Commission approves general fund, rural fire budgets with cuts that reduce mill levies but don't meet revenue neutral rates
Updated: 13 hours ago
By Charlene Sims, Journal staff
MOUND CITY – Even as the Linn County clerk was making copies of a budget to approve on Monday, Sept. 28, and even as the commission had an Oct. 1 deadline to make the final approval, Commission Chair Alison Hamilton still wasn’t satisfied and wanted to see changes, such as adding a cost-of-living number for every department.
As that hour and a half meeting to finalize the Linn County budget, came to a close, the budget process was nearly derailed when Linn County Clerk Chasity Ware told Hamilton and Commissioner Jim Johnson that she just wanted to clarify that they did not want to put a cost of living adjustment (COLA) in the budget for the employees.
Ware and former county clerk and consultant David Lamb were just cleaning up the last details of the budget and Ware had come back from copying the completed budget. While they were doing this, Hamilton was talking to Johnson about other questions she had about the budget.
Hamiltons answer to Ware was, “I want to see it with a COLA can you give us the numbers on with and without?”
Lamb answered, “Well when we had an estimate early on it was in the range of about $250,000. But to change that you are going to have to go through every budget’s payroll lines and add more in if you want to do that. So it’s not an easy here it is in five minutes.”
Ware clarified, “The total figure would be around $230,233.”
“So to do that, you’re going to have to go through every. . . . . . . . “ asked Hamilton.
Lamb answered, “The payroll line in every budget and add 3%.”
“That’s perfect. I want to know if they’re accurate anyway,” said Hamilton.
Lamb explained, “Well since a mill is bringing in a little bit over $500,000, if you were to do that you would be bumping your levy up about a half of mill from where it sets right now to cover that. You’ve got a huge decrease in the levy the way you are sitting.”
The commissioners had lowered the mill levy on the general fund budget from last year’s 35.105 mills to 26.865 mills but had not reached the revenue neutral rate of 25.797 mills.
The reason the commission was able to cut the tax levy by nearly 10 mills is that the valuation of the county increased by $140 million between 2024 and 2025, most of that due to an increase of the La Cygne Generating Station valuation. However, the revenue neutral rate is based on the what taxes the taxing government brought in the previous year
The estimated ad valorem tax revenue for the county in 2026 is about $13.6 million. The estimate included in the 2027 general fund budget is less than $14.2 million.
The commission also approved a rural fire budget on Sept. 21 that was down from 1.446 mills in 2026 to 1.273 mills for next year. Despite the decrease, the fire budget exceed the revenue neutral rate of 1.033 mills. Again, the valuation for the fire district increased from nearly $340.3 million to nearly $476.4 million, a $136 million increase, again attributed to the power plant increase.
Commissioners got a late start on the 2027 budget this year, putting off the process that has in the past begun in July while the commission put off until August reviewing individual department budgets.
Facing a deadline, the commission met in a marathon session for more than eight hours on Sept. 21 without reaching a decision. That uncertainty raised its head again at the Sept. 28 meeting.
Hamilton asked, “What’s the easiest way to do this work together on it or . . . .I kind of wanted to do this any way without the COLA so, I know it’s going to be a little bit of work but kind of like what we did with the attorney earlier I think we’ve done that with most of them but I don’t think we started to do that until the end when things weren’t adding up with public works.”
Ware said, “Just tell me what you want to do.”
Hamilton asked Johnson if he was into looking at what the COLA would be.
Johnson said, “Not now, myself I’m not, I’m good where we’re at right now.”
Hamilton briefly discussed the merit based system of raising employees one or two steps on the matrix.
Hamilton continued, “I mean my opinion on the COLA is the cost of living is clearly going up and we know that. Even just going to the gas station, you know it, and I don’t think like, my opinion, on being given to employees just because we signed a contract with the power lines. That’s not my reasoning on that at all. It’s really not. I would like to see that money to somehow be spent towards the taxpayer and given back somehow. When was the last year or how many years?”
According to Ware the last COLA give was give two years ago from the 2024 to 2025 year. Linn County employees did not receive a COLA in 2025 or 2026.
Hamilton asked, “Do you want to work that out together on the employees or do you want to do that in your office later?”
Ware said she could just do it in her office later
Ware explained to Hamilton, “Because nothing’s going to move forward if you are saying ‘yes’ and he’s saying ‘no.’ Nothing is going to move forward anyway right now.”
Hamilton said, “Right and if that happens. We don’t sign it. We wait until next week.”
Ware replied, “No, no, no.”
Lamb told the commissioners they were going to have to vote.
Hamilton answered, “You don’t have to, right?”
