Mahaska County Agrees To Pay RUSS Fees

Mahaska County Supervisor Mike Vander Molen.

Oskaloosa, Iowa – The Mahaska County Board of Supervisors met in regular session on Monday, October 20th in the 3rd floor conference room of the Mahaska County Courthouse.

The Board went into two closed sessions on Monday to discuss the hiring of a county IT coordinator and then to decide if the board would continue paying RUSS and who their representative would be on that board.

In open session, the Board made a motion to authorize Supervisor Mark Doland to initiate an offer with the committees unnamed recommendation for the IT Coordinator position. “Any discussion, seeing none,” by Vander Molen, the motion quickly moved onto the next closed session.

When the Board returned from their closed session, in regards to RUSS [Regional Utility Service Systems], they agreed to pay the fiscal 2014 fees without a penalty. Supervisor Mike Vander Molen was appointed to the board for Mahaska County.

Mahaska has been seeking a way to remove itself from the RUSS organization. In September of 2013, Mahaska County entered into arbitration in an effort to remove itself from the organization, which was a needed legal step because of the 28E agreement the county had entered into with the entity.

Currently, RUSS is refusing to let Mahaska County out of the 28E agreement. In the March 20th, 2013 meeting, the group voted 5-2 against Mahaska County’s request for withdrawal. Three members of the board were not present for that vote, including Mahaska County Supervisor Mike Vander Molen, who is the county’s representative on that board.

There is precedent for a county to withdrawal, as both Davis and Lee Counties have accomplished that in the past, but an arbitration ruling has forced the county to pay its past dues to the entity to the tune of $8,000, with those fees slated to increase in the future.

RUSS was designed and created in order for smaller communities to be able to provide sewer systems that may not otherwise have resources to make improvements.

Also heard was Julie Bak, the Mahaska County CPC Coordinator, who outlined the Targeted Case Management Cost Report for fiscal year 2014.

Also discussed was the Medicaid offset amount for the fiscal year 2016. The offset amount is part of the property tax relief portion of regionalizing mental health services statewide. Since Mahaska County does not get equalization dollars from the state, when budgets are put into place for fiscal year 2016,  the levy for mental health services will be a maximum of $34.22.

“That maximum is enough to bankroll us that fiscal year?” asked Vander Molen of Bak. Bak said it would be enough, even after supervisors cut the levy to $0 for 2015 fiscal year.