Committee begins work to identify possible county budget cuts

“We don’t want to throw a lot of fear out there,” said Chuck Zenner addressing the audience and community at large during the first meeting of the county’s budget review committee.

Zenner was selected as chairman of the committee which also includes board member Lynn Rosemeyer, county finance director Larry Brandl and county human resources director Nicole Hager. The committee voted to ask Greg Knight to fill the third county board member seat after Ray Soper declined to serve on the committee.

The committee is charged with identifying $500,000 in cuts to be made in the county budget. The board agreed to the formation of the committee as part of a budget deal last October. The 2023 county budget included the use of $500,000 of short-term borrowing that will be paid in full by April when the tax settlements are finalized.

Brandl noted that not all of that $500,000 was needed to offset the budget shortfall. “I could have squeezed down another $100,000 to $150,000 but needed it for cash flow,” Brandl said.

Brandl said that even with the cuts, the county will still likely need to utilize short term borrowing much like schools do in order to cover expenses between the time state shared revenue is received and when tax dollars come in.

Zenner said he recognizes that the cuts potentially could impact people’s livelihoods and assured those in attendance that they would not be taking action on cuts at the committee but would be recommending a list of potential cuts. Those recommendations would be acted on by the full county board.

Committee members spent much of this first meeting reviewing the process they would be following to meet with departments. Department heads would be invited to attend the meetings along with their oversight committee chairs.

“I think we need to call in every department if we can,” Zenner said.

Rosemeyer agreed, saying that they needed to talk to all of them.

Brandl questioned spending a lot of time on small single-person departments giving the example of the payroll department which has one person in it and some office supplies. Others such as Taylor County Housing Authority, Historical Society and Restorative Justice are outside groups that receive budget funds from the county.

Committee members said they would ask the department heads and committee chairs to bring in suggestions for cost savings initiatives. Hager will be holding a department head meeting for the county next week where she will be going over the goals of the committee and preparing them for what the committee expects when they come in for their review sessions.

“The more information we can gather the better,” Rosemeyer said.

Brandl said it is important to look at blocks of budgets and departments that overlap so that the county does the review in a systemic way.

One of the things that each department will be expected to bring is comparable figures from other counties or agencies in the state in regard to staffing and budgets. Forest Administrator Jake Walcisak suggested this information should be available to most departments through their state associations or peer networks.

“We need to compare apples to apples,” Zenner said. In addition to the potential for overall staff reduction, committee members will be reviewing contracts with Rosemeyer specifically identifying the ambulance contract with Aspirus and the corporation counsel contracts as ones she wants to review. Other identified areas include the $36,000 annual contract with insurance brokers with the Horton Group and the county’s auditing contracts.

Committee members noted that would be looking at all areas.

Beyond cuts, the county will look at potential savings through collaboration and sharing of equipment and resources including both physical items and staff. In addition, department heads will also be charged with looking at ways to increase revenues where possible. Walcisak noted that is an area, particularly in grant revenue for work done in-house with existing staff that he would be looking at and bringing to the committee.

Hager noted that she has had several suggestions from board members but said she felt they needed to do some homework before bringing those suggestions to the table and share them with department heads to see if they are feasible to consider.

There was also a discussion of the push to eliminate most, if not all, non lapsing accounts. Currently many departments have non lapsing accounts where money left over from one budget year can be carried over to help pay for a future expense. In some cases these are for the purchase of major pieces of equipment such as vehicles or for a major maintenance project that is coming up. Brandl explained that eliminating these non lapsing accounts would not impact the bottom line of the budget because they all already count toward the county’s fund balance.

Zenner reported that the board member who asked him about the non lapsing accounts said he felt it would increase accountability. Brandl said it would require departments to come to the full board to make routine major purchases or seek money for planned projects. He said while this would work for some departments, it would be more difficult for others.

The budget review committee set up a meeting schedule to meet on every other Monday at 1 p.m. and schedule the department heads to come in at those times with their information. The next meeting will be held on Monday, March 2 with airport and child support departments being reviewed along with the circuit court and clerk of courts.