DC Board approves nearly $3 million Capital Improvement Plan for 2025 with no borrowing
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By LeAnn R. Ralph
MENOMONIE — The Dunn County Board has approved a Capital Improvement Plan for the 2025 budget of $2,825,000 that will not be funded with any borrowed money.
The process for developing the CIP for 2025 to 2029 started early this year by meeting with department heads, said Dr. Beata Haug, Dunn County’s chief financial officer, at the Dunn County Board’s June 19 meeting.
The Dunn County Board met on April 27 for a Capital Improvement Plan workshop.
The $300,000 for the sheriff department’s storage facility has been removed from the CIP to find out more information about cost of engineering and design, Dr. Haug said.
Funding sources for the CIP have been reviewed, and there is no borrowing needed for next year’s projects, she said.
The CIP for 2025 includes a transport van and four squad trucks for the sheriff’s department at a cost of $310,000.
The plan for facilities and parks includes demolition of the old boiler room and stack; a roof for the Caddie Woodlawn house; replacement of the lower level parking lot at the Government Center; flooring and carpeting at the Judicial Center; and three John Deere mowers for a total cost of $370,000.
The highway department’s capital improvements include highway equipment at a cost of $1.5 million.
Information Technology is planning to purchase core network switches and a telephone system for $570,000.
The Neighbors of Dunn County is planning base trim for three of the houses, a new sign and water to water/boilers for a total cost of $75,000.
Funding sources
The funding sources for the capital improvement projects will include $360,632 from the debt service fund, Dr. Haug said.
The debt service fund contains money from previous borrowing. When the county borrows money, the cost is estimated, and sometimes it ends up costing less to borrow money than the estimate. The funds remaining in the debt service fund can only be spent with the approval of the Dunn County Board, she said.
Remaining American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) funds of $708,230 must be encumbered by December 31, 2024, Dr. Haug said.
The ARPA funds can be encumbered through a purchase order this year with payment made in 2025, she said.
If the remaining ARPA funds are not encumbered by the end of the year, Dunn County must return the money to the federal government.
Dunn County received $8.8 million in ARPA funds altogether.
The county board has approved in previous years using over $3 million in ARPA funds for highway projects and devoted another $5.5 in ARPA funds for the 2023 budget.
Before the county board started using the ARPA funds, the money had been placed in a high-yield account which earned about $30,000 per month in interest.
Another $181,000 is expected to come from the general fund balance for the 2025 capital improvement projects, and $1.5 million will come from the highway equipment replacement fund, Dr. Haug said.
The projects for the Neighbors of Dunn County will be funded by fees, but the projects only will be completed if funding is available from revenue for services provided by NDC, she said.
Core network
Tom Gilbert, county board supervisor from Elk Mound, asked about the $350,000 for Information Technology for the core network and a telephone system for $220,000.
The core network uses wireless technology or plugs in the wall for computer access. It is a “hub and spoke” type of model, said Dan Dunbar, chief information officer for Dunn County.
There is one core network in the Government Center and one in the Judicial Center, he said.
Gilbert said he had done a little research on the cost of core networks and that he had found a “shocking variety” of prices.
Core network switches are available for much less money than $350,000, he said.
The county’s core network would include a 20 gigabyte core to access switches and 48 ports to connect four cores. Modules are needed to plug into switches, and the cost is $2,000 to connect fiber optics on either end of the connection, Dunbar said.
There is redundancy built in so that it is “a robust network,” he said.
These are enterprise grade switches for which the county will buy warranties for seven years, Dunbar said.
The current switches are 10 years old, but the end of the support for them has been announced, and since they will no longer be supported, they must be replaced, he said.
Gilbert asked if the county’s servers were “in house.”
The county has some servers in house and some are external for network use, Dunbar said.
“That’s a chunk of change every seven years,” Gilbert said.
Encryption
Spencer Berndt, county board supervisor from Menomonie, noted that the switches were robust security grade and that “it can’t be cheap for the software.”
Dunn County had to increase the level of encryption so the sheriff’s department can communicate with agencies like the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Dunbar said.
Encryption is described as the process of protecting information that is transmitted over the internet by using a mathematical model to scramble the information in such a say that only those parties with the key to unscramble the information can gain access to the information.
An audit found three years ago that Dunn County needed that level of encryption, Dunbar said.
Dustin Shackleton, county board supervisor from Menomonie, asked if the IT capital improvements included the remote access/keyless entry for county buildings or if that was a separate project.
The keyless entry is a separate project, said Kelly McCullough, county board supervisor from Menomonie and chair of the Dunn County Board.
Spending $350,000 for seven years would amount to $50,000 per year, and the expense will not come around again for a while, said Gary Stene, county board supervisor from Colfax and vice-chair of the county board.
Dunbar said that while the warranty will be purchased for seven years, the hope is that the switches last for 10 years.
The Dunn County Board unanimously approved a motion on a voice vote to approve the Capital Improvement Plan for 2025 to 2029 with the amount of $2,825,000 for the 2025 budget with no new debt.
