Application fees amount to $35,000
By Bert Lehman
The city of Clintonville will pay $35,000 in application and administrative fees in an effort to obtain loans and grants to replace the water and sewer lines on 12th and Robert streets.
The Clintonville City Council approved the expenditure at its Feb. 12 meeting.
Authorizing Clintonville City Administrator Sharon Eveland to sign a contract with MSA to prepare the application for the loans and grants was first discussed at the Feb. 11 Clintonville Finance Committee meeting.
At this meeting, Eveland told the committee the original plan was for the city to seek loans and grants through the United States Department of Agriculture’s Rural Development program, in which case Eveland would have handled completing the application.
The city had previously received a loan and grants for the new wastewater treatment plant through the USDA Rural Development.
“With the [federal] government shutdown, unfortunately the USDA was one of the agencies that was furloughed,” Eveland said. “Because of this, they are not operating and can’t process grant applications. It has precluded us from being able to apply for this program due to the need to be able to get this project out to bid this month.”
As a fallback, Eveland said the city wants to pursue loan and grants through the Clean Water Fund and Safe Drinking Water Program for the water and wastewater portion of the street projects.
This funding would include “principal forgiveness loans.” The loans also feature a low interest rate of just above 1 percent.
Eveland said it is difficult to obtain principal forgiveness for loans on the water portion of the projects. Obtaining principal forgiveness is easier to obtain for loans on the sewer portion of the projects.
“Every community in the last three years that has applied for this program has gotten some level of principal forgiveness,” Eveland said.
Eveland added that the city of Clintonville is eligible for up to 45 percent principal forgiveness for the sewer side of the project.
The cost for MSA complete both applications would be $21,000. The administrative costs for both would total $14,000.
Eveland said spending $35,000 in order to potentially receive around $200,000 in grant funds is worth it.
“That’s just for the sanitary and sewer,” Eveland said. “If we get lucky and get principal forgiveness for the water, it’s going to be even higher.”
By having the city go this route, Eveland said she would gain experience in the grant application process so hopefully the city wouldn’t have to contract that out in the future.
The application and administrative costs can be included in the price of the project, so it is possible some of the costs will be included in principal forgiveness, Eveland said.
“So we get some of that grant application and administration money back as well,” Eveland said.
Eveland also said pursuing this funding allows the city to include some of the street replacement in the funding for the sewer portion of the project.
“Anything of the street that has to be done in order to get to the water and sewer system can be included as costs,” Eveland said. “We’ll maybe be able to look for some principal forgiveness and include that in there as well.”
The cost will be covered by the water and wastewater fund balance.
Communication tower
At the council meeting, the council also approved a waiver request from Waupaca County.
Waupaca County had requested a waiver of zoning and variance fees for a parcel of property at the end of Shaw Street in the city of Clintonville to establish a public communications tower.
“[Waupaca County is] going to permit the city, without charge, to relocate some of its equipment to that tower,” Eveland told the finance committee at its meeting.
When asked what the timeline is for the tower to be built, Eveland said the county intended to build it last year, but construction is now slated for this summer.
The fees waived would be $200 in zoning fees and $125 for the variance request.
Revenue fund
The council also approved a recommendation from the city’s finance committee to establish a new special revenue fund.
The previous day, Eveland told the finance committee that as the city pursues more grants, she recommended the city create a new special revenue fund to account for the time Eveland spends working on economic development for the city.
“We know that grants are going to be coming in as revenue,” Eveland told the committee. “We want to try to make sure that some of these revenue and grant expenditures are not unnecessarily skewing our budget numbers as far as our state requirements for expenditure restraint and things of that nature. It will also allow us to start establishing a fund balance of sorts.”