Dunn County to consider vehicle registration fee to help close $1.6 million deficit
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By LeAnn R. Ralph
MENOMONIE — With an anticipated deficit in the tax levy of $1.6 million — and being reluctant to borrow more money to balance the 2020 budget — the Dunn County Board is considering implementing a vehicle registration fee.
Paul Miller, county manager, told the county board at the September 18 meeting he preferred to call it a “vehicle registration fee” rather than a “wheel tax” although the revenue source is most often referred to as a wheel tax.
The vehicle registration fee that has been recommended would be $20 per vehicle and would include passenger cars, vans and SUVs as well as pickup trucks under 8,000 pounds.
The fee would be expected to generate $726,000 in revenue annually.
The executive committee reviewed the budget the week before the county board meeting and through some adjustments was able to reduce the deficit to $1.35 million, Miller said.
Suggestions from the county board’s committees brought the deficit down to $1.2 million, he said.
At a prioritization workshop last February, county board members were asked to prioritize services in the county with a designation of 1, 2 or 3 — with 1 being most important.
Even though a service was rated as a “3” does not mean it is without value to the residents of the county, Miller noted.
Freezing the amounts allocated to external agencies, such as the Dunn County Humane Society, saved several thousand dollars, and not filling a planner position in the zoning department and eliminating an eight-hour-per-week secretary position saved nearly $100,000, Miller said.
Home care
Most counties have eliminated their home healthcare services, and the county board rated home healthcare as a 3, Miller said.
Last year, Dunn County tried an experiment with adding more personnel to home healthcare with the hope that more clients would use Dunn County’s home healthcare services, he said.
The tax levy the previous year for home healthcare was $54,000. The experiment did not work out very well, and now there is $140,000 in the budget for home healthcare, Miller said.
“Nobody was happy about it,” but the executive committee recommended eliminating home healthcare for a savings of $140,000, he said.
Changes in health insurance benefits for employees results in a savings of $197,000, but there was still a deficit in the tax levy of $636,000, Miller said.
The $636,000 deficit does not include $406,000 in capital requests, so that still leaves “$1 million yet to find,” he said.
Vehicle registration fee
A vehicle registration fee — or a wheel tax — is a user fee for county roads that is one of the few revenue sources left available to the county, Miller said.
The vehicle registration fee is expected to raise $726,000 in revenue, which will reduce “the ask” from the highway department for road maintenance and repairs, he said.
Vehicle registration fees can only be used for transportation-related purposes.
The county road system is “essential infrastructure,” and the state has underfunded local road projects for many years, Miller said.
If the vehicle registration fee is adopted, that means less of the county’s general fund will have to be used for road projects, he said.
Dunn County borrowed $8 million to balance this year’s budget, Miller noted.
Many counties do borrow money to balance their budgets, and they do not have a choice about borrowing money, he said.
The debt service payment for borrowed money can be taken outside of the state-imposed revenue limit so that it does not count against the maximum amount the county can levy in property taxes.
In other words, when counties borrow money to balance a budget, the payment does not have to come under the revenue limit — and taxpayers are paying more in spite of the revenue limits.
Alternatives
If any county board members have other alternatives for raising revenue or have a real problem with the services that will be eliminated or the idea of a vehicle registration fee — now is the time to talk to the county manager or members of the executive committee, Miller said.
The vehicle registration fee must “be firmed up” by the October executive committee meeting so the resolutions can be written for the November meeting, he said.
“These were difficult decisions for the executive committee, but the alternatives were even more difficult,” Miller said.
If the county board rejects the vehicle registration fee, the budget will have to be balanced in some other way, he said.
The Dunn County Board will act on the budget at the November 12 meeting, Miller said.
The Neighbors
Why are other departments suffering while Dunn County keeps subsidizing The Neighbors? asked Gary Bjork, county board supervisor from Colfax.
The subsidy for The Neighbors is not part of the $1.6 million deficit and levy request. The subsidy for The Neighbors comes from the general fund, and it does not affect the $1.6 million, Miller said.
Mike Kneer, county board supervisor from Menomonie, asked what will happen when no more money can be taken from the general fund.
“Then we will face even tougher decisions,” Miller said.
The allowable increase in the state-imposed revenue limit is based on net new construction, but there has not been very much new construction in Dunn County, and the amount is less than the increase in the Consumer Price Index, Miller said.
David Bartlett of Boyceville, chair of the Dunn County Board, said that while he does not have the details on the state’s increase in Medicaid reimbursement and how the increase is going to work, he is optimistic it will help The Neighbors.
Human services had a budget deficit last year of $1 million related to taking care of children who have drug-addicted parents and also related to county residents with mental health problems.
Human services is “getting better,” Bartlett said, so maybe the human services budget will not be in as bad a shape next year.
Why $20
Larry Bjork, county board supervisor from Menomonie, wondered why the recommended vehicle registration fee was $20 instead of $10 or $40.
The $20 fee was a recommendation from staff, Miller said.
“We were looking for a reasonable number,” he said, noting that no matter what the vehicle registration fee is there will still be “push back” from the residents of Dunn County.
The $20 fee is somewhere in the middle of what other jurisdictions of have imposed for a vehicle registration fee, Miller said.
CRT and HHS
Larry Bjork said he serves on both the Community Resources and Tourism committee and Health and Human Services board.
Health and Human Services has voted to maintain home healthcare, and the CRT committee has voted twice to reduce funding to libraries in the county by 5 percent, Bjork said.
The executive committee vetoed both recommendations, and committee members “feel their vote does not matter,” he said.
The executive committee recommended funding the county’s libraries at 100 percent because libraries are outside of the revenue limit, and funding for the libraries does not affect the bottom line of the $1.6 million deficit, Miller said.
Dunn County provides funding for the libraries to account for people who live outside the municipality who use the library.
The Colfax Public Library, for example, receives about two-thirds of its funding from Dunn County to account for the fact that about two-thirds of the people who use the Colfax Public Library do not live in the village of Colfax, but rather, live in the townships surrounding Colfax.
The idea of reducing funding to the libraries “was appreciated, but it doesn’t help,” Miller said.
Gary Stene, county board supervisor from Colfax and chair of the health and human services board, advocated heavily for not eliminating home healthcare, Miller said.
In the end, “nobody was smiling, and the decision (to eliminate home healthcare) was not unanimous,” he said.
Dunn County cannot fund everything, so “what else can be eliminated instead,” Miller said.
The deliberations of CRT and HHS were very important, were appreciated, and were thoroughly discussed and debated, he said.
“We are still paying, one way or the other. Somebody is still paying,” said Mike Rogers, county board supervisor from Menomonie.
When allowable items, such as borrowing money or library funding, are placed outside of the revenue limit, the amount is “still on the tax bill,” Miller agreed.
