NICK GOSNELL
Hutch Post
HUTCHINSON, Kan. — Reno County Administrator Randy Partington told Hutch Post Wednesday that the budget discussions from the Board of County Commissioners Tuesday resulted in more cuts than he had originally proposed.
"The actual number to get to the Revenue Neutral Rate was $1.3 million," Partington said. "They did make cuts in different departments, different areas, different outside agencies to come in at the 35.764 Revenue Neutral Rate."
This will move up the budget timeline.
"It moves it up about a month," Partington said. "The County Commission has to adopt and notify the County Clerk of the official budget by August 25, compared to October 1 if they had exceeded the RNR. We'll have a public hearing, probably at the middle of August to adopt a budget."
Much of the cut was a reduction in 2024 raises for county employees.
"They cut the level of pay increase," Partington said. "I had asked for 5% cost of living and 3% pay for performance. Each 1% is $200,000. They cut it down to four and a half total, so they saved about $800,000 just in that cut. That was the pay increase that current county employees will get next year is four and a half percent instead of the 8%. Then they made other cuts, a couple of departments that had asked for additional staff, they cut the number. They gave some of the additional staff."
As an example, Partington has been told to cut $55,000 from the request for his own department, but they left how to do that up to him. Also, the Commissioners trimmed about $310,000 off the amounts disbursed to outside agencies from the 2023 numbers.
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