At their regular Monday morning meeting, the Wright County Board of Supervisors discussed the developer agreement with Prestage Foods of Iowa with regards to their agreed upon employment numbers. In the agreement, Prestage committed to having 922 full-time equivalent jobs to get a 32% tax rebate off their annual property tax of $2.5 million. However, the company noted that due to labor disruptions caused by COVID-19, they have been unable to achieve that number.
Supervisor Karl Helgevold reported that he had been in contact with management at Prestage. They were no longer asking for a six-month extension to achieve the employment target. Instead, they asked that their rebate be based on their peak employment number of 853 employees in March before the COVID pandemic and accept their penalty based on that rather than their June 30 agreement deadline. This would amount to a $60,000 penalty this year for Prestage. The board agreed to do this for this year.
Sandy McGrath, Wright County Epidemiologist, noted that as of Monday morning, the county sits at 496 positive COVID cases. She is concerned that the county is at a 19% positivity testing rate. When the rate is greater than 20%, state mandates say that a school district should consider moving to complete online learning for a period. In-person classes are scheduled to start Monday for all Wright County schools. McGrath was hopeful that the average may come down after some more recent test batches are recorded.
The board passed a resolution establishing the Agribusiness Water Supply Fund. This fund will help manage the water supply facility costs and revenues at the Agribusiness Park. County Auditor Betty Ellis said that money will later be transferred into the fund to maintain it until water revenues start to come in.
A public hearing for budget amendments was set for August 31, 2020 at 10:15 a.m. The amendments pertain to some Agribusiness Park costs and transferring money to the new public health fund.
In other business, the board approved the union contract with the Wright County Sheriff’s Department and received the monthly revenue report from the Sheriff.
