The Marion County Board at a special meeting Monday night approved its fiscal year 2025 budget.
The budget was 30 days late but was reported to be balanced.
Board Chair Steve Whritenour says both revenue and expenses total $12,736,689. He noted they were able to cover the $266,000 deficit in the tentative budget and were able to add enough revenue to increase the animal control budget by $60,000 to $150,000. In addition, a new $180,000 line item was added for the construction of an animal control facility if the board eventually decides to go that route. Right now, the community relations committee is still hoping to work out an agreement with either Centralia or Salem to house the county’s dogs after they rejected a proposed new contract with the City of Centralia.
Whritenour is pleased with what they were able to accomplish.
“There were a lot of adjustments that were made last Monday when we met with the county officeholders. There were travel expenses things that were reduced, office supplies that were reduced, and different expenditures that they made reductions. Now, also there was roughly $240,000 in money that came in from last year’s budget that was left over capital expenditure money that went back into the budget.”
Whritenour also noted Sheriff Kevin Cripps found $115,000 in revenue that was not budgeted from the Department of Children and Family Services to pay for the cost of a deputy who is assigned to their caseworkers when they make home visits.
“Next year is going to be a much more challenging year than this year and I thought this was pretty challenging in itself. But overall I’m very pleased, the officeholders did a fantastic job. I cannot thank them enough. We have several new county board members that just started in December, obviously myself being a new county chair. Right in the middle of all this, this has been a very busy hectic month but I’m appreciative of everyone pulling together and passing a 2025 budget.”
Finance Committee Chair Chris Krupp felt the budget adopted was the best option. He also warned of more challenging times ahead. He noted the $500,000 in CURES funding from the federal government is being used to help balance the budget that won’t be available next year. Krupp called the biggest budget killer the drop in revenue. He warned if they start $ 1.5 million in the hole at the start of the budget process next year he doesn’t know where they will be able to make cuts.
Two members of the board voted against the budget. They are former board chair Debbie Smith and personnel committee chair Adam Smith.
Whritenour says not having a budget in place during the month of December did not cause any problems in paying bills.
In other action, the board agreed to address an ordinance to create a County Veterans Commission at the next meeting. A property tax levy to support the commission will not be put into place until next year which means no tax revenue would be available until the summer of 2026. Those behind the commission are asking the county board to front them money so they can hire the person who would run the program for veterans. Three have already applied.
