Numbers to Think About

$1,380,190 - Countywide Services           $430,000 - Conservation Board              $179,700 - County Attorney   

Story County already has over 80 CAFOS. Many manure spills occur during transfer from the pits to the trucks or during transport to the fields. 

The most recent application, submitted this spring, was for a building just over 500 feet from the headwaters of the west tributary of Indian Creek north of Nevada. It scored only 485 out of 880 points on the matrix. While I believe the CAFO operator and the manure transporter will take great care - the operator lives on the property and the transporter is experienced and local - the almost certain contamination of Indian Creek due to its proximity should a spill occur seems too big of a risk. Yet, this current board of supervisors voted to recommend approval to the DNR.

4. I want the Story County Board of Supervisors to recommend DNR denial for CAFO applications where the proposed building or the fields designated to be fertilized by the animals’ manure are located close to bodies of water. This would underscore the board's sincere desire to clean up its already impaired bodies of water and to keep others from becoming polluted.

1. Build upon budgeting changes introduced three years ago to identify increased revenues and/or decreased expenses quarterly so the funds can quickly be reassigned to cover unmet community-based human services and road/bridge maintenance needs. 

Supervisor Rick Sanders introduced new budgeting procedures as the board began work on the FY12 Fiscal Year budget. For at least the two previous decades, county departments had turned in expenses estimated on what they might need to spend in a worst-case scenario rather than what they actually had been spending while revenues were estimated on what they actually had been. This meant that previous boards of supervisors approved budgets where, on paper, expenses exceeded revenues and shortfalls were covered by the county’s cash reserves. Using the cash reserves (the county’s savings account) dropped fund balances below the minimum preferred to assure continued cash flow between the property tax collections every six months.  In some years, the shortfall wasn’t just on paper and money was taken from the reserves to cover expenses. Sanders goal was to create county budgets that planned from the beginning to spend less than the county anticipated receiving in revenues. Some departments just had to analyze the previous years’ expenses more closely to lower their budget requests; others had to restructure, reduce or eliminate portions of their expenditures. The new budgeting goals were achieved with the FY 2014 budget. In fact, by the time the FY15 budget workshops ended in February, it became clear that the county would end FY14 $300,000 to the good. There were many ways the extra $300,000 could be used during the remaining four months of FY14. The supervisors choose an indirect form of property tax relief that moved several equipment purchases planned for FY15 into the FY14 budget.   I believe there were more immediate needs for any unused money. Most citizens would have supported using the $300,000 to cover unfunded or underfunded requests by social service agencies such as county outreach services and food program administration at Heartland Senior Services. Rural Story County residents certainly would have benefitted had the supervisors shifted some of the money into the county’s road and repair budget. The county has had to post weight limits on or close some roads and bridges because the county budget currently has a $1.2M shortfall for annual roads and bridge maintenance. (The county engineer estimates the county needs a total of $23M to repair all the roads and bridges plus upgrade/pave the roads experiencing significant increases in traffic or changing citizen expectations. For more on ) 

2. Adjust the general supplemental levy rate in FY16 to return $228,500 cut from the FY15 budget and apply it to unmet critical needs. 

​Overall, taxable property values in Story County increased almost 1 % - from $3.71 billion to $3.745 billion this year. The county also paid off the final $1 million of debt to build the Story County Justice Center in southeast Nevada.  These two factors allowed the supervisors to drop the tax levy by about 12/100ths of a percent, or 12¢ per $100,000 of taxable property value and drop the actual total property tax collections $225,800.  I want to reinstate that amount, adding it to any increase of the total property tax collections dollars* for FY16, dedicating $165,000 to road and bridge repair, $50,800 to funding human services engaged in the ASSET process and $10,000 to the management and care of stray and neglected animals The $165,000 represents about 13 % of the county’s $1.2 million annual shortfall for road and bridge repair.  The $50,800 represents about 10 percent of the county’s annual ASSET allocation and is an additional $25,800 over the allocation increase for this year.  The $10,000 represents 4 percent of Story County Animal Control’s $253,600 annual budget.  Together, the amounts represent an additional $12.50 per year for someone who owns a home assessed at $200,000 before the property tax rollback. An owner of commercial property assessed at $200,000 would pay about an additional $22 under last year's state property tax reform.  Yes, I want to increase your taxes every so slightly. Good roads and bridges are an important part of our county’s economic vitality. Safe, healthy citizens are an important part of our social structure. And providing refuge for lost, homeless or abused creatures is both a safety issue and an important part of our shared values.

3. Use property tax revenues from the current wind turbine farms and any future turbines to facilitate affordable housing projects and reliable public transit outside of Ames, so the county's smaller communities and school districts can experience economic vitality through population growth and at the same time increase the housing options for Ames workers and families with modest resources. 

Learn more on the 21st Century Vision page.

4. Analyze the 30 percent of the county's revenue that comes from mostly federal and state funding and proactively develop a plan to address significant funding reductions that could come as a result of the $17.4 trillion federal deficit.

Learn more on the 21st Century Vision page.