The Emporia Gazette

February 9, 2012

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Lyon County commissioners reduced the proposed mill levy increase for 2011 Thursday and will publish the 2011 budget, which sets a cap on the amount of tax that can be levied. The budget has to be passed by Sept. 9 after the county was granted a two-week extension to pass the budget.

Commissioners originally were looking at a 5-mill increase. A mill in Lyon County raises $229,000. The mill levy the county reached during Thursday’s meeting is 52.954, which is an 3.547-mill increase over 2010.

During Thursday’s action session, commissioners made $45,000 in cuts from various items in the general fund. The fund cuts include:

• Fair Board: $1,000
• Soil Conservation: $3,000
• Lyon County Extension Office: $1,000
• LCAT: $7,500
• RSVP: $1,000
• Lyon County Council on Aging: $1,500
• Fireworks: $5,000
• Emporia Main Street: $1,000
• Hazardous waste: $15,000
• Employee fringe benefits: $5,000
• Lyon County Historical Society: $3,000
• William Allen White State Historic Site: $1,000

The other cuts came from a 1.6-mill reduction in the county’s multi-year capital outlay fund. During earlier budget talks, the commission talked about reducing the amount of mill levy dedicated to the road and bridge budget and putting the balance in the multi-year fund.

During Thursday’s meeting, commissioners opted to remove that amount. Any excess from sales tax and prisoner care fees will likely be transferred into multi-year. Dan Slater, Lyon County controller, said either of those could easily equate to 2 mills.

Slater said the county is using some optimism without dipping into their savings account. The county’s multi-year fund has enough money in it to cover 2011 budget, Slater said. After 2011, the future of the fund is uncertain depending on the amount of revenue coming into the fund.

Bobbie Agler, of A&M Consultants, encouraged commissioners to plan ahead to where the county is going to be a year from now.

“Either taxes or revenue somehow are going to have to go through the roof,” Agler said. “Between now and less than a year from now we need to have reorganized what we’re going to look like in some way, shape or form...you only have two choices: change operations or do something with the finances, which you’ve only got two solutions: raise income or reduce expenses.”

Commission Vice-Chairman Rollie Martin agreed that planning ahead is necessary.

“No matter how we fund this budget, we’re going to have to have a personnel plan,” Martin said. “We’ve got to be ahead of the storm and that’s where we’ve gotta start thinking...”

Despite a tough budget discussion, Agler said it’s not all bad and no matter what the solution somebody is going to be affected.

“I’m not doom and gloom, there is an answer, but I don’t know what the answer is,” he said. “You either raise revenue or lower expenses and somebody is going to be impacted. And it’s going to be people because that’s where most of your budget is.”

Lyon County Commission Chairman Scott Briggs agreed.

“It’s not just the employees that are going to be impacted,” Briggs said. “The whole community is going to be impacted. My fear is that by doing something drastic, that we could cause more harm than good to the community and we’ll be paying for it two to three years down the line worse than we are now.”

Certain cuts would have a larger impact than others. When it comes to services such as SOS, which gets around $15,000 from the county, it affects more than just dollars, said Marc Goodman, Lyon County attorney.

“If you’re talking SOS, you’re talking domestic violence victims, victim advocates, protection from abuse and stalking orders, multi-cultural assistance, sexual assault assistance, sexual assault exam assistants, CASA, child advocacy, outreach program at Emporia State University, and that’s nine from the top of my head I can come up with,” Goodman said. “Every one of those has a victim impact to them.”

Gary Eichorn, Lyon County sheriff, said several law enforcement activities are impacted by SOS’ services including the child advocacy center. Eichorn said the center tapes an interview with a child victim, allowing the child to be interviewed only once rather than several times. Each person involved in the case gets a tape of the interview, Eichorn said.

Lyon County Jail

Prior to the heavy budget discussion, commissioners asked Eichorn and Lyon County Jail Supervisor Brian Anstey to talk about the jail’s budget.

