Logan County Finance Committee proposes near balanced 2018 FY Budget to full board
 

[September 15, 2017]  LINCOLN

The Logan County Board's Finance Committee held its monthly meeting Tuesday, September 12. The focus of their discussion was the Fiscal Year 2018 Budget they have been working on since last month.

In July, county department heads filled out budget worksheets. Once all the numbers were put into the first draft of the budget that was presented at the August finance committee meeting, Board Chairman Chuck Ruben said the county's budget showed a 1.2 million dollar deficit.

At a special meeting of the full board on August 22 to discuss budget issues, a second draft of the budget was presented to the board. Ruben said some line items had been taken out and some funds were transferred, plus $60,000 was pulled from the Building and Grounds Fund to put in the General Fund to reduce the deficit. In addition, five percent was taken out of various budgets. After some of the changes, the deficit was reduced to $278,900. This draft was sent back to the departments for them to look over.

At Tuesday's meeting, Finance Committee Chairman David Hepler shared memos from three offices about their budgets. One was from Circuit Clerk Mary Kelley, one was from State's Attorney Jonathan Wright, and one was from Kim Turner in the Probation Office.

The Circuit Clerk's Office is requesting just three percent be cut from their budget. Kelley said a lot of money goes into electronic filing, purchasing licenses for each computer, and maintenance contracts. She is waiting on prices from the software company they use. Kelley said her AS400, which she calls the "brains" of the software, will expire at the end of 2018. Since IBM will no longer be able to maintain the AS400 with replacement parts, it may have to be replaced in upcoming years.

Ruben motioned that they leave the corrected figures Kelley put in and present them to the full board.

Turner said there are new funds in the Probation Budget like a Drug Court Fund, which is a court fee expense fund. Turner said it is not an operating expense, but a program expense that affects other offices in the courthouse. She said the drug court team makes the decisions on where to spend the money.

Turner said that with the proposed cuts they did originally, it would leave her just $200 to spend to operate her budget.

Ruben said Turner is just asking for $3,000 above what they had in with the cuts. He said they would not cut the Drug Court Fee Fund.

Wright said he needs to hire a third assistant because the workload in his department has increased due to the number of cases. Wright said he did not replace a secretary who retired a few years ago, so he took the $30,000 from the line item for a secretary and rolled it into a salary for an assistant. He then added $15,000 to get it to a baseline salary of $45,000.

Wright said the five percent cut would make it too hard to hire an assistant. Wright said his salary and some other fees are fixed amounts. He said two thirds of the salaries are reimbursed by the state.

Ruben said to leave that budget without cuts since Wright would not ask for an assistant if one was not needed.

Ruben said with the adjustments requested by various offices, the budget would be $367,328 in the red. He said there is some "cushion," with 60,000 or $70,000 plugged in for insurance that may not be needed, but that would not make up the whole deficit.

Ruben said asking for more cuts to balance the budget could affect salaries. He said there will probably have to be more cuts next year to get it to balance because the board has moved money. Already the pool and contingency money have been taken out and the Criminal Case Fund has been moved to the General Fund.

Ruben asked Logan County Highway Engineer Bret Aukamp about road agreements for the Hilltopper Wind Farm.

Aukamp said attorneys are still working on drafting a road agreement and they have not begun negotiation, but the developers hope to build during this fiscal year.

Hepler said they should check with the treasurer about wind farm revenue. He said moving more wind farm revenue to the General Fund could help the board avoid more "draconian cuts."

Ruben said the wind farm fees could be $450,000 this year.

Committee member Gene Rohlfs motioned that they add in the wind farm revenue with fees raised to $450,000.

Ruben said adding in the revenues would reduce the deficit to about $167,000. He said with $60,000 that could get made up by health insurance and a few funds that will end up turning in some money, the budget could get closer to being balanced.

Ruben said the deficit amount does not include raises, which would add over $45,000 back in to the total budget. Hepler said they should be added in since the board approved them last month.

Ruben said the budget is "squared away enough" to bring before the whole board. The preliminary budget with changes was to be presented to the full board at Thursday's Board Workshop.

[Angela Reiners]