FAIRBURY - It's a challenge all county governments must address: how do you keep citizens satisfied and local services intact even in the face of consistently rising costs? That's the question Jefferson County - and all of Nebraska's other 92 counties - will try to answer as it begins its annual budget review process.

Like all counties across the state, Jefferson County is gearing up for its annual budget review process. And like all counties across the state, the county board says their challenge is clear: keeping essential services active even in the face of rising costs, both for those services and for the people who provide them.  

"The other side of the equation the three of us face is, our citizens, all 7,200 of them in this county, they don’t want any of their services cut. People don’t want less of any of those services, so what we have been successful in doing is keeping that same level of service for all of those things – we have not decreased our level of service in any of those things," Jefferson County Commissioner Mark Schoenrock said Tuesday. "But when you have continually increasing costs, trying to address that, and then people don’t want to pay more taxes to pay for it."

In a meeting with all of the county department heads and elected officials Tuesday, Schoenrock, the board's chair, referenced his oft-cited study that shows costs of parts and services increased by a total of 20% over the last four years, while the county’s tax asking level increased by 12% in the same timeframe. The county made up the difference through inheritance tax revenue and other external funding sources, but with the futures of those sources uncertain, the county’s other commissioners warned that they’ll be forced to review this year’s budget even more closely. 

"We have employees that think the county’s pockets are dragging on the ground because they’re so deep – and they’re not," said county commissioner Michael Dux, who has been part of this annual review process for decades. "Whatever we do for a raise, whatever we do for a budget increase, we still will look over each budget and see where we’re at, see what kind of cuts we’ll have to make even if there’s a one or two or three percent increase, we still are going to come back and say we’re going to need to cut the budget maybe. I’ve said for years we’re close to the levy limit, and I think we’re probably going to be in fair shape this year because of the inheritance fund, but when the values start going down – and that’s not too far off, they’re going to go down – then we’re going to be in trouble."

"I know we need road graders and patrol cars and computers, but our people are our best asset, and we know you need the raises, want the raises, and we want to give them to you, but we’re going to have to get efficient with our funds," said county commissioner Danielle Schwab, who will be officially executing this process for the first time this year. "So I challenge you guys when you’re looking at your own budgets...I’m using a home budget [comparison], but it’s like, you can’t go to the movies if you can’t feed the kids. You’ve got to feed the kids the first. Could you tweak your processes a little bit just to use it more efficiently? Will that be popular, necessarily, with the public? No, but that’s fiscally the best use of taxpayer funds. And I’m not saying you don’t already do that, but we’re going to continue to look outside the box and see if we can come up with different options."

Among the rest of the members of the meeting, Jefferson County sheriff Nick Georgi argued that non-union workers, both in his department and across the county, should be treated the same as those that are members of a union, and county clerk Kris Riggle warned that tapping too much into a reserve would leave no money left for unexpected outcomes and contingency plans.

"I’m very proud of everyone in here. I look at you and all the things that you do to serve our citizens every day, and it’s a tremendous service. I think we do a really good job. We have a lot of really good, dedicated employees," Schoenrock said.

The county commissioners will take that into consideration when they begin the budget review process at next Tuesday’s meeting.