County to tap into fund balance to balance 2024 budget

Thanks to a jump in valuation the county’s tax rate is projected to drop this year despite taking an inflationary increase in the overall levy.

The county’s overall tax levy is projected to increase by about 5.9%. This is just slightly higher than the consumer price index rate for the past 12 months. Included in this amount is more than a million dollar increase in the levy for ambulance services due to a new contract under negotiation with Aspirus.

According to Taylor County Finance Director Larry Brandl, the projected tax rate will be $6.72 per $1,000 of equalized value. The owner of a $180,000 home can expect to pay about $1,210 in the county portion of their property tax levy. This is down from $7.89 per $1,000 from last year’s county tax rate.

The county is just one part of the overall tax rate with the municipality, school district and technical college all being included in the final tax amount.

On Wednesday afternoon, the budget committee approved giving county employees a 3% wage increase. Brandl estimated this increase adds about $285,000 to the overall levy.

The county budget got a boost this year with the increase of state shared revenue that was approved as a part of the state budget. For the current year’s budget, the county had received $1,062,845.51 in shared revenue, but under the new state budget the amount was increased by $692,975.47 to $1,759,623.58.

This helped mitigate somewhat the sharp increase in ambulance service costs.

Despite this increase in shared revenue the county is still looking at needing to apply $350,000 from fund balance. This is money held in reserve by the county from previous years that was unspent in those budget years.

At Wednesday’s meeting, finance and personnel committee chairman Chuck Zenner raised concern about $140,000 that had been removed from the highway department during the budget review session.

“I feel that was the wrong decision,” Zenner said, noting the money would have been used for highway maintenance and replacement and currently the county highways are on a more than 40 year replacement schedule which he said was unrealistic.

The funds represent the proceeds from the sale of the former Rib Lake highway shop. Those funds had been retained by the highway department, but committee member Scott Mildbrand called for their shift to the general fund since the county as a whole had borrowed money to build the new Rib Lake highway shop. Committee members on Wednesday declined to revisit the issue.

The county did not need to utilize any short-term borrowing to balance the 2024 budget. The budget goes to the full county board on October 25.