County seeks answers after commission, courthouse and four offices overspend budget
- Charlene Sims, Journal staff
- 2 days ago
- 3 min read
By Charlene Sims
MOUND CITY - As the Linn County Commissioners viewed the county budget in order to finalize carryovers and make last minute adjustments on Monday, Jan.12, they became aware that several departments had gone over their budgets, in fact, the courthouse budget and the commission’s budget were overspent by $67,700 and $11,200, respectively.
Other departments that overspent their budgets included Register of Deeds by $13,500, County Attorney by $2,500, American Medical Response (AMR) by $4,600, and the Treasurer’s Office by $1,700.
While the county was under budget by about $4.2 million, Commissioner Jason Hightower pointed out that the majority of that was in the contingency fund.
When looking at the commissioners’ budget, Commissioner Jim Johnson asked where the deficits came from.
“I don’t understand that,” Commission Chair Alison Hamilton said. “We should be setting an example of how we’re spending money. We should be setting an example of when we are getting close to going over, why and how.”
Discussion was held about whether something was taken out of the commissioners budget that should have been taken out of another budget. Nor did the commissioners understand why the salary section of their budget had gone over its limit by $2,000.
Hamilton asked County Clerk Chasity Ware to breakdown the contractual costs for the courthouse budget for next week.
“It’s $60,000 some that they went over,” said Hamilton.
After discussing more about the budgets the commissioners voted on Resolution 2025-32 to approve the following monies to be moved to the special equipment reserve fund:
District Court had almost $9,500 left over and asked to move $5,000 for more soundproofing for the jury room to the special equipment fund. The remainder will go into the general fund.
Information Technology had almost $24,400 remaining and asked to move $24,000 to work on towers and servers in the jail. The remainder will go into the general fund.
Emergency Preparedness asked to move $15,000 for new sirens to the special equipment reserve fund.
GIS/Mapping asked to move $40,000 for updating mapping equipment.
The Appraiser’s office wanted to move $40,000 to the special equipment reserve fund for replacing vehicles.The appraiser’s office had budgeted nearly $502,800 and had spent nearly $451,000.
Out of the $41,200 remaining in Economic Development’s budget, $40,000 will go the special equipment reserve fund.
The Election fund had $18,200 remaining; $15,000 will be moved over to the special equipment fund.
County Clerk’s office had $3,000 remaining; $2,900 of that will be moved to the special equipment fund to purchase desks for the county clerk’s office, Ware told the commissioners that desks in the clerk’s department were old and would not lock.
Sheriff’s Office had $223,000 left over, $152,000 will be carried over to the special equipment reserve fund to purchase new Tasers. The remainder will go to the general fund.
Linn County Park and Marina had almost $123,900 left over; $25,000 will be moved to equipment reserve for the park and $25,000 to park contingency fund.
The following Public Works departments will move the following to the special equipment reserve fund:
Solid Waste was under their budget by $158,400 that will be carried over to their budget. Johnson said he knew they would spend the money in solid waste but didn’t know about the money in noxious weed.
Noxious Weed had about $44,200 remaining; the commissioners decided to carry over $20,000 to the special equipment reserve fund.
Custodial had $24,000 remaining; commissioners decided to carry over $10,000 for that department.
The commissioners decided not to carry over to the special equipment reserve fund $39,800 that the Planning and Zoning Department had left over. Their discussion on this centered around that the department had a fairly new truck. Also, Hamilton said in the future, she would like to have a document to show what that department is working towards.
Commissioners approved Resolution 2025-33 for moving more than $550,200 from the Road and Bridge department to the Special Road and Bridge Fund.
On Tuesday, Jan. 20, the commissioners passed an amendment to Resolution No. 2025-33 that added more than $106,000 from Rural Fire to be transferred to the Special Fire Equipment fund.
Both resolutions 2025-32 and 2025-33 were back-dated to Dec. 29, 2025, at the suggestion of Rodney Burns, Linn County’s auditor.
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