When the Wright County Board approved its final budget and levy for 2004, county coordinator Dick Norman could understandably give out a sigh of relief. With having to trim from the budget mid-year because of a state calculation error to losing money as the state went billions of dollars into debt to imposing a hiring freeze, the budget process for 2003 and 2004 has been a troubling one. “This was probably the most difficult process I’ve gone through since I’ve been here,” Norman said. “There were a lot of hurdles thrown in front of us this year.” As part of the 2004 budget, the board approved an equipment note outside the departmental budgets, which gave the county some additional budget flexibility, although it raised the debt service total on the levy to $3.08 million – a 69.4 percent increase from 2003. While the note has not yet been opened for bids, Norman said the plan is to get a note for the next three calendar years. “This equipment note is a first-time thing for Wright County,” Norman said. “It will be a three-year note for $4.5 million that will become part of the budget process through 2006. It will allow us a fund to purchase equipment for road maintenance, sheriff’s department vehicles and computer equipment.” The note is new to Wright County, but not to many other larger or growing counties in the state. It is a special levy that can come outside department budgets, which have restrictions for how much an increase there can be in a county budget and levy. The result is a 12.4 percent increase in the levy paid by Wright County residents. It was noted, however, that while the levy numbers have gone up substantially, the net tax capacity increased by a whopping 27 percent – which resulted in a significant drop in the tax rate for each taxpayer. Norman said one of reasons for the need to begin the equipment note process is because the state’s tax regulations don’t have a provision for growth counties that incur more cost for service to a burgeoning population. As for the county’s budget, it dropped 1.5 percent, but much of that was the result of less funding in the road and bridge and human services budget. With state aid cuts of almost $600,000 from 2003 to 2004, Norman said making up for the lost aid money needs to come from several sources. That has included not replacing all employees who leave the county and imposing a hiring freeze that lasted all of 2003. While the approach may seem like an added expense for taxpayers, Norman said it’s something that is very familiar in counties of similar size or growing counties. “Other counties have done notes like this routinely,” Norman said. “It’s just the first time we’ve done one. Our county board has been quite conservative over the years, so we haven’t seen this before. But that doesn’t mean it’s not very common.” With the money set aside for equipment purchases, it is hoped that future budget crises as they surface will better be absorbed in the current budgets. But then again, the curves may keep on coming. “The state has to balance its budget each year,” Norman said. “There have been problems there before. The forecasts were only for the current biennium when it came to the budget shortfalls. Who knows what’s coming next from the state? When that happens, it usually isn’t good for county governments.”
