The Greene County supervisors got mixed news at their July 22 meeting when Joan St Clair and John Heydon of McDonald Insurance presented costs for renewal of the county’s insurance through the Iowa Communities Assurance Pool (ICAP).
The bad news is that the county’s total bill for insurance – property, crime, boiler & machinery, auto physical damage, workers’ compensation and surety bonding – is $85,000 more than the last renewal, at $359,404.
The good news is a decrease in the experience modification factor on the work comp insurance. The number is calculated based on claims filed by employees. The county’s experience modification factor for 2024-25 is .58, down from .69 in the previous year. St Clair said she has never seen an experience modification factor that low. That number has come down each of the last four years. In the previous 15 years, the experience modification factor was as high as .96 in 2014-15.
Had the experience modification factor been higher, the increase in the county’s total premium would have been even greater.
The supervisors did not approve the renewal at the rate St Clair and Haydon provided, but instead asked them to come back with quotes with an increase of some deductibles. They’ll decide then whether to increase deductibles to save on the premium.
In other business, Pam Olerich, real estate/tax coordinator in the auditor’s office, updated the supervisors on tax increment financing (TIF) collections. The county set up TIF in 2018 on Mid American Energy’s Beaver Creek wind farm in order to provide funds for the construction of the Greene County Career Academy.
At the time, the county sold $5 million in bonds for career academy construction, with repayment of the bonds coming from TIF over five years.
Olerich told the supervisors Monday the county is only a year away from having collected the entire $5 million, and that in order to continue collecting the increment, the county would need to incur debt. The resolution establishing TIF named road projects as a use for TIF revenues.
County engineer Wade Weiss has a prioritized list of road projects that will be done over the next several years using TIF revenues. The first project is an eight mile stretch of County Road E-18 and a short segment of P-46 north to the Webster County line. The project is on the Iowa DOT’s schedule for bid letting next January. The plan is to sell bonds to pay for the project and repay the bonds with TIF funds.
Weiss also briefed the supervisors on bids for the Grimmell Rd bridge west of Jefferson. The county and city are sharing the expense of the bridge because although it’s within the Jefferson city limits, it’s part of a much used farm-to-market route.
Bids were lower than expected, with the low bidder being Godbersen-Smith Construction Co of Ida Grove, with a bid of $2,080,602, substantially below the engineer’s estimate. Weiss said the state of Iowa has not let any bridge projects, so contractors are hungry for work.
The city will pay $1.5 million, with the remainder coming from federal bridge replacement funds allocated to the county.
Godbersen-Smith worked on the bridge on N-65 near Hyde Park in Kendrick Township in 2017. That bridge cost $3.2 million, Weiss said.
County treasurer Katlynn Mechaelsen gave her semi-annual report. As of June 30, 2024, the county had $13,831,250 cash on hand. That compares to $12.9 million a year ago. The county earned $653,194.15 in interest on various accounts during the period.
She also noted that during the year ending June 30, the county had received $173,167.73 from Wild Rose Casino. Those funds are used to lower property taxes, she said.
