09-15-2014 - Laserfiche WebLink

Commission Minutes—September 15, 2014 4370 6. BUDGET, Public hearing on 2015 preliminary budget; final budget approved A public hearing was advertised for this date, time and place to allow for public input on the 2015 Cass County preliminary budget. Notice of today's hearing, containing the budget funds and levy summary for the coming year, was published in the official newspaper of the county on September 1, 2014. Mr. Pawluk opened the public hearing for comments. Gary Hoffman owns farm land south of Fargo. He received a notice from the county regarding a tax increase, which he opposes. He said farmers are experiencing tough times and over the last two years taxes on his farm land have increased by $25,000. Mr. Pawluk asked for further comments, and hearing none, closed the public hearing. Michael Montplaisir, Cass County Auditor, said the county mill levy for 2014 is 71.82 mills, the same as last year. He briefly explained the "zero number of mill increase" formula outlined in state law, which allows an entity to collect additional taxes from new properties, however inflationary growth from existing properties that results in increases to valuations must be used to lower the mill levy. He said notices were sent to approximately 6,000 taxpayers as the county did not meet the zero number of mills criteria. Mr. Montplaisir said original General Fund requests were $31 million with revenues of $27.3 million which would result in deficit spending of $3.5 million. Through budget deliberations, the commission reduced expenditures to $30 million and through maintaining the same mill levy rate as last year, increased revenues by $1.5 million. Mr. Montplaisir said the Human Service Fund was lowered by $250,000 through reducing the number of new employee requests. The majority of this fund covers services mandated by the state and federal governments. The County Road and Bridge Fund did not change much from the original request as this fund is project driven and is also affected by state dollars allocated to the county. Mr. Montplaisir discussed revenue sources with about 60% generated through property taxes; 30% from intergovernmental and state shared revenues; and 10% through fees charged for county services. The county will spend some reserves but sufficient dollars will remain to cover unexpected events or emergencies, such as flooding. A short presentation was given on OpenGov, the new financial data portal available on the county website, which provides access to the current and previous budget years and other financial statements. The portal allows data to be placed into charts and graphs and may be downloaded into an Excel spreadsheet. MOTION, passed Mr. Bennett moved and Mrs. Scherling seconded to approve the 2015 Cass County Budget in the amount of $88,300,207 with a mill levy of 71.82 mills for the General, Special Revenue, and Debt Service Funds; 1.80 mills for the Weed Control District; 1 mill for the Vector Control District; .35 of a mill for the County Park; 4 mills for each of the Water Resource Districts; and 2 mills for the Red River Joint Water Resource District. On roll call vote, the motion carried unanimously.