The Pierce County Board’s Finance & Personnel Committee tackled a busy agenda Monday afternoon, approving budgets from Public Health for reimbursements for work related to the COVID-19 pandemic and forwarding a resolution to the county board to sell its former Plum City Highway Department shop building for $100,000 Pierce County Public Health Director AZ Snyder appeared with the committee at the virtual meeting to talk about several budgets within her department for efforts to deal with the pandemic.

“These are all fully reimbursed from the state,” she said.

Budgets that got committee recommendations for county board approval were: Public Health Emergency Quarantine $1,122.

Public Health Emergency Preparedness COVID-19 Response – $43,601.

Local Testing Coordination – $80,200.

Preparedness Planning – $30,000.

Contact Tracing and Disease Investigation – $354,057.

The budgets were all forwarded to the full board for review at its Dec. 22 meeting with unanimous committee support.

Plum City Shop

The county voted earlier this year to sell its Plum City Shop building at W1442 County Road S in the Town of Union, which was no longer used by the Highway Department, which utilizes a new facility in Elmwood.

The committee forwarded to the county board for action on a first reading at its Dec. 22 meeting a resolution to sell the building which sits on 1.176 acres of land.

“One offer to purchase was received, from Eric Clare, who submitted the offer to purchase the property for $100,000,” the resolution states.

Closing on the building is set to take place prior to year-end.

Internet Increase

The committee also recommended approval of a plan to increase the county internet bandwidth, which has been tapped largely by virtual meetings because of COVID-19.

“I think it’s a good idea,” Supervisor Jon Aubart said.

A memo to the committee states that the county currently has a 250 Mps internet circuit.

“We have experienced some technical issues while hosting some remote meetings recently and staff have been working to identify potential solutions. With the continued increased use of technology that is dependent on the internet, it is recommended that we consider increasing our bandwidth,” the memo from Administrative Coordinator Jason Matthys states.

AT& T currently has a promotion that will increase the bandwidth to 1 Gigabyte for an additional $360 a month.

The money for 2021 will come from a contingency fund earmarked for communications, and it will come from the Information Services Budget in future budget years.