The requests are in.
Next comes the trimming.
After months of presentations on needs and wish lists, Lancaster County commissioners Thursday got their first bird’s-eye view of the $111 million in requested expenditures for the 2017-18 fiscal year.
Once major one-time expenses and revenues are pulled out of the budget (such as spending of proceeds from the $3.185 million sale of the former county Community Mental Health Center and Crisis Center to Bryan Health), the requests amount to an $8.85 million increase from the previous fiscal year.
In the next month, commissioners will debate the merits of the requests, including $5.6 million for roads and bridges, $2.6 million for increased operating expenses such as salaries and insurance, and more than $648,000 for 11 new personnel positions.
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The requested new positions include two attorneys for the Public Defender’s Office, two deputies for the Sheriff’s Office, five officers for the county jail and a Youth Services supervisor.
If commissioners approved everything, the board would have to raise the county tax levy almost 2 cents above the current 27.53 cents per $100 of property value. That’s even with an 8 percent increase in the county tax rolls because of the recent revaluation of residential properties.
Board Chairman Todd Wiltgen said that’s not likely to happen.
“Not everybody is going to get everything they wanted,†Wiltgen said.
Both Wiltgen and fellow commissioner Deb Schorr said Thursday they want to reduce the county’s levy. To do otherwise, even leaving the levy at its current level, amounts to a tax increase, they said.
If the levy remained the same, the 8 percent increase in valuations would generate an additional $5.15 million, bringing the total property tax revenue collected for county services to $69.57 million.
Commissioner Roma Amundson questioned the wisdom of reducing the levy.
“I realize there is a great deal of interest in decreasing the levy, but we have some tremendous needs in the county with human services, infrastructure, community corrections,†she said.
One other issue likely to divide commissioners is how they will treat County Engineer Pam Dingman’s fund balance at the end of the 2016-17 fiscal year, which is $1 million higher than the previous year.Ìý
Commissioner Jennifer Brinkman said those funds shouldn’t be considered surplus because Dingman has identified projects to spend those dollars on and is working to accomplish them.
“Roads and bridges as infrastructure are a very difficult thing to manage when you’re trying to deal with federal and state entities that have to do their own planning and ... check boxes before we get a chance to move forward,†Brinkman said. “We know we have a lot of needs that have gone unaddressed for a long time.â€
Wiltgen disagreed and said the board last year gave Dingman a $1.1 million fund increase for roads and bridges and it didn’t get spent.
“That is just reality,†Wiltgen said.
Dingman and all other county elected officials and appointed department heads will get one more chance to make their case to commissioners before the budget is finalized and adopted in August, County Budget Director Dennis Meyer said.
Commissioners also discussed forming a committee to look at the future of county buildings and creating a long-term plan for their use and upgrade.
“We have a lot of departments trying to make do with where they are, but we haven’t had this overarching discussion about … how could the way we provide service be improved based on the way the county has grown and the city has grown,†Brinkman said.
Commissioners also plan to discuss how much of the county levy authority will be returned to the Railroad Transportation Safety District next fiscal year.
The County Board in 2012 diverted 1.6 cents of the 2.6-cent tax levy authorized by the RTSD. Commissioners have returned all but 0.7 cents of the levy and plan to give back that final amount over the next two years.
The RTSD is a joint county-city agency that aims to create safer railroad crossings, but the county has budget authority over it.