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Walworth County plans for cuts

ELKHORN — Walworth County departments might have to share employees if the county cuts 10 full-time positions to reduce the tax levy increase, County Administrator Dave Bretl said.

The county board earlier this month directed Bretl to begin drafting a 2010 budget based on a 2.9 percent tax levy increase—the smallest increase in more than a decade.

"The (county board) supervisors are hearing concerns from constituents that their own personal economic situations are not good … and that really prompted an examination of where we want to go with the budget," he said.

If the county had continued to follow its self-imposed tax levy cap formula, which has been in place since 2004, the tax levy could have increased up to 4.6 percent, Bretl said.

"But we paused and said that's too high given the state of the economy and people's personal finances," he said.

Bretl said drafting a budget that assumes only a 2.9 percent tax levy increase means cutting about $1 million from the base budget—basically a budget unchanged from this year—and eliminating about 10 full-time positions.

"This will be really interesting," he said. "But I think this can be accomplished without the wholesale dismantling of programs. Not to say that it's going to be easy …"

To maintain programs, departments must increase their productivity, he said. That could mean consolidating departments or sharing employees among departments.

"I maintain that a significant expense in any government building are the walls that separate departments," he said.

Bretl said the county has combined some departments over the years, and such moves have yielded significant savings, but opportunities to combine more departments are harder to come by.

"We've harvested the low-hanging fruit," he said. "By and large, the departments are trying to maintain all the programs with fewer and fewer people. But that's getting harder to do."

He said the county eventually will have to weigh the costs and benefits of maintaining a full slate of programs against concentrating on a smaller number of programs and running them well.

Bretl said time is on the county's side in the budget process.

"If we make some decisions now, we can start to implement them now rather than having to do it all in a month next year," he said.

That will allow time for the county to evaluate whether changes are working as planned and tweak them if necessary, he said.

But Bretl cautions that the news could get worse as the state figures out its budget for the next two years.

"There's still the possibility that our $1 million (in cuts) won't be enough," he said. "The state's in bad shape, and if it decides to share the pain with us …"

Bretl will spend the summer drafting the 2010 county budget for release to the county board in September. The county board will review the proposed budget hold a public hearing in October. The county board is set to approve the budget in November.

Bretl said although it will be difficult to make cuts, the county has been in worse shape.

"We've started with bigger holes than $1 million," he said. "We'll absolutely get there. The sky is not falling. But it's not going to be without challenges."