Lamb said, “At some point you are going to have to vote to approve the budget and sign it or you have no budget authority to spend any money next year. And she (Ware) needs that very soon because she is going to be setting levies in a couple of weeks. i mean you’re pushing out to really pass deadlines at this point to have it done.”
Johnson made the motion to approve the budget and the special districts’ budgets at the numbers that were stated,.
Hamilton seconded and then added in discussion, “When you’re saying you cannot reevaluate the COLA until the January 2027 date, right? You have to wait until the new year?”
Lamb answered, “You can reevaluate it anytime you want to. You just can’t amend the budget until the new calendar year.”
Hamilton said, “So we need to have that ready to go by Jan. 1.”
Lamb replied, “You could review it at the end of November or whenever you wanted to and make plans, you just can’t officially amend that budget until the new year because that’s when the budget takes effect.”
“So Jan. 4 would be the first meeting. That’s what I was looking at,” said Hamilton. “So I’m good with that . Are you good with that?”
Ware said, “ I’ll have numbers for you before that. I just need to get through the election first and then I can provide some numbers moving forward.”
Hamilton said, ”Sounds good. All in favor say ‘aye!’”
The budget was approved unanimously by commissioners Hamilton and Johnson. Jason Hightower was not present.
Other discussions held during this one-and-a-half hour session were whether to put the money in the clerk’s budget for an additional employee to be trained for Joyce Hall’s position because Hall will be retiring in early 2028 and funding of the contingency fund.
Ware said she would like to hire somebody in June or July. She said that would be an additional $20,800 in her budget or it could come out of courthouse budget. She told the commissioner she wanted somebody learning the full cycle of Hall’s job.
Johnson told Ware, “I would like a signed letter that says the date somebody is leaving.”
Ware agreed, “I don’t have any issue with that.
Hamilton asked, “Is that something you could learn from Joyce and train the next person?”
“I’m not sure when I am supposed to have time to do that,” Ware answered. “I am already putting in 50 to 60 hours a week..”
“See, that’s what I mean,” Hamilton said. “That would be my only other question would just be so if you don’t know every position, does someone else other than Joyce know the position?”
“Not right now,” Ware answered.
Hamilton said that somebody else has to know the position
Ware reiterated, “That’s what I am getting at, and right now the other individuals in my office do not have the time to learn another position. There is, I think, people underestimate everything that comes through that clerk’s office. I know I was very guilty of that prior to me being in this position. Literally every move that is made comes through that office, anything that happens through this county.”
“We are the recordkeeper of literally everything and then throw the election in on that, payroll in on that, human resources in on that, literally everything comes through our office so it has been really tough.
“I’ll use Julie as an example. Julie had to learn how to do payroll trial and error. And we saw the mistakes that took place. And the fiasco that took place with that. I do not want that to happen with accounts payable.”
Hamilton said, “I definitely feel like there needs to be some cross-training in your office.”
”If something happened to Joyce,” Hamilton continued, “you would take her position and figure it out, right? You would have to.”
“I would have to, but I would have to spend even more hours than what I already do,” Ware answered. “I mean, I worked until 10 p.m. the other night.”
Hamilton said she was just asking what Ware would do.
“I would have to put my life on hold even more than what I already do to figure it out,” Ware answered.
More discussion was held on how much the contingency fund should be funded. Ware said she was not comfortable with the contingency fund for the courthouse being dropped from the $350,000 to $250,000.
She said that the commission should be aware and cautious that when that gets knocked down now and maybe in two years, if we need to raise that to say for $450,000 because we didn’t have anything left over.
Ware said, “This particular fund, and again David (Lamb), correct me if I’m wrong, is for an unexpected expense and there might not be enough money somewhere else to pay for that. And this unexpected expense could be potentially be the boiler in the courthouse.
“It literally could be for anything. It could be this building is wiped out or something. And we have to have some funds, and again I understand insurance comes into play in some of this but maybe not in everything. I just want us to be cautious about dropping that drastically back to that. I understand we may not use it each year, but if we don’t have it and we have an unexpected expense, I’m not sure.”
Hamilton asked how much is in contingency.
Ware replied roughly $250,000.
Johnson asked, “Why could we not have one capital outlay for the county? My analysis would be, David, I don’t have one for a washer and dryer and one for a refrigerator, and just have one. I’m just asking a question because not everybody is going to have an emergency is what I’m saying.”
Lamb said that when the county has a capital improvement fund, there is supposed to be a resolution that governs what that is for.
“So if you wanted to set that up, it would be something you could work with your counselor on,” Lamb said.
“I hated for us to cut it too short,” Ware said. “I hated that if we got into leaving it at $250,000 I mean $250,000 is not a lot of money.”
Other discussion was held on the bonds for the jail and whether any of the money from the first $2 million transmission line settlement could be used to pay that off.
Comments