By Ray Barrington
News-Chronicle
The Brown County Board passed the county's budget Wednesday, keeping the tax levy at the same amount as last year with one major addition and two minor ones Tuesday.
The board, in an 8 1/2-hour session (with lunch break), passed a budget asking the same amount as last year from taxpayers, $67,585,417. Because of increased valuation of property, the tax rate will drop slightly, from 5.2542 to 4.9189, or $491.89 on a $100,000 house.
"I'm just disappointed with some of the numbers. I think some things were put back that staff felt we didn't need," said County Executive Carol Kelso. "We had about a million in extra spending."
Kelso has six days to announce any vetoes. She had no plans as of Wednesday night, but added "we might tweak a little."
Sup. Andy Nicholson was more blunt on why he voted no: "We came too closing to raising taxes. We should have had more cuts."
But Sup. Patrick Evans called himself satisfied.
"Everybody did a good job with the budget," he said.
The budget passed by a 15-10 vote, with Sups. Nicholson, Steve Fewell, Rick Schadewald, Mary Marquardt, Jane Hansen, Merlin Vanden Plas, Keith Watermolen, Pat Collins, Alice Daul and Mike Fleck voting no. Sup. Ron Antonneau was not in the room when the vote was taken.
None of the items added to county spending by committees over the past month was pulled back, and there were three more additions Wednesday.
The largest was a compromise on the sheriff's budget, one of the largest points of contention. The board voted to return to Kelso's original budget for the department, but added $600,000 for Sheriff Dennis Kocken to spend on salaries as he sees fit.
Debate leading to the sheriff's decision took almost half of the meeting. It was highlighted by tense questioning of Kocken by Gower.
Gower led the sheriff through staffing numbers, trying to prove that the sheriff was using the same number of patrol officers to cover a smaller area because of the increase of local police forces, some using officers contracted for with the Sheriff's Department.
Kocken said Gower was overestimating the local police forces in such places as Bellevue and Denmark.
Other supervisors said the department was the wrong place to cut. "How do you put a price on safety?" asked Sup. Bill Clancy. "Are we saying we can afford two to three murders a year?"
Schadewald suggested that adding $852,948 would provide proper staffing, leading to the $600,000 compromise.
"In my opinion, it's not enough," said Kocken. "If this is what I get, well, I'll just dig and dig to try to find more savings."
Nicholson, Daul, Fewell and Marquardt voted against the compromise.
The expenditure put the budget $208,054 over last year's levy. To make it up, the board voted 25-1 to add that amount to a previously budgeted $1.5 million withdrawal from the county's undesignated funds, its leftover money.
Collins tried to get another $4 million taken out of the undesignated funds "for real tax relief," but after a shouting match over whether or not his request had been seconded, it was voted down 21-3 with Daul and Fleck joining Collins and two abstentions.
The board added $16,827 more in the Human Services area. It added $8,827 in funding for the Healthy Families program to provide full funding. The Human Services Committee previously voted to include only $30,000 to the budget.
And it added $8,000 to general relief, a program for the destitute, that had been cut. The program had been targeted for elimination as Kelso said Brown County was one of the last counties with the older welfare program.
After a public forum, debate on the budget started at about 2:30 p.m., with an immediate attempt for a quick vote on the entire budget failing. From there, it went to department-by-department voting.
There was little debate on the education/recreation budget, which included funding for the Bookmobile, replaced by a committee earlier in the process.
The Planning, Development and Transportation budget featured a debate over taking $190,000 from tipping fees to put in the county budget. Several county villages and cities had been against the move to increase solid waste storage costs.
Sup. Joe Van Deurzen said the money was being saved for projects that would not happen. "We do not need a new landfill; the one we have won't be used for 19 years," he said.
The administrative budget drew some applause when it passed 26-0 with little debate. Human Services followed, with the increase in the Healthy Families Program. But a debate ensued about funding for the YWCA's Teen Parenting Program, which had most of its funding restored at the committee level after Kelso took it out. Sup. John Vander Leest repeated a charge mentioned by two people in the public forum about the national YWCA's position supporting abortion rights and birth control, and said the program, if funded, ought to be put up for bids by "abstinence-based" programs.
Pat Nagel, the Y's community director, said the local program had nothing to do with abortion and was pro-life as it worked with teen mothers who had decided to keep their children.
"This is a county program that's totally 100 percent abstinence-based," she said, adding that the local Y board has people on both sides of the abortion issue and that it sends teen mothers to both religious and medical counselors.
Vander Leest, Nicholson and Marquardt were the only votes against the human services budget.
The other long debate came over board members' benefits, as several attempts were made to cut the 75 percent of supervisors' insurance paid by the county.
A vote to table the issue won the day, and a vote to keep pay at its current level - $7,000 a year for supervisors, a bit more for the board chairman and vice chairman - passed.
Schadewald was angry. "We make cuts and talk about the budget mess we're in," he said. "Now we've experienced what others (do)."
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