A plan to do some major renovations at Linn County's solid waste transfer station north of Prescott has been set aside, at least for now, until money can be tagged for the project, which is expected to top $2.2 million. (Wix file photo)
By Charlene Sims, info@linncountyjournal.com
MOUND CITY – After having Kaw Valley, the county’s on-call engineering company work on the preparation and letting of proposals for building a new tipping floor at the landfill, the Linn County Commissioners decided to scrap the project on Monday, Dec. 23.
The American Recovery Plan Act (ARPA) funds that were going to be used for that project will have to be encumbered for other projects. The county must encumber those funds on approved projects by Dec. 31 or be forced to return the money to the federal government.
Kaw Valley engineer Randy Purdue met with the commissioners to answer any questions they had about the bids received for the new tipping floor project.
Commission Chair Danny McCullough asked Purdue if they were working on a clean slate with no hate between them because of the interactions between McCullough and Kaw Valley engineer Chad McCullough last week.
Public Works Director Shaun West said that those issues were being worked between the county’s legal counsel and attorneys for Kaw Valley.
Purdue said that they were good, and he just wanted to keep the contractor from hanging on clarification of the project. He told commissioners that if they are not doing the project, the contractor will have a big hole in the schedule.
After discussing a few items about the contract, Commissioner Jason Hightower said that, before they get down to the details, he would like to know how the county was going to pay for this.
Hightower said that the details did not matter if there were not enough funds to pay for it.
Commissioner Jim Johnson said he thought maybe the commission should stop talking about this because he didn’t think the county had enough money.
Bids for the project came in from about $1.77 million to $2.05 million dollars for the project. At last week’s meeting, engineer Chad McCullough said that in June 2024 when cost estimates for the project were discussed, the total cost of the new tipping floor was expected to be $1.63 million.
Also at that time, the county had uncommitted ARPA funds than it does now. Of approximately $812,000 in the fund then, only $568,000 was left.
The $1.7 million bid also did not include approximately $90,000 that the county would have to pay for an onsite project manager. Also, new equipment would be necessary for use on the newly designed tipping floor. That equipment could run almost $400,000 bringing the total of the entire project closer to $2.2 million.
County Clerk David Lamb told the commissioners that there was $2.5 million in the contingency budget for next year and $1.3 in the windfall budget. Hightower and Lamb discussed that if those budgets were used taxes would probably have to be raised next year to replace the funds.
The commissioners also were looking at the costs for vertical expansion of the existing cells at the landfill. The cell expansion is required by the Kansas Department of Health and Environment (KDHE) to keep the cells in compliance. It is estimated that the cell expansion will be required in three to five years.
The commissioners discussed what items could be used to encumber the $568,000 in ARPA funds by Dec. 31 of this year so they would not have to be sent back to the federal government. Items brought up included the money the county paid into the Hells Bend bridge project, previously repaired compactor boxes, compactor equipment, new trucks for hauling trash to the landfill and the cost of vertically expanding the landfill cells.
The commissioners asked West to come back with prices for new trucks at the landfill, compactor equipment, and costs on vertically expanding the existing cells. It was decided that the money that was paid to the Hell’s Bend bridge project might be viewed as federal funds providing a match to a federal fund grant and that was not acceptable. Also, they wondered if the money could be used to pay back the county for the repair of compactor boxes.
The commission is scheduled to meet again on Dec. 30 at their regular time and is expected to address spending the ARPA funds by the deadline.
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