Washington County denies some funding requests

WASHINGTON — County officials say the local government plans to partially or fully deny some non-departmental funding requests, after budget work sessions where supervisors said they tried to give every organization the same amount as last fiscal year, unless previously agreed-upon formulas required otherwise.

The magnitude of that approach varies from one organization to the next. For Main Street Washington, which requested $7,000 but is slated to receive the same $6,834 as in FY 2023, the impact is minimal. For the Washington Economic Development Group, which requested $30,000, after receiving $23,000 last year, the implications reach further. While the numbers are only tentative at this point, they are not expected to increase.

WEDG’s funding specifically was a sticking point, according to government officials. Board of Supervisors Chair Bob Yoder said he was an advocate for higher allocations to the entity.

“I serve on that (WEDG) board, so I might be a little prejudiced, but it’s so much better than what it was,” Yoder said. “The new director has really made some changes, and I think she’s doing a really, really good job. And I think the county would benefit by investing more in it.”

Other decision-makers were against the increase, however.

“We’re in kind of an unknown area for inflation and taxes, and budgets are really going to be an important thing,” Supervisor Jack Seward Jr. said. “I’d like to look more at what we’re mandated to do, what we’re able to do, versus what would be nice to do … right now, I think it’s prudent just to hold the line, and not go any further.”

PAWS & More Animal Shelter had requested around $34,000 a year for the next three years, a number representatives derived from average expenditures in 2019, 2021 and 2022.

Supervisor Richard Young said the 28E agreement between the county and the shelter itself was still in development, but that the county tentatively planned to pay the nonprofit $30,156 instead, which an average of the last five years that includes 2020, despite the shelter being closed for part of that year.

“The three years they picked were not three consistent years,” Young said. “They picked and choose which three years they wanted to make that higher … if we did the five year, what’ll happen is each year, the oldest year will drop off.”

Some last-minute budget asks were denied in another work session Tuesday morning. Supervisor Stan Stoops said the county should allocate an extra $10,000 each to libraries in Wellman and Washington as a one-time boost for renovation plans, but the proposal was shot down by other members of the board.

Young said that kind of money would either trade off with other obligations, or force tax increases, neither of which he was willing to endorse.

“Where’s this money going to come from?” he said. “That’s going to cause us to raise taxes on rural services, to the rural people … what are we going to cut from other things, from other departments, to make this happen?”

The Board of Supervisors balked at another request Tuesday, from the Johnson County Board of Supervisors, which requested over $7,600 for a study of the Silurian Aquifer, which supplies municipal wells mostly in central Eastern Iowa, as well as some communities to the south.

“It’s one thing if they came to this board and said, ‘Hey, we’d like to do this study,’” Supervisor Marcus Fedler said. “The answer to that would be, ‘Maybe,’ but now … I don’t see any reason for this county to participate in something like that. It does nothing to benefit us, and there’s no clear indication in here of what they study’s going to do.”

Comments: Kalen.McCain@southeastiowaunion.com