County board: "We'll be fine" putting together 2014-15 county budget

If you pay property taxes in Winneshiek County, roughly half your bill covers school district taxes.  Another quarter pays for county government, while the remaining quarter is distributed to several sources, mostly city government.

As Winneshiek County begins to put together its 2014-15 county budget, County Board Chairman John Logsdon on Monday predicted the process would be relatively painless this year.  That's because there is less and less discretionary leeway for county boards on how they spend money.  A growing percentage of their budgets in Iowa are determined by state government mandates and, to a lesser extent, federal mandates.

Logsdon says there may be some issues involving law enforcement funding and some possible building maintenance projects that will need to be funded.  But, overall, says Logsdon, "We'll be fine."

County supervisor Floyd Ashbacher says he's been "impressed" with the restraint shown by county department heads in their spending requests.  County supervisor Dean Thompson says one issue he and other supervisors are working on this year is trying to make sure county employees receive "fair compensation" for their work, compared with other county employees doing similar work.