Linn Supervisors vote 2-1 to remove ARPA funding to hire resiliency coordinator

CEDAR RAPIDS — Three months ago, the Linn County Supervisors voted to use American Rescue Plan Act funding to create a new resiliency coordinator position. On Monday, the supervisors changed course, voting to keep the federal pandemic relief money with the Sustainability Department, but restricting it from being used to hire a new employee.

The proposal passed 2-1 with Supervisor Ben Rogers voting against the changes.

The funding, $363,389, was to go toward the Sustainability Department to fund operations and the hiring of a resiliency coordinator for three years. The vote was unanimously approved by the supervisors in October. After the first three years, county intended to fund the new position from its general fund.

The goal of the Sustainability Department is to address climate change and environmental sustainability. In December, the supervisors adopted the Linn County Internal Sustainability Plan.

Sustainability Director Tamara Marcus, who started work with the county in 2020, said that while her position is more about working within the county and its departments, a resiliency coordinator would be externally focused. The new position was recommended by the Community Resilience Project’s final report last summer.

When the funding for the position was approved by the supervisors in the fall, the board included Louie Zumbach, a Republican, and Rogers and former Supervisor Stacey Walker, both Democrats. Walker did not seek re-election in November, and Democrat Kirsten Running-Marquardt was elected to the board.

Many community members showed up to the Monday work session after Zumbach added the proposed funding change to the meeting agenda last week. All who spoke during public comment opposed removing the funding. They said they were “concerned” or “troubled” with the unprecedented move to undo action of a previous board one week into a new board’s term.

“When you go back on a decision made by a body and with a timeline as others have suggested, it does feel conspicuous and creates a lack of trust in our government,” Cedar Rapids resident Angelina Ramirez said during public comment. “It makes it difficult to trust the government I live under.”

“We need this position and what concerns me is that if we remove the ARPA funding, there needs to be a clear path forward to fund it,” Cedar Rapids resident Jonathan Heifner said. “The funds are already available at no cost to local taxpayers and this decision undermines the board’s predecessor.”

Some members of the public, as well as Rogers, accused Zumbach of waiting until former Supervisor Walker left the board to put it back on the agenda.

“You’ve almost voted against sustainability 100 percent at every request,” Rogers said to Zumbach during the meeting. “We did all of this in good faith, in public … You’ve waited 90 days since we took this vote. You should’ve brought it back immediately. I have to think you were waiting for Stacey to leave and waiting for Kirsten’s first week.”

Zumbach said he put the item on the agenda to reconsider because he doesn’t want ARPA funding to be used to hire personnel. He told The Gazette on Friday that “in the course of doing things too fast” he had “missed it and it slid” by him.

“I went to several staff members to go about how this happens,” Zumbach said. “Yes, it could’ve been brought forward faster. I didn’t know we had a job description already to be honest with you … I’m not scooping money from any plan or giving it anywhere else. I’m simply saying one-time money should not go toward ongoing expenses.”

Running-Marquardt voted with Zumbach on the motion to remove funding for the position. She made the amendment to keep funding within the department.

“Funding something this important, this critical for our community, out of one-time funding, is bad precedent,” Running-Marquardt said. “We will fix this messiness … Getting an unprecedented amount to run the program is the better solution and I didn’t ask for this to come before us, but if we’re going to have a fix, I’d rather have a Kirsten Running-Marquardt fix to set up success for the long term … My priority in the coming weeks will be to fund the offer for that position.”

County Finance Director Dawn Jindrich said this is a challenging budget year because some flexibility has been removed by the state’s property tax rollbacks and the county has new expenses for radio towers and emergency sirens. She said there will be budget challenges to fund the resiliency position without ARPA money.

“With all of this, I don’t expect the offer pot to be very big this year. It would surprise me,” Jindrich said. “I don’t feel especially optimistic about the general fund budget but if they [supervisors] want to support this position out of that, it would have to be a top priority.”

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