County aims for no-growth budget

This Friday (June 27), McLeod County’s department heads are due to complete their 2009 proposed budgets. This year, they’ve been asked to keep growth in their operating expenses down to zero.

“I did make an exception for fuel prices,” said County Auditor and acting County Administrator Cindy Schultz. “How that’s going to play out, I don’t know, because that’s definitely a concern for us at this point.”

The county’s budget committee — consisting of commissioners Grant Knutson, Sheldon Nies and Schultz — is itself under spending pressure from the state. The Legislature this year passed a cap on how much counties, and cities with populations more than 2,500, can raise their levies.

McLeod County has dealt with state-mandated levy limits before, most recently from 2002 to 2004. Back then, Schultz recalled, the county made ends meet by prioritizing some services over others and not filling some positions when they became vacant. Once again, she said, “We have to look at that across the whole county.”

Schultz said the question will be, “Can we get by in 2009 without doing any major cuts?”

For more on this story, see the Leader’s June 24 print edition.

(Jorge Sosa is a staff writer for the Hutchinson Leader. He can be reached at sosa@hutchinsonleader.com)