What started as a routine public hearing for Carroll County’s Fiscal Year (FY) 2021 budget became anything but shortly after Auditor, Kourtney Irlbeck, presented the budget and her notes. Irlbeck said she had received no comments prior to Monday morning’s meeting and stated the budget amounts were unchanged since publication but she wanted to highlight some key points.
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The urban and rural levies will result in a $17 increase on a home valued at $125,000, $26 on a 40-acre tract of land and $348 on a commercial property valued at $1 million. The increase in the tax base is coming mainly from an increase in valuations. Supervisor Dean Schettler wanted to go on record saying “we are spending too much money.” The expenditures, he said, have gone up significantly over the last two years, at $10 million. However, this encompasses all capital projects, including the jail and radio communications system. For the majority of departments budget changes came from wages. But Schettler said the Sheriff’s Office has seen a more dramatic increase than the others. He would like to see them look at lower priced vehicles for their fleet or run them for more miles.
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Schettler said he did not receive any calls from his district, but he did get them from people in the Carroll community. He again said the county has done a good job over the years of not increasing taxes, but when coupled with city projects, people on limited incomes are struggling. One farmer told him his taxes increased by 33 percent in the last three years. Neil Bock said Carroll is one of 25 counties that collects more in city taxes than county taxes. He also pointed out that a good share of the budget expenditures are from the jail project that was approved by the citizens of the county. When Schettler suggested they should have possibly settled on a one percent increase for employees rather than 2.5 percent, Chair Rich Ruggles spoke up.
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Gene Meiners agreed with Ruggles.
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Resident, Leon Wernimont, said he agrees with Dean and wanted to know if there were other areas where they could offset some of these expenses. Supervisors Bock, Meiners, Ruggles and Stephanie Hausman all thanked Wernimont for his input. Meiners and Ruggles then explained that a good portion of the expenses in the Sheriff’s Office budget has come from regulations and increased societal problems and that these changes do not even bring the department to par with other like-sized counties.
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The nearly 40 minute discussion on the budget, which passed on a vote of four in favor and one, Schettler, against can be found below.
Full audio from budget public hearing 03-09-20
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