County Board keeps levy down

The word "pleasure" is seldom heard around the table of people working on government budgets.

Yet there was Supervisor Irv Cidlik talking about the budget process at the Aug. 16 County Board of Supervisors meeting.

"It's been a pleasure this year," Cidlik said.

While the value of property across the county saw increases of up to 20 percent, the board went into the budget process with the goal of keeping the tax bill at the same level or lower than last year for the county's portion of the property tax levy.

"We are asking for less tax dollars than last year. It's $50,000 less. Valuation went up for people, their (county) taxes did not," Cidlik said.

The county's tax asking for its general fund budget is $2,372,131.98, or a levy of 0.211. The Courthouse Bond Fund ads another $251,842.72 to the bill and an additional 0.0224 cents to the levy, for a total levy of 0.2337 cents per $100 of assessed value.

That means for a piece of property assessed at $100,000, the county portion of the tax bill would be $233.70.

Cidlik said that the county's appointed managers and elected officials were helpful in keeping the property levy down so that it would offset the rise in property values as much as the County Board could.

"I want to thank the departments," Cidlik said. "With things like this you can go back home and let the people know you've done all you could."

Supervisors said that although some costs such as fuel are hard to control, the county's new gravel operation to provide materials for county roads should help pay off in the year ahead.

Board Chairman Dave Mach also had praise for the county's managers.

"If you see some of the section heads, thank them," Mach said. "They knew the economics were bad out there and they really came to the table."

Some numbers regarding the county's valuation of over $1 billion could still change slightly before the final budget approval is made at the Sept. 8 meeting (moved to a Tuesday because the regular meeting date falls on the Labor Day holiday).

The County Board recommended that departments limit their pay increases to a maximum of 2 percent, but the departments still had the final authority over any raises.

As in previous years, the County Board transferred money from the Inheritance Tax Fund, this year transferring $400,000.

The budget cutting came in several departments. The school records office went from a $15,500 budget to zero with the retirement of a records clerk there. County Court had stayed with its same budgeted amount of $10,500. The Emergency Management Fund saw a decrease of 9.7 percent, and Emergency Services dropped 2.044 percent. The Road Fund dropped by 0.122 percent.

The tight budget did allow some room for a new program to grow slightly.

The Juvenile Diversion program's budget grew from $11,906 to $14,752, a 23 percent increase. The program is self-supporting and uses grant funds and fees from youths using the program. "The increase in fees is because we've received grant funds," County Attorney Julie Reiter said.

Juvenile Diversion allows qualifying youths who are first time offenders to avoid entering the court system if they agree to the requirements of the program, including special classes.

Aside from that department, all the departments kept their budget request at less than a 2 percent increase.