Sustainability director outlines KPIs and watershed investments; board preliminarily approves FY27 appropriation

Kara, representing Linn County's sustainability department, presented the department's mission and three key performance indicators and walked supervisors through recent grants, partnerships and planned initiatives as the board considered the department's FY27 appropriation.

"The mission is to establish resilient people, communities and organizations through economic development, environmental services, and coordination," Kara said, outlining KPIs to increase grant and funding initiatives, increase internal sustainability initiatives and provide education and outreach.

Kara listed several grant activities and anticipated projects, including collaborative EPA brownfields work, an Iowa DNR tree-planting grant (described in staff remarks as a reimbursement grant with an estimated amount of $21,760 for FY26 projections), EPA climate-action planning administered through ECCOG, and watershed management authority partnerships. Kara described a return-on-investment example using a $13-per-dollar downstream savings multiplier applied to partner contributions to estimate benefits to downstream communities.

Supervisors questioned distribution of county contributions across the six watershed management authorities (WMAs). One supervisor said the county appears to provide $15,000 annually to Indian Creek and asked whether contributions are equitable across WMAs; Kara responded that contribution requests are calculated using formulas based on population and area within each WMA and that Indian Creek is the only watershed entirely within Linn County, which affects the calculation. Kara and other staff said the county can revisit distribution strategies depending on budget season outcomes.

The board preliminarily approved the sustainability appropriation for FY27, $183,436, by voice vote. Staff said the department will develop additional KPIs for the coming fiscal year and continue to work with partners on watershed and water-quality projects.

Next steps: staff will include any awarded reimbursement grants in amendments to the FY26 budget as needed and continue internal discussions about WMA funding priorities.