Service Cuts Loom In The Future As Costs Continue To Rise

By Gordon HopkinsWhile Jefferson County Commissioners have struggled over the last several budget cycles to avoid cutting services, they warned cuts are likely coming in the future.That warning came after commissioners voted two-to-one to approve the budget and property tax Tuesday morning, September 23, 2025, after a public hearing in which members of the public were allowed one last opportunity to voice their opinion before the final vote.Commissioner Mark Schoenrock emphasized, as he has done many times in the past, the difficulty in maintaining services in the face of ever-increasing costs.“The board this year really, really struggled with this budget,” said Schoenrock. “Do we try to keep that same level of service across the board, or do we cut?” Explaining The NumbersBrian Blobaum of Blobaum and Busboom PC, the county’s accountant, explained the numbers, “We are asking for a general fund levy of $7,803,971 a bond, highway bond tax of $482,050 and from the ambulance district for $988,985.”The total of those three is $9,275,006. Blobaum noted the ambulance does not cover the full county.While the operating budget was actually 26 percent lower when compared to last year, there is still a net increase to property taxes due to increasing expenses.The ambulance fund increased by 17 percent. Blobaum explained, “A lot of that is in the area of salaries and costs. So, costs keep going up there.”Blobaum noted Jefferson is not the only county struggling, “I also assist with Saline and Thayer County. Thayer County is increasing their tax. Taxes by 18.71 percent.”According to Blobaum, Saline County is increasing by 17.65 percent. Meanwhile, Jefferson County is increasing by 13.57 percent.The primary expense for any county is staff. Blobaum said, “According to Bureau of Labor Statistics the week, weekly wages for Nebraska county government employees. Since 2020 has gone up 32 percent.”Inflation has also wreaked havoc with county budgets.“Gravel prices over the last 10 years have gone up 79 percent, and of that, 47 percent was in the last six years,” said Blobaum. “We went through a time where we had some pretty significant inflation.”Jefferson, Saline and Thayer Counties all attempted to use cash reserves to keep the levy low. Blobaum said, “And so the attempt was to continue to keep rates as low as possible, and meanwhile, hope that inflation didn’t continue.”Blobaum added, “Once we start to whittle down on our cash reserves, then we have to, at some point, come back and face the reality.” How Property Tax Dollars Are SpentSchoenrock explained how tax dollars are divvied up, “On average, about 60 percent goes to pay for our schools. The balance then goes to pay for things like the National Resource District, our fire district, the historical district. There are other things in there that takes the balance of the average property tax dollar. So, the county, relatively takes a much smaller percentage of the property tax dollar.”Of the tax funds that the county received, Schoenrock said the bulk goes to the roads department, law enforcement and ambulance, “Our county budget, when you peel it apart, our law enforcement and county jail, that takes a little over a third of our county budget. Our roads department takes not quite half of the budget. The ambulance takes about 13 percent of our budget. And then balance goes for, you know, all the all the other things.” What the Future HoldsWhile commissioners chose to keep the same level of service, Schoenrock said this would likely be the last time. He warned citizens would probably be seeing services cut in the future.Schoenrock said, “I talked with a number of constituents in my district, and it was overwhelming. People did not want to see less gravel on the roads, see the roads graded less frequently. They did not want us to go from advanced life support ambulance service to Basic Life Support ambulance service.”However, Schoenrock acknowledged, “If nothing else changes, we are probably going to have to make some cuts next year, because we can’t keep going on like this.”“It’s going to be tougher, I think, the years ahead. Decreased valuations probably on the horizon. We all know four-dollar corn doesn’t cut it,” said Schoenrock.Road maintenance will likely have to be cut back. Jefferson County currently has 935 miles of county roads and 405 bridges. Two-To-One VoteCommissioners Michael Dux and Mark Schoenrock voted for the budget and tax request.The lone no vote came from commissioner Danielle Schwab, who said, “I know how the math works, and I respect all the work that we put into the budget. But for me, I cannot support a levy increase without feeling we’ve done everything possible to stay tighten our spending first. Over the past eight months, I’ve raised a lot of these concerns about deeper reviews, accountability in our departments, avoiding across the board raises, rather than merit raises, and I would have liked more time to dig into this with the departments and with my fellow commissioners, and so going forward, I’d like us to start that process a lot sooner, even if we don’t have all the numbers, we can look for trends, and we can look at expenses, and do that as a pre-workshop, maybe before we get into it, so we can better separate our needs from our wants. I do think our constituents are stretched terribly thin. They expect us to ask the hard questions and make sacrifices just like they are doing, and if we don’t push back or trim that extra padding just becomes the new baseline for the next year, and that’s how our budgets creep up, even when our revenues are staying flat. And so, this isn’t about our people, our county employees or one particular department. It’s about, for me, being responsible with taxpayer dollars, and I think we could have done better. And so, for that reason, I’m going to vote no today.”According to County Clerk Kristine Riggle, “My understanding, per the state auditor’s office, is if no budget is adopted, then there should be no 2025 levy set for the county and the county would be limited to spending money only as allowed under §23-914.”As noted above, the proposed budget was less than the prior year. Had the other commissioners followed Schwab’s example and the budget failed to pass, the levy would be lower but the budget would be higher.When asked after the meeting what she would like to see done differently and what she would like to see cut, Schwab responded via email, “My full statement from today’s meeting explains my ‘no’ vote and what I’d like to see done differently.”

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