Minnehaha County Looks to Spend Almost $80 Million next Year

Final numbers are not due for a few weeks. However, a general fiscal plan was approved by the Minnehaha County Commission on Tuesday.

The Fiscal Year 2016 Minnehaha County Provisional Budget stands at $79,777,112, an increase from the FY 2015 Final Budget of $71,909,901. Commissioners will utilize just over half of the money available to them via the property tax opt-out which was invoked earlier this month. Specifically $1,762,796 of the $3.5 million is courtesy of the opt-out.

The increase from 2015 is $7,867,211 for the total budget, of which $5,484,899 is within the Highway Department. The Provisional Budget is supported by revenues, which includes a 2.43% growth in property taxes due to new construction within the county, and a 1.5% CPI adjustment allowed by the property tax limitation statutes in total county property taxes collected.

Other factors in the budget include modest increases in non-property tax revenue such as recording fees, vehicle registration fees, and spending $1.325 million in accumulated cash in the Highway Fund for additional road and bridge projects in 2016. Those fee increases were approved during the 2015 Legislative session.

Minnehaha County’s workforce will increase under this proposal as five new positions will sprout in January of 2016 and one other new position slated to come on board during the fourth quarter. The Provisional Budget also reflects the implementation of a modification in the County’s pay plan for employees along with normal step increases of approximately 2.5% in accordance with the parameters of the County’s pay plan.

According to a press release from Minnehaha County, not everything was granted in regards to staffing. In order to keep within the parameters of the property tax limitation statutes the Commission was not able to fund the additional 12 positions requested by departments. The final FY 2016 budget must be adopted by September 30, 2015.