(Orleans)– The Dickinson County Water Quality Commission is revising 28E agreements with its member entities that reflects an increase in annual funding requests. Coordinator John Wills told the Orleans City Council Monday the additional money will help up the anty when it comes to funding water quality projects, and will allow them to establish an emergency reserve to battle any invasive species issue that may crop up…
“Right now our 28E agreements say that we’ll have a maximum budget of $200,000, so we’ll go to $250,000 in asking about but we will be able to budget for $300,000 which means that we could, over a period of years, build our revenue, or build our total amount on hand, up to that $300,000. That $50,000 of additional amount of money would then be able to be used for an emergency fund for aquatic invasive species treatment.”
Wills says the increased funding that’s being requested will vary as it’s based on growth in property valuations. Wills says another revision in the agreement is for the commission to review funding levels on a regular basis…
“Because we never once re-evaluated the amount of money asked to each city since 2001, it will state that we will re-evaluate the asking every six years. So every three valuation cycles we would then re-evaluate the asking amounts so that you’re not going to see this huge, big, fluctuation of a dollar amount.”
Wills added the return the member entities get for their investment in the commission is very substantial…
“Right now we’ve invested about $3.2 million countywide, that’s at $200,000 per year, we’ve invested $3.2 million over those 22 years, and received back $32 million so we’re at right now about a ten-to-one match for dollars that we invest. So every dollar that you invest is bringing $10.00 more back to the county, back to Silver Lake, the Iowa Great Lakes and Swan Lake.”
Wills says the goal is to have a final 28E agreement ready for approval by member entities this coming fall.
