Finance director questions vehicle purchase

The purchase and ongoing maintenance cost of a vehicle for the emergency government office will need to come out of grant funding for water rescue equipment in the emergency management office.

At the August 15 joint county finance and personnel committee meeting, finance director Tracy Hartwig questioned an invoice for the emergency management office for the vehicle purchase. The invoice had the money for the purchase coming from the department’s 9-1-1 accounts. She questioned if there had been authorization by the oversight committee for the vehicle purchase.

At that meeting, emergency management director Dan Gellert noted it was part of the grant funds that were received from the Fulcrum Foundation for water rescue equipment. If this was the case, Hartwig said the cost should come out of the budget line for those grant funds and not elsewhere in the department’s budget.

The issue was brought up again at Tuesday’s finance committee meeting, with Hartwig noting that there had not been formal resolution reached last week and that she needed clarification for the county’s check registry so it is properly accounted for. She also questioned going forward the maintenance and upkeep of the vehicle and if that should come from the same grant funds or be a budget line item in the department.

“Grants are really good and help the county a lot,” said committee member Mike Bub. He said the issue with the emergency management vehicle is not the only place where there are concerns, he noted that during COVID many departments used grant funds to purchase additional computers. Now, however, it is coming time to replace those computers and there is not money budgeted in the information technology department budget to do so.

See VEHICLE PURCHASE on page 3 He said no one adjusted the IT budget for those replacement costs. He said that when they get grants they need to be looking at what happens down the road.

“This is not an easy answer here,” he said.

Committee chairman Chuck Zenner said he thinks department heads should come to their oversight committees and at least run it by them before applying for the grants so that the committees know what is going on.

“There is significant hidden costs in these grants,” Bub said.

Committee members voted to have the purchase and upkeep expenses related to the vehicle to come out of the water rescue grant funds received.

In addition, human resources director Nicole Hagar and Hartwig will work on looking at the grant application policies for the county.

In other business, committee members approved moving forward with the buildings and grounds department replacing and upgrading the domestic hot water system for the courthouse. The current system is about 24 years old and include a large 800 gallon storage tank. The usable life expectancy of the tank from the manufacturer is 10 to 15 years. “We are on 10 years borrowed time,” said buildings and grounds director Joe Svejda. He raised concern that if the system failed the county would be in significant trouble. He proposed replacing the large tank with three 100-gallon water heaters, which he said would also have an energy savings. The cost of the change is $119,524 from Complete Controls, however given the amount of the project it will need to be put out on bids. Svejda said he has the money in his budget and carryovers to do the work.