Seward County Commissioners scheduled the state-mandated joint public budget hearing for the county, cities, villages and other taxing entities for 6:30 p.m. Sept. 21.
A location will be confirmed later.
As in the past, only entities whose proposed budgets and subsequent property tax asking exceeds specified levels must participate in the pubic hearing – often referred to as the “pink postcard hearing” because of the state mandate that personalized notices be mailed to every property owner in the county on a pink postcard.
Johnson said this year’s postcard is expected to cost the county about 62 cents apiece.
The state also mandates the hearing be scheduled after 6 p.m.
Seward County Clerk Brandy Johnson said the hearing had to be scheduled between Sept. 14 and 24 to allow time for any taxing entities involved in the hearing to finalize their budgets prior to the state’s submission deadlines.
On another budget matter the commissioners revisited their recent decisions to offer signing bonuses to new employees in hard-to-fill positions in the Department of Roads and the Seward County Detention Center.
County officials said it is too soon to tell if the recently adopted bonuses have had an impact, but noted the difficulty of budgeting the bonuses that are distributed after 90 days, six months and a year after an employee’s start date. Those expenditures might be committed in one fiscal year and spent in the next one.
But commissioners said the department heads who can utilize the bonuses must have positions open a specific period of time before utilizing the bonuses, and would have unspent personnel funds that could be appropriately placed into the department’s sinking fund – which is like a savings account – to meet the future obligations of the bonus system in the next fiscal year.
In other action, the commissioners:
• Authorized a service subscription agreement with Idemia for LiveScan Services at the Justice Center.
• Heard reports from Matt Kasik, chief executive officer of Apace, and Patrick Kreifels, regional manager of Region IV Systems.
• Accepted the county treasurer’s semi-annual report for publication and the uncollected taxes list for the last three years.
• Meeting as the Board of Equalization, approved change of valuation notices submitted by Seward County Assessor Marilyn Hladky, accepted a permissive exemption application for Apace and approved four appeals and denied two for changes in valuations reported.
