York County Press Release
YORK COUNTY—This past week, the York County Commissioners reviewed the county’s preliminary budget—fund by fund and, in some cases, line by line—as the budget committee and department heads presented its first draft.
“Today, we are going to go through the whole thing, and if there are questions, we’ll talk about it all,” said York County Commissioner Chairman Randy Obermier.
Obermier and Commissioner Daniel Grotz sit on the budget committee. They are also assisted by Jill Clay, who works for an independent firm which has worked with the county for a number of years through the budget process.
“It would be a good thing to have most of it solidified by our next meeting,” Obermier said.
He said this year’s goal is to hold the tax asking increase below 2%. The budget committee has asked all department heads and elected officials to keep their spending increases to a range of 2-3%. It was noted how elected officials are in charge of their own budgets but the commissioners have the task of keeping the bottom line to an increase of less than 2% if possible.
“I think there are a few places we need to find a little relief, especially with the conversations going on right now at the statehouse (legislature),” Obermier said. “What I’d like to do is keep the budget to where we don’t have to have a pink postcard meeting. We can keep raises and see where we can use some inheritance funds to offset spending property tax funds.”
“And there are ARPA (federal COVID relief funds) dollars still left, correct?” asked Commissioner Andy Bowman.
“Yes, roughly $800,000 and then we spent that money today for the last bridge replacement payment,” Obermier responded. “And the courthouse carpet project continues moving along but that shouldn’t be any huge numbers. I just want us to keep tax asking below 2%.”
It was noted the insurance costs were all coming from one fund instead of each individual department’s budget – but that didn’t mean each department had extra money to spend. It is just a change in coding to make each department’s budget clearer. The only individual budgets which still have insurance included in their line items are those for the emergency communications center because the costs are shared with the city; juvenile diversion because it is funded through grant money; and the York County Visitors Bureau because it is funded with lodging tax receipts.
For the funds where the department heads and elected officials had budgets with increases over the 2-3% range, the commissioners asked them to take another look and make reductions where they could.
They recognized how the election fund will have to see a slight increase this year because the General Election will be held in November which is also a presidential election which typically sees more voters participating.
While reviewing individual funds, it was noted there was an increase for county court, particularly in the area of court-appointed counsel. Deputy York County Attorney Chris Johnson said the state recently increased the mandated pay court-appointed attorneys, which caused the increase.
“So another unfunded mandate from the state,” Obermier added.
Regarding training expenses for the county attorney’s office, Johnson said drug seizure funds are being used so that will help keep the property tax spending for that area down. “The drug dealers can pay for our training.”
When it comes to the county jail, Obermier noted some of those expenses just cannot be known because a lot is spent to house inmates elsewhere when the jail is full. “We always have inmates somewhere, but the housing costs elsewhere are better than they used to be after we negotiated those. The wages for corrections staff is the bulk of this and there are raises included.”
“Well, they are competing with the prison for help,” Johnson said.
“We are all competing with someone,” Obermier responded.
When it came to the miscellaneous fund, the commissioners will be taking funds from there to pay for the work to update the county’s comprehensive plan this year.
Regarding the roads department, they said the only major capital purchase is that of a truck and trailer.
“The age of the truck and trailer fleet out there is terrible,” Bowman said.
They said they would have a conversation with York County Highway Superintendent Harvey Keim about finding a few reductions and they will likely purchase the truck and trailer using inheritance tax dollars.
When it came to a proposed adult diversion program, which would be new should the county receive a grant for which an application has been submitted, Obermier said the only dollars submitted for the budget was for expenses. “Obviously, there has to be revenue, and we need more detailed expenditures to know what we are talking about.”
Tristan Perry, juvenile diversion director who would head up the adult diversion program should it be created, said the plan was to plug in the figures from the potential grant on the revenue side.
“We will need those figures,” Obermier said, “as we are now in crunch time. We need those figures and we have to have a conversation as a board to say whether we are definitely going to go with the program. And like with juvenile diversion, we have said if the grant dollars are not there, we will have to re-visit the program.”
They also had a conversation with York County Sheriff Captain Josh Gillespie about that particular budget, which as it stands now is showing a 6-7% increase over last year.
“Can you look through the budget and see if there are changes that can be made?” Obermier asked. “And I know we have been playing catch-up for a while now with wages. Are we making headway?”
“We are getting there,” Gillespie said. “We did a wage study with comparable law enforcement departments so we can make sure to retain good people, and we are just now finally getting to full staff. We want to focus on keeping the good people we have. We will never have the top wages, but it needs to be competitive.”
“Well, it’s a lot easier to retain people than train people,” Commissioner LeRoy Ott said.
“And it is expensive to train and pay overtime to staff when there is a staff shortage,” Gillespie said. “It also becomes taxing on our people to work shift after shift, when we are shorthanded.”
When it comes to the inheritance tax fund itself, they are budgeting for $500,000 to come in during the new fiscal year. There are a number of outside agencies that historically receive money from the inheritance funds, such as York Adopt A Pet, York County Development Corporation, York County Court Appointed Special Advocates (CASA), Hope Crisis Center, Blue Valley Behavioral Health, Blue Valley Community Action, the Kilgore Library, the Southeast Nebraska Economic Development District, etc.
“Last year, we cut all the contributions to these,” noted Commissioner Grotz.
“I can tell you how any of these who have been getting grants from other places have seen all those grants cut,” Ott said.
“And remember, these are inheritance tax funds, not property tax funds,” Obermier said. “We are obligated to pay York Adopt A Pet or do the service ourselves, and this number is minor compared to if we did the work ourselves.”
“I’m not prepared yet to say leave them where they were requested,” Grotz said.
“We will be, over the course of the next few weeks, visiting with some departments about their budgets,” Obermier said.
“And then we can put another budget item on the agenda for our next meeting,” Grotz said.
“The assessor’s valuation numbers will be certified on Aug. 20, so we will know more about where we are with that,” Obermier added.
The commissioners are looking at a public informational meeting on Aug. 19 in the basement of the courthouse to answer public questions if they exist. The time and date will be publicized as it is determined.
