County board reviews budget

By Valorie Brecht The Clark County Board of Supervisors took a look at the proposed 2025 county budget at their meeting last week. The proposed budget has a tax levy of $23,110,423, which makes up about 22.5% of the total budget. The proposed mill rate is 6.803 per $1,000 of property value. This is a 0.39% decrease from last year’s rate of 7.143. The mill rate would result in $680.31 in taxes on a $100,000 home. This is just the county portion; it does not include taxes from the local municipality, school district or technical school district. The budget will be voted on Nov. 7.

The proposed 2025 mill rate is the lowest it’s been since 2010, when it was 6.77. From 2016 to 2024, the average mill rate was approximately 7.89.

At the Oct. 3 meeting, the board also authorized Clark County to borrow $6,150,000 for road construction and other department capital outlay. The plan is to pay back this short-term debt within 32 days. This is the same method the county has used every year since 2014 to help keep up with road construction.

“The levy limits dictated by state statute do not allow us to increase the base levy above the allowed percentage and do not allow us to substitute any portion of the debt levy with the base levy,” said county comptroller Terri Domaszek. “To keep a similar tax levy rate, we need to add debt levy to make up the difference.

“If we don’t have debt levy, we would not be able to take care of all the expenses it pays for,” she added.

The debt levy required a three-quarters vote to pass. Of the 27 county board members present, all voted in favor of the debt resolution.

Of the short-term debt levy amount, $4,600,000 will be used for road construction and chip sealing. The following roads are planned to be repaved in 2025: 6.7 miles of County Highway I, from Hizer Road to County Highway M; 4 miles of County Highway GG, from County Highway M to County Highway G; 4 miles of County Highway M, from County Highway GG to County Highway I; and 0.5 mile of County Highway K, from Chickadee Road to State Highway 98. In addition, 24.7 miles of road are scheduled to be chip sealed, including parts of county highways D, E, G, K, P and Y.

From 2006 to 2013, the county was averaging 9.8 miles of highway repaved per year. Since 2014 when the county introduced short-term debt to pay for road construction, the highway department was gradually able to increase the number of miles repaved per year to 20.2 miles in 2023, 19 in 2024 and now 15.2 proposed in 2025. The highway department likes to repave at least 15 miles per year in order to maintain a 20-year rotation, as there are 301 miles of county highways in all.

Highway Commissioner Brian Duell said one concern is that construction costs continue to rise and outpace county revenues. The highway department spent $194,554 on road construction in 2023 versus $231,579 in 2024 for approximately the same number of miles, a 19% increase.

Balancing the budget Domaszek and the finance committee reviewed all the departmental budgets for the year when working on the overall budget. Only six of the 26 county departments came in with a decreased or same levy request. The amounts requested exceeded the levy limit of $23,110,423. In order to balance the budget, the finance committee looked at which departments were coming in with large increase over last year, looked at the history of the department and whether the change was warranted, and considered if capital asset purchases could be made separately instead of included in this year’s budget, among other factors.

The original levy gap as of Sept. 9 was $5,761,212. Through decreasing certain departmental budgets, shifting funds around and drawing from the fund balance, the finance committee was able to balance the budget. The county will draw $3,506,079 from the unassigned fund balance in order to balance the budget. This is more than twice the amount used last year, which was $1,702,504.

After the 2025 budget year, the county is expected to have $7,168,289 available in the general fund to be used. This amount is 27% of 2025 general funds expenditures without transfers. The county does not have a specific policy on how much must be kept in the general assigned fund balance, but financial analysts often recommend not letting it drop below 20% (one of the measures in the credit rating process), or 25%, which would be three months of general fund expenditures. Some counties do not let it go below 30% (in case unanticipated reductions in the current year bring the balance down, then it could still possibly stay above the 20% mark).

Please see Budget, page 9 Budget,

from p. 1

The county has also created a five-year plan for capital expenditures for each department, so that expected large purchases do not come as a surprise to the finance committee.

The board will vote on the budget at their next meeting, Nov 7 at 7 p.m. in the county boardroom (fifth floor). That meeting is open to the public. Visitors should enter at the secure entrance on the north side of the courthouse.