Following a public hearing Tuesday morning, the Juneau County Board of Supervisors approved the budget for expenditures and revenues for 2015 and established a tax levy for county tax purposes. The department heads met with the Finance and Computer Committee to prepare a budget that met the state’s levy limit law, while providing the best quality of service to the citizens of Juneau County. The grand total of county taxes, state taxes, special charges and county library taxes is 12,491,952.39. The budget represents a levy dollar increase of $261,669 over 2014, with a mil rate of $6.49 per thousand dollars. This is increase of 2.26% of dollars levied.
According to a letter to the Juneau County Board from Finance Director Lori Chapman, “The 2015 budget includes increasing the Parks and Forestry secretary from halftime to full-time and increasing the Human Resources Director from part-time to full-time. The halftime payroll clerk in the Finance Department and the halftime clerk typist in the County Clerk’s office were not funded for 2015 based on the department head requests. The cost for a halftime assistant in the Human Resources office was included in the Contingency fund and will be transferred to the Human Resources budget depending on the needs of the new director.
The 2015 budget includes a 1% wage increase in January and another 1% wage increase in July for all employees, excluding elected officials, limited term employees, sheriff department lieutenants and captain, and sheriff deputies, who are covered by a bargaining agreement.
The next Juneau County Board of Supervisors meeting will be Tuesday, December 16th at 9:30am.