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County aims cuts at senior programs, Museum
In order to try to trim the 2010 budget, the Pipestone County Board set their sights last Wednesday on what they called nonessential services.
Sharon Hanson, county administrator, told the Board that if they wanted to decrease the levy any more before the final levy deadline of Dec. 28 they would have to make some deep cuts in the budget. If for example, the Board wanted to reduce the levy increase to about three percent, they would have to cut the budget by roughly another $80,000.
“The only way to really lower it, at this point, is if we do cuts – more than just paper clips and office supplies,” Hanson said. “We’d really have to make some deeper cuts to be able to reduce our levy.”
One way to do that, she said, would be to cut discretionary spending. That could include cuts in funding to senior citizen programs, the Extension Office, Museum, Arts Center, Nurse Family Partnership, Casey Jones Trail and the county Economic Development Agency (EDA).
“If you think about all these groups, nonprofits - they can’t solely rely on the county or city for aid,” said Marge DeRuyter, county commissioner. “What I would say in the end is to cut them all 50 percent. I’d rather go this route than put it on the taxpayers.”
Jim Keyes, county commissioner, agreed that difficult decisions must be made, but warned of the devastating effect the cuts could have to organizations such as the museum. The cuts, he said, could result in the loss of a staff member or even fewer hours of operations.
“Back in the 90s during really tough times, the county seriously cut their funding and it has taken all this time, nearly two decades, just to get back to where they were,” Keyes said.
In the end the Board discussed moving forward with possible cuts of 25 percent from the $39,614 budgeted to the museum; 50 percent from the $62,789 budgeted for senior citizen programs, roughly $5,000 used to hire a summer intern from the $179,241 budgeted for the Extension Office, and $2,500 from the $5,000 budgeted for the Performing Arts Center. The Board also discussed eliminating the Crisis Center, which would reduce the budget by $4,200.
“These funding levels will be down for a long, long time,” Keyes said. “They may never return.”
“Let’s remember that we’re spending other people’s money,” said Harold Miller, board chairman. “We’re not doing this just to make ourselves feel good or make the people downtown feel happy; that’s not our purpose, that’s not what we’re here for.”
No final decisions regarding the cuts were made at this time, but Hanson said she planned to meet with the heads of the groups individually to discuss the possible cuts in the near future.
Hanson also told the Board that lower than expected increases in health insurance costs for county employees led to the projected levy increase being lowered from 5.5 percent to 5.22 percent.
The health insurance savings were the result of a budgeted 10 percent increase in insurance costs for 2010 and an actual increase of only 1.9 percent.
Those savings led to $5,000 being shifted from health insurance to training expenses for the Highway Department, $11,000 less being spent out of the reserve fund for Family Services and a $10,000 reduction in the general fund.
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