Todd County levy increase at 4.6%

After looking at things in each department line item by line item, the Todd County Finance Committee was able to reduce the projected preliminary levy by $814,791.

Originally, at their Aug. 10 meeting, the committee met with the preliminary levy slated to come in at $15,935,090 or an 11 percent increase from the 2016 final levy.

On Aug. 16 and 18, the Finance Committee met again to discuss budget/levy figures with several county departments and the following adjustments were made:

o Reduce Health and Human Services by $300,000

o Reduce Sheriff’s Department by $191,300

o Reduce Community Corrections by $114,294

o Reduce Custodial/Buildings by $32,500

o Reduce County Attorney by $20,000

o Reduce Public Works by $156,697.

On Sept. 6, the Finance Committee met once again and came to the recommendation that they made to the county board during the Sept. 13 work session to set the 2017 preliminary levy at $15,001,965 which is a 4.6 percent increase from the 2016 final levy.

Since this was a work session, no decisions were made regarding approval of the preliminary levy. That discussion and action will take place at their Sept. 20 meeting.

Commissioner Randy Neumann asked why the Human Services fund was at a 15 percent increase over the 2016 approved levy.

Auditor/Treasurer Denise Gaida said that the HHS department was budgeting for the $663,000 that had been removed from their budget in 2016 and for the anticipated cut of $300,000 for the 2017 year.

HHS Director Jackie Och said that they plan for a neutral budget, not a surplus. She pointed out that their budgeting looked like a yo-yo over the past few years with the ups and downs.

She added that they were deficit spending in 2016.

Neumann asked if anything had been carried over from their 2015 budget and was told that these funds don’t get carried over from year to year.

Och said that they were over budget in human services because of the large reduction.

Commissioner David Kircher said that neither he nor Commissioner Gary Kneisl had seen the line item requests and questioned if the increases and decreases were from the departments requests.

Gaida said they were. She said they went line by line and caught some things including different departments overstating some potential costs which “skews the budget.”

Kircher also asked if any departments had revenue increases.

Commissioner Rod Erickson said that a lot of the departments work on grant revenue and they were hesitant to rely on grant funds. They took a more realistic look at the ones that have to be renewed annually.

“We are trying to be as real as we can, but not overconfident. We are looking at the actual numbers,” Erickson said.

Och pointed out that her department works on several different budget cycles which does present some challenges. They need more funding later in the year than at the beginning.

Grants that have been applied for, but not yet received, were not counted, said Och.

Chair Barb Becker said that it was the same in the Sheriff’s Department - only actual grants were budgeted.

Och said that because their budget had been reduced $663,000 for 2016 they knew they would be short.

Gaida said that the audit report showed that the HHS department was under budget by over $700,000.

Gaida said they chose to make cuts where they were sustainable, otherwise they would have to increase the levy more and that would increase the tax dollars needed.

Citizen Steve Beck said that the HHS department was always over and suggested the department could use a cleaning.

“That’s the only one (department) I feel is out of line. They are doing things that other counties don’t,” said Beck.

Becker said they had looked at some of those things.

Gaida said that when they met with department heads in the Finance Committee, they asked the hard questions including, “What amount can you live with?”

Gaida acknowledged that the HHS budget was up and down, but that at the end of the day, all the money belonged to the General Fund. They have been making steps in the right direction to keep the ups and downs in check.

Kircher said that when he had started human services had been $1 million in the red.

“Now they are in the black and we are complaining about that. What programs do you want to cut? That is the million dollar question,” said Kircher.

Neumann said that some other counties put all the reserve funds for their county in one pot instead of three different reserve fund balances. He said that it takes the politics out of it.

Erickson further clarified why they made the $300,000 cut to  HHS.

“We were willing to take that option due to the six month reserve balance. They may be in deficit spending and we may not want to do this every year, but that was our reasoning (because they had the six month fund balance),” said  Erickson.

Erickson said they were welcome to suggestions, options, differences of opinion.

Long Prairie Packing

County Engineer Loren Fellbaum updated the board on the possible purchase of county property by Long Prairie Packing near their facility.

They had discussed different possibilities to replace the land that would be purchased, but none of them had worked.

“Then Rod came up with a brilliant idea,” said Fellbaum.

The city owned lots that would work for the county’s needs. They are at a point where they would like to put the property up for sale. 

Fellbaum said it was a win-win situation because the packing plant would get what they needed, which was a place to get the trucks off the street, and the county would get new facilities for the departments that would be losing their property through the sale.

Fellbaum said that no one at the county was looking to do this and that Long Prairie Packing had come to them.

“We can get new facilities and they can reduce traffic. It is a win-win,” said Fellbaum.

The county would pretty much break even on the sale of the property and building the new facilities at the property they would purchase from the city.