Committee eyes about $200,000 in county budget cuts

Taylor County’s special budget review committee started with the goal of finding $500,000 in either cuts or new revenue sources. With the end of their wrap-up session on Monday, they are looking at the potential for $200,000 in savings largely through staffing reductions and department reorganization.

The committee was created with the intent to find a way to balance the budget under the state-imposed revenue caps without having to rely on short term borrowing.

On Monday, committee members wrapped up their budget reviews, going through a list of 46 potential cuts and budgetary changes that had been suggested by a combination of county board members and anonymous suggestions.

Many of these suggestions had been brought up during the departmental budget reviews over the past few months. Others were deemed as being not being worthwhile to pursue for the impact versus potential gain.

Other suggestions, such as the sale of the former Rib Lake county shop location as the highway department moves into the new shop, will have minimal overall budget impact because of how the property is owned and recorded.

County finance director Larry Brandl explained that the Rib Lake shop is owned by the highway department and that when it is sold the revenue from the sale will remain in the highway department. While Brandl said the money could be used to offset budget dollars going to the highway department next year, he said he would advise against doing that and instead use the revenue to go toward increased road maintenance.

“You wouldn’t use one time revenue to prop up a budget anyway,” Brandl said.

A similar point was made with a suggestion to reduce the amount retained by the highway department from earnings. Brandl noted that has been done in the past with poor results for the county. He noted it is possible to get by a year or two without doing as much maintenance or keeping up with replacing equipment, but said it would come back to cost the county more in the long run.

Committee members were in agreement with the suggestion to review existing and potential future grants to see the county was maximizing their use. Committee member Greg Knight noted that there is time and energy involved in apply for grants and that it becomes a Catch-22 scenario when the county is looking to limit personnel costs.

Brandl took a cautious approach toward grants as a way to relieve budget pressure. He noted that grants come with strings attached and are often targeted toward specific areas that just aren’t present in Taylor County. “We don’t have the target group for them,” he said.

This has been the challenge for the health department to use the COVID-19 grant dollars it has on hand. Brandl said much of that money was earmarked to be spent on mass vaccination clinics and other items that weren’t utilized here as much as elsewhere.

Committee member Lynn Rosemeyer said there is a meeting scheduled to go through that grant in particular to see how it can be utilized to offset expenses elsewhere in the county. One suggestion was that it could be used for the development of an updated emergency operation center, which over the past several years has been reduced to a handful of equipment on a cart in the corner of a training room.

“We could do a better job,” said committee chairman Chuck Zenner of the county needing to seek out grants. “Grants are tough to write,” he said suggesting it may be worthwhile to get someone with grant writing experience on a contract basis.

Some of the major suggestions had to do with vehicle replacement. Knight noted this was part of a need for an overall management plan for the county vehicles to better coordinate who gets newer vehicles and when vehicles are replaced.

Suggestions also called for not allowing departments to carry over funds. Brandl defended the process noting in areas such as buildings and grounds, the money for major projects such as roofs is set aside over a few years so that it is there when needed.

Zenner said changing the way this is done will change line items but not change the overall budget since that money is considered part of the county’s reserves currently.

Administrative Coordinator Nicole Hager suggested having a system that would report to the overall board what each department had for carryover amounts.

The committee’s largest savings areas were with the reorganization of the land information department which eliminated a position and ended up saving the county about $50,000 in the budget.

Another potential savings was eyed with a plan to reduce the airport manager to part-time at his request. This still has to be discussed by the airport committee but has the potential to save about $50,000 a year. Airport business dropped dramatically during COVID-19 and has not recovered to previous usage levels.

About $22,000 in savings was identified with the sheriff’s department not promoting a deputy to an open sergeant position. This would not change the number of sworn officers in the department.

Additional savings were identified potentially not filling a position in the highway department which has been vacant since last August. The county has realized savings already this year from not paying for the position.

On a larger scale, the suggestion was made by Hager to set up a process to review vacancies to determine if the positions needed to be filled. She suggested asking questions about how long positions have been vacant or how the work is being covered, or not covered, due to the vacancy as being a tool to determine if a position should be filled.

Committee members were realistic in looking at potential cuts, with Knight noting that without a fix in the shared revenue formula or the state easing up on revenue limits, the county would be back at this same exercise in future years.

Zenner suggested that when the full county board meets to decide on which cuts to implement, that they invite the local legislators to hear the message.

“We have to address the issues of shared revenue,” Knight said. “The way we are doing it no longer works.”

Committee members will send their recommendations to the executive committee. It will ultimately go to the full county board to decide what to cut and what to keep.

“We have to address the issues of shared revenue,”

— Budget review committee member Greg Knight about the need for the state to address shared revenue shortfalls