May 12, 2020 Tuesday 9:00 am
The Bourbon County Commissioners met in open session in the EOC room in the basement (the meeting was posted on Facebook), present for the meeting were all three Commissioners, Justin Meeks and Kendell Mason (via telephone).
Lynne made a motion to go into a 15 minute executive session for personnel matters of individual non-elected personnel, Jeff seconded and all approved, (the session included the Commissioners and Justin Meeks). No action was taken.
Jeff made a motion to go into a 10 minute executive session for personnel matters of individual non-elected personnel, Nick seconded and all approved, (the session included the Commissioners, Jim Harris, Jerad Heckman, Kendell Mason and Justin Meeks). No action was taken.
Jim Harris met with the Commissioners; the City of Fort Scott wants the County to help lay one block of asphalt (approximately 400’) on Andrick Street between 5th & 6th. Lynne said they are putting the cost to do this together for the Interlocal agreement. Jim said if the County does this, he would want Ag Engineering or another company to do the compaction tests there.
When the asphalt season ended in 2019, the Landfill Road and Indian Road were on that list to be completed, but they weren’t done. They want to do those roads first this year. Work still needs to be done with the drainage on Indian Road before asphalting there. The Commissioners asked that they do the Landfill Road first and said to use the right mix of asphalt to accommodate the heavy traffic. Jim said while overlaying they will not be doing other jobs.
Lynne reported that 125th is falling apart and needs work done to it. Nick said they need to patch on 215th where the French drains were put in. Lynne said due to the sales tax revenue being down; they will have to be considerate of the projects they do.
Jim said they plan to blast at the Blake Quarry and then at the Thomas Quarry. He said the asphalt plant is ready for the asphalt season.
Lynne made a motion to approve Resolution 16-20, a resolution increasing the Assistant County Attorney wages to $65,000 annually, Jeff seconded and all approved, the Commissioners said they weren’t adding additional money to the Attorney’s budget to cover this raise.
Lynne said that Justin Meeks was working with the City of Fort Scott Finance Director regarding the feasibility of having an Interlocal agreement with shared services, products (chips, salt).
Lora Holdridge said she had abstractors, surveyors as well as KDOT (KDOT is planning to do work on 69 Highway (at 3rd, 6th, 12th and 25th Street in Fort Scott) and APEX needing to come to her office to review records. Due to COVID-19, she felt she could safely schedule appointments for them to come to her office to do the work they need to do. The Commissioners were all ok with allowing them in by appointment. Jeff discussed Allen County E-filing surveys; Lora said her office can distribute surveys electronically, but they don’t accept them that way. She said the software Allen County uses is Fiddler and it isn’t feasible for Bourbon County to have since we already have CIC software.
Economic Development Director Jody Hoener met with the Commissioners to discuss the CDBG CV grant; a brief description of the grant is as follows from SEKRPC… “ALL REGULAR CDBG PROGRAM REQUIREMENTS APPLY UNLESS OTHERWISE STATED IN THESE GUIDELINES.
The State of Kansas, Community Development Block Grant – CV (CDBG-CV) program has been awarded $9,029,815 from the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act. Awards will be made for issues triggered by the COVID-19 virus and when no other funds are available.
ELIGIBLE APPLICANTS
The CARES Act funds will be available for a City or County in the State of Kansas, which are defined as “general purpose units of government.” The entitlement Cities and Counties ineligible include Kansas City, Wichita, Topeka, Lawrence, Leavenworth, Manhattan, Overland Park and all of Johnson County.
APPLICATION SUBMISSION REQUIREMENTS
Applications will be submitted online on a first come, first served basis until money is exhausted.
FUNDING AMOUNT
Maximum funding per county or city is $300,000 for Economic Development grants and $100,000 for meal programs.
REIMBURSABLES
Cost can be reimbursed from March 1, 2020 or used for future expenses.
PROCEDURAL CHANGES
Procedural changes with CARES Act funds include, the processing of the grantee’s Grant Agreements, Request for Release of Funds and Certification (HUD-7015.15), and Grant Close-out agreements. Based on HUD guidance from April 13, 2020, the grantee can use electronic signatures, scans or fax. These amendments would only be applied to awarded CARES Act funds. All other CDBG requirements apply.
OTHER REQUIREMENTS
The other requirements of the CDBG-CV are not fully described in this application. However, they still apply and include: National Objective Requirements, Pre-selection of Professional Services, Administrative Requirements for the Program, Citizen Participation Requirements (Public Hearings), Applicable Laws and Regulations – Federal Laws and Regulations, State Law Requirements, State Laws which may be available or applicable, Grant Definition, and Environmental Review Process. Details of these requirements can be found in the 2019 CDBG General Application Guidelines.
