NICK GOSNELL
Hutch Post
HUTCHINSON, Kan. — At last week's Board of County Commissioners meeting, commission chair Randy Parks suggested some further cuts to the upcoming 2025 budget.
"Some of the potential cuts that Commissioner Parks mentioned were cutting by 10% some of the partner agencies such as TECH, Horizons Mental Health, Museum, and then cutting Farmers Market and the County Fair," said Reno County Administrator Randy Partington. "Some of those, the impacts to them would be, they would have, well, 10% less money coming from the County or on the Farmers Market, I think it removed all $4,000, which they use for live bands during the Farmers Market. So I'm not sure what their other funds are, but each of the partner agencies would be impacted by that. The other internal county cuts would be, right now the budget has employee pay raises of a total of 5%, which is 2% cost of living, 3% pay for performance. Commissioner Parks had two scenarios, one going down to 4%, 2% and 2% total, or moving it down to 3.5%, which would all be cost of living increase. And then there's some discretionary positions, he would, there's three of those and he would cut one of those positions. That's a couple hundred, or it's about $60,000 there. The cuts to personnel increases, about $200,000. That would impact employees and their pay raises, but operations would continue."
Commissioner Daniel Friesen seemed to take a different approach to potential cuts, looking at overall head count, rather than cutting raises.
"I believe he was talking about attrition," Partington said. "There are some departments that always have an opening, even though they're not always the same opening, as there's rotation of employees. So I believe Commissioner Friesen was wondering if we could cut some of those positions that aren't filled, vacant positions, and would that help the budget."
Partington intends to get additional feedback from commissioners before the budget hearing later this month.
"I'm preparing a spreadsheet to send out to the Commission before next week's meeting, hopefully today," Partington said. "They can kind of look at where their, I guess their peers, their other commissioners are looking at cuts, and they can start on a spreadsheet indicating where they want to, what cuts they want to see and what cuts they don't want to see, so that hopefully when they come to the County Commission next week, there's a better idea of a consensus of what areas, what cuts make sense to a majority, and what cuts may not get a second vote or a third vote."
The budget hearing for the county is scheduled for August 28.