Dunn County has new funding requests for $6.7 million
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By LeAnn R. Ralph
MENOMONIE — The Dunn County Board will be considering new funding requests for the 2024 budget of $6.7 million.
The Dunn County Board met for nearly three a half hours on August 31 to start budget discussions for 2024.
The new funding requests for $6.7 million include $1.4 million for salary increases of 2 percent for all employees along with $623,000 for new position requests, said Kristin Korpela, county manager.
New products and services would account for one-time expenses of $181,000 and on-going expenses would account for $121,000, she said.
Dunn County highway projects would amount to $2.1 million, while highway projects that would have state matching funds would cost Dunn County about $2.3 million, Korpela said.
Revenues for Dunn County include billable services and fees for $38 million; grants of $18 million; a property tax levy of $24.5; and sales tax and shared revenue of $6 million, which includes between $4 million and $5 million per year in sales tax from the half a percent of sales tax collected by Dunn County, Korpela said.
The vehicle registration fee adds nearly $800,000 in revenue annually, she noted.
Dunn County will be receiving $3.2 million in shared revenue from the state of Wisconsin for 2024, representing a $1 million increase over the previously-received state started revenue.
The estimated property tax levy limit for 2024 is $24.4 million, representing an increase of $526,000, Korpela said.
Dunn County had debt of $32.65 million at the end of 2022, which is 17 percent of the debt limit, she said, noting that the county’s debt continues decreasing as it is paid off.
The county’s 2022 audit report will be available at the September Dunn County Board meeting, Korpela noted.
State law allows municipalities to borrow up to 5 percent of the equalized value.
Dunn County has an equalized value of a little over $5 billion, according to the 2023 state apportionment report, which means Dunn County’s debt limit would be $250 million.
The county is expecting a zero increase in health insurance costs, and a one-step increase in salary across the board would amount to a 2 percent increase, Korpela said.
Employees
Dunn County has 523 employees, and 18 percent (94 employees) are currently of retirement age, and 12 percent (62 employees) will reach retirement age in five years, said Jennalee Nutter, director of Human Resources.
Of the 523 county employees, 33 percent (172 employees) have worked for Dunn County less than one year, she said.
In other words, one-third of the county’s employees are new and one-third of them will retire in five years (amounting to 328 of the county’s 523 employees), Nutter said.
Recruitment of new county employees and retention of existing county employees will remain a priority for at least five years, she said.
A study by Carlson Dettmann Consulting in 2022 that compared 28 comparable counties and cities recommended a 2 percent wage increase to keep Dunn County’s wage grids competitive, Nutter said.
County manager
Regarding new positions, Korpela said she had included an assistant county manager in the 2024 budget at a cost of $141,000.
As county manager, Korpela said she spends 25 to 35 percent of her time attending committee meetings, which has increased her understanding of the county’s budget and the issues facing the county.
The management team also is new. The chief financial officer, the chief information officer, the human resources director and the county manager have all been new within the last one to two years, she said, noting that it takes any new employee a certain amount of time to become acquainted with the job and what’s been done and what needs to be done.
The assistant county manager position could be accomplished by increasing the responsibilities of someone working in one of the county’s departments and then moving some of the existing responsibilities in that department to other employees for increased pay to backfill the staffing, Korpela explained.
The assistant county manager could be accomplished by adding $25,000 for staff members to take on additional responsibilities for the person already employed who becomes the assistant county manager, so the cost would not be the total of $141,000, she said.
Finance
Dr. Beata Haug, chief financial officer, said she was asking to change two existing positions to assistant finance director management positions, at a cost of about $18,600, so the employees could be able to take on additional responsibilities.
One of the assistant finance directors would help support the highway department, and one of the assistant finance directors would help support the department of human services, she said.
The county’s auditor has suggested that having more internal audits would be beneficial as would an additional separation of duties, Dr. Haug said.
County Clerk
Andrew Mercil, Dunn County clerk, said his budget included an additional $67,000 for elections in 2024.
Next year, there will likely be a primary election in February, there will be regular elections in April, including the entire county board, a primary election in August and a presidential election in November.
The following year, in 2025, the county clerk’s office will not need that amount for elections, Mercil said.
District attorney
Andrea Nodolf, Dunn County district attorney, said her new position requests included making two part-time victim-witness coordinators full time.
The case load for victim-witness coordinators has increased because two new assistant district attorneys were added in 2019, Marsy’s Law was approved in 2020 (state-wide referendum for a state constitutional amendment) and the third circuit court branch was added in 2021, she said.
