Adams County officials have been examining a proposal to relocate various county offices to a new building in Straban Township. The plan would remove the county’s Probation, Children and Youth Services and Domestic Relations departments out of buildings leased by the county.
Should the county move forward with the building proposal, the county’s Office of Planning and Development would leave the Union Square building in Gettysburg and need to find a new home. And while a final agreement is pending, commissioners indicated they would like to move the planning department to the Agricultural and Natural Resources Center, or ag center, owned by the Adams County Conservation District.
The Adams County commissioners said they want to pay off the building’s mortgage as soon as can be accomplished with county and conservation district reserve funds, according to an email between commissioners and Charlie Bennett, chair of the conservation district’s Board of Directors.
The 32,000-square-foot barn-like building in Cumberland Township houses the district, Penn State Cooperative Extension, Land Conservancy of Adams County and the United States Department of Agriculture’s Natural Resources Conservation Services and Farm Services Agency.
The county budgeted $125,000 in rent for the ag center this year, said Al Penksa, Adams County manager. But the administration and ownership of the building is still pending, Penksa said.
Commissioners detailed their “Ag Center Re-Structuring Premise” and the county’s financial perspective in a Dec. 24, 2013, email to Bennett. County officials want to pay $6.32 per square foot in rent, but the conservation district wants $8 per square foot.
“The annual rent paid by the USDA ($53,138) and the county ($125,000 for 2014) totals $178,138,” commissioners wrote in their email to Bennett. “Subtracting average annual expenses of approximately $168,000 allows $10,000+ margin or 6 percent above budgeted expenses. As a county we operate below a 3 percent margin.”
Paying $8 per square foot would add more than $40,000 annually to the district’s reserves, which would equal 23.8 percent above budget, commissioners stated in the email.
Conservation district officials have said only that the district and county are in negotiations regarding future use of the ag center. Meetings between the county and the district have been private, Bennett said.
“We believe we’re both working in good faith with each other in trying to resolve the rental agreement,” Bennett said over the phone several weeks ago.
Commissioners have told me point-blank they have no intention of kicking the conservation district out of the building. They simply want to be responsible stewards of taxpayer funds.
In a March 26, 2013, email to Bennett, commissioners wrote that the relationship between the county and its conservation district has become clouded by past contracts, understandings and assumptions.
Conservation district officials want the ongoing discussions to continue in a friendly fashion, Bennett said during the aforementioned phone call.
Built at 670 Old Harrisburg Road for $3.6 million, the ag center opened in the fall of 2000 with the help of a local funding campaign.
The county bought the land the ag center sits on as a produce farm in the early 1800s, keeping it operational until the 1960s. The county gradually sold off tracts into development, including the North Gettysburg Shopping Center across from the ag center.
Before it owned the land, the district paid the county $1 a year in rent for the nearly 13-acre tract. In 2011, days before the current commissioners took office, the district bought the last portion of the land from the county.