Falk asks board for budget help
Requests would raise taxes $9M

By Bill Novak
September 3, 2004

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County Executive Kathleen Falk is asking the County Board for suggestions on how to write her 2005 budget after department heads came in with budgets that would call for a $9 million tax increase.

In her request to board Chair Kevin Kesterson and the other 36 supervisors, Falk released the departmental budget numbers Thursday that total $106.5 million in a county tax levy - $9 million more than the levy approved for the 2004 budget.

Kesterson told The Capital Times at Thursday night's board meeting that he didn't recall Falk ever asking for the board's budget help in advance of her formal introduction of the document on Oct. 1.

"It's going to be tough," Kesterson said.

Falk said in her request to the board there's no way she'll raise taxes to a point that would pay for all of the proposed departmental budgets.

"If approved as requested, this (tax levy) would amount to a 9.31 percent increase in the levy," Falk said. "While some of these requests have merit, I will not propose and will not support such a big increase in spending."

However, the tax levy history document included in the 12-page compilation of 2005 departmental budget requests shows a $2.86 tax rate for 2005 if the budget requests stayed as is.

A $2.86 tax rate would be a 3-cent drop from the 2004 tax rate of $2.89, thanks to a $3.5 billion increase in county property values.

The Human Services Department has suffered the most the past couple of years during budget time, and Kesterson said it might be necessary to "add a nickel" to the tax rate so the necessary funds can be raised to support the county's largest department.

"A nickel is not a tremendous amount of money," Kesterson said. "Everyone in this county has someone, either a friend, family member or neighbor, who's benefited somehow from the human services program."

Human services account for half of the county's $400 million annual budget, but it only uses 25 percent of the county tax levy, getting the lion's share of its funding from state and federal revenues.

Falk tries to keep the annual tax increase to her self-described formula of adding the population increase to the cost of living increase and using the percentage total as the tax levy increase.

She had to depart from that for 2004 since the formula wouldn't have produced enough revenues to sustain the county government, but her goal is to return to the narrow fiscal policy path she identified when she became county executive almost eight years ago.

Kesterson said human services took such a big hit last year that he wants to give as much as possible to keep the county's programs for the most disadvantaged citizens up and running.

"For some of the human services programs, if we don't keep up with our funding, we lose the money from the federal government," he said. "If raising our tax rate by a nickel brings an equal amount in from the federal government for our programs, then I'd be all for it."

Public hearings on the human services budget are set for next Wednesday and Thursday beginning at 6 p.m. each night at the Alliant Energy Center. Two more County Board public hearings on the other 29 county departments are set on consecutive Monday nights, on Sept. 13 and 20.

Falk said in her letter to Kesterson and the board that she wants to see some input and the board's priorities by Sept. 15.

Few departments, according to the departmental summaries, stuck to Falk's edict to trim budget requests by 3.2 percent for large departments and 1.6 percent for small departments.

The department listed with the biggest "overage" in the budget requests is the Sheriff's Office. Sheriff Gary Hamblin brought in a $54 million request this year when total estimated expenses for 2004 came in at $49.7 million.

Ironically, Falk's own County Executive Department has a $1,840,293 request for 2005, while the total estimated expense for the county executive in 2004 is only $1,816,097.

Falk will present her budget to the board and the public on Oct. 1; after fine tuning, the board normally votes on the budget before the end of November.

In other actions:

• The County Board narrowly defeated a resolution urging the state Legislature to use a progressive motor vehicle registration fee. The board has not taken up Supervisor Kyle Richmond's idea of charging a $20 wheel tax just for Dane County as a way of raising about $7 million for the county coffers.

• The board also honored former Chairman George H. Harb by singing "Happy Birthday" to him via cable television in honor of his pending 100th birthday.

Harb will turn 100 Sept. 21. He was on the County Board from 1937-70, serving as chair from 1959-63 and 1966-68.

Harb and his wife, Edyth, live in a downtown Madison retirement community.

E-mail: bnovak@madison.com

Published: 10:48 AM 9/3/04