Jim Shelby
HANCOCK COUNTY — Officials have two main priorities as they work on county government’s 2023 budget: retain current employees and add as many new ones as possible to fulfill the county’s needs.
Leaders anticipate a boost in revenue for next year but aren’t sure it will be enough for all the increases they’re considering, which along with additional workers also include pay hikes for existing ones.
Jim Shelby, a Hancock County Council member and chair of the county’s Budget, Efficiency and Revenue Committee, estimates a revenue increase of about $900,000 to the county for 2023.
“I always start out the budget year looking at and thinking about how much I think we’re going to have in increased revenues,” Shelby said. “…We try to live within our budgets, so we try to make whatever increases we’re going to do fit within that increase, so we get a balanced budget.”
Part of that $900,000 will come from property taxes. The state allows counties to increase property tax levies by up to 5% each year. Greg Guerrettaz, president of Plainfield-based Financial Services Group and the county’s financial advisor, projects an increase close to that amount for 2023. He also assumes revenue from income taxes to the county will grow by 5%.
Officials are considering a 5.5% increase over last year to county departments with elected officials for employee pay. It’d go as a lump sum to the departments, whose respective leaders would determine how it gets distributed, a point Hancock County Council member Mary Noe emphasized at a Budget, Efficiency and Revenue Committee meeting earlier this month.
“I expect the officeholders to know what their needs are outside their salaries,” Noe said. “We control that part, they control how much they think they need to run their office, and they put that in their budget and with that they need to understand that is their budget for that year and they have to live within their means.”
Shelby said departments led by non-elected officials report to the Hancock County Board of Commissioners, which would work together on the specifics of any increases.
Officials are also considering several specific increases regarding personnel for 2023. One is boosting the 911 director’s salary to $90,000 and assistant director’s to $75,000.
“The guys that run 911 are becoming more specialized, and good ones are hard to find, and it’s a competitive market,” Shelby said. “We feel like our 911 director and the assistant director are people we want to retain.”
Leaders are contemplating adding two more dispatchers to 911’s staff in 2023 as well.
The head of the county’s building department makes about $54,000 a year, which officials are considering increasing to $70,000. That department has a part-time building inspector, which council members are thinking about adding about $45,000 for pay and benefits to make full time.
About $80,000 for pay and benefits for a new information technology analyst is up for consideration as well. Officials are also contemplating creating another position for the IT department to take on administrative work so its director can focus more on handling the county’s systems.
The Hancock County Sheriff’s Department is requesting a second maintenance employee for the jail, which recently opened in a new location east of Greenfield and has far more grounds than the former site downtown.
Three more sheriff’s deputies are anticipated in 2023, which are part of a commitment officials made last year to not only increase deputy pay by 18%, but also add nine more deputies. Six were budgeted for this year.
The Hancock County Prosecutor’s Office is requesting a new full-time employee to manage camera data from law enforcement officers as well as a second victims assistant.
Shelby emphasized all of the considerations are preliminary, adding department heads prepare their budgets based on the council’s guidance. Council members are slated to look at all of the budgets next month, part of a process that culminates with finalization later this fall.
The 5.5% increase officials are considering amounts to about $650,000, Shelby said, leaving about $250,000 from the approximately $900,000 revenue increase he’s projecting for 2023. That will require the council to find a way to do the increases in a way that keeps a balanced budget or a deficit one. Funding for the new sheriff’s deputies, for instance, will come out of the county’s economic development income tax fund. Shelby said those expenses will likely remain there for two or three years, after which they will hopefully be backed by money coming from economic development payments developers are slated to pay the county.
“So then we’re trying to keep within the $900,000 for all those other things, which frankly I doubt we can do, but we’ll see,” Shelby said. “We have built up good balances, so we can have some deficit spending.”
At the Budget, Efficiency and Revenue Committee meeting earlier this month, Hancock County Board of Commissioners President John Jessup encouraged council members to not be as conservative as they’ve been in the past, noting balances have grown annually in recent years despite fears over shortfalls. He said such restraint toward risk forces the county to fall behind on fulfilling needs.
“We have to keep up,” he said.
Guerrettaz and council members countered it’s important to be cautious, noting the county has been fortunate to receive one-time supplemental funding distributions from the state and federal governments, but should not expect them every year.
