid um had reasonable bids. who would recommend awarding the contract to Herburg Herburgger Construction um and authorized the chair to to sign the contract documents.

Herburgger also um is building our B Avenue project that's going to be starting midmay. So hopefully they will finish that one up and move over to H. So I I feel like we got really good bids under our estimate and I think that had some to do with it that Herburgger was already very close I move to approve resolution 2026-000037. Second. Any discussion? All in favor say I. I. I. I. Motion carries.

Move on to B.

All right. The next item is um awarding the contract to Grimes Asphalt and Paving Corporation for the 288th Street HMA pavement project. This is a a collaborative project with the city of Adele. um they have I don't know 75 or 80% of the the project costs on this one, but um we do handle the maintenance on the road, so we typically would take the lead on this type of a project, but we did receive uh five bids at our lighting last week. Uh pretty typical that we see several of them that are really close and then one kind of outlier like we did. But um all the bids seemed pretty reasonable um in line with our our estimate. The Grimes asphalt bid was below our estimate. So um it's a good thing. I think we got some really good asphalt prices on that one. So we would recommend um awarding the contractor Grimes asphalt and authorizing the chair to sign the contract documents. Do you feel like you have more biders or I mean do you think there's just more um people interested in this type of work this spring because then you know it's not always this good.

Um we we typically don't see bids from Henning or Manats. Um but they did bid on both of our projects this year. So um it's good that we have some more interest and a little more competition. So and Manat actually got the low bid on our RF90 project. So, I was a little surprised that their bid was that high, but maybe the schedule just didn't work out for them on this one. But only other thing I would add is I I did speak with the city of Adel. Um that 684,000 and some change on the low bid was was actually very very close to what our 280 agreement estimate was at that time. Um we're typically not I don't have as much confidence in what we put into it on that preliminary stage. But Andy's very good, so I'll let him um kind of take credit for that. But I think we were within a thousand bucks of our 2080 agreement. So

they were fine. Obviously, lucky guess. Yeah, Andy, just so you know, the resolutions do give the chair authority to sign Okay. documents. I think we we put that in there um because I think on our our DOT le projects you authorize the engineer to sign. So just as some extra clarification on who who has that duty here, I guess, but is there action on this? I move approval of resolution 20260038. Second. Any further discussion? All in favor say I.

I. I. Motion carries. Move on to item C. Now the tricky part. I got to make sure I'm looking at the right one now. 200 Street pre-craft. Is that what?

Yep. Um so the next five here are all um materials only bids that that we receive. So um this would be just purchasing the box cover and the the materials necessary to install it. So, um they would provide the materials and deliver it to the project and we would handle installation um either with our crews or a local contractor. So, this is a box cover on uh 200th Street. Um it's a 10 by 8 by 84 foot long concrete box. Um all three of these suppliers submitted bids for each of these projects. um with different different results each time really. But Midstates pre-cast was the low bidder on this one. Um it was below our engineers estimate, but I will note that these are really hard to estimate. We don't do a lot of these, so we don't have a very big data set, so we don't know exactly what the unit costs and all the items will be, but um I think all three bids we got on all of these were were really reasonable and good. So, um, we would recommend awarding, uh, Midstates Pre-cast Products the contract for this box cover.

Are these local companies? Um, they are all in Iowa. Um, I can't remember where Midstates and Rinker are. Uh, Rinker has a plant in De Moine and they also have one in Iowa Falls, I believe. Uh, Midstates is in Bond and Progressive Structures. This is the first time they've bid uh on our uh projects and they're from northeast Iowa and I they were uh you know their numbers are a little bit higher. I think it's just because of the trucking you know and their location but they were excited to be able to bid on it. I think they're relatively new company. Okay. Oh, go ahead.

Sorry. They they do offer some services for installation also which we may may consider a bid from them. um to help with the installation on a couple of them maybe. Okay, thank you. Move to approve resolution 2026-000039. Second. Any discussion? All in favor say I. I. I. Motion carries.

All right. So, this next one is another box cover that's just a mile or mile and a half down the road from the previous one. Um, again on this one, Midstates pre-cast was the low bidder. It's a another 10 by8 box. Um, just not as long. Um, so we would and you can see here that Progressive was uh quite a bit more competitive on this one than the previous one, but I think all all three bids were were really good and competitive. So, we would recommend awarding the contract to Midstates Pre-cast on this one. Move to approve resolution 2026 0040.

Second. Any discussion? I just have a question. So both of these box colors are on the same street just farther. That's why you have different work orders, right? Is that my understanding? Yep. Part. Yeah, we have different work orders. Um the problem kind of started at two different times on these these structures, but Yep. And so one's larger than the other one. Yep. Okay. Thank you. Um is there any other discussion? All in favor say I. I. I. Motion carries. Go down to um E, which is sportsman's club. Is that what you have?

