County closes in on justice center costs

After eight years of research and planning, Carlton County officials should know the maximum cost of a new justice center following a special meeting set for Thursday, July 21, after this issue of the Pine Knot News went to press. County coordinator Dennis predicted the top number from project contractor Adolfson & Peterson will come in at over $70 million, including construction and soft costs such as architectural, engineering and permitting.

Funding is also up in the air.

The largest possible funding source for the justice center is the proposed local option sales tax, a half-cent tax which must be approved by the voters in the November 2022 general election. Early voting by mail starts Sept. 23.

Voters have two choices:

-A vote ”yes” provides most of the funding for the project through sales tax proceeds. It is projected to raise approximately $2 million yearly for 30 years.

-A vote “no” means putting the majority of the cost on the property tax rolls.

Last week Genereau stressed that the county is looking at multiple funding streams, including the sales tax, non-levy grants, county reserve funds and American Rescue Plan Act funding.

County auditor/treasurer Kevin DeVriendt cautioned at the jail committee meeting Monday, July 18, that even with a half-percent sales tax approval, there will still be some burden on property taxes. Some $37.5 million in bonds approved so far for the project will already cost $2 million a year in bond payments.

If the sales tax is approved in November, a third bid package — which would cover three-fourths of construction costs — would be issued, another round of bonding would be approved, and then a final overall cost of the justice center would be known.

Only then can the final property tax impact be calculated.

According to county assessor Kyle Holmes, the new Enbridge Line 3 and its property taxes will help offset the tax impact on individual households and businesses. But that figure is not known at this time either.

‘Unfunded mandate’

Even with the funding for the jail still unknown — in part due to the state legislature’s failure to pass the bonding bill — the Minnesota Department of Corrections has already notified the county that unless an extension is approved, the Carlton County Jail must cease operations on July 31, 2023. Sheriff Kelly Lake pointed out that she was told no extension would be granted unless construction of the justice center was in full swing at that date.

“Sounds like another of those unfunded mandates,” said Atkinson Township board member Terry Dearborn in a telephone call this week. “Action is determined by people in power at the federal and state level and we foot the bill. With such a projected surplus in the state, I hope some money trickles down to take some of the burden off from local taxpayers.”

Senator Jason Rarick remarked last week to the Pine Knot News that even though the Legislature failed to pass both the bonding bill and a transportation bill this session, he was assured by the majority Senate Republican caucus that the two bills would be passed early in January/February so that local building projects were not affected and federal dollars were not lost for needed transportation projects.

Operations

County officials are also uncertain how much the new complex will cost to operate. The new building is over 100,000 square feet but will have state-of-the-art geothermal heating and cooling and is engineered to be very energy-efficient. While two custodial positions and one maintenance tech positions will be added, the operating cost of the complex per square foot is much lower than that of the current courthouse and jail.

Genereau said county staff are working with the contractor on the cost of running the complex but specific numbers are not possible at this time. He said that the county staff has worked on this project for eight years, studying every aspect, and there is still work to do.