BROOKINGS — Inter-Lakes Community Action Partnership provided a services update to the Brookings County Commission at Tuesday’s meeting — including an estimate that 13% of the county’s 30,000-plus residents reported incomes below the poverty line.

Highlights from an ICAP document include these Brookings County numbers:

• The 60s Plus dining program provided 40,316 meals to 452 seniors.
• Eighty-three families received utilities assistance to meet their needs for home energy costs.
• Youth recreation and swim vouchers were provided to 213 families.
• Rental or security deposit assistance was given to 149 families to help them remain in permanent housing.
• Thirty-seven families with children ages 0-3 received services in the Early Head Start program, and 107 families with children ages 3-5 received services in the Head Start program.
• Seven families constructed and moved into their own homes through the Mutual Self-Help Housing program.
• ICAP’s weatherization team provided service to two homes. Additionally, furnaces were either repaired or replaced in 22 homes.

“(It’s) important to note (that) only two homes were weatherized; however, we did get a tremendous increase in funding for that program — about $5 million over the next five years, so you’ll see a huge uptick in with program in the next five years,” ICAP CEO Eric Kunzweiler told commissioners during his presentation.

That news led to a question from Commissioner Ryan Krogman about ICAP, which currently has a roughly $22 million budget this year, funding in general.

“How is funding looking? … Obviously, a lot of it is federal and you’re just sometimes — when I was on the board it was always like, ‘Are we going to get our funding? Are we not going to get our funding? How many things can we do?’ Is that getting better?” he asked.

“With COVID, we saw a huge increase in funding for a variety of different reasons — mainly emergency rental assistance, which we helped a lot of families up here in Brookings County with as well,” Kunzweiler said. “Our core funding source is the Community Services Block Grant. The last couple years we’ve been very fortunate — there was some money that was held back from the Janklow era when he was the governor, that was actually released to us the last two years, so it doubled our funding the last couple of years.”

He continued, “However, we’re going back to three-years-ago funding now with that (CSBG). That’s our core funding source. It’s about a million dollars a year. … It’s federal funds, but it’s very flexible. We can do a lot of different things with that funding, which lets us leverage (other) programs.”

ICAP’s weatherization program drew a question as well, this time from Commissioner Larry Jensen. Kunzweiler said ICAP has a crew that can go in and audit a home in order to make it more energy efficient, whether it’s windows, insulation, siding, shingles, that sort of thing. There’s also an in-house home rehabilitation program which can work hand-in-hand with the weatherization efforts.

ICAP’s mutual self-help housing program, Kunzweiler added, has built over 200 homes, with most of them in Brookings. ICAP hires a construction supervisor, and that person helps four to seven families at a time build their own homes. When those families are done, they have $30,000 to $60,000 in equity in their new homes.

“It’s a great program up here,” he noted.

In closing, Kunzweiler thanked commissioners for the American Rescue Plan Act funds that were allocated in the past to help ICAP acquire and rehabilitate its main office in Madison, which it fully moved into nine months ago.

“Really appreciate that as well, and your continued support with your funding to support our community service worker here in Brookings,” Kunzweiler said. “That’s our front-line worker that does case management with families and steers them in whatever direction we need to help them out.”

In other business on Tuesday morning:

• Commissioners gave the green light on a voice vote for 3M to install a pair of water-monitoring wells in Aurora Township on 34th Avenue South.
• Approve, 5-0, a contract with ARS, a Tecta American Co., for the roof replacement at the courthouse, which will cost $387,725. The architect’s estimate came in at $310,987.50, so the low bid came in at $76,737.50 higher than that.
• Gave a thumbs up to joining South Dakota’s 511 program, with Emergency Manager Bob Hill as the county’s primary point of contact. This will grant the county the ability to enter road advisories and closings into SD511. Determining the status of county roads will be a team effort, as Hill will work with the highway department and sheriff’s office.

— Contact Mondell Keck at mkeck@brookingsregister.com.