Changes in Washington impacting county budgets

Disruption in Washington D.C. is causing budget headaches in Taylor County which could result in staffing and service cuts.

On Monday, Michelle Cahoon presented the health department’s budget to the budget review committee seeking an increase in local levy dollars to go to department operations and staffing rather than relying on state and federal grants. Overall her departmental request is for a 6.52% increase.

“The federal government is a disaster right now,” Cahoon said. Much of the department’s funding comes through federal funds that are dispersed to the state and then granted out to counties.

Cahoon said while her staff are continuing to work to apply for grant funding, the future of many programs remain in doubt. “Once everything settles down, the hope is that things will come back,” Cahoon said, noting they will probably look different but the hope is the funding will return.

Cahoon told members of the budget committee that it is disheartening to see the potential for cuts to staff and services, because it would undo the strides made in recent years to strengthen the department and provide services.

County finance director Tracy Hartwig noted there was an increase of $109,000 in the levy wages and salary portion of the department’s budget. She said if positions are grant funded they should go through a different portion of the budget.

Cahoon stated the money added to the levy line items is not their full wages. She said that people hired with grant funds were told that they may not have a job if the grant funds would go away.

Cahoon said maintaining the level of services in the department and what they have been able to accomplish in recent years would be impossible unless she would be able to keep at least part-time people on.

“The work will be for nothing if we have to let these people go,” Cahoon said.

Committee member Mike Bub praised Cahoon and the health department for starting good programs. However, he noted that during COVID money was handed out like crazy and people asked for new computers and staff and now all the funding is going away.

“I don’t think the county would have spent all that money if they knew it would go to the tax levy,” Bub said. He compared it to the federal grants that paid for having police in schools. When the federal funding went away, local governments either had to pick up the cost or end having police in schools.

Cahoon said a major issue is the county not knowing if they will get the routine operational grant funding or not. She said she is confident that one of the expected grants will come through but is less confident in the one dealing with vaccination outreach.

If the county doesn’t get either grant, it could have the potential result of cutting the equivalent of two positions in the department. Committee member Scott Mildbrand, who is chair of the board of health, said this was discussed at length at his committee. The hope is that the grant funding comes through.

Budget committee members delayed having to make a tough choice about potentially reducing staff in the department, by shifting some of the salary requests to the grant-funded portion from the levy portion of the department budget. This will set up the decision to be made when the status of the grant funding is known.

“If they don’t come through, then we have another discussion,” said committee member Catherine Lemke.

Cahoon said they remained hopeful that the funding would come through.

“Hope is a good thing, but it is tough to budget that way,” Bub said, “Nobody said it would be easy,” Mildbrand said of the choices facing the department and the county.

While many department budgets came through with either small or no increases, the budget requests from some of the larger departments tipped the budget into the red. The budget committee met with department heads over the course of three days of budget hearings across September 11, 12 and 15.

Coming into the budget hearings, Hartwig gave committee members some good news and some bad news.

The bad news is that the overall budget, as proposed from the department heads, is over by $744,843 from the allowable increase. The good news is that this is a pretty typical starting point, and that it includes some things that they know will change.

Among these is the county’s health insurance. The budget projects a 5% increase in the budget for health insurance. However, even with additional plan changes in the works to reduce out of pocket expenses for county employees, the renewal rate will be far less and likely to be under 2%.

It also remains to be determined if the county board will give a cost of living adjustment (COLA) increase this year, this is usually decided at the end of the budget process. County employees gets regular longevity raises by advancing in steps on the pay matrix. Mildbrand noted that benefit changes should be taken into account when it comes to employee compensation.

Bub noted compensation is always a tough area. “We want to compensate employees fairly, but we also have to be fair to our taxpayers,” Bub said.

Highlights of the hearings include:

• A request for the sheriff to look into the feasibility of no longer operating a jail in in Taylor County. The inmate population has dropped significantly since Marathon County has moved almost all of their inmates to Waupaca County and at the same time the price of providing jail medical services went up $100,000. “If the county here decided not to have a jail, would we have a decrease because of not having jailers?” Mildbrand asked, calling for an analysis to be done. The overall sheriff’s department increase request was $230,869 a 3.6% increase.

• Continued questions over how funds received from the closing of the ADRC of the Northwoods fit into the funding for the new ADRC of Taylor County office addition and how the expenses included in the buildings and grounds budget will be funded.

• Rejecting making a part-time position full-time in the register of deed’s office and the suggestion of working with a staffing agency to get the part-time position filled.

• Discussion on the carryovers in the forestry department and if it was necessary to continue to retain a full year’s forestry budget. The forestry department historically has been funded through state programs and through the revenue from logging in the county forest. It was set up to retain the equivalent to the prior year’s budget each year so that if no logging occurred in a year, there would not be a big cost to the county. Forest administrator Lucas Williams said it was very unlikely that there would be a year where there was no logging and said this is something that could be reduced.

• Discussed the possibility of putting a portion of the revenue generated for work for the state, towns and other counties into the general fund and reducing the amount available in the highway department for vehicle and equipment purchase.