“Our budget is pretty expensive,” Eichorn said.

Eichorn said many times he asks the public how many people they think are in jail. Many people reply about 25, he said. The jail averages about 130 people.

Due to Johnson County building a new jail, Lyon County lost $400,000 in revenue a year from those prisoners, which is a part of the county’s revenue stream problem.

Eichorn said the jail is a business within itself. It furnishes everything for the local inmates.

“Probably one percent or less have health insurance,” Eichorn said. “We are mandated to provide insurance and medical care.”

Eichorn said the county could charge to keep local inmates, but the amount would be nearly uncollectable.

“Somebody would have to try to get that kind of money out of those people,” he said. “They don’t make that kind of money a year. Somebody would be trying to recover that money for years.”

There are 46 staff members connected with the jail. Of those is an RN and LPN. To save on liability costs, an RN was hired and works eight hours a day. The LPN comes in during the evening hours. Among the LPN’s duties are to administer medications.

“It’s a full-time job to take care of medications,” Eichorn said.

The jail also has to provide transportation to its inmates. They have to be transported to and from court and also brought in from other jail facilities. For out of county inmates, the jail only has to feed and do laundry. The agency connected with that inmate provides the rest of the services.

Eichorn also gave figures on how much it costs to feed inmates. It costs $8.03 for three meals. That’s cooking staff and everything, Eichorn said.

“We’re required to serve a balanced diet,” Eichorn said. “There have been Supreme Court issues about that.”

The jail also has to process inmates who are on work release.

“We have 36 people on work release,” Eichorn said. “They are leaving all hours of the day and night. We have to process them out and process them back in. That’s more labor intensive.”

Lyon County Attorney Marc Goodman asked Eichorn what would happen if 35 percent of the sheriff patrol officers had to be cut.

“The we would go back to where we were 12 or 15 years ago,” Eichorn said, adding that when he was on the road, there was only one officer per 12-hour shift on the road. “There wasn’t anybody else many weekends and you’re out there by yourself 12 hours a day. I think this day and age, I would think the public is going to require more than one person in the county.”

The sheriff’s office has five officers assigned to a shift with three shifts a day.

“With training and days off we maintain three,” Eichorn said. “That’s what it takes. Around the clock.”

There is some help from the county’s Senior Patrol program, which puts citizens in that program on the street doing home checks and other tasks around the county like traffic surveys.

“We don’t have any labor costs on that,” Eichorn said.

Goodman posed a question to Anstey regarding cutting the jail staff by a third.

“That safety of the staff would go down,” Anstey said. “And overtime would go up because you still have to get the inmates where they need to go.”

In other matters commissioners approved:

• The purchases of 12 badges and 12 badge holders for staff of the Community Corrections in the amount of $1,140.

• Chip Woods attending the 35th Annual KAC conference in Overland Park and pay the $210 registration fee and related travel expenses.

• The low bid from Hutchinson Salt Co. for 500 tons of salt for the 2010-11 season.

• A $500 donation from Fund 86, a fund that is not supported by tax money, for the Emporia Area Girl Scouts Council Outreach Program.

• A purchase of a XG Xion 7000 computer tower for $1,007.40 for the county appraiser’s office.

• Approved the purchase of a Savin C 9020 digital color imaging system from Century United bit at $7,521 with the net expenditure being $4,387 after a trade-in allowance of $3,134 for a Savin 4018 copier and an HP5500 color printer for the county appraiser’s office.

• Approved a color printer/imaging system to replace a printer that is no longer working in the office and approval for the purchase of a computer tower for the GIS/mapping office.

• Approved of Ruth Wheeler’s, Lyon County court administrator, acceptance into the 2010 Leadership Emporia class.

• Approved warrants payable in the amount of $329,031.30.

• Approved of payroll payable in the amount of $216,486.84.

• Approved of payroll withholdings in the amount of $151,016.92.

• Approved Agler & Gaeddert Charted for annual audit, which the county is required to have done.