Sheldon, Iowa — The Sheldon City Council gave their approval to the City’s 2018-2019 budget Wednesday after only one person had comments and questions at the budget public hearing. Robert Engel expressed his concern about the way taxes have increased over the past ten years. He also asked about the borrowing capacity of the city. It was explained that the State sets the maximum debt a City can incur at five percent of the Total valuation of taxable property in the city. At the present time the City of Sheldon is in debt up to 96-percent of that limit. City Manager Sean Hutchison pointed out that the City has a very aggressive repayment schedule and often pays off their bonds early.
After no comments were heard during the public hearing on the construction of the Wastewater Treatment Facility, the council voted to award the contract to Hoogendoorn Construction of Canton, South Dakota. Hoogendoorn’s bid of $9,536,700.00 was the lowest of the four bids submitted for the project. This was slightly lower than the engineer’s estimate. The other three bids ranged from $10,580,000 to $10,994,600.
After no comments during the hearing on the Floyd Industrial Park Improvement Plan, the council voted to award the bid to Vander Pol Excavating of Orange City. Their bid of $436,640.69 was also lower than the engineer’s estimate, and considerably lower than the highest of the eight bidders. That high bid of $599,483.00 was submitted by Knife River Midwest of Sioux City.
In other business, the City Council gave their approval to submitting an application for a grant that would pay 75-percent of the cost of extending the Recreational Trail around the Sheldon Crossing Pond.
