Riley County commissioners are looking to make several cuts to the 2020 budget, so as to not have an election.
Budget and Finance Officer Tami Robison presented revenues to the commissioners Monday since they now know the cost of the mill and mill levy. Currently, the value of the mill is $657,136 with a mill levy of 44.403 mills to fund the 2020 proposed budget. This is a 3.486 mill increase from the 2019 budgeted mill levy.
This is all based on the county having revenue of $13,003,688 and expenditures of $42,124,320. This will require the county have ad valorem tax of $29,178,315.
Right now, the county is over the maximum limit for the tax lid levy that will require them to hold an election for the budget. They are over by $855,831. The commissioners would like to keep the budget flat with last year’s mill levy, but that will require they cut $2.3 million.
Commissioners will need to let the Riley County Clerk know by July 1 if an election will be necessary. That would imposed an additional cost of $60,000 to the county. If the election is necessary, they will have to have the budget adopted by October 1. If not, it will be August 25.
The commission will also need to have a budget hearing adopt the budget. It will need to be held at least 10 days after it has been published. Robison has the budget hearing preliminary scheduled for August 1.
The commissioners then looked over the appropriation requests from department again to see where they can make cuts. The emergency shelter, animal shelter, council on aging, and Pawnee Mental Health all had cuts made to their request. Pawnee had the largest cut with approximately $200,000 from their request. They were requesting $531,395, but the commission gave consensus for $300,000.
Cuts were also made to the Manhattan Chamber of Commerce and the Aggieville Business Association. The chamber will receive $55,000 of the $60,000 they requested and the Aggieville Business Association will not receive any funding from the county.
