NICK GOSNELL
Hutch Post
HUTCHINSON, Kan. — At the Board of County Commissioners meeting Tuesday, Commissioner Randy Parks raised the issue of potentially cutting the county budget for the 2024 budget year.
"I think we have to go into it with the mindset of the constituents we work for," Parks said. "They are, I think, typical. The bond issue that failed is probably a typical picture of how they feel right now. I think we need to be extremely cautious when looking at spending extra money that we don't need to."
Both Parks and Commissioner John Whitesel are really reticent to continue to fund outside agencies with taxpayer dollars.
"Randy, I think I'm in agreement with you, these groups that are raising money from their members or raising money from different things. I really don't see that county money belongs there. Basically, what we're saying is, we're going to charge our local residents for things that may benefit the county, but it's not benefiting them."
Commission chair Daniel Friesen then directed County Administrator Randy Partington to set up a time when the commission and the administrator can talk about the big picture goal of how much to cut, so that then he can get in the weeds of where to make the cuts.
"One thing we did last year, Randy, I don't know how early you did it, but you kind of came to us and said where do you want to be, total?," Friesen said. "Do you want to do revenue neutral, do you want to be zero mill levy, you want to go down five percent? I think last year we said try to go down five percent total taxes. You want to do that again? It seems like there's enough consensus."
Partington said he'd like to either have a study session or set aside some time at the end of a commission meeting to find out where they want that number to be and a general idea of the areas where cuts should come from, if that's what the majority of the council wants to do, before even bringing any sort of proposal forward. The date for that conversation has not yet been set.
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