By LeAnn R. Ralph
MENOMONIE — The Dunn County Community Resources and Tourism Committee is recommending that the county board authorize spending $100,000 of the American Rescue Plan Act funds to supplement broadband grant applications submitted by local Internet service providers.
Of the $200 million the state of Wisconsin allocated for broadband expansion grants, $100 million remains for grant applications from ISPs that are due March 17, said James Anderson, county board supervisor from Menomonie and chair of the CRT committee, at a special meeting of the committee February 7.
Bloomer Telephone, 24-7 Telcom and Mosaic Technologies are planning to submit applications for locations in Dunn County, he said.
The grants are administered through the Public Service Commission of Wisconsin.
For the first round of $100 million available last year, the PSC received requests for $400 million.
All together, Dunn County will be receiving $8.8 million in ARPA funds. The federal government distributed the first half of the money last year and will distribute the second half this year.
Out of the first round of ARPA money, the Dunn County Board has approved using $3.2 million for highway projects.
Cities, townships and villages also have received ARPA money. The amount awarded to each municipality is based on population.
Two of the ISPs that provide service in Dunn County — 24-7 Telcom and Mosaic Technologies (formerly known as Chibardun) — received grant awards in the first round of funding last fall to expand fiber optic Internet access.
24-Telcom received grants in Dunn County for projects in the Towns of Elk Mound, Lucas, Menomonie, Red Cedar, Stanton, Spring Brook, Tainter, and Weston, and Mosaic received a grant for the Town of Otter Creek.
The projects that have received funding through the Public Service Commission of Wisconsin tended to be partnerships between a local unit of government, such as a town or a county, and a cooperative or a small company.
24-7 Telcom, Bloomer Telephone and Mosaic are all cooperatives.
Bloomer Telephone’s application this time around will be for fiber optic Internet access in the Town of Colfax, and Mosaic will be applying for a grant to provide fiber optic service in the Town of Grant.
24-7 Telcom will be submitting five grant applications for various locations in Dunn County.
Unique
This is a unique opportunity for broadband expansion to fill in areas where there is no Internet service or very poor service, said Tom Quinn, county board supervisor from Downing and a member of the CRT committee.
Quinn said he would like to see Dunn County match the amounts pledged by the townships but that even a modest contribution from the county would help the ISPs with their grant applications.
The Bloomer Telephone project in the Town of Colfax is $1.6 million, and the Town of Colfax has pledged $65,000 of APRA funds, Anderson said.
The Town of Grant is pledging all of the township’s ARPA money, while Marshfield clinic is donating $10,000 and $3,000 is coming from a private donation, he said.
Jim Zons, county board supervisor from Colfax and a member of the CRT committee, said that when he was talking to people in his district to obtain signatures for the nomination form for the April election, people had a strong interest in improving their Internet access.
David Bartlett, county board supervisor from Boyceville and chair of the Dunn County Board, reminded CRT committee members that Dunn County also has other areas that could use the ARPA funds, such as capital improvements for the highway department in the form of new equipment.
Bartlett said he was not against using some of the money for broadband expansion but to also consider that if $500,000 of ARPA money was used for broadband grants, the county would have to borrow $500,000 for other projects, and then that $500,000 would be put on the property taxes.
Options
Nick Lange, Dunn County corporation counsel, pointed out that the CRT committee had several options available.
The committee could create a procedure for receiving applications for the ARPA funds and reviewing the applications, with a budget set by the Dunn County Board for the amount of ARPA money, he said.
The committee could also have specific applications in mind with specific amounts and ask the county board to approve enough funds to address the current grant applications, Lange said.
The applications from the ISPs to the state are due March 17, so the county board could approve up to a set amount for the applications for the March 17 deadline, he said.
If the CRT committee wanted to consider additional applications in the future, the committee could have a more detailed procedure to conduct reviews to make sure the ISPs meet the requirements for funds, Lange said.
The resolution could cover only the next grant application cycle, he said.
The procedure is that the CRT committee would approve a resolution designating ARPA funds for broadband expansion grants and forward it to the executive committee. The executive committee would review the resolution and then forward it to the county board for consideration at the February 16 meeting, Lange said.
Other needs
Paul Miller, county manager, noted that $5.6 million would remain of the county’s ARPA money after $3.2 million of the $8.8 million was dedicated to highway projects.
If the county board dedicates $3 million of the remaining $5.6 million to the Capital Improvements Plan, that would leave $2.6 million for the county to spend on updating equipment, he said.
The county board could allocate $300,000 to $500,000 for broadband grants without compromising other considerations, Miller said.
Quinn said he was “leaning toward a smaller request” for the current applications of perhaps $75,000 to $100,000.
In the end, even when it is money distributed by the federal government, the money comes from the taxpayers, said Larry Bjork, county board supervisor from Menomonie and a member of the CRT committee.
The money should help the largest number of taxpayers. All services are worthwhile, but the broadband expansion “is worth it,” he said.
Bjork gave some examples from farming and said “something always needs to be fixed” and that he would support $200,000.
Zons said he believed a token amount would be sufficient, perhaps $1,000 per application.
Cooperatives serve their members and are non-profit, “so I feel better about the cooperatives,” he said.
Putting $1,000 toward each application “is almost an insult” and would only amount to $7,000 total, Anderson said.
The total amount should be not less than $200,000 or $250,000, he said.
The county’s role is to provide a meaningful amount of support — $1,000 is not enough but $250,000 is too much for seven applications, Quinn said.
ARPA funds of $250,000 divided equally among seven applications would be about $36,000 for each grant application, and $100,000, divided equally, would be a little more than $14,000 for each application.
Dunn County would not pay any money to the ISPs unless the grants are awarded.
If the ISPs do not receive any grants, Dunn County would then have no obligation to pay the ARPA money pledged for broadband grants.
Perspective
The Colfax Messenger covers the St. Croix County Board for the Glenwood City Tribune Press Reporter.
The St. Croix County Board recently approved $3 million in ARPA funds for ISP broadband matching grants and resident assistance.
St. Croix County has twice the population of Dunn County and will receive a little over $17 million all together.
The plan for St. Croix County is that the county (with some contributions from the municipalities of their ARPA money) will provide 25 percent of the project costs, the companies will provide 25 percent of the project costs and the grants from the state will provide 50 percent of the project costs.
The grants received by the ISPs for Dunn County have been consistent with receiving 50 percent of the project cost.
St. Croix County has dedicated 17 percent of the ARPA funds to the broadband grant supplements. Seventeen percent of Dunn County’s ARPA money would be $1.5 million, while $100,000 represents 1.1 percent of the county’s ARPA money.
A broadband study conducted by Design Nine Broadband Planners commissioned by St. Croix County recommends that the county be involved to at least some degree in developing a “middle mile network” for providing high-speed Internet access to all of St. Croix County.
The senior business analyst for Design Nine told the St. Croix County Board at the December meeting that there will soon be a “tsunami” of additional funding coming from the Coronavirus Aid Relief and Economic Security Act, the American Rescue Plan Act and the infrastructure plan that was signed into law last November.
Resolution
The Dunn County Community Resources and Tourism Committee unanimously approved the amount of $100,000 to go toward the ISP grant applications for the 2022 grant cycle.
The CRT committee also unanimously approved a resolution to forward to the executive committee for consideration and whether the executive committee should forward the resolution to the Dunn County Board for consideration.
In addition to Anderson, Quinn, Zons and Bjork, Ann Vogl, county board supervisor from Menomonie, also serves on the CRT committee.
