Government : Benton County Board of $upervisor Note$ for 4/22/25 - Budget$

During Tuesday's Supervisor meeting, the board was all present, with Tracy Seeman, Ron Tippett and Bruce Volz.

Warning: This is a long discussion about the county budget. Stay with it and it will give you an education about how budgets work.

Former Benton County Auditor Jill Marlow has been requesting information and working with Benton County Auditor, Hayley Rippel looking at the numbers. She shared with the Supervisors things that they found and possible solutions.

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At 9:30 a.m. a Budget Hearing for Fiscal Year 2026 was held. Jill Marlow, former Benton County Auditor, approached the Supervisors concerning the budget. She said that she looked at the numbers, comparing the county to Boone County, which is slightly larger as it was brought up in another meeting.

She said Boone County is slightly larger, by population and evaluation located near Ames and Des Moines like Benton is between Cedar Rapids and Waterloo. She said of course, everything is not "apples to apples" in comparison.

The numbers in each county budget are as follows:

Boone: Ending fund balance for 2024 was $12,043,000 - Benton: $27,635,000

She said that last year, she had cautioned the county about "not being a bank."

Taxes levied for next year's proposed budget is: Boone - $9,700,000 Benton $17,286,000.

She looked at the 2024 Audit. She said that on Schedule 5, it shows the revenue and expenditures for the last 10 years.

Property taxes, which include the local option sales taxes which she didn't include, Benton County collected almost $9.9 million in 2018. In 2024 the county collected over $16 million.

Expenditures in 2018 Benton County paid $1.9 million for Administration, in 2024 we paid $3.8 million.

She cited a document put out by the Tax Foundation. According to their website, Benton County is number fourth in the largest tax growth following Guthrie who is at 94%, Lee 77%, Ida 67% and Benton comes in at 57%.

The county is looking to increase the taxes by 2.5% increase for next year. She said that Social Security increased by 2.5%, Medicare premiums increased 5.8%, Medigap increased 10%. She asked, "Where's it going to end?"

She called attention to the complaints heard in a March meeting concerning property assessments. She said they have nothing to do with the Supervisors doing their job. Marlow told the board that they need to be looking at the amount collected. In Benton County it was $16 million. what was our expenditures?

She appreciated the board telling departments to decrease their budgets by 2.5% but that it's not enough. Marlow put in a FOIA request for detailed reports and looked at two departments. She highlighted accurate reestimated values. She looked at Health Insurance, a set fee. She looked at just two departments. She said the numbers have been "fudged." in one department, they gave a number of $30,000 and another said $100,000, those were the only ones she looked at.

She looked at IT and the Sheriff's Department.

In 2023, IT spent $75,000 in services, in 2024 they spent $59,500 and this year so far they've spent $70,000 with a quarter of the year remaining, and re-estimated the final cost will be $212,000 and $215,000 next year.

Seeman explained that the remaining $142,000 will be to update the computers and maintain them in the Sheriff's office, but not all of it will be done this year, before the end of June.

She explained that a capital project is not maintenance project and pointed out that the budget calls for another $215,000 for next year. By the editor's calculations that is $427,000 just for computer equipment.

Marlow then looked at the Jail budget.

Hardware in the jail, a capital project, is budgeted to cost $38,000 for this year and $28,000 for next year.

In Administration the budget calls for $25,000 this year and $0 for next year.

Dispatch has a budget request in for $30,000 next year and in Patrol $104,000.

Tippett explained that they are trying to move all of the technology to IT in the courthouse. Marlow explained that this is fine, but that they need to be careful not to duplicate costs in the budget, she explained that it's "not intentional, but easy to do."

She also said that at the hearing on March 27th was that some employees are getting a 12% increase, and it was mentioned that it wouldn't be more than $2,900, but in reality it's $26,000 according to the budget.

Next she turned to the County Attorney's Office. She mentioned the wages for the collections department. She asked if the collections department is self sustaining. Lough indicated that it was.

Marlow made an official FOIA request to see a spreadsheet indicating employee wages and expenses in that department. There was some debate about whether the request had to be made in writing or a verbal request is also covered by law.

