County Board questions carbon credit proposal, delays action

The Taylor County board continued to kick the can down the road on deciding if the county should contract with a firm to sell carbon credits from the county forest. At Tuesday’s County Board meeting, board members voted to table action on the carbon credits until a special meeting to take place in March to give time to review the materials and gather more information.

The voluntary carbon credit market is largely a marketing tool used by corporations and industries seeking to demonstrate that they are making steps toward improving the environment by reducing the amount of carbon released. While ideally this would be done through improving efficiencies and reducing fossil fuel usage, in many cases it also includes purchasing carbon credits against established forests. Basically the sale of the credits would commit that the forest would remain as a forest for years to come which would allow the trees to grow and absorb more carbon from the atmosphere.

What this means for county forests is a potentially large paycheck for following their existing forest management and harvest plans, while agreeing to do some additional monitoring over the 40-year term of the agreements.

The Climate Trust, a national carbon credit broker, wants to work with the county to sell carbon credits of the 18,000 acres of the county forest. The company would recoup its cost and offered the county an 80/20 split on the sale of the carbon credits. They projected the county’s share of the sale of the credits would be about $6 million with most of that revenue potentially coming in the first few years of the contract. Revenue would come in during the first 20 years with monitoring to continue for the full 40 years of the agreement.

The issue has been bounced around in the forestry committee for more than a year and in December on a 3-2 vote the forestry committee voted to advise against going with the agreement at this time, largely based on the uncertainty of tying the county into a 40-year-long agreement.

The county has yet to receive any actual contract from the Climate Trust, but the action proposed at this time is to agree to work together which would lead to a formal contract being developed.

Supervisors had numerous questions and asked director of forest carbon partnership Jeremy Koslowski of The Climate Trust about the proposed project.

Board member Ray Soper asked about if the credits are sold once, can they be resold. Koslowski explained that each year’s carbon credits have a vintage and that they are sold for that year and cannot be resold.

Soper expressed concern that it appears the credits would be sold after 20 years, without the county getting any renumeration for them.

Board member Scott Mildbrand said there are two ways to look at this, one is as a revenue making situation. He said the second is troubling to him as a way for large companies that are unable to meet carbon quotas to continue to do what they have always done.

Koslowski said they are picky about who they sell these credits to and screen their buyers to make sure they are actually making attempts to reduce their carbon footprints.

Board member Mike Bub said he was against this because of the time frame involved and how over 40 years companies get bought and sold and rules can change.

“40 years is a long time,” said board member Diane Albrecht.

On the flip side, Koslowski noted that when the county forest does regeneration projects from logging the commitment can be for 50 years or longer.

The major change the county would have in the actual operation of the forest would be about a 10% reduction in logging to put the logging at below the regeneration of the forest. It is currently at or slightly above the regeneration level. Koslowski said this can be done easily through eliminating marginal harvests of low-value or difficult to access stands or by increasing buffers by trails or streams.

Board member Chuck Zenner called for the issue to be tabled. Zenner is on the board for Dairyland Power and had talked with the leadership at the power company about the carbon credit program. They had volunteered to go through the proposed agreement at no cost to the county to review and make sure the county was being offered a positive deal. He noted that there was no reason to make a decision at Tuesday’s meeting and that the value of the carbon credits themselves are continuing to increase meaning the county could afford to wait to do more homework.

In seconding the motion to table until March, board member Lynn Rosemeyer urged board members to keep in mind that $6 million is a lot of money for the county to pass up on.

The special meeting in March was at the urging of board member Tim Hansen, noting that it should be this board who has received information to make the decision rather than waiting until after the spring election when there may be a different board.

Fire alarm panel

Despite objections from board members Mildbrand and Mike Bub, Taylor County will spend $185,300 to upgrade the 23-year-old fire alarm panel for the courthouse building. The panels control the fire alarms in the courthouse and the current panel was installed during the courthouse expansion project that took place in 2000.

The heart of the system is the memory storage that has a battery back-up. The battery is failing and needs to be replaced. The battery itself costs under $10.

According to Jason Decker, of Complete Controls, nine times out of 10 their service technicians are able to power down the system, swap out the battery and power it back up with no issues. However, given the age and the known issues with that particular model of control panel, there is a high likelihood that it will not reboot at which time the county would need to have staff doing a 24/7 fire watch of patrolling the courthouse building until a panel could be replaced.

Rather than just replacing the panel with a similar one, the county’s building and grounds committee instead recommended tapping into the remainder of the federal American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) grant funds to go with an upgraded panel with voice audio options which will allow a voice message to be announced throughout the building, which could direct people away from where a fire or other incident is taking place or provide information about the nature of the emergency siren.

Mildbrand noted the existing system with just the alarm has kept employees and visitors to the building safe for decades and that the upgrade was not necessary. He suggested that most county residents when looking at this would have the new panel on hand when they swapped out the battery. If the battery worked they could call it good, but if the battery did not work they would swap it out with a new, basic panel.

Bub said he was not opposed to making the upgrade to the equipment, but noted that the project is not in the 2024 budget that was approved just a few months ago. “Why don’t we budget for this stuff?” he asked suggesting they put it in next year’s budget.

Buildings and grounds supervisor Joe Svejda, said that they didn’t intend for the battery to go out post budget and that this came up after the budget was finalized.

“I don’t know why we would bicker over replacing a system that is 23 years old,” said board member Sue Swiantek, describing it as being a “no-brainer.”

Finance director Larry Brandl said putting it in the budget is not as easy as Bub suggests noting that the county is up against the levy limit unless they would borrow to do the project.

