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Commissioners urged to take active role in county budget
McCOOK, Neb. — Talk of politics, religion and schools isn’t allowed at Moore family get-togethers. So, Eldon Moore, the family patriarch, came to the Red Willow County commissioners’ meeting Monday morning to talk politics.
Within about 20 minutes, Moore shared his views on taxes and land values, the county sheriff’s department, its jail and dispatching, the sheriff’s department and the McCook police department, and … oh, county budgets.
“I’ve got too much time to sit and ponder this stuff,” Moore explained with a mischievous grin. Moore served eight 4-year terms as District 2 Commissioner — from 1969 through 2000 — and keeps an eye on commissioners in his retirement. He promised last year to “haunt” them all if they replaced a bridge with a box culvert instead of a less-expensive corrugated tube ...
Moore said that farmers and ranchers complain about land taxes. “I tell ‘em, ‘You can cry or you can sell your land, or both’.” He said it’s a situation that isn’t likely to change much, as the power in the state is in the east, “not along the Republican River.”
Moore said he doesn’t understand why the county sheriff’s office doesn’t have its own dispatch center “in that pretty new jail.” Moore said “it just blows my mind” that the sheriff’s department doesn’t do all of its own dispatching. Commissioner Steve Downer — who is Moore’s successor as District 2 county commissioner — explained that the sheriff’s office contracts with the city police department for dispatching, particularly outside the sheriff’s department’s regular office hours.
All 911 calls go through the city’s dispatch center 24 hours a day, Downer said.
Moore said he would like to see one county-wide law enforcement department, adding that he researched the county-wide law enforcement in Buffalo County. It works there, he said. “It’s stupid” to have two of what he calls “empires,” that of a county sheriff and that of a city police chief.
Downer told Moore that the only way to have county-wide law enforcement in Red Willow County is if the McCook city council were to agree to disband the city’s police force and then McCook was to contract with the county for law enforcement.
Moore said he doesn’t understand why the city and the county can’t cooperate better … “McCook is an asset to the county, because of its population and valuation,” Moore said.
On the topic of budgets, Moore said he hopes the commissioners are deeply involved in the budget process, not handing it off to anyone else to develop. He said he spent hours in the vault working with — “I annoyed her, actually,” — the county’s budget clerk Shirley Vontz, who helped him understand the budget process. “She was good … very good,” Moore said. “I hope you work closely with the budget … that you know what’s going on.” Downer told him, “It’s going to be tough this year.”
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Commissioners Downer and McNutt spent about an hour on the 2018-19 budget Monday morning. Fellow commissioner Jacque Riener wasn’t available for Monday’s meeting.
The numbers are very early; they’re definitely preliminary, and not all department heads turned in their proposed budgets to commissioners by July 20.
As tight as the budget appears to be for 2018-19, McNutt said it may be necessary to have a hearing with each department head after he/she turns in proposed budgets.
Red Willow County’s full-time employees may get a 2 1/2 percent increase in their wages for 2018-19. The proposed increase would amount to about $95 a month for 40-hour-a-week employees and $85 a month for 35-hour-a-week employees. Part-timers, who do not get benefits, may get a 50 cent-per-hour raise.
The City of McCook plans to increase its annual fee for dispatching services for the county’s sheriff’s department from $57,673 to $63,400 for 2018-19, a 10 percent hike.
The increase is due in part to increased calls taken by the city’s police department dispatch center for the sheriff’s department. The county entered into an agreement with the city last year to “catch up” over three years on prior payments that city officials feel did not cover the cost of services provided to the sheriff’s department. McNutt said, “Our hands are tied if we’re going to use them for our dispatch.”