Marsy’s Law gives victims constitutional rights to reasonable and timely notification of court proceedings; a right to attend all proceedings and to be heard; a right to full restitution and for assistance in collecting restitution, Nodolf said.
Making two part-time positions full time (for a total of four full-time victim-witness coordinators) would cost $25,000 in property tax levy and also would be funded by grants, she said.
Sheriff’s department
Marshall Multhauf, chief deputy in the Dunn County Sheriff’s Department, said the department is asking for two additional positions.
One position would be a recreation deputy to devote his or her time to all-terrain vehicle use, boating and snowmobiling, he said.
The recreation deputy position would be reimbursed at 75 percent by the state Department of Natural Resources, Multhauf said.
There have been increases in calls about ATV/UTVs now that Dunn County has opened all the county highways and now that some townships have opened all of their roads, he said.
The recreation deputy also could be used to backfill other positions as necessary, Multhauf said.
The sheriff’s department is requesting an additional jail sergeant position as well, he said.
Human services
Paula Winter, director of Dunn County Human Services, said she was asking for a mental health therapist and an adult protective services employee.
From 2017 to 2022, there has been an increase of 40 percent in referral cases; since the beginning of this year, there has been an additional increase of 48 percent, she said.
Dunn County has more older residents, and there are also co-occurring mental health and substance abuse issues associated with aging, Winter said.
Adult protective services is a mandated state service but there is little state funding available, she said.
The mental health therapist would be someone who could do clinical supervision and who would monitor therapists and give recommendations to other workers, Winter said.
After a survey of students at Menomonie, Boyceville and Colfax high schools, all together, 16 percent of students had either attempted suicide or had seriously considered it, she said.
The number of girls who had attempted or seriously considered suicide was 21 percent, compared to 11 percent of boys, Winter said.
At the Colfax and Boyceville high schools, that would be between 30 and 35 students who had attempted suicide or seriously considered it.
Another survey revealed that of students who earned A grades, 47 percent had a mental health concern or a mental health diagnosis; 60 percent of students who earned B grades had a mental health concern or a mental health diagnosis; 47 percent of students who earned C grades had a mental health concern or a mental health diagnosis; and 70 percent of students who earned D or F grades had a mental health concern or a mental health diagnosis, Winter said.
Veteran services
Greg Quinn, Dunn County veteran services officer, said he has asking to increase his program assistant from one day per week to three days per week.
Last year, Quinn received approval for a program assistant one day per week.
Highway department
Dustin Binder, Dunn County highway commissioner, is asking for an engineering technician position at a cost of $89,317 for benefits and wages.
The engineering tech would assist the highway commissioner and the highway engineer, he said.
The highway department budget will be $16 million in 2024, with $7.6 million in projects for county Highways Z, VV, H, M, B and D as well as several bridges.
The federal Bipartisan Infrastructure Law has increased funding for highway projects, which will increase the amount of highway work that can be accomplished, Binder noted.
Eau Claire County has 69 highway department employees, and with the engineering technician, Dunn County would have 53 highway department employees, he said.
St. Croix County has 80 highway department employees, although St. Croix County manages the roads for 17 of the 21 townships in the county and also has more state highway, Binder said.
Dunn County maintains 425 miles of county highways, which is the seventh largest out of 72 counties, he said.
New positions
Korpela said that a review of the county’s past budgets shows that Dunn County generally has a surplus in the salaries and benefits budget every year.
The new positions probably can be covered by the difference between what is budgeted for benefits and wages and what has actually been spent on benefits and wages, she said.
When there is staff turnover, new employees typically are hired at a lower wage than the employees who retired or resigned were being paid.
Discussion
The Dunn County Board spent about 30 minutes breaking out into smaller groups to discuss the benefits and liabilities of long term borrowing, set long-term borrowing (such as annual borrowing for capital improvement projects and one-time purchases), short term borrowing (borrowed at the end of one year and paid off at the beginning of the next year with tax levy that is collected that year) and using general fund balance.
The next step in the budget process was a September 13 meeting of the executive committee to discuss the $6.7 million shortfall in the proposed 2024 budget and to consider options for funding or closing the gap.
The Dunn County Board will review the proposed budget at the September and October meetings and will adopt a budget at the November meeting.
Korpela said that asking the county board supervisors about how they would be willing to fund the budget would save time in the long run so that county employees would not be spending a great deal of effort running the numbers for funding options that county board supervisors would not consider using.
