Budgets discussed

MINERAL COUNTY – The arduous task of making sure Mineral County will have enough money to function normally in the next fiscal year continued Friday, Aug. 22, as county commissioners examined more of the budget at their annual meeting.

Facing a deficit of over $300,000 in the face of uncertainty as to whether federal money would come through, commissioners met with several departments to find ways to save money. While still in the early stages and with no budget cuts completely certain, commissioners were still asking department heads to look at making tough choices

Mineral County Commissioner Roman Zylawy said they were looking at budget proposals and determining what could stay on department’s “wish lists” and what could go.

The commissioners met on Friday with the county attorney, the building maintenance manager and looked at a crime victim advocacy grant.

Commissioner Laurie Johnston said they were asking the hard questions from department heads.

“We were going over their budgets to see if there are any places we could cut,” Johnston said.

Zylawy said the reason commissioners were asking about potential budget cuts is because it was still unknown, and may stay that way until months from now, whether the county will receive its federal PILT money.

PILT stand for payment-in-lieu-of-taxes and is a form of federal assistance for counties with a small tax base due to the preponderance of federal land within the county.

According to the U.S. Department of the Interior website, PILT money helps offset property tax losses due to non-taxable federal lands and was written into law in 1982.

PILT money helps counties pay for such vital services as firefighting, police presence, the construction of roads and schools and other services.

The amount of PILT money received by counties is based on population and the amount of federal land within the county.

The problem, according to Mineral County Commissioners is it’s uncertain whether any PILT will be coming this way.

Zylawy said Congress, currently at recess, hasn’t decided yet whether to grant assistance.

And that’s why commissioners are planning for the worst possible scenario.

“Until we know if it is coming in, we have to plan as though we won’t get it this year,” Zylawy said. “Our property taxes only give us so much to operate on. The rest of it we have to get from PILT. We have all this federal land and we can’t tax it.”

Federal assistance in the form of PILT used to be consistent for six year periods of time but because Congress changed the rules and is itself facing budget woes, now it has to be approved every year.

“Congress has a deficit problem of their own,” Zylawy said. “So we never know whether we are going to get it so that’s why this year, under the guise that we won’t get it, we are trying to whittle away at the budgets. We will have to make some tweaks and cuts.”

The budget process in Mineral County is expected to take several more weeks to complete.