Sheriff Al Nienhuis presented his case to the BOCC for the $770,000 net increase to his budget at the first budget hearing on September 3rd. His requested budget was $42,980,966. The Sheriff ended up decreasing his budget $62,000 to $42,918,246 by the final budget hearing on September 22nd. At the September 3rd meeting, the Commission voted 4-1 for Assistant County Administrator Zoettlein to look into returning the Sheriff’s excess fees and fines for FY 2014-2015. The Commission was leaning towards allowing the Sheriff to keep this dollar amount which was approximately $800,000 at the time (minus 18.5% going to reserves) to provide for his additional funding needs for FY2016. The Sheriff’s unspent funds were at $940,000 by the September 22nd final budget hearing. However, to use these monies was not the final solution, which took an additional turn before settling on using OPEB (Other Post Employment Benefit) funding to cover the Sheriff’s total budget request.
The Sheriff pleaded his case again at the September 22nd Board Meeting prior to the budget hearing on the same day. Sheriff Nienhuis reiterated, “I did a little bit of research on my own… I found out that tax revenue, both in the property tax revenue and the sales tax revenue was increasing to the tune of about $2.5 million. That’s without increasing the millage rate… The budget I submitted and I’m standing by it today, is what is necessary to maintain the same level of service… ” He continued explaining, “Because of the cuts over the last several years, I don’t have any other place to cut that’s not going to affect public safety… Even your county budget director admitted that there is an extra $2.5 million in new revenue, tax revenue coming into the county. Whether there is a deficit on the county side or not I understand that, but I still don’t think that impacts your ability to fund my budget as requested.”
Commissioner Holcomb introduced several cuts to the budget which would fund the sheriff’s request, but other commissioners were not receptive. Mr. Dukes stated that this should have been brought up at the budget hearing and questioned the vetting process of the cuts he proposed. Chairman Nicholson stated that he supports the County Administrator 100%.
At the Final Budget Hearing later that day (Sept. 22nd), Don Barbee Clerk of the Circuit Court provided a glimpse of hope to the board explaining, “Due to a one time drastic increase in submissions from Citizens Insurance Company into my recordings department, the amount of money I’ll now be returning to the County is approximately $750,000 as opposed to $175,000. Obviously I don’t need it for my budget so I will be turning it over to all of you.” The thought was that this could provide the Sheriff with what he needed.
However, following a two and a half hour recess to adjust the figures, County Administrator informed the board that the Clerk of the Circuit Court is only returning about $200,000 in new funds, since $550,000 of it was previously budgeted. Leonard Sossamon, County Administrator put forth a plan to take the funds needed for the Sheriff (as well as Supervisor of Elections) from the Other Post Employment Benefits (OPB) Fund, which he described as a reserve fund. OPEB’s are postemployment benefits other than pensions including health insurance, dental, vision, prescription, or other healthcare benefits provided to eligible retirees. Mr. Sossamon explained that about $300,000 would be taken from OPEB in addition to the $200,000 in extra monies from the Clerk of Circuit Courts to provide the Sheriff with the full $42,918,246 budget request. Commissioners agreed to this methodology. It is unclear what the ramifications of this will be.
Several ideas were floated at various points to fund the Sheriff’s budget, which makes understanding the financial rigmarole quite difficult at times. The Sheriff ran an aggressive campaign to get his proposed budget funded, with appearances on talk radio as well as social media postings. He achieved his goals, but it’s hard to tell exactly how that will affect the tax payer in the end since at some point down the road we’ll be needing that OPEB money for the county’s retirees.