At first blush, said Cook County Auditor/Treasurer Braidy Powers, the 2019 proposed levy of 8.1 percent doesn’t look too bad.
Especially, he said, when the board was usually looking at an initial levy “in the high twenties.”
Powers was addressing the Cook County Board of Commissioners at the board’s Tuesday, August 21 meeting. This was the first iteration of the county’s department heads’ requests for their 2019 budgets.
“We’ve already identified cuts that will bring it (levy) under 8 percent,” said Powers after the meeting, adding, “And I strongly expect it will go significantly lower before the proposed budget is approved in September.”
Two unexpected things helped keep the first levy request relatively low. The first, said Powers, was a one percent increase in health insurance, not the 10 percent the county was budgeting for. “We are looking at about $190,000 difference to the good,” he said, noting that for the second year in a row health insurance was lower than expected.
Also, the county received a much higher than anticipated federal payment in lieu of taxes (PILT). This is for owned land not subject to property taxes. Cook County has about 92 percent state and federally owned property.
This year Minnesota’s 87 counties received $35.7 million, an increase of $3.6 million the state paid from its general fund. St. Louis County received the most money, $3,792,466 while Cook County was paid $761,000.
PILT was set up to offset revenues not collected for public lands.
For now, the PILT funds will go into the general fund balance, said Powers. But once he gets more information from the feds about the payment this year, he will put some of the funds into the highway department’s budget.
“Or maybe it’s the school’s money. We don’t know,” he said.
Cook County administrator Jeff Cadwell said $100,000 had been added to the YMCA budget, which was about $170,000 or $180,000 this year.
About the YMCA budget, Cadwell added, “We need to get on the [Grand Marais City Council] agenda and update our contract with the city and get a contract reflective of the current financial situation.”
Both the city of Grand Marais and the county contribute to the YMCA. The town of Grand Marais chips in $110,000 each year, but costs to run the facility have continued to grow higher than expected.
Administrator Cadwell also said the YMCA budget would be included in the general budget and not be a “stand alone” item. “So you won’t see it on the summary as a line item.”
As far as staffing the YMCA with janitors, Cadwell said the county had a full-time and 8-hour part-time person working, but when the part-time person left, “We had trouble getting that second person back.” In the end, he said the county was going “back to what we had in 2017.” He added that the county was technically “taking a half-time FTE (full-time employee) off of the books.”
Powers gave a snapshot of the current requests. “What we have right now is a 12.5 increase in the general fund. The highway department kept to a 2.53 percent request while Public Health and Human Services has a 16.6 increase but that includes $130,000 in non-mandated programs, which is reflected in their budget right now.”
The 2019 levy request as it stands now is $9,986,788, an increase of $759,037 over the 2018 mark of $9,236,751.
2019 staffing requests
IT director Rena Rogers is requesting a full-time technician to be hired in the IT department to handle the increased workload. Cadwell said at one time the county had 68, but now 105 workstations need to be maintained. As county employees get more mobile, their laptops and handheld devices have to be updated so they can communicate with the county departments they are working for. Last, Cadwell said the IT department is on call 24-7.
Next Powers said that after 27 years Diane Booth was requesting some help at the Community Center. She has worked an additional 400 hours per year for 10 years, said Powers. At one time there were two full-time employees at the Community Center, but the hours were cut from 80 to 40 and Booth has been expected to do the same or even add more services with less.
Veteran Service officer Pat Strand has once again asked to be full-time in that capacity. Today she works 20 hours for Health and Human Services and 20 hours as the county’s Veteran Service officer. Powers said she laid out a case for why commissioners should allow her to gofull-timeina2½page letter, and he encouraged the commissioners to read it.
Valerie Marasco, Cook County Public Information director, also requested a half-time helper so she could concentrate more on her work as the county’s Emergency Management director.
Cadwell said the county’s human resource generalist, Judy Hill, will go from 30 hours to 35 hours per week. And a jailer at LEC will add 10 hours per week to her schedule, “to reflect the work that they are already doing.”
All told, requests for additional staff totaled 3.15 FTE and will be addressed separately at future meetings after the 2019 budget is set.
Cook County/Grand Marais Economic Development Authority (EDA) report
Scott Harrison and Howard Hedstrom came before the county board with a brief update about the workings of the EDA over the past year.
Housing has been the main priority, and Harrison said that there have been 28 applications for the four houses built by One Roof Housing in the EDA-sponsored Nordic Star Housing Development in Grand Marais.
Harrison told about the success of completing the work at Superior National golf course in Lutsen and said people came from near and far for the grand reopening ceremony held this past June. Scott also noted that the EDA hoped to have the Lutsen workforce housing project competed with occupancy by November 1, 2018.
Hedstrom noted that the EDA had spent over $4 million on the two housing projects and the request for five percent more to their $75,000 budget would only be an additional $14,000, bringing their 2019 levy to $289,000.
No action was taken by the county board on the EDA’s request at this time, but it will be further discussed at future meetings and budget sessions.
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