ROBERT PIERCE
• Leader & Times
Seward County now has an adopted budget for Fiscal Year 2025.
After three days of budget work sessions in July, a public hearing in early September that saw several local property owners contest a proposed hike of nearly 8 mills to the Revenue Neutral Rate and two more work sessions since then to see if more could be trimmed from the budget, Thursday morning, county commissioners voted unanimously to adopt a Revenue Neutral budget for the upcoming fiscal year.
That move came after a very brief public hearing Thursday that saw no one contest the new proposed budget. Administrator April Warden said commissioners and staff worked diligently to get an RNR budget, a budget which would produce the same amount of revenue for the county as the previous fiscal year.
“What that means is the mill levy will remain at Revenue Neutral to generate the same amount of tax dollars it took last year for your budget,” she said. “This year for the proposed budget, you were able to bring the budget down to expenditures of $39,590,696. The ad valorem tax that’s needed to support that budget is $11,574,820. That lets your mill levy stay at 43.414 mills. That is a Revenue Neutral budget. There was no increase of that as to what you are proposing.”
Warden described some of the specific cuts that were made to the budget after Tuesday’s work session.
“We are not doing a transfer to the Special Highway Fund of $1,190,000,” she said. “That lowers the Road and Bridge mill levy, which in turn makes a difference for the overall mill levy. We were able to cut $125,000 from the fee appraisals in the county appraiser’s account.”
Warden did note, though, that if a special fee appraisal was needed, money to pay for that would come from the county’s reserves.
“We did cut the 3 percent cost of living increases that were planned for employees, which eliminated $302,659,” she said. “We went through equipment reserve and capital expenditure requests, and we were able to cut $230,000 of what was requested to replace equipment.”
Furthermore, Warden said the county’s Reserve for Claims and employee benefit funds were lowered as well.
“We are partially self-funded for our health insurance,” she said. “What that means is we always budget worst case scenario based on the actuary numbers they give us for projected claims. We’ve been fortunate enough in the 10 years I’ve been here to never use that total amount. It looks to where if we were on track this year, we would have some carryover for that.”
Warden said another $2.2 million was cut out of the county’s initial proposed budget, which called for a mill levy of 51.399 mills, nearly 8 mills above the RNR of 43.414 mills passed Thursday.
“Right now, we have left $300,000 in the equipment reserves to pay in full for the ambulance that is supposed to be delivered the first quarter of 2025,” she said.
Warden said based on carryovers at the end of FY 2024, a lease purchase could be done, if necessary to purchase the ambulance. This, she said, would free up more cash for the county.
“We are looking at the bond issue to do the overlay projects for 2025,” she said. “We did have approximately seven departments, as we went back through and projected what is going to be spent for 2024, where we feel there will be more carryover than we had initially anticipated.”
Budgets for the county are typically put together in July after the commission hosts a work session, and Warden said what is budgeted for is all based on estimates.
“You’re estimating what you’re going to spend for the remainder of the year,” she said. “This is where we felt comfortable in making those cuts to get you back down to a Revenue Neutral budget.”
Warden said in discussions she has had with commissioners during the last work session, county leaders feel the entity’s current financial status is not something that can be recovered from in a year’s time.
“This is something that is going to affect us for a while,” she said. “You have put money back for the settlement with the ethanol plant hearing, which is scheduled for November. However, your values will be certified most likely before that hearing is completed, so that valuation will be affected in 2025.”
Commission Vice Chair Tammy Sutherland-Abbott said the budget was done with the needs of all in mind.
“It’s accepted with appreciation and understanding that as a commission, we really do try to take care of our employees and maximize the use of taxpayer dollars,” she said.
