Seward County Independent

    Salaries were the primary cause of higher budget requests for the 2006-07 fiscal year. The Seward County commissioners began budget hearings at their July 25 meeting.
     Many of the county's employees were given salary increases of approximately 5.5 percent.
     In their April 11 meeting, the commissioners set the annual market adjustment (AMA), which functions in the same way as a cost-of-living increase, at 3 percent. Officials were also allowed to move employees one step up on the county's pay grid, if they felt the move was deserved, adding an additional 2.5 percent to the AMA.
     The county is required to keep its budget increase within a 2.5-percent annual levy lid cap. It could exceed that limit by 1 percent if a supermajority of the board votes to do so, but County Clerk Sherry Schweitzer said the board would prefer to keep that additional levy authority in case of an emergency.
    Public defender
     Dave Kimble, the Seward County public defender, requested $77,995 for FY06-07, up 4.69 percent from his FY05-06 request. After discussions, the board recommended cutting $1,000, with $500 coming from both travel and dues and subscriptions.
    E-911
     The E-911 budget is split between three entities-the county and the cities of Seward and Milford. The overall request was $509,780. Barb Liska, the E-911 director, said she is still paying off the loan from NACO for communications equipment and the tower at the missile base.
     The radio repair line item went from $15,000 to $50,866 because the service contracts for the phone and radio systems were moved into that section, Liska said.
    Assessor
     The budget request for the county assessor's office was up 2.92 percent to $215,720, according to Assessor Marilyn Hladky. After discussions, the board recommended cutting $880 to bring the total to $214,840.
    Building inspector
     Scott Stuhr, county zoning administrator and building inspector, asked for a 3.6-percent increase, raising his request to $46,059. When asked about the personal service line, Stuhr said it has not been used recently because the city has not charged for inspections when he is gone.
     The commissioners asked him to cut $500 from his budget, making the total request $45,559, a 2.47-percent increase.
    County attorney
     A discussion about keeping track of court costs was part of the budget hearing for County Attorney Wendy Elston.
     She raised her budget request 3.85 percent to $298,112 for FY06-07. She said some items, like court costs, coroner costs and witness fees, cannot be predicted.
     The commissioners recommended reducing her budget to $292,112, cutting $500 from telephone and equipment repair, $1,000 from travel and $4,000 from coroner costs.
    Pretrial diversion
     This year marks the first that the pretrial diversion and Court Appointed Special Advocate (CASA) budgets have been separated. Denise Janssen, pretrial diversion coordinator, requested $61,836 for FY06-07. She is currently part-time, working 32 hours in diversion and eight in the county attorney's office. The budget request would make her the full-time program coordinator.
     She told the board there are currently 83 people enrolled in diversion, up from 39 in January. Referrals are about the same, she said, with 142 in 2005 and 161 in 2006.
     The commissioners recommended setting the salary at $28,500 and cutting travel and supplies to $500 each, making the request $60,087.
     Pretrial is funded through the program fees, the STOP program and grants.
    CASA
     Monique Oates, CASA coordinator, asked for $28,602 for this year. She said 16 volunteers are serving 29 children with 24 children waiting for advocates.
     The coordinator position is currently 20 hours per week with a salary of $13,750. Oates requested $14,250.
    Veterans service
     The board accepted County Veteran's Officer Jeff Baker's 2006-2007 budget proposal of $46,300 to the board - a growth of 2.43 percent over last year's budget. Elwell asked why the proposed travel and publications budgets were significantly up from last year.
     Baker responded that his office has been promoting outreach to veterans returning from Iraq.
     "They have benefits they're entitled to that they need to know about," he said.
     District Judge Alan Gless submitted a budget for next year of $17,553, a 14.87-percent decrease from last year.
     The board cut Clerk of the District Court Jacque Stewart's budget proposal of $195,155 by $3,000. The $192,155 budget is still a 3.12-percent increase over last year's allotted amount.
     "I'd like to have you consider taking a couple thousand (dollars) out of county court jury fees and a thousand out of district court jury fees," Minchow said.
     The board lowered the allowance for jury fees from $7,500 to $5,500 in the county court and $8,000 to $7,000 in the district court. Actual jury fee expenditures for 2005-2006 were $2,259 and $5,910 for the county and district courts, respectively.
     "That's fine with me," Stewart said, "as long as you understand that if some of the juries go to trial I'm going to need more money."
     Stewart's request included the addition of a speaker system for both county and district courts in the buildings and grounds budget.
     "The one we're currently using is for recording purposes only," she said. "If you don't sit in the first row of the gallery you're not going to be able to hear what the judge says."
     The board cut $127,354 from County Road Superintendent Russ Daehling's budget request. Daehling's 2005-2006 budget year was hampered by soaring fuel costs, and the department remains at the mercy of volatile petroleum prices.
     The county was forced to amend the department's budget of $2,628,598 last year in order to cover increases in fuel and gravel costs. The board added $215,820 to the budget midyear, most of which came from Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) funds received.
