SYNOPSIS: Call or Email your County Supervisor and ask them to cut $1.6 million from the proposed 2025 property tax increase AND rescind the County wheel tax. The $64M+ in EXCESS reserves are just from the County’s General Fund, Social Improvement Fund, and Highway Fund and DOES NOT include the normal fund balance reserves needed for working capital.
The County’s Policy is to have a minimum Fund Balance of 8.3% of the current Budgeted Expenditures of the General Fund, Social Service Fund, and Debt Service Fund and 10% of the Budgeted Expenditures of the Highway Fund. I don’t believe that these percentages provide adequate working capital, so I used 25% in my calculations to provide a higher cash cushion. Using the higher 25% number, I calculate $30,256,598 in recommended reserves out of the total $103,237,090 available fund balance (per Audit, year end 2023) for just these 4 County Funds.
I subtracted off the $8,000,000 that the County recently agreed to loan Bug Tussel when calculating the EXCESS reserves. I did not add in any of the $10,384,837 surplus that the County has generated in 2024 through 8/31/24 as we don’t currently know the actual end of year 2024 results.
To get a sense of the magnitude of Marathon County’s EXCESS reserves, the County could totally eliminate the entire proposed $59,851,312 of 2025 County Property Tax (which I am NOT recommending) and would be expected to still have over $4 million in EXCESS reserves at the end of 2025.
The $64+ million in EXCESS Reserves doesn’t even take in account any excess funds that may be in the $16.6M Grant Fund, the $16.4M Capital Improvement Fund, the $6.6M Insurance Fund, or the $11.4M Employee Benefits Fund.
The combined proposed tax reduction and wheel tax removal would only use about 10% of the excess reserves in the 4 funds. At this rate it would take 10 years to draw down the EXCESS reserves, but it would at least be a small step in the right direction.
You can find your Supervisor’s contact information at
https://marathoncountyspotlight.com/2024/10/28/marathon-county-board-who-is-your-supervisor/
or at
https://www.marathoncounty.gov/about-us/government/county-board/members
I am emailing this information to many of our County Board Supervisors, so please feel free to refer to it or simply email, text, or call your Supervisor to say “Cut $1.6 million from the proposed property tax increase and rescind the County Wheel tax”
There are many Supervisors who would like to reduce your taxes, but they need to hear from you to offset the coercion and persuasion they will face from the few in leadership that want to continue to raise our taxes despite the high EXCESS reserves. There are the votes on the Board to make this happen on November 12th if people are willing to take a few minutes to call, text, or email their Supervisor.
UPDATED RECOMMENDED BUDGET AMENDMENTS
After further thought and discussion with multiple County Board Supervisors, I am changing and updating my budget amendment recommendations. The actual accounts and entries would need to be specified by the County Finance Director, but the basic parameters are as follows:
- Rescind/Eliminate Wheel Tax (Registration Fee)
2025 Savings to Tax Payers: $2,933,000
Replace with $2,933,000 from the approximately $48,000,000 in EXCESS Highway Reserves (Unrestricted Net Position)
2. Reduce the Total 2025 Levy Increase by $1,603,925.00 (removing the total debt levy increase) which would provide an amended Levy increase of $293,040 and a total 2025 property tax levy of $58,247,387.00.
Replace the $1,603,925.00 in reduced revenue using $1,272,034.20 from the approximately $12,744,566 in EXCESS General Fund Balance and $331,890.80 from the approximately $3,325,228 in EXCESS Social Improvement Fund Balance.
DON’T LET HISTORY REPEAT ITSELF – CALL OR EMAIL YOUR SUPERVISOR NOW
Last year, my Budget Amendment to lower the 2024 property tax increase by $1,500,000 failed by 1 vote. I made the mistake of not asking residents to call their Supervisor and the “dirty tricks” by Chair Gibbs, HRFC Chair Robinson, and Administrator Leonhard were enough to sway the votes they needed to kill the amendment.
Through 8/31/24, the County has generated an additional surplus of $10,384,837, so perhaps the County really didn’t need that extra $1.5 million in 2024 additional taxes.
Your calls and emails can stop that from happening again.
2024 Expenditures through 8/31/24 are $10,384,837 lower than revenues and tax levy per the 2025 Budget Publication. (Note: The highlighted numbers show 2024 numbers through 8/31/24, per a phone call with Finance Director Fenske.)
CALCULATION OF EXCESS RESERVES
From 2025 Budget Message
From 2023 Audit
Full Disclosure: It is my understanding that the minimum fund balance policy as stated on page 29 of the 2023 Audited Financial Statements is a correct statement of the County Policy. However, I have no idea how the $29,798,541 and $7,172,340 amounts were calculated. It seems clear that they weren’t calculated using the stated policy.
This post is the opinion of David Baker
REFERENCES
Tax Levy Worksheet Prepared by Finance Director Fenske
Marathon County 2025 Budget Publication