Board OKs RLF loan to Jefferson’s Basin Precision Machining
By Alexa Zoellner azoellner@dailyunion.com | Posted: Wednesday, February 14, 2018 7:49 am
JEFFERSON — The Jefferson County Board of Supervisors on Tuesday authorized issuing a revolving loan of up to $382,670 to Basin Precision Machining LLC.
“(Basin) just completed a nice addition out on Collins Road and one of the major needs is equipment, (the cost of which) is well over $9 million,” Jefferson County Administrator Ben Wehmeier said after the board’s monthly meeting. “There are job guarantees that are built into that to help part of this, so we’re just playing a small part of this to help make this project a reality.”
The county’s loan is from the Community Development Block Grant Revolving Loan Fund Program (CDBG-RLF), which was established through funding from the State of Wisconsin Revolving Loan Fund Program. It is designed to provide low-interest revolving loans to assist businesses in creating and retaining jobs, promoting new private investment in Jefferson County and developing a positive and proactive business climate for expanding existing businesses. No county tax levy funds are used for these loans.
Basin Precision Machining, a precision CNC contract machine shop, recently completed a 22,500-square-foot expansion of its manufacturing facility at 211 Collins Road in Jefferson. It requested the loan to help purchase $9,697,122 worth of machinery and equipment for the space.
As conditions of the loan, there will be a 4-percent annual interest rate, payable monthly over 10 years with no payments due for the first six months, on the condition that Basin creates and maintains a minimum of 11 full-time jobs with benefits equal to those provided to its other full-time employees.
The resolution stated that Basin “has represented that it will create up to 30 jobs in the next two years in conjunction with the installation of new machinery and equipment.”
Founded in 1980 by the Anderson family, Basin previously was known as Anderson Machining Service. It has a plant in Jefferson and a satellite facility in Whitewater, between which it employs more than 150 people. In 2015, it was purchased by Basin Holdings LLC, an international energy service company based in New York.
In a separate matter, the county board on Tuesday amended the Jefferson County Economic RLF Manual and Lending Guidelines to state that no loan request exceeding 50 percent of total project costs will be considered. The amount previously was 25 percent.
“Initially, these funds came from the State of Wisconsin,” Wehmeier explained. “One of the items that came back to us is that we can increase that loan amount to 50 percent of the actual need.
“So, as part of that having flexibility of giving these loans out to the businesses who are looking at expanding or staying here in Jefferson County, we agreed to go forward with that so we could give them maximum flexibility,” he continued. “It’s a great move forward to get that money moving because it’s been stagnant for a little bit.”
In other business, the board:
• Approved entering into a three-year exclusive signage marketing partnership agreement for the county fair with Ott Schweitzer Distributorship Inc., a fermented malt beverage distributor, totaling $63,000 retroactive to Jan. 1 and ending on Dec. 31, 2020.
The exact cost/benefit to the county by entering into this agreement only can be estimated because it is not possible to determine the increased county fair attendance and resulting increased revenue generated as a result of the partnership.
Supervisors James Braughler, Greg David and Dwayne Morris voted against approval. Supervisor Gregg Patrick was absent. All other supervisors voted in favor of the resolution.
• Authorized selling the former highway satellite shop property in Waterloo to James Sheehy for $35,000. The proceeds are to be deposited in the capital projects fund to offset the expenses associated with the new highway satellite shops.
A second bid for the property in the amount of $11,001 was submitted by Virgil Kasys.
• Approved budget amendments for the District Attorney’s Office; Health Department; Sheriff’s Office and Human Resources; and the Human Services Department.
The District Attorney’s Office receives federal funding passed through the Child Support Department for processing criminal nonsupport cases in the amount of $1,000. The office seeks to budget for such revenue. Because the related position costs already are provided for in the 2018 budget, the offset will decrease county levy in the District Attorney’s Office, increase in general revenue and that increase will be allocated to the county’s contingency fund.
The Health Department was awarded a Preventative Health and Health Services Grant from the State of Wisconsin Division of Public Health to be used to update the Jefferson County Health Department Strategic Plan in the amount of $1,040. A budget adjustment is required because the grant was not anticipated during the 2018 budget process.
The county budgeted $5,000 for a mass alert system in the 2018 Sheriff’s Office budget. Since approval of this year’s budget, the responsibility for the mass alert system has been assumed and paid for by the Human Resources Department. The budget amendment was to transfer $5,000 from the Sheriff’s Office to the Human Resources Department to be applied toward payment of the mass alert system.
The Jefferson County Human Services Department was one of 63 community groups awarded a State Targeted Response to the Opioid Crisis Grant from the State of Wisconsin Department of Human Services to be used to support strategies to prevent opioid abuse. Extra funding became available this year and $10,300 was awarded. A budget adjustment is required because the extra grant funds were not anticipated during the 2018 budget process.
• Amended the budget amendment and adjustment policy as part of a periodical review to determine it is functioning as intended. The changes supplement the existing policy by giving the county administrator the ability to transfer funds between departments within a governmental function as defined by the State of Wisconsin Department of Revenue and allowed under Chapter 65.90 of Wisconsin Statutes.
“It is capped at $24,999 like everything else,” Wehmeier explained to the board. “Everything above that still has to go through the normal process.
“Some of these amendments could have been covered under this policy, but some of the items, such as accepting the grants for Human Services that’s increasing that appropriation, we’d still have to bring to county board,” he added, referring to the several budget amendments put before the board Tuesday (see above bullet point).
• Authorized creating one full-time building and grounds maintenance worker II position; eliminating one full-time, vacant construction and maintenance lead worker position; and increasing the allocated hours to full time for one building and grounds maintenance worker II position at the Jefferson County Parks Department.
The total savings for 2018 due to the above actions is $12,793.30 in benefits and wages. If determined necessary, the county administrator could authorize the use of the savings for additional pool or seasonal hours.
• Established total annual compensation for the clerk of courts and the sheriff for 2019-22.
The salary for the clerk of courts will be $79,518.40 in 2019; $80,308.80 in 2020; $81,120 in 2021; and $81,931.20 in 2022. The salary for the sheriff will be $97,364.80 in 2019; $98,342.40 in 2020; $99,320 in 2021; and $100,318.40 in 2022.
• Authorized an application for an Outdoor Recreation Aids Grant by the Parks Department for the snowmobile trail maintenance project. The snowmobile maintenance program is expected to cost approximately $57,210 for winter 2018-19, the cost of which is fully funded by the grant.
• Appointed John Rageth to serve as the Jefferson County IT director for an indeterminate term.
“Over the course of the last six months-plus, (we have been) really looking at some functionality and transition in our IT world,” Wehmeier said. “We had two separate departments for a certain period of time. In working with HR and Infrastructure, as part of our budget process we decided to make it merged into one true information technology department
“John Rageth has been acting interim in that role for a while and we decided it was time we take that interim off,” he continued. “He’s been doing a wonderful job of moving the department forward, looking at some efficiencies and, I think, most of the staff would agree, some great things have happened in the short time he’s officially taken that role on.”
• Approved the appointment of Mary Vohs, Whitewater, to the Aging & Disability Resource Center Advisory Committee (ADRC) for a three-year term ending July 1, 2020.