The Kenyon Leader reports…

The Goodhue County Board of Commissioners will have additional dollars to invest in an additional round of rural broadband projects after the largest project from the previous round of funding and several other pre-planned expenses came in significantly under budget.

Last fall, the board voted to allocate $277,733 in funding under the American Rescue Plan Act for a Nuvera Communications project to bring broadband to parts of Belle Creek, Cannon Falls, Leon and Vasa Townships, leaving approximately $200,000 in the coffers for future projects.

The Board had specifically hoped that this funding could help to support a potential broadband project which Hiawatha Broadband Communications had envisioned for the Wacouta area. However, the Minnesota Department of Employment and Economic Development decided not to move forward with supporting that project.

In addition to the $200,000 left on the bottom line, Finance Director Lucas Dahling said that an additional $63,077 in dedicated broadband funding is available, $12,000 after reconstruction of Goodhue County’s website redesign came as less expensive than anticipated and the remainder after Nuvera’s Vasa Township project came in under budget.

Questioned by Commissioner Brad Anderson, Dahling said that while the Board need not necessarily be in a hurry to spend that additional funding, it would make sense to move forward with another round of funding soon if funding rural broadband remains a Board priority.

“We don’t want to hold off on spending this money if we don’t need to,” he said. “My opinion is we have the funds available, this wasn’t levy dollars. If the Board wishes to continue supporting broadband projects, it would make sense to continue supporting those.”

Nearly $200,000 in additional ARPA contingency funds also appear to have become available after funding for the cost of hiring several employees, most notably the County’s Outreach and Communications Specialist, came in well under budget.

The cost of the Outreach and Communications Specialist position alone was overestimated by roughly $140,000, which Dahling attributed to an overestimation of the position’s salary and also to the decision to use levy dollars to fund half of the position.

While roughly half of those ARPA contingency dollars are set to be spent on improvements to the Goodhue County Government Center, the remaining total of roughly $200,000 could be coupled with dollars devoted to broadband for a round of over $450,000 in broadband aid.