County approves budget

2 vote against budget

A $185 million budget was passed by the Sweetwater County Commissioners last week, but disagreements regarding how the budget was formulated resulted in two commissioners voting against it.

The commissioners hosted a budget meeting July 5 to discuss and approve its 2017-2018 budget. The commissioners received criticism from Sweetwater County Treasurer Robb Slaughter and Chief County Assessor David Divis regarding aspects of the budget and the process the commissioners followed.

Slaughter criticized the commissioners for not allowing elected officials the chance to comment during a June 20 budget hearing, saying he wanted to revisit some of the proposed cuts to his budget, and accused the commissioners of being disrespectful in not accepting comments. Slaughter will lose one employee to an early retirement program initiated to cut employment costs. That one employee, according to Slaughter, represents 10 percent of his workforce and believes the loss will impact the services provided by his office.

He said other officials have felt disrespected by the commissioners as well because of their stance.

“You didn’t indicate you had anything to say at the time,” chairman Reid West told Slaughter.

Slaughter urged the commissioners to use some of its $37 million in reserves to reassess the funding situation. Divis also voiced concerns about the budget, as cuts to the Sweetwater County Assessor’s Office would result in the office approaching the commissioners for a budget amendment later in the fiscal year. Divis said the office has a large contract it will need to pay.

“We know the budget just will not be valid,” Divis said.

West described the budget process as not being fun for any of the commissioners, saying a number of tough decisions were made. Commissioner John Kolb called for the commissioners to remove $250,000 from an allocation to the conservation district, arguing the district receives other tax funding.

The commissioners did not amend the budget prior to its passage. The budget passed with Commissioners Wally Johnson and Randy Wendling voting against.

Cutting too deep

After the meeting, Johnson said he voted against the budget because he felt the budget requests should have been selectively cut, with any shortages resulting from those cuts funded through the county’s reserves. The county’s early retirement program, initially anticipated to impact a maximum of 10 employees, ended up being utilized by 20, an amount Johnson said will have to be partially backfilled with new employees.

Johnson said the early retirement programs initiated by the county were initially his idea and have saved Sweetwater County millions of dollars in employment costs. He also voiced disappointment with the Wyoming Legislature in keeping approximately $20 billion in various reserve accounts, but will not open some of those funds to counties, criticizing the legislature for not even having criteria in place to determine when they should tap into those funds, often referred to as “rainy day funds.”

“It’s raining in Sweetwater County,” Johnson said.

 

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