The Greene County Board of Supervisors met Monday in regular session.

County Attorney Thomas Laehn gave an update to the Board. He said that there are going to be two jury trials anticipated for next week. The first one will take one day on April 7th and the second one is anticipated to last one week, starting the following day on April 8th. He mentioned that the air-conditioning units in the jury room and judge’s chambers were disconnected during the HVAC installation project on the courthouse and the Board said they would get the issue addressed ahead of next week’s trials.

The Board then approved Journey Financial as an option for county employees to use for their deferred 457b retirement plans. It was mentioned that the County mainly uses Corebridge Financial in Carroll, Iowa. The Board also approved a resolution for a new 28E agreement for recycling services with the city of Jefferson, a resolution to transfer $269,098 from the American Rescue Plan Act to the general basic fund, which will be paid to Graphite Construction for another phase of the courthouse HVAC project. 

Additionally, the Board approved awarding a contract to Herberger Construction Company of $363,413 for a bridge replacement project on X Avenue and a $10,263,843 contract to Flynn Company for concrete pavement replacement projects on County Roads E-26 and P-46. 

The Board also approved a contract with Red Lion Renewables for solar panels to be installed at the new Greene County Jail, as well as the Law Enforcement Center Administrative Building, Secondary Roads Department main facility in Jefferson and camping sites at Spring Lake Park. The vote was 3-2, with Supervisors John Muir and Joe Gannon as the opposing votes. 

During the discussion, County Engineer Wade Weiss voiced concerns that the amount of money to be saved at the Secondary Roads facility would be minimal compared to paying for interest and not being able to buy the panels. Gannon also mentioned that with the new jail still under construction, he was not comfortable with an agreement for electricity use without having an established baseline. His other concern was paying for power that is not being used at Spring Lake Park in the colder months. 

Next, the Board set the public hearing for the lease agreement with Red Lion Renewables for April 27th at 8:45am. The Board also approved the final draft of the Schoolboy Soldiers of Rippey monument. 

Then, the Board acted as the Drainage District Board of Trustees and approved awarding the contract for the DD 20 replacement project to the apparent low bidder of Healy Excavating from Lake View, Iowa with a base quote of $1,359,084 for the concrete tile, along with their estimate for adding a lateral tile for a total bid of $1,509,000. The Board also reapproved a quote from TBB Spraying of $33,150 for ditch brush control. The reason that was mentioned was because the original bid documents labeled the length of the area as meters and not feet. 

They also approved an agreement with the Iowa Department of Transportation to cross Iowa Highway 4 for the DD 20 project, as well as paying AgriVia $400 for engineering services for DD 20 and DD110, and Wilks Construction of $20,758 for repairs in both districts.

Finally, the Supervisors made their last adjustments before the 2027 fiscal year budget public hearing. They decided to keep their own salary proposals the same, reduce animal shelter care from the Sheriff’s Office budget to $1,000 from $2,000, and decrease the amount of publicity for the Veteran Affairs Office from $5,000 to $2,000. 

The Board also dropped the capital spending in the buildings and groups budget $10,000, decreased the amount of revenue transfer request in the conservation board budget from $130,000 to $75,000 to the conservation reserve and bike trail funds, decreased Greene County Development Corporation’s request by $5,000 to $50,000 and the Children’s Center funding request was reduced from $5,000 to $2,500.