Commission could face angry employees at today's budget meeting

By Roger Sims, rsims@linncountyjournal.com

MOUND CITY – A budget meeting of the Linn County Commission planned for Friday, July 11, could see some pushback from county employees on a plan by commissioners to cut at least one employee benefit so the county can meet the revenue-neutral tax rate for 2026.

(The meeting will be live-streamed on YouTube. To find the meeting, go to the YouTube website and enter this in the search bar: linn county kansas live stream.)

A survey sent out Thursday to Linn County employees by County Clerk Danielle Souza has drawn harsh criticism from almost all of the 34 employees who either took the survey or said they declined to take the survey.

The survey asked employees which benefit they would rather lose during the 2026 fiscal year. The survey noted that the Linn County Board of Commissioners were planning for the 2026 county budget to remain revenue neutral and ask that they employees forego either:

• The HSA (health savings account)

• The preferred insurance vendor, Blue Cross Blue Shield, or

• A raise for the 2026 fiscal year. 

The employees were given 24 hours to vote on their choice of which benefit they would choose to lose.

Several workers posted in the comments that none of the choices was acceptable.

Posted on a public website, some of the responses were deleted, possibly because of language. Other comments weren’t kind toward the commissioners but didn’t included obscenities. At least one person indicated that he would be seeking employment elsewhere.

The location of the survey’s open website was leaked to the Journal, however, the editorial staff’s decision was to withhold employee names because they might have falsely assumed that the website was secure.

A revenue neutral budget is one that does not increase taxes over the previous year. It would mean that Linn County could not levy more taxes than what was levied in 2025.

Over the past several years the county has been able to tap into its windfall revenue from a gas pipeline crossing the county as well as other reserve funds.

However, as one employee pointed out, former county clerk David Lamb warned the commission that the county couldn’t sustain a revenue neutral budget indefinitely. Inflation, including rising labor costs, would eventually put the county in a hole that would be difficult to climb out of without a sizable tax increase.

One person responded that the commissioners were ignoring the advice of a consultant who urged the commission to forego revenue neutral for 2026.

Another employee complained that the county’s wage and benefit package had only come close to being competitive a year ago following a three-year stretch of no raises.

One department head said that her department lost two good workers recently because the county’s wages were not competitive.