Sheldon, Iowa — Another major expansion of a Sheldon business was announced at Wednesday’s City Council meeting. Development Director Curt Strouth told the council that Maintainer Corporation is planning to build a 29-thousand square foot building on the old RV Central property. The council approved their request for approximately $90-thousand in T.I.F. financing incentives paid over a five-year period. This building will have a minimum assessment of $1.5-million. Maintainer expects this expansion to create 25 to 30 new jobs over the next two years, adding $1.23-million of payroll in the community. Shelley Morris of Maintainer told the council that they have 450 trucks waiting to be built at this time and he credited the company’s staff for the growth of the company both in Sheldon and Rock Rapids. Maintainer plans to break ground on the new building on April 15th.
In other business, the council continued their work on the City’s budget. After approving the issuance of a General Obligation loan note, for $650,000, they decided to use the funds as originally intended, buying a new fire truck and two police cars.
The council also accepted a plan to balance the General Fund portion of the budget and held a lengthy discussion on employee health insurance. They discussed several options and decided to ask non-union employees to pay five percent of their insurance (of the difference from family to single), and draw up a memorandum of understanding to the union contracts to freeze the union’s contribution level at fifteen percent for the next fiscal year.
In their discussion of SCAT salaries, it was noted that there had been no increases since Fiscal Year 14/15. They accepted the proposed salary budget increases.
The council decided to move forward with a proposal to reduce the high cash balance the City has in their T.I.F. account, which is projected to be nearly $2.4-million by June 30th.. It was recommended that this be used to pay the $1.465-million in the 2013 Sheldon Crossing debt and $800-thousand in the 2013 Downtown Streetscape debt. Those payments would bring the City’s debt capacity to approximately 65-percent of the legal limit for the new fiscal year, and even lower for the following fiscal year. The City’s debt is currently at 83.58-percent of the legal limit.
After the budget discussion, the council discussed the possibility of a franchise agreement with Mid-American Energy. After the discussion it was decided to continue discussing the topic at their next meeting.
