“Things (revenues) are in a free fall and they really don’t know if we’ve seen the end of it yet or not,” said Marshall County Auditor Penny Lukenbill, addressing the Council and department heads with some cold, hard facts to open the meeting. “Corporate taxes are down, income taxes are down, sales taxes are down — revenues have fallen to around 2005-06 levels.”
If that wasn’t enough, there was more.
“The experts are also reminding us that in this economy there are increased foreclosures, increased jobless rates and increased delinquency in property tax payments.”
The clear message: “Don’t expect to collect all of your property taxes.”
Lukenbill pointed out that in last year’s nearly $10.5 million county budget,  around half was covered by property taxes. The rest came from other revenues such as fees, reimbursements, grants, and CAGIT (County Adjusted Gross Income Tax).
Council members as a whole urged department heads to keep their budgets at this year’s level at the very least. Councilperson Judy Stone even encouraged them to go further and cut 10 percent from their budget for next year.
County Human Resources Chief Jan Quivey cautioned the Council that big ticket items needed and those cut would tend to cancel each other out, that most budgets are so tight already that it would be hard to cut more, so the only true way to cut 10 percent from the budget would be to cut 25 to 30 people from the county workforce.
Pointing to an economy where Marshall County is third in the state in unemployment, Council members were not optimistic on raises. Stone pointed out that she couldn’t see it would be possible to give county employees a raise in the coming year.
Support that the county has traditionally given to such organizations as the Boys & Girls Club, Older Adult Services, Marshall-Starke Development Center and the Humane Society also came under discussion.
Commissioner Kevin Over-myer asked if taking half of the budget for these services from the “Rainy Day” fund for this year would be an option for the Commission-ers budget, or if they were to consider cutting or eliminating support.
The mood of the Council appeared to be reflected in Councilman Ralph Booker’s remarks that the county should, “…figure out any way we can to support these people who do good things, because we spend 50 percent of our budget on people who don’t do good things…” — referring to monies that are allotted to deal with those who break the law in Marshall County.
“We don’t have any hard numbers but we have enough information to know that the money is not there,” said Council President Matt Hassel. “In this economy we have to come up with other things to raise revenue. We have to think outside the box and come up with new plans to raise money that doesn’t involve new taxes.”