     Daehling's proposed 2006-2007 budget of $2,943,972 comprised a 12-percent increase over his initial 2005-2006 budget and a 3.5-percent increase over last year's amended budget. The board trimmed the road department's allotment to $2,816,618, a 7.15-percent increase over last year's initial budget and a one-percent decrease of last year's amended budget. Much of the cuts were made in equipment purchases.
     The road department hoped to purchase two four-by-four pickup trucks for road foreman at $25,000 each.
     The board cut the purchase of one truck, as well as a $10,000 straw mulcher to be used for seeding and $60,354 that Daehling planned to set aside for the purchase of a replacement truck and pump in 2008.
     "The equipment is probably the easiest place to make it up right now," Daehling admitted, "but at some point we're going to have to get on some sort of schedule. You're going to see a correlation in that repair budget (if equipment is not eventually replaced)."
     "We're going to spend $200,000 to $250,000 more than a normal year because of the fuel," Minchow said. "Without that (increase in fuel expenditures) your (proposed) budget is going up three percent. We're going to have to make that up in some places we don't want to."
     In addition to equipment purchases, the board cut the allotments for lumber from $5,000 to $3,000 ($116 was spent last year on lumber), grease and oil from $20,000 to $16,000 ($12,233 was spent last year on these items) and sign posts from $10,000 to $7,000 ($6,939 was spent last year on posts).
     Daehling said the lumber increase was necessary due to the county's planned bridge construction project which will require wood forms for concrete pouring.
     The board also cut the surveyor budget from $10,000 to $8,000. Last year the county spent $5,989 on surveying.
     Seward County Sheriff Joe Yocum requested $748,664 for the 2006-2007 sheriff budget, a 5.35-percent increase over last year's $710,733. Included in this request was increasing a part-time office position to full-time. Additionally, the engine in the department's new Ford Explorer recently blew out after 40,000 miles, just outside of warranty.
     The board asked Yocum to trim his request to $435,000 to bring the department's budget increase to below 3.5 percent.
     Yocum also requested a 10.71-percent increase in the jail budget, up to $536,930.
     "The jail is a black hole," he said. "I tried what I can…I have little or no control over who is arrested and brought to my facility."
     Yocum cited extradition and outside prisoner boarding costs as major detriments to the department's budget due to an overcrowded county jail.
     "We're running 24 to 28 (prisoners) in that jail and sometimes we're putting cots down and we're going to get in trouble with jail standards," he said.
     Yocum added that holding cells are sometimes used to house prisoners when space necessitates it.
     The board cut Yocum's requests for prisoner boarding costs from $110,000 to $107,500 (the department spent $102,903 for boarding costs last year). It trimmed the amount for outside boarding costs from $110,000 to $107,500 (the jail spent $111,077 for boarding prisoners at other facilities last year). The board also cut proposed salary increases by $3,925, to approve a $527,930 budget - a 3.52-percent increase from last year.
    Other business
     Meeting as the Seward County Board of Equalization, the board debated using an income assessment approach to low-income rental properties but elected to continue using its approach based on market value.
     The board followed the assessor's recommendation on five property value protests from low-income housing properties, of which four saw no change in value and lowered one location of Autumnwood Apartments, Ltd., to $269,307. White cast lone dissenting vote on each resolution deciding for no change. The lowering of the Autumnwood valuation passed 5-0.
     In another matter, Elston discussed the county's options regarding fuel. The board had asked her to look into the possibility of purchasing fuel options to help keep fuel costs down.
     "The law prohibits the county from investing in stocks," she said. "An option is not a stock."
     She recommended talking to commodity brokers if the county chose to purchase fuel options. That would fall under the "prudent expert rule," which authorizes the county "to invest prudently and use experts as needed," she said.
     "Had we done this a year ago, we'd look like geniuses," Commissioner Bill White said.
     The board did not make a decision on the matter.
     In an unrelated issue, the commissioners met with Sheriff Joe Yocum and Mike Koci, courthouse custodian, regarding the keys to the courthouse. Koci said the Seward Police Department had made copies of the key to the building for each patrol car but that those copies were not authorized.
     He said all courthouse key and their copies should be approved through his office.
     Yocum suggested looking into proximity cards or a keypad system for the courthouse.
     "Then if someone leaves, you just delete the code. You don't have to rekey the whole building," he said.
     Koci agreed.
     "We need to do something," he said, adding that the current rekeying project had cost $3,600 to date and did not include the fire escape doors.
     In other business, the board:
     - approved July claims of $952,127;
     - denied a general assistance request because the applicant had not exhausted all resources;
     - asked the county attorney to research reimbursing cell phone use by county employees for county business;
     - accepted the treasurer's fourth-quarter investment report;
     - appointed Don Olson of Utica as the county's representative on the Lincoln Area Agency on Aging Areawide Advisory Council; and
     - appointed Anthony Liesveld to a five-year term on the Veterans Service Committee.
     As the board of equalization, the commissioners:
     - approved one tax list correction;
     - authorized the county assessor to send out 68 notice of valuation changes; and
     - kept the valuation for the Utica Community Care Center at $620,983.