By Sara StrongThe Rock County Board of Commissioners is looking at its budget more critically than ever. It has less money to work with and more mandated costs — and it has until September to come up with a preliminary levy.Rock County Administrator Kyle Oldre said Tuesday, "This will be the first of many discussions on the budget. This will be a long, long process."Overall, the county has to come up with $300,000 to $500,000 to cut. That doesn’t sound like much to a $10 million budget, but the cuts have to come from the 20 percent of the budget which isn’t made up of mandated costs.Under the new funding formula, state aid and the levy will be $110,000 less than in 2003, while other costs are on the increase.The state money is used to fund required spending and reduce property tax burdens of homeowners and businesses. County property taxes probably won’t cause too much sticker shock because of state imposed levy limits, but fees will probably increase and services could be lost or decrease in quality. "We’ve got a lot of work to do to figure out what’s going to stay and what’s going to go," Oldre said.He said to the board, "Everyone around this table has a passion for something and it’s all going to be up for grabs. It’s a tough year and there will be tough decisions."The board has already gotten many pleas for help from local groups wanting to keep their programs afloat. "We’re not alone," Commissioner Ken Hoime said. "We’re one of 87 counties going through this."The County Board contributes to various groups like the Historical Society, Rock County Agricultural Society (the fair board) and the Green Earth Players (theater group).Commissioner Richard Bakken said he’s been lobbied by people who don’t want the budget cuts to affect them. "It’s like, ‘I don’t want to shed any blood, but you can take a pint out of him.’" Health insurance costs are increasing by an estimated 17 percent this year. Wages and salaries will increase by $30,000 to $45,000 this year too. The county may come up with an early retirement incentive to encourage higher wage earning employees to get off the county payroll quicker. It could also reduce the number of hours in a work week. Reducing the number of employees is a less productive option at this time. Counties don’t have unemployment insurance as private businesses do, so if an employee is laid off, the county pays the full costs as the person is on unemployment.The state has also required the county to take on various costs the state used to cover.Oldre said, "There are cost shifts where they’ve allowed us no mechanism to get the money back."The county has taken some preemptive measures to brace for the budget this year already. It hasn’t hired replacements in various departments to cover retirements and is encouraging remaining workers to find areas where work can be made more efficient.One example of an efficiency change is in the Auditor/Treasurer’s Office, where the county purchased a receipt writing machine to save some steps in paper work and staff time.The Board will hear from more department leaders, and look at where non-mandated services or costs can be eliminated or reduced.Family ServicesRock County Family Services Director Randy Ehlers manages one of the biggest portions of the county budget, making up almost a fourth of the county budget. He’s gone over the state changes and calculated how it will affect the county.Ehlers said, "There wasn’t a lot of good news for Human Services from the legislative session this year."Ehlers said grants for children and community services will be reduced by $57,915 in 2004 and 2005. These funds assist in payment of out of home placements, children and adult mental health services, child protection social service staff time, Rock County Developmental Achievement Center and supported employment among others.The county will see an estimated $16,523 additional costs for people with developmental disabilities who live in group homes. The county used to pay 10 percent of poor relief costs, but will start paying 20 percent of those costs (or $10,780 more) in 2004. This category of the budget includes things like mental health inpatient treatment.Some case management services for programs like home health and delivered meals are being shifted from counties to health plans. The county will lose about $5,500 from that and will lose $19,602 by 2005.Ehlers said the changes in his department will affect a lot of Rock County people directly and he anticipates spending a lot of time working on appeals from people who use Family Services.In other business Tuesday, the Board:oRaised the salary of two of the county’s most recent elected officials, after a six-month job review. Auditor/Treasurer Gloria Rolfs had been earning $38,000 but starting July 1 will earn $42,000. Sheriff Mike Winkels had essentially the same salary as sheriff that he had when he was a sergeant. His salary will increase from $56,500 to $58,500 in July.
