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The County Board’s Executive Committee voted Wednesday to recommend putting $240,000 from the jail assessment reserve toward paying debt in 2009.
That would lower the levy increase from 4.88 percent to 3.8 percent. In turn, the county property tax rate would go down from $3.73 per $1,000 in valuation to $3.70.
The fund, which will be $1.06 million at the end of 2008, is money from the court system and can only be used for jail operations, said County Administrator Steve O’Malley.
The $240,000 would go toward the $742,000 for the Law Enforcement Center debt service already in the 2009 budget.
If approved as part of the final budget, the county could use a small portion of the fund each of the next three years as needed, O’Malley said.
The executive committee chose this option from a list of six ways to reduce the levy increase. Another suggestion was to lower the estimate on fuel and asphalt, since prices have dropped, but that was ruled out because of the uncertainty of where the cost of oil will go in the coming year.
They also discussed, among other ideas, using a portion of excess sales taxes and only paying the interest on the Law Enforcement Center debt in 2009. But that option would push a larger payment into 2010, O’Malley said.
Officials said using jail assessment reserves made the most sense because it does not tie the county’s hands in future years or push the burden off.
“This money will be pulled exactly from the cookie jar it should, because you can’t use it for anything else,” said Board Chairman Steve Doyle. “Plus, the chance of us having a surprise or a situation where we say ‘We wish we had that money’ is very, very low.”
The full county board will consider the proposal when it meets Monday.
