Commissioners discuss tight budget
Staff writer
Marion County commissioners will meet with county department heads at 11 a.m. on May 30, to discuss upcoming budget shortfalls and what might be done about them.
An end-of-month payroll meeting is slated at 9 a.m. on the 30th, so the meeting with department heads will occur as part of that monthly meeting.
Commission Chairman Howard Collett said the county is short about $170,000 in its budget for Fiscal Year 2003, and 2004 will be "worse, we know."
It is hoped that the May 30 meeting will lead to some good ideas. "We're all in this boat together," Collett said.
Planning ahead is crucial, commissioners and County Clerk Carol Maggard agreed at Monday's commission meeting.
Maggard said she would try to come up with various scenarios under which the county could proceed, suggestions, voluntary agreements, impacts, etc.
Commissioner Leroy Wetta said the budgetary shortfall now plaguing Kansas counties stems from a promise, unkept by the state, to buy down counties' property tax.
The program was supposed to last 20 to 30 years, with funding from the state sales tax, but it didn't.
The state has had to renege, and that's not good. There were two such programs, in fact, Wetta said, and both are kaput.
One was city-county revenue sharing, and the second was local ad valorem tax reduction. Counties and cities were only getting 8 percent of what they were supposed to receive, in the best years. Then it slid to 4 percent, and this year, it's zero, he said.
"They're welshing on us. We will have to raise the money, or cut services," Wetta said.
Collett said, however, that the revenue is coming back to cities and counties' road and bridge funds, from fuel taxes paid by Kansans.
There was also a "no-show' of about $70,000 in counted-on funds for 2002, Maggard said. And another shortfall of $165,000 or so in 2004 is known to exist, too. So the total amount lacking in expected funds, over three years, is $400,000 or more.
David Brazil, planning/zoning/transfer station director and sanitarian for the county, said he and commissioners need to speak with Jim Kaup, attorney, at next Monday's commission meeting.
Kaup advises the county on solid-waste matters.
Brazil said the trip to Montezuma and Gray County on May 7, to see and learn more about the wind farm there, was worthwhile.
He, county planning commission members and local media people went on the bus trip.
Brazil said he hopes to have a policy statement about wind farms placed in the county's comprehensive plan by June 2, when the planning commission's moratorium on receiving applications for possible wind farms runs out.
At Brazil's request, a special meeting of the county commission with Scott Michie, planning consultant with Bucher, Willis & Ratliff Corp., was set at 8:30 a.m. May 22.
Brazil shared with commissioners a letter he had sent to Kent Foerster, Topeka, with the state Bureau of Waste Management's Markets & Development Division.
The letter notes that the county purchased the Marion County Transfer Station for $825,000 and bought the station building at 320 West Santa Fe in Marion.
Improvements made by K.C. Development will complement any future recycling program in the county, Brazil said in the letter.
Michele Abbott-Becker, director of communications and Emergency Management for the county, said a report was received of a tornado on the ground in Burns, at 3:05 a.m. Saturday.
Whether it was a straight-line wind or a tornado, all citizens were OK, in Burns and nearby, she said. Her department reviewed the situation and assessed damage.
Burns residents were cleaning up debris and the power company was repairing downed lines.
It was estimated that the storm cut a 13-mile-long path.
She added that the county's fee for participating in the Kansas Criminal Justice Information System, under the auspices of the Kansas Bureau of Investigation, will rise from $114 to $314 per month.
Having this particular computer is mandated by the state. Every law enforcement agency and court in the county uses it, Abbott-Becker said.
The KCJIS system is what allows police and sheriff's officers in Marion County to connect with the National Crime Information Center in Washington, D.C., and with other state's information about crime and criminals, as well.
Not all such centers in Kansas have been entirely funded by the county where they're located. Marion County's has.
Abbott-Becker recommended, and commissioners approved, two agreements between Marion County and each of the 12 cities in the county regarding mutual aid, one pertaining to debris removal, the other to damage assessment.
She said the agreements were really just "a guide to what we're already doing."
She also recommended, and commissioners approved, changing the department's name to Emergency Management and Homeland Security.
This might pave the way for receiving some Homeland Security funding, state or federal, more likely the latter.
JoAnn Knak, Emergency Medical Service director, spoke about the federal Health Information Patient Privacy Act, which recently went into effect. She said the computer program her department has is not secure.
Software to make it secure may cost an estimated $3,452, she said. That system is a good one, but her department will do some research to see what other counties about the size of Marion County are using, what it costs, how satisfied they are with it, and other questions.
The department will also have to obtain its own secure fax machine, she said.
Maggard said that as of April 30, there is $1,606,222.30 in the county's General Fund and $1,108,368.17 in the Road & Bridge Fund.
She also said that County Treasurer Jeannine Bateman had rolled over $55,869.44 in the General Fund, into the Special Auto Funds, which now total $57,868.37.
Bateman didn't "have to" do this, but she and her predecessors in the post have always done so, Maggard said.
