Heather Knebel.

February was a very busy month for us Tama County Supervisors. We didn’t just get our feet wet but jumped right in! We started the month by finding out that we could not make payroll because the General Basic Fund was getting extremely low and that the Budget approved last year by the prior Board of Supervisors indicated we would have a negative balance of ($948,000) by the fiscal year end date of June 30, 2025. The Fiscal Year began at $14M total balance for the county, and I was shocked that all those dollars had been spent and I questioned where all that money could have gone. I have since learned that we aren’t “out” of money, as we still have $13M in various accounts, but those dollars are in accounts other than the general basic fund and that cannot be used for payroll and several operating expenses for the county. The county is overspending by $2M per year from the General Basic Fund. This is not sustainable. Thankfully E911 agreed to transfer extra money that they had received for a future building facility into the General Basic Fund so the county could meet payroll expenses until property tax revenues are received in March.

The Board of Supervisors and Department Heads have spent countless hours reviewing and reducing budget expenditures due to the overspending. I want to give a shout out to Supervisor Mark Doland for the excellent leadership he has demonstrated as Board Chair. He spent several hours working on various options to cut expenses and has gone to the capital a few times to find solutions. His previous Supervisor experience has been invaluable during this budget building process.

For many years, the county had enough cash in reserves, but those dollars were likely diminished by overspending, higher costs, and wage increases the last few years. We were put in this position by the previous Board of Supervisors but it’s our job to fix it. As elected Supervisors, our responsibility is to manage and approve the budget. The General Basic Fund maximum levy is set by the state legislature, and we are currently at the maximum and have been for several years. We have therefore made and will continue to make some very difficult decisions to reach a balanced budget. It’s never easy to eliminate positions but we must do what’s best for Tama County taxpayers and the county. We are exploring all options and quoting things out. Selling the County Farm was brought up as one option. It’s around 100 acres of tillable and pasture ground that is rented out today and is located by the landfill and county shed. I would prefer to keep it if we can as farmland is important to not sell but it never hurts to look at it and at least understand what it appraises for. We are pushing to breakeven or be slightly above in the General Basic Fund by the end of June 2025. For Fiscal Year 2025-2026, the Board has spent several hours working on the budget. We need to cut $2M in expenses from the General Basic Fund. We are at roughly $1M-1.4M so far that we have reduced expenses. I’m thankful for our five-member Board of Supervisors and Department heads for working to reduce expenses during this unfortunate situation.

While reviewing the proposed General Supplemental levy for Fiscal Year 2025-2026, the recommendation for the Board (not from the Board) was a very steep increase in property taxes that I wasn’t interested in passing onto taxpayers. I asked lots of questions and recommended that the Tama County Auditor and I meet with the Marshall County Auditor for review and suggestions. They provided us with a spreadsheet they use for budgets. I input Tama County’s revenue, expenses, and estimated fund balance for each account into the spreadsheet. By doing this, I learned that we would not need a tax increase for this specific levy. This will save us having to raise the General Supplemental levy by $2.5M that isn’t needed by how the budget currently looks. Which is awesome news!

While working on the budget, we also learned that we could move the expense for Sheriff patrol deputies in rural areas to the Rural Services Fund. This would help free up around $553K from the General Basic Fund that is short on cash. We aren’t out of the woods yet on two of our funds but I will keep reaching out to other counties to learn how we can manage the county’s expenditures better. I’m grateful for the opportunity to learn/manage the budgeting process, grow relationships, and move Tama County in the right direction. Thankfully we are able to keep taxes at a manageable level of increase this year, with the Rural Services Fund being the only one we have to raise the levy slightly on. Hopefully in 1-2 years, we can start lowering taxes. The State Legislators are also looking at doing a major overhaul on taxes this year. We will keep an eye on any changes that are approved.

We continue to meet on Monday mornings at 8:30 a.m. for our Board of Supervisor meetings. We have an Owl Camera and are now offering livestream for anyone not able to attend. You can watch the videos live by using the link on the Tama County Auditor’s Facebook page, inputting the Meeting ID and Passcode listed on the Agenda into the Microsoft Teams App, or watch it on YouTube after the meeting by going to the “Tama County” channel or by searching “Tama County Board of Supervisors.” I requested and implemented that the Supervisors receive the weekly claims for the county in advance of the Monday morning meetings, so we have time to review and ask questions regarding the claims prior to the meeting. The Board of Supervisors enacted a hiring freeze with exemptions for essential personnel positions.

Various Audits are being done including HR, IT, Staffing, and the State Auditor reviewing the county’s financial situation. These are important to do yearly but even more critical with all elected officials being new in the last two years besides the county attorney, as well as the money shortfall on the General Basic Fund. It’s good to do checks and balances and have a clean slate moving forward. I will provide updates on results as we get them. As a result of an IT audit, it was concluded that hiring our own IT Specialist would provide opportunities in which money would likely be saved, plus we would have more secure IT systems throughout the various county departments and a dedicated IT employee on site.

Work on the budget will continue this month until it is finalized. Please reach out if you have any questions or concerns!

Supervisor Heather Knebel (R-Traer), the first elected female supervisor in Tama County history, represents District 3 which includes the townships of Spring Creek, Crystal, and Perry, and parts of far northern Carlton (excluding Garwin) and Howard. She can be reached at 641-481-2532 or hknebel@tamacounty.org.