Rising Gas Prices Hit County Budgets Hard

By Reagan ConnellyWith gas prices skyrocketing all over the country, Jefferson County departments are being hit hard.At the Jefferson County Commissioners meeting on June 21, the county highway department reported they are about 20 percent over budget on fuel costs.Jason Eyer with the highway department reported that he believed they are about $30,000 over budget, as far as he knew, but they would know for sure by the end of this month.The financial difficulty will result in some difficult decisions for the county.“It’s going to go back to, if no one lives on that road, it’s either going to get less gravel or just let it go back to dirt,” Eyer said.The board agreed that will definitely happen in the next year.“And if it keeps going up, we will have to decide if we want to keep three passing our roads or two passing them,” Eyer stated.Commissioner Michael Dux added that they are not the only department suffering from ever-rising fuel costs. “We’ll be over budget in the Sheriff’s Department, probably, in that line. We’ll be over in the ambulance department,” he said. “We’ll be over in our own budgets!”Eyer added that setting a new budget will be especially difficult for them because they have not changed their budget in four years. “This year we will have to take our total gallons and get a rough estimate on that day what the cost of fuel is and then hope it doesn’t go two dollars more.”They said they are now being charged fuel surcharges for almost everything they do. “Even if we go out and get a load of gravel, they charge us a fuel charge for loading it on our trucks,” Eyer said.They get a fuel charge when they go to Lincoln or Omaha and use the loaders there to load trucks with rocks, the department said.The board speculated that the price of gas will continue to rise in the next year before finally coming back down.“It definitely won’t come down as fast as it went up,” Eyer said.Commissioner Mark Schoenrock stressed the importance of public involvement in budget hearings. “Here’s the important point that we as a board we have made a number of public announcements for the public to be involved in our budget process this year,” he said.Schoenrock added that this year’s budget will be the most difficult one since he’s been on the board. “Just because the cost of everything has gone up so much and the public doesn’t want us to cut any services,” he said. “They don’t want less gravel on the roads, they don’t want less asphalt, they don’t want less law enforcement, they don’t want less ambulance and on down the line, nobody wants less governmental services but yet nobody wants to pay more taxes. But our ability to provide all those services to the citizens is going to cost a lot more this year.”Dux added that he believes it will be the most difficult budget in the last 16 years.Schoenrock said Jefferson County is not alone in this struggle but every county is facing the same problem. “So, it’s going to be tough this year for us as a board to say we are going to spend this much on these services. It’s going to be tough,” he said.The Highway Department and the Sheriff’s Department are the board’s top priorities in the budget, Schoenrock said, “The safety of our citizens and transportation have always been our top priorities.”The budget is not only affected by the price of gas. As the country teeters on the brink of recession, the cost of everything is going up. The Highway Department will not be able to keep their equipment up to date with the current budget.After about 10,000 hours, wiring and hydraulic hoses start to give out and must be replaced if the equipment is to continue working properly.“Each one of our road graders is about a quarter of a million dollars, now do we delay replacing them?” Schoenrock asked. “You know, I don’t really want to think about that!” he added. “But you have to keep your fleet current, you can’t just let your fleet sit there and age out.”The board will be holding budget hearings until the end of July and encourage the public to attend. “But hardly anyone ever comes to budget hearings,” Schoenrock said. “This year it’s going to be really important for the public to be a part of that so we know what people’s priorities are.”Schoenrock said the board is pleading with the public to make their voices heard at budget hearings. “What do you want us to do with what amount of funding?” he said.Schoenrock emphasized that the board is only an advocate for the taxpayers but it is the people who hold the real power in every decision. “The three of us have to make that decision but we want it to be able to best serve the public. We want those decisions to best serve our citizens.”

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