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Last week, the Iowa County Board of Supervisors debated if non-profit organizations should be charged a fee to use county facility meeting rooms. There has never been a policy in place and requests are coming to use the community room at the new health and human services building. A policy was developed in committee and forwarded to the full board without any fee schedule.
Some of the minority members of the committee felt a fee should be charged and brought a fee schedule to the full county board. As is the fashion with the current county board, the debate was lengthy, spirited and full of contradictions.
One reason given to charge for use of county meeting rooms is that by letting non-profits use the rooms for free, it is taking away from local businesses. The thought process is that some local businesses offer meeting rooms too and while there, people buy food and soda. That logic does have merit, but now for the contradiction.
Earlier in the meeting Rep. Howard Marklein spoke to the board and held a question and answer session with supervisors. The Iowa County Highway Department does work for other counties and municipalities and it provides income to the county. A proposal was floated at that state to limit this work because it competes with private businesses. Some supervisors expressed their concern over this proposal because it could hurt revenue that comes to the highway department.
So I guess when it comes to the highway department it is okay to compete with private businesses, but when it comes to non-profits using meeting rooms for free it's a sin because it could compete with private businesses. This is one of the head scratching moments that usually comes sometime during a county board meeting.
Another point brought into the debate is charging for the meeting rooms helps offset the cost of the new health and human services building. It was mentioned that many taxpayers won't use the building because of the location and would get no benefit from it. While that argument has merit, it also opens up a can of worms.
As a taxpayer in the city of Dodgeville, my county property taxes go towards county roads that I don't live on or a sheriff's department that I don't use. So where is my property tax offset?
The key issue is that the groups that would use meeting rooms are non-profits. These are groups such as 4-H, Iowa County Historical Society, the Women, Infant and Children Program and different elderly groups. These are groups that serve all of Iowa County.
The real issue doesn't have anything to do with the use of meeting rooms at all. Many supervisors ran for the board because they were opposed to the new health and human services building. It was too late to stop the project after they were elected. However, the building is here to stay regardless of if we like it or not.
At every county board meeting at some point there is a dig made at the new building and the prior county board that built it. The building has been in use for over a year and it's time to move on.
I understand the deep resentment some supervisors have towards the building and the process used to build it, but enough is enough.