Wadena County works to reduce expenses
Confronted by a huge increase in Social Services expenses, but without the state and federal funds to cover them, the Wadena County Board held a special budget meeting on Sept. 6.
For more than three hours, commissioners began working line by line through the 2017 estimated budget of 51 pages. During that time, they found several duplicate items, several items that should have been eliminated, and a few items that department heads agreed could be reduced.
By hour three, they had found more than $100,000 in reductions that could be made to the 2017 estimated expenses of $23,092,643.
Unfortunately, that’s only about 10 percent of what commissioners would like to cut out of the budget. But it may not be possible to cut $1 million.
Original estimates of county expenses for 2017, at $23,092,643, are $1,223,529 higher than the 2016 estimated expenses. There are two basic causes of the $1.2 million difference: (1) increases in the cost of living, employee longevity pay increases, a 2 percent employee pay increase, and increases in the cost of health insurance and associated state and federal fees; and (2) a large increase in Social Services costs that are not covered by state and federal payments. The Social Service increase alone is $606,510.
If commissioners just passed along all the cost increases to taxpayers through the property tax levy, then the 2016 pay 2017 levy would increase by nearly 15 percent. For every $100 that property owners paid this year, they’d pay $115 in 2017.
This was unacceptable to all five commissioners.
There isn’t any way to reduce the total of bargaining agreement-negotiated employee pay and benefits or Social Services mandated costs, so commissioners are left with trying to cut any other county expenses that they can find, without hurting basic services that must be provided to county residents.
Over the past seven years, the county has held property tax levy increases to the bare minimum:
2009-2010 3.41 percent
2010-2011 2.90 percent
2011-2012 0.00 percent
2012-2013 0.00 percent
2013-2014 < -1.96 >percent
2014-2015 3.49 percent
2015-2016 2.27 percent
One consequence of keeping the levy low is that the county deferred some needed building and vehicle maintenance, put off replacing computers and telephones that were broken or obsolete, extended the years that vehicles were in service, did not hire additional employees when needed, did not replace outdated voting machines, etc. And now those deferred needs have come due.
Now the county must buy a new telephone system, replace a dozen computers, buy some vehicles, replace some of the voting machines, hire temporary workers to help staff catch up on certain required information gathering, etc.
On top of everything else, an unexpected change in the county’s Medicaid and Medicare services providers will cost hundreds of thousands of dollars more than the county has on hand.
Commissioners are trying to reduce the 2017 estimated expenses by at least $500,000, which would make the levy increase about nine percent instead of about 15 percent. But it could be lower if commissioners find more expenses to reduce for 2017.
For county budgets, the State of Minnesota and the U.S. Congress make laws about what services must be provided to residents. Then the State of Minnesota and the federal government executive branch send a certain amount of income tax money back to each county, based somewhat on need and somewhat on certain minimums the state and federal governments set.
The counties work with that money plus money the counties raise from property taxes and sales taxes.
Counties are responsible for administering social services programs, constructing and maintaining county roads, providing for public safety through the sheriff’s department, monitoring public health and providing screenings and immunizations for children, collecting taxes, organizing and holding elections, assessing real property, administering clean water programs, monitoring animal feedlots, administering land use regulations, maintaining parks, serving military veterans, keeping county records, providing space for the Minnesota Judicial Branch to hold court sessions, registering deeds, marriages and recording other official actions ordered by the State of Minnesota, inspecting bridges, prosecuting those responsible for crimes, monitoring inmates who have served their time in jail and are released on probation, and many other activities too numerous to list.
Some problems come when the State of Minnesota and the U.S. Congress pass laws about what the counties must do, but don’t give the counties any extra money to do it, or give the counties less money than the required services cost, called “unfunded mandates.”
Wadena County is a poor county. It imports money from the state and federal government. Wadena County has a large number of people over 55, along with many disabled people, and relatively large criminal housing costs as poverty leads some to turn to crime. People who are poor cannot afford to pay bail when they are arrested, so they have to stay in jail until their cases are settled. The county pays the cost of feeding and housing those who are arrested but can’t pay bail. In addition, some types of crime have been increasing, while others have decreased. The Wadena County Sheriff’s Department has had too many people in jail during the past year so some have had to be housed in Todd County or Hubbard County jails.
