Monday Conversation is a question-and-answer interview with a local person. This week’s interview is with Lyon County Commissioner Marshall Miller.
Q How is the budget process for Lyon County going this year?
A It seems like it has been long. We started early and are finishing late. We are about a week behind what is required. Right now we don’t have a firm state assessment figure. We know there is about 3.4 million out there, which has not yet been adjusted so we have not included it in our calculations.
We are quite certain it will be exempt but we are waiting for the Board of Tax Appeals to make a decision right now. We will have a public hearing on the budget this week and then (wait to see) if there is any final adjustment before we actually pass the final budget.
The one thing that is locked in is the maximum tax we can collect at this point. It can’t go up it can only go down. The levy is only an estimate at this point and we will probably delay locking in that evaluation as long as we can. Right now our budget is at a $500,000 increase in taxes.
Q Do you feel like you held the line this year on the budget?
A I feel like we have done our best to hold it down the best we can. Right now, we have projected a small mill levy increase — 1.232. We have not really allowed any wage adjustments for the last two years and this year we allowed a 2 percent wage enhancement to every department.
Department heads will be able to allocate that 2 percent as they desire, but most likely it will be across the board. Also, another thing that is new, the contract that we have with the city-county ambulance service, so we have a sizable check of $155,000 going to the city. I think we have done pretty good for the circumstances even with increased commodity costs and transportation costs.
Q Any big changes in the budget this year?
A At this time there is nothing dramatic.
Q While you were going through the budget process, what feedback did you get from the community?
A Personally, we did not hear a whole lot. Most of the attention was placed on the city’s budget process. We were kind of behind the scenes. But our levies are going to be pretty much the same. We attended three meetings with the city, but there was not a whole lot of discussion about the county’s budget.
Even though this year we were behind the scenes people need to understand that the city and county are two different operating budgets.
Q Any last thoughts?
A I will be happy when this week is over. The budget process is really an unpleasant experience because you seem like a bad guy all the time. But that is required of us and that is why we are there.