Budgets were all figured for the coming year including a 4 percent raise for county employees, but the Council put off discussion of whether to keep that raise until day two.
The Marshall County Commissioners, while making recommendations on significant budget cuts, urged the Council to keep employee raises at the 4 percent level. With the raise, as with the entire budget, the uncertainty of the state legislature’s property tax plan and its effect on future revenues, was the backdrop of the discussion.
“We recommended keeping the raise at 4 percent because with the uncertainty of  2010, this may be the last chance we have to give a raise,” said Commissioner Kevin Overmyer.
While the tax plan is not expected to have a big impact on county revenue for the coming year, tax caps set in place for 2010 promise to cause a serious decrease in available funds.
Early in the discussion on the possibility of decreasing revenue two other topics briefly raised their heads. While neither the Council nor Commissioners were happy about either — the local option income tax and a wheel tax for the county. While neither body wants to act on either, they concur that they most likely will have to be at least talked about in the future.
One reason is funding for the county highway department that continues to decrease.
“I had lunch with somebody from Indianapolis last week and brought up that we were supposed to be receiving 1 cent out of the 3-cent gas tax increase and we’re not even getting a fraction of a cent right now,” Overmyer told the Council. “They made it clear again that they aren’t going to give us any help unless we’ll help ourselves out with a wheel tax.”
Councilman Fred Lintner expressed the mood of all assembled in saying, “We have to tighten our belts before we go back to the taxpayers and ask for more money.”
The Council, along with the Commissioners and Highway Superintendent Neal Haeck, was able to find $200,000 to trim out of the highway budget for the coming year in supplies and heavy equipment.
Jon VanVactor and the sheriff’s department were also able to shave off a considerable savings by cutting down the number of vehicles to be purchased in the coming year from the seven requested to five.
The sheriff’s department has five vehicles with more than 100,000 miles that need to be replaced for safety reasons. The department also wished to purchase a low cost vehicle for process serving and an eight passenger van for prisoner transport.
“We’ll stretch whatever you give us as far as we possibly can,” VanVactor told the Council.
Hearings continue today with the rest of the county government offices coming before the Council.