The City conducted a door-to-door survey to identify issues that might improve its grant score. It will be submitted in the next few weeks, and if approved could close the $2 million to $2.5 million funding gap.
Former Archer City Manager John Glanzer is helping the City as a temporary employee until a new city manager is hired.
“We’re really kind of in a holding pattern right now waiting to see what will happen in October with our request for an increase in grant award from the State,” Glanzer said. “Once we know that information then decisions can be made, as far as how to move forward from that point.”
After submitting a preliminary engineering report and environmental study in October 2011 to the Florida Department of Environmental Protection’s State Revolving Fund, the City was awarded a $2.7 million grant toward the project. The grant has a 120-day timeline for the City to establish the balance of funding for the project.
The total sewer project will cost approximately $11 million, according to Archer Interim City Manager John Mayberry.
“Until we close the funding gap it’s not in the best interest of the City to move forward with the Rural Development loan at this time,” Glanzer said. “We really need to finalize what is the max number of dollars we can get, grant money wise, from the State and that will more or less identify what the loan on that will be.”
Those are unknown answers that will not be answered until this fall, he said, but funding will be through the United States Department of Agriculture Rural Development agency.
Building the sewage system to replace the 50-year-old septic tanks in Archer has been a decade-long process.
Archer Mayor Frank Ogborn said they’ve had to work around the constraints of the federal budget cycles and the process is moving as fast as possible.
“We as a City commission understand that we are under a deadline. We have to be under construction or we’ll have to pay that loan back,” Ogborn said. “No one is more understanding of that than we are.”
In the door-to-door survey, there were open sewage found in backyards and septic tanks that were not properly maintained.
Ogborn said the sewage system would benefit Archer by attracting more businesses.
Glazer believes there is a cost for homeowners who use a septic system despite the nonexistence of a monthly fee.
“The reality is if you own a septic system a lot of people get the mistaken idea, ‘Well I flush the toilet and nothing happens so it must be working fine,’ ” Glazer said, “and they never really have their septic system looked at or maintained unless a problem develops that they actually see.”
“But that doesn’t mean the septic system is operating properly,” he said.
Glanzer said another issue that’s affecting the sewer project is that Congress hasn’t passed the budget for USDA.
“USDA Rural Development is restricted because there’s no budget,” he said.
“The funds that are available, not just for the City of Archer but municipalities throughout the United States, are restricted because USDA doesn’t know how much money they’re going to have.”
The U.S. House Agricultural Committee released a Farm Bill draft July 5 that plans to cut spending by $3.5 billion a year. The current Farm Bill ends Sept. 30.
“USDA is very conservative about who they loan money to and grants they give, so that hurts the small municipalities,” he said.
Glanzer is optimistic that the project will be completed in the next year or two if the grant scores are approved by the Florida Department of Environmental Protection.
“If the community does not move forward with it and you have a community that is strictly on the septic system, the ability for that City to grow is going to be severely restricted.”
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E-mail: aloguerre@alachuatoday.com
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