Rollie Thums said he was disappointed that people would oppose it, noting that with more than 50 years as a firefighter, he could not in good conscience vote against the proposed upgrade. He said if the county were to lose one person due to not being able to respond to an alarm any savings they have would be meaningless.

Mildbrand said he took offense at the suggestion that

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the county would sacrifice the safety of people who work there. He said he felt they should try replacing the battery and then go with the option of replacing the existing panel without any upgrades at a cost of $69,600.

Board member Lorie Floyd said the county needs to start putting money aside for maintenance and equipment replacement.

On a 15-2 vote, board members approved going with the upgraded system with the voice alerts at $185,300 with $95,000 coming from ARPA funds and the remainder coming from other areas in the buildings and grounds budget.

Mapping project

Taylor County will take part in a light detection and ranging (LiDaR) project to develop updated contour and surface mapping of the county including things like buildings and structures as well as surface features.

The information will be generated from aerial flyovers with measurements at eight data points per square meter. This will be a significant increase in quality over the existing maps which only have one data point per square meter.

This information is used not only by multiple county departments including forestry, land conservation, zoning and the public health department, but is also used by engineers, loggers and members the public through the county’s GIS system.

The project will be $281,019 and be funded with carryover funds from land information, zoning and forestry departments as well as $50,000 from the ARPA grant funds. The remainder is expected to be covered through a state grant.

Mildbrand questioned the need for the county to have the best datasets in the state. “Why do we have to have the brightest and shiniest thing in the whole state?” Mildbrand said, noting that it is a lot of money and that he felt the county board should say no to doing it.

Brandl explained that this again, did not come up until after the budget process was completed and that the cost to the county represents only about 39% of the cost due to state grants. He said there are a lot of benefits to the departments and to the general public to use it.

A lot of the data in the current mapping is 20 to 25 years old and this would allow them to get it updated.

It was approved on a vote of 16-1, Mildbrand voted against the project.

Floodplains

Property owners in Taylor County will now be able to take advantage of federally subsidized flood insurance.

Board members approved joining the federal flood insurance program. According to county zoning administrator Kyle Noonan, prior to this Taylor County had been the only county in the state that was not part of the flood insurance program.

Noonan noted that one of the reasons the county had not taken part in the past was because the flood zone maps were outdated, dating from the 1970s. New maps have recently been completed and were formally approved at Tuesday’s meeting as part of an update to the floodplain zoning ordinance. Noonan described the ordinance as being “pretty much a state standard ordinance.”

In adopting the floodplain zoning ordinance, Noonan noted it also includes two additional dam failure studies. This brings the county’s total to 17 dam failure analyses.

The actions to be part of the flood insurance program and adopt the new ordinance were unanimously approved.

In other business, board members:  Approved a change to the compensation for elected officials such as the clerk, register of deeds and county treasurer to peg their salaries to the county’s pay matrix. State law requires the compensation to be set for these positions prior to the circulation of nomination papers which starts in April. Previously, the county had set specific dollar amounts for the positions but with them being four-year terms there is no room for cost of living adjustments. As a result county elected officials for those positions were among the lowest paid in the state. The change will place the positions at the control point for level L on the pay matrix which is based on the job duties and functions. This would also mean they would get any wage adjustments made by the county board, but they would not receive longevity-based step increases.

 Approved increasing the marriage license fee to $100 to match the rates charged in other nearby counties. A change in state law allows people to get their marriage license in any county in the state. Bub opposed the increase. “I don’t like raising fees for the sake of raising fees,” he said.

 Received the Taylor County Health Department annual report for 2023 with an overview of the activities the department had undertaken in the past year. Public health director Michelle Cahoon noted the return to other areas of focus and while COVID-related activities are still taking place, they continue to wind down.

 Approved the collective bargaining agreements with the sheriffs’ deputies and the sergeant’s unions with Rod Adams abstaining due to having a family member who works in the department and Bub voting no because no one could explain what the term “Kelly Day” referred to in the contract. The contracts go through 2026. The sergeants will receive a 4% increase effective January 1, 2024, 3% in January 2025 and 1% on September 1, 2025. In addition there were changes to the longevity pay to have increases occur at 10 and 15 years rather than 11 and 16 years. For the deputies the wage increases will be the same with detectives receiving an additional 50 cents increase in July 2024 and July 2025. The deputies contract included extensive revisions with the switch to 12-hour shifts and incorporating language from a side letter for the K-9 officer.

 Approved hiring an additional crisis intervention employee in the human services department. According to human services director Suzanne Stanfley, the county is projected to end the year with more than 196 enrollments with the number steadily increasing. The department has responded to more than 400 calls which come from the schools, hospital and law enforcement. There were six suicides in the past year in the county with two of the individuals under the age of 20. She explained there is an ongoing crisis, in crisis intervention in the county.

 Approved a change to county code to have the sheriff conduct the interviews for deputy positions by himself. In the past, the code required the entire law enforcement committee to be involved in the interview process for deputies.

 Approved the revisions to the employee handbook for the shift to a paid time off (PTO) model versus having separate sick and vacation days.

 Approved adopting the Taylor County Outdoor Recreation plan for 2024-2028. This is an update of the recreational inventory of the county and is a requirement to apply for a number of state grant programs.

 Approved giving the National Association of Counties, $1,979 toward the establishment of a new national center for public lands that is being established to look at ways to get additional funds to counties across the country. The amount represents 1% of the federal LATCF (Local Assistance and Tribal Consistency Fund) grants that were received in the past two years. The hope is that the center will work to generate additional funds to the county.