Yep. So, as with the the previous two, we have two um the next two will be for uh culverts on Sportsman's Club Road, just a couple miles apart from each other. But um this one is a 10x10 by 72 foot long box. Um pretty certain this one is the one that's kind of in the big curve going down the hill on Sportsman's Club Road. Um, it's a currently a a wooden box culvert, so it's it's tired and ready to be replaced. So, um, Midstates on this one also was the low bidder, um, in line with what our estimate was. So, we would recommend awarding this contract to Midstates pre-cast. Also,

is this one just north of Sportsman's Club? Yes. Yes.

Okay. Yeah, we've had uh a number of issues with erosion problems and things like that on the especially on the outlet. Um we've gone in and done some clearing to to kind of open things up so we can stake the box appropriately. But this this one's had a lot of maintenance done on it over the last 5 to 10 years. And as Andy said, nobody builds wood box covers anymore. This is kind of a vintage model. So, and actually I I think it's one of the newer wooden box covers I've seen. I think it was built in the 50s. So, um kind of interesting that they were still building them in the 50s. So,

move to approve resolution 2026-0041. Second. Any discussion? All in favor say I. I. I. Motion carries. enough.

All right, this next one is also on Sportsman's Club Road. Um, this is oh, a mile or so, mile and a half south of Sportsman's Club, kind of around the around the curb to the south there. Um, it's an 8x4 by 40 foot long box, so not as big as the other ones. Um, Rinker was the low bidder on this one. Um, we would recommend awarding this contract to Rinker Materials. Offer approval on resolution 20260042.

Second. Is there any discussion? All in favor say I. I. I. Motion carries.

All right. And the last one here is on 335th Street um just outside of the city of West De Mo. Um this is a 10x5x 48 foot pre-cast box cover. Uh Midstates pre-cast products was the low bidder on this one. We would recommend acceptance of that and awarding this contract to Midstates Precast.

Move to adopt resolution 2026-0043. Second. Any discussion? All in favor say I. I. I. Motion carries. Um, one last thing I would say, as soon as the contracts are are signed, uh, these folks will start construction of the the box culverts and when they're done, we'll schedule the installation. So, we anticipate July, August, September, these boxes will get will get installed and and completed. So, we'll keep you updated on our monthly. How long does it take you to do an installation? If the weather cooperates with us, um, of course it will.

It Yeah. Yeah. the smaller ones. I mean, you can you can do them in a week. Um, typically we kind of anticipate no more than than two weeks, but we try to try to spend three, four days making sure everything's ready to go and picking a good window to install the the culvert and one day to set it and then we'll back fill and fix the road up. We just hire a crane and they all the pieces come on semiis, we put them in the hole and uh uh rebuild the road. So, it's pretty efficient that way timing wise. So, do they just stay at your central site until you're ready or do you actually it you probably anticipate when they're coming to you too?

Um, you're talking about the box cover pieces themselves. They'll they'll keep them at their plant. Okay. Once they notify us that the materials are complete and the box culverts are done, then we schedule uh with the installation and schedule the the shipping and the and the crane service for um our day of installation. So cool. All right. Any anything else for secondary road? Should have a busy summer. Yeah, we're going to be extremely busy. Hopefully the weather cooperates with us. So it'll be fun though. Thank you. Yeah.

Thank you. Um item item 15, remember we removed and we will have that on next week and we are down to other business. Is there other business to come before the board? I just want to make a clarification for the minutes for the receiving and file. It's um real quick. Yeah. Yeah. Just can you just scroll up for the consent agenda? You mean or for what? Okay. Yeah. I just want on C. It's just to receive and file attorney appointments, not deputy appointments. Okay.

It's just a cert. No, it's okay. I actually didn't catch it beforehand. It's just the certificates where they they signed their own. So you've already approved their hirings and so that's why it's a receipt file and they were in our basket to redeem. Yeah. Yeah. So it's uh but I just wanted to make clear for the minutes when they get put together next week that I wasn't appointing deputies. It's just you had already appointed or hired approved the hiring of them as assistants and they just have to get sworn in. So that's it's just their their certificates. Thank you for that clarification. Is there any other business to come before the board today?

Move to adjourn. Second. Any discussion? All in favor say I. I. I. Motion carries. We are adjourned. I didn't see that till this little bit. Well, I'm so used to it being called back. Yeah. Yeah. You know what I mean? Yeah. Yeah. So, I just what we always do.

There's a whole bunch of res Don't yet. Yes, actually. No, you have bigot