APPLICATION RATING CRITERIA
Applications will be awarded on a first come-first serve basis until funds are all distributed. Should any document be missing, incorrect or otherwise have deficiencies we will contact the applicant for corrections.
Due to the first come-first serve nature of these grants the date received will start once all items are submitted correct-y.
THRESHOLD REQUIREMENTS
There are no threshold requirements.
ACTIVITIES FOR CDBG-CV ELIGIBLE
1. Micro-Grant funds to Cities or Counties
a. The use of funds is for businesses to purchase needed inventory to reopen. This is considered working capital making the environmental level of review as Categorically Excluded not Subject to (CENST).
b. All awards are distributed as grants
c. The National Objective is Job Retention and over 51 percent of employees must meet LMI
d. Inventory purchases for 60 days after allowed to reopen to regular services
e. $25,000 maximum per job retained for businesses under 5 FTE employees, including owner, for a maximum grant of $30,000 per company
f. For profit businesses only
2. Economic Development
a. For businesses to purchase needed inventory to reopen. This is considered working capital making the environmental level of review as CENST.
b. All awards are distributed as grants
c. The National Objective is Job Retention and over 51 percent of employees must meet LMI
d. Inventory purchases for 60 days after allowed to reopen to regular services
e. $35,000 maximum per job retained for businesses with 6-50 FTE employees for a maximum grant of $50,000 per company
f. For profit businesses only
NOTE: Larger companies should look at CDBG Economic Development funds
3. Support for Meals on Wheels, replenishment of Food Banks and Food Pantries, or aid to lunch programs for kids to provide extra support through this stay home order. This is a Public Service activity and the City must meet LMI.” Jody said that the County could help businesses located outside of Fort Scott apply for the grant, she said the businesses in the City could also apply and said there is potential that the City of Fort Scott and Bourbon County businesses could each get a combined total of $600,000. She said right now she has 26 businesses for the application of the $300,000 County portion. She said the County will eventually have to pass a resolution for the CDBG grant and will have to hold a public hearing (Lynne said the Commissioners could call a special meeting if needed for the public hearing). She said she wants the grant process to be as transparent as possible.
Due to COVID-19, the revenue for the County is down and the County could see results from this for some time; Justin said due to the dramatic changes in revenue the County may have to help cover the gaps in revenue for the EMS (he said they had a good budget for the EMS, but revenue as well as calls for service are down) as well as public health. He said the Commissioners may have to use the Wind Farm money to help cover the gaps. Lynne said they are looking at downsizing some operations; he said they are working towards making things easier for the public, more viable for the County and costing the taxpayers less. Justin said the Commissioners may have to initially help subsidize the healthcare mall. He said that elected officials and department heads would have to prepare for changes. An electronic KIOSK was briefly discussed; due to COVID-19 some business operations have changed at the Courthouse.
Randy Cason with Ascension Via Christi met with the Commissioners to discuss their lease agreement for the hospital building. When they moved into the old Mercy Hospital building, they planned to be there two years, he said that time will be up in 10-11 months, he said they were looking to acquire land to build when they were approached by the County (to save the current building) about being an anchor tenant and leasing space from the County at the former Mercy Hospital building. He said that was a quicker and easier option and said they were on board with the idea; they plan to move forward with the long term lease to be a tenant. He said they need to move forward with operations and improvements and replace the existing radiology equipment (which is older equipment). He said they will be asking for approval from the landlord (Mercy is the current landlord) to change out the equipment and do renovations; they plan to purchase and install a new CT Scanner, a new digital X-ray room, as well as a portable X-ray machine. He said it will be an approximate equipment upgrade of $700,000 and approximately $300,000 worth of renovations to accommodate the changes. He said long term they would like to have Dr. Katrina Burke on campus. Justin said the Commissioners planned to move forward with the leases for the space at the hospital. Justin said he planned to have draft leases ready in the next few weeks and said the finalized leases in 30-45 days. Jeff Fischer questioned Randy Cason what impact COVID-19 had on the hospital; he said they were tremendously impacted by the pandemic, they haven’t had a lot of cases and currently have zero cases, but elective procedures had been shut down as well as standard healthcare had been cut down.
The Commissioners plan to meet on May 19th on the front steps (weather permitting) from 9:00 am – noon. They plan to allow public comment from 11:30-12:00 pm.
Lynne said they are looking at help for Shane Walker (IT department); he said Shane has taken on a lot of work over the last few years.
At 11:55, Nick made a motion to adjourn, Lynne seconded and all approved.
THE BOARD OF COMMISSIONER
OF BOURBON COUNTY, KANSAS
(ss) Lynne Oharah, Chairman
(ss) Jeff Fischer, Commissioner
(ss) Nick Ruhl, Commissioner
ATTEST:
Kendell Mason, Bourbon County Clerk
May 19, 2020, Approved Date