County budgets one percent levy; no public comment

The Lyon County Truth and Taxation Hearing was held Thursday night to give the public a chance to see the 2018 proposed budget. The “truth” is … taxation didn’t go up much — but when it came to “the public” — well, there was just one person in attendance.
County Administrator Loren Stomberg went through the county’s budget, which showed a net increase of just $143,188 or one percent total net levy increase from last year. The 2017 levy was $14,318,823.
Many of the departments had decreases in funding — including a 35.2 percent decrease in the administrators fund a six percent decrease in the auditor/treasurer budget and a 17 percent decrease in the financial accounting department.
There are, of-course, departments that increased this past year.
Last year the county had a governmental improvement project and there were not such projects in the budget for this coming year.
The county held the line in law enforcement expenses. In fact, they went down about five percent from the previous year.
The county will hold an election this year and, “Elections are expensive,” said Stomberg. The board has been talking about new equipment and election budget will go up by 23.7 percent.
The county is planning on putting some money into the heating and air conditioning system at the Lyon County Museum. As a result, the budget will increase by 155 percent.
The Environmental Department’s budget is at $639,026 and it’s under budget from a year ago. The highway budget, at about $7.3 million is “about status quo,” said Administrator Stomberg.
The 2018 budget shows general revenue of just over $8 million a decrease if three percent from this year. Road and Bridge fund is just over $2 million; human services levy over $3 million and with debt service money it comes to a budget of $14,462.
Obviously the county board has made a concerted effort to hold down tax increases.
Of the total taxes proposed for 2018, 50.4 percent comes from agricultural taxes; 23.5 percent from residential taxes; 17.9 percent from commercial/industrial taxes and 8.2 percent from all other sources (including public utilities, railroad property and personal property).
There were no public comments and the board approved the final budget for 2018.