The Polk County Board of Commissioners spent the last two days reviewing the county’s department budgets and determining the preliminary Tax Levy for 2022. After some discussion from the commissioners the past two days, they have agreed to set the preliminary Tax Levy at a 4.6% increase from 2021 and will use the next few months before the end of the year to try and lower the final Tax Levy to around a 3% increase for 2022. The official approval of the 4.6% Tax Levy will take place at the next Commissioners Board meeting on September 28.
Over the past fourteen years, the annual average increase for the county’s Net Tax Levy has been 2.8%. The initial 4.6% increase from the 2021 levy, which is 25 million dollars, brings the preliminary 2022 levy to 26.15 million. The goal will now be to try and get the levy down to a 3% increase which would result in a $25.75 million Net Tax Levy for 2022.
Polk County Administrator Chuck Whiting discussed where they’re at in the process and why the initial numbers aren’t significant in the grand scheme of things. “They haven’t made any changes in department budgets yet, and we have a ways to go,” said Whiting. We’re not too far off where we usually are, but we certainly have more requests than will agree too so we will need work on that.”
Whiting explained the next steps from the board as they move forward with lowering the levy. “A lot of what we do at this point is to engage the board with each department head on operational things and things the board should be paying attention to,” said Whiting. “We have the double event this year of negotiating our labor contracts, so a large portion of the budget remains up in the air at this point.”
In the next couple of weeks, an official budget will be put together before a public hearing can take place. This year the public hearing is set to take place on November 30, where the public can come in and comment on the budget.
A few of the bigger budgets reviewed the past two days within the county include the Polk County Public Health Budget, Polk County Sheriff’s Office Budget and Polk County Highway Budget.
Whiting gave an overview of the county’s Public Health Budget and the role COVID-19 plays with the numbers. “The department is certainly busy, so much of their budget is staff related, but also programs they run,” said Whiting. “Covid is certainly playing a role and effecting that. We’re still going to be doing Flu shots that are coming up, and a lot of time and resources right now are being spent in the schools and working with them to fight Covid.”
Because of this, the Health Budget and overall numbers are hard to predict, and the budget will be tough to estimate for the County Commissioners in 2022.
Another big-budget was the Polk County Sheriff’s Budget. Whiting talked about one item that will need to be adjusted in this year’s budget. “Sheriff Tadman mentioned they’ve been used to getting pickups and Tahoe’s for their squad cars, and they’re not going to be available this upcoming year,” said Whiting. “We started leasing with Enterprise a few years ago, and that’s helped us as far as a national outlet for getting vehicles goes. This is a supply change issue we’re seeing, and Tadman told the board he will need to go to plan B and will see how that ends up affecting that budget overall.”
Similar to the Health Budget, the Sheriff’s Budget also may change in the coming weeks and be hard to predict for 2022.
The Polk County Highway Budget was another big-budget, and Whiting mentioned what this budget will look like in 2022. “It’s about what it’s been, it’s a little higher this year, but it looks normal,” said Whiting. “It’s an increase from a levy standpoint, but in the end, we do what the board allows us to do.”
The main portion of the Highway Department Budget relates to the different road projects that will take place each year, so the budget varies from year to year. Whiting believes with the anticipated plans for road work in 2022, the budget looks good even though there will be a slight increase.
Whiting also talked about how there will be a lot of time spent on narrowing down the budget to hit their target of a 3% increase from this point moving forward. “There will be a lot of time in late September, October, and early November to try and mush the budget together, so we don’t end up doing more than a 3% increase,” said Whiting. “We will present a finalized budget, what’s new, how it breaks, and the moving parts of it, at the public hearing on November 30. After that, the board of commissioners can approve the budget in December for 2022, and it will be ready on January 1 of the new year.”
The last board meeting in December, the Commissioners will finalize the 2022 budget for Polk County. The next Polk County Board of Commissioners meeting will take place next Tuesday, September 28, where they will approve an initial 4.6% increase as a starting point to work down from.
