The second round of bids was the charm for the Marshall County Board of Supervisors as they successfully awarded a contract for the first phase of renovations at the jail/sheriff’s office complex on Highway 30 to Garling Construction of Belle Plaine in the amount of $1,663,000 during Wednesday morning’s regular meeting.

Of the six bids the county received for the project — the scope of which was “considerably reduced” from the original round of bids that came in well above the estimated project cost last December and did not result in an award — all but two of them came in under the revised engineer’s estimate of $1.8 million. The county is utilizing American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) funds to finance the renovations, and the money must be spent by the end of 2026 or it will be returned to the federal treasury.

Auditor/Recorder Nan Benson opened each sealed bid and read out both the base and the alternates from six contractors: Garling, Cardinal Construction of Waterloo, R.H. Grabau Construction of Boone, Henkel Construction of Mason City, Ball Teams LLC Construction Services of Urbandale and Graphite Construction Group of Des Moines. Garling’s base bid came in about $50,000 below the next lowest bidder, R.H. Grabau.

Once the bids had been opened, Buildings and Grounds Director Lucas Baedke stepped up to the speaking podium to explain the alternate bids, which would deduct portions of the overall project — portions of windows, in his words — in the event that the costs were not favorable to the county. Because the apparent low base bid was below the budget figure, Baedke recommended accepting the base bid from Garling.

“I think we’re actually doing pretty well with these bids. Six bids is as best as I’ve ever gotten on a public bidding process, which is exciting to hear, and I think that speaks well for the construction climate that we’re in, that they’re all fairly competitive within some sort of decent margin there,” he said.

Garling was the apparent low bidder during the first round last December, and Baedke said they had a very good reputation.

“I think they check all the boxes,” he said.

Sheriff Joel Phillips added that county officials had been “very open” with contractors throughout the process this time around, and he was happy to see several bids within the cost threshold. Supervisors Chairwoman Carol Hibbs asked about the timeline, and Baedke replied that while it would depend on the contractors, they could essentially “turn them loose” whenever they want to start.

“There’ll be some lead times on windows and rooftop units that we’ll have to work through, but there’s probably some work that they can do as soon as they want, essentially,” he said.

Hibbs also wondered if Garling would be able to obtain necessary materials in a reasonable timeframe, to which Baedke replied that reasonable is a subjective term, but he didn’t believe they had anything specified with “super long” lead times — the rooftop units could probably arrive in less than 20 weeks, he said.

The advertised end date for the project is the end of fiscal year 2026, and the money must be spent by the end of calendar year 2026.

“Thanks everybody for your work on this. It was a much better result than last time, so it looks like we’re ready to get to work and get these ARPA dollars finally spent and off the books and (complete) upgrades necessary at the sheriff’s office,” Supervisor Jarret Heil said.

“It’ll be great,” Baedke added.

Before the supervisors voted, Hibbs asked if this bid prepares the county for future phases of the project, and Baedke said it did.

“Let’s call this the base of an overall long-term goal,” he said.

A motion to award the contract to Garling passed by a unanimous 3-0 vote.

In other business, the board:

• Approved the consent agenda as listed.

• Recognized the following county employees for years of service — Alan Naughton, five years with conservation, Gina Fisher, five years with the assessor’s office, Todd Borton, 15 years with secondary roads, Nicole Malloy, 15 years with the assessor’s office, and Sherry Giannetto, 25 years with the assessor’s office. Naughton and Fisher were on hand to accept their awards.

• Approved the fleet safety manual for Marshall County effective Aug. 27, 2025.

• Approved a contract with RECORDhub services with Cott Systems for Auditor/Recorder and Engineer online records at no cost to the county. Benson said it could be used as a tool to monitor individuals attempting to do “naughty” things in relation to real estate records.

• Approved a professional services agreement with Snyder and Associates for the RISE/C-STEP grant project to improve Highway 30, 245th Street and Binford Avenue near State Center to accommodate the Marshall Ridge Farms expansion.

• Approved a consultant agreement with Calhoun-Burns and Associates for the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) project on 235th Street.

• During the public comment period, Conservation Director Emily Herring noted that the trail along Highway 330 between Grimes Farm and Melbourne would be closed in sections over the next few weeks to deal with drainage problems.

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Contact Robert Maharry at 641-753-6611 ext. 255 or

rmaharry@timesrepublican.com.