Marlow said that when she looked at the revenue, she didn't believe that the collections were covering the costs and she felt that it shouldn't be subsidized by the taxpayers and Lough agreed.

She encouraged the Supervisors to go back and look at the budget, refigure, and not adopt the budget. She requested that they look at the re-estimated numbers. She said that she agreed that the county would be $6 million in the hole, but she thinks that it's not as bad as they believe it is because the "re-stimateds are so far off."

"I think you should lower levies, and I know you're scared to do that with all the property tax reform going on. But we've been through it before. I lived through it and did budgets with the board a number of times, you will survive," Marlow said. She suggested that they reduce the appropriations, and explained that a department cannot exceed their appropriation from the Board, and appropriations doesn't have to agree with what their budget is.

She gave the example that a department can have a $200,000 budget with only $150,000 appropriated. The other $50,000 cannot be spent unless the board approves it. She suggested not appropriating the entire budget.

Marlow also suggested a hiring moratorium.

She also said that she was insulted when she got her maximum levy notice. One of the reasons given for raising taxes was for "employee retention." She said that keeping employees is important, but when there are residents losing their jobs, investments are tanking then to tell residents that you are going to raise their taxes to keep employees, "when I'm losing my job is an insult. I think you need to be careful about that."

She went on to say the county's audit report under the Management's Discussion and Analysis, the county indicated that it would be streamlining services. Marlow would like to know where they are doing that.

She wrapped up saying that members of the public have asked her how they get an answer out of the Board of Supervisors. She said they tell her that they contact you, and they can't get an answer, and indicated that Tippett was one of them and she referred them to Volz. She need with, "Cut the taxes!"

Current County Auditor, Hayley Rippel said that she agreed with Marlow and believed that the board should wait before adopting the budget next week. Rippel said that the two have been working together to try to find areas where money could be saved. She knows that it's hard for the departments to fill in all of the columns when they are only halfway through the year. She'd like to have more time to look at the estimated numbers.

Marlow said that in working with Rippel, she looked at each individual fund and she looked at the budget documents comparing the revenues and expenditures. She said that there are a lot that are in the hole. "You need a budget that balances," Marlow said.

Seeman said that some of the projects are hard to estimate how much to put in a budget. He cited, "unattended deaths, autopsies, taxpayer pays for all of this." Marlow agreed and said she understood however "I'm going to pick on land acquisition. When I took Land Acquisition's beginning balances and what they said they are spending and getting for revenue, they are $350,000 in the hole. You can't have a budget that has a fund that's $350,000 in the hole." Seeman replied, "But their check hasn't come in yet." Marlow said that it doesn't matter, "The budget needs to show that. The reestimated's need to show that so that your budget balances. If it doesn't come in she (Rippel) has to transfer it from the General Fund. What does that do to the General Fund? That's why your re-estimateds are so important. That's what gets you started for the next year. If our fund balances are all messed up, on July 1, 2025, what's it going to look like all through the year? You're going to have budget that says you can spend money and you're going to end up without any money." Seeman said he "got what she was saying on that part, on the land acquisition." Marlow told him that there are a lot of funds like that.

She explained that a lot of them are set up to spend the money this year, even though we're not going to, so we're going to budget it next year, but it wasn't zeroed out for this year. She explained that when you look at the budget numbers, "the budget doesn't know what you're doing. The computer doesn't know 'well this is what we're thinking,' that budget needs to balance."

Secondary roads were another discussion. It's not a levied expense, yet along with all the other departments, they are being asked to reduce their budget. They use tax dollars that are transferred in. While telling the departments to reduce expenditures, by not reducing what goes in would increase his fund balance. The law for the County Engineer, Myron Parizek is that to get state funding, transfers had to be a certain amount of the maximum to get state funding. The levy amount right now for General Basic and Rural Services Parizek said is 5% of the maximum and if it's below 75% you lose a portion of the road use tax money from the state. The county has to make that portion up if it's below 75%.

Seeman asked Marlow if she'd make a list of where the county could cut services. She replied, "It's not my job. But I think the county could provide them at less cost." She said she'd suggest providing those services with less people.

Tippett made a motion to table the budget until next week. Expenditures will not be raised. They will look at the reestimates for next year and take it up next week.