(Spirit Lake)– The Dickinson county board of supervisors Tuesday spent a portion of their meeting once again talking about the proposed budget for the upcoming fiscal year. It has to be finalized by this Friday to meet a publication deadline.
The budgeting process has been especially long and tedious this year due to state budget cuts. The budget that was originally presented to supervisors had a General Fund levy higher than the $3.50 per thousand dollars valuation allowed by the state.
The supervisors had set a goal of keeping the levy the same in the upcoming fiscal year. But reality has set in, and they’re instead looking at increases in both the Rural Services and General Fund tax askings.
The challenge is that the county won’t be receiving any new revenues in the upcoming fiscal year. Complicating matters is the fact the county’s anticipated carryover at the end of the upcoming fiscal year is projected to be at 21 percent…below the 25 percent recommended.
The budget scenario takes into consideration that no new requests for funding will be allowed along with cuts to departmental budgets that were mandated.
According to figures presented at Tuesday’s meeting, to restore the carryover to the recommended 25 percent, the county would need to increase it’s General Fund levy to $3.36 per thousand dollars valuation while the Rural Services Fund would have to be increased an additional 10 cents per thousand. That would be on top of the additional taxes that will be levied as a result of the courthouse bond issue.
One department head Tuesday expressed concern over cuts made to her budget. County Treasurer Linda Voss told supervisors she’s formally protesting the cuts, saying she doesn’t want to be the one to have to stop the payroll if there’s no money left in the budget at the end of the fiscal year.
