Madison County Board OKs $143 million budget, faces ‘uncertain’ 2021 due to COVID-19
Madison County Board members this week approved a $143 million budget for 2021 along with a $30.8 million tax levy.
The board passed the budget 24-0, with no discussion, at its Monday night meeting. It goes into effect on Dec. 1.
County Board Chairman Kurt Prenzler said the budget has been heavily influenced by the COVID-19 pandemic but pledged that property taxes, which help fund the budget, won’t go up in the near future. The budget is funded by fees, sales taxes, grants and other sources as well.
The budget includes five separate funds:
$48,216,767 in general fund expenses
$74,641,931 of special revenue funds
$2,330,995 of funds for capital projects
$14,761,599 of internal service funds
$3,851,558 of Enterprise Funds
The county’s general fund is lower than 2020’s projection of $50,702,051. The general fund goes toward the county’s day-to-day operations.
Prenzler said the budget was conservative and something the county can be proud of under the strain of COVID-19. He said the entire county tightened its budget to avoid layoffs while keeping the budget flat.
“Every county official and every department sacrificed to get us to this place,” Prenzler said. “There’s a lot of uncertainty we’re looking at in 2021 so it’s a conservative budget.”
The coming budget year will mark the fourth year in a row the property tax levy has remained at $30.8 million. The levy is the total amount the county requests from property taxes and is used to finance a portion of the budget. One-third of the county’s budget is funded by the county’s tax levy.
“Four years ago, we reduced the levy by $1.8 million and since that time we haven’t raised it,” Prenzler said.
In August, Prenzler said 2021 would be the county’s toughest budget year yet due to significant shrinking of income from fees, sales taxes and property taxes, plus the possibility of receiving less money from the state and federal governments, which funds payroll for several county employees through grants and other avenues.
The county experienced a $2.4 million revenue shortfall in 2020 due to the loss of that revenue.
In August, the county board voted to rescind a 2.24 percent cost-of-living increase originally approved in December 2019. The cut affected 362 non-union employees.
You can see how much county employees are paid at https://www.bnd.com/publicpay
COVID-19 has played a large part in the shrinking revenue for the county. Large contributors to the county’s tax collections, like bars and restaurants, have been forced to shut down or reduce their operations since the pandemic began.
He said, however, that the fiscal year 2021 budget is balanced and that while COVID-19 has made things difficult, the county still does not expect to have to lay off any employees.
Prenzler added that keeping the budget flat and avoiding raising taxes is especially important now, as COVID-19 continues to spread.
“This is a tough time and when taxing entities do that (increase levees), they need to consider that the taxpayers are in a tough spot as well,” he said.