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Dare County has finished Phase I of its Emergency Medical Services facilities modernization and is now moving to Phase II and additional capital improvement projects.

The plan calls for six new stations. Phase I included the Southern Shores station, a new facility for the Dare Med Flight helicopter and the partnership project with Kill Devil Hills that built a beautiful facility for Dare’s Emergency Medical Services and the town’s Fire Department.

In Phase II, a new EMS stations is underway in Manns Harbor and new stations are slated for Kitty Hawk and Nags Head.

The total cost of the all Emergency Medical Services projects is estimated at $42 million.

At the regular meeting of the Dare County Board of Commissioners Aug. 5, 2024, the commissioners moved ahead on additional projects.

In July, Dare County advertised for firms to submit qualifications to perform a Dare County Parks and Recreation needs assessment. The county received five responses. Submitting proposals were Withers Ravenel, Design Workshop, McGill Associates, Matrix Consulting Group, and Y2 Analytics.

Recommended by staff was McGill Associates. The firm has offices in North Carolina, Tennessee and Virginia and staff with experience in parks and recreation planning.

The firm has suggested extensive community input with a steering committee, four public meetings, a recreational survey, six focus group sessions and a work session with the commissioners.

The assessment should be ready in five or six months. The commissioners authorized county manager Robert L. Outten to pursue a contract with McGill Associates.

In a two-step process, the commissioners moved ahead with the architectural planning for Dare County’s Public Works project and the Buxton Transfer Station construction design contract.

The first step was to set up a capital project ordinance which established an initial budget for $4,604,427. The funds will be reimbursed on the issuance of the S2025 limited obligation bonds.

For the second step, the commissioners authorized the county manager to sign the contract with the chosen firm, Oakley Collier Architects of Rocky Mount.

Outten brought a facility maintenance concern to the board of commissioners. Over six to nine months, Dustin Peele, special projects and purchasing director, and Shanna Fullmer, Public Works director, visited all Dare County structures and issued a report about what needed to be fixed.

Structure maintenance is behind, said Outten. The report states $1.9 million will fix the problems. Two big ticket items are office space at the Fessenden Center in Buxton and replacing outdoor restrooms at Recreation Park in Kill Devil Hills are $800,000 to $900,000 of the overall cost.

Fixing the maintenance problems needs to be done prior to crafting a long-term maintenance plan.

Outten suggested using up to $2 million to get everything done with money coming from the Housing Fund, which initially had $13 million in the account. The commissioners gave $1 million to the Dare Education Foundation for funding additional teacher housing at Run Hill.

The commissioners agreed to pull $2 million for maintenance issues from the Housing Fund, leaving $10 million in the account.

Finance director David Clawson presented a five-year General Fund projection, which is done annually to maintain the county’s AA+ debt rating. The five-page project shows the following takeaways from the report:

– fund balance should be stable with a small decrease over the five years;

– debt service as a percentage of total expenditures should remain below rating agencies benchmark of 15% of expenditures; and

– the last 10 years have seen much variability of revenues and expenditures due to economics, COVID-19 and recovery from COVID-19 resulting in very wide spreads between the low growth forecast and the high growth forecast.

The chart presented under debt service shows: 2024 at 13.35%, 2025 at 12.37%, 2026 at 15.79%, 2027 at 14.58%, and 202 8 at 14.78%.

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