Committee forgoes cuts, uses $1.5 million to plug budget hole

CANYON CITY — The Grant County budget committee voted 5-1 for an $88.7 million budget for the 2025-26 fiscal year.

Along with the budget, the committee at its meeting Wednesday, May 21, voted 5-1 to pass a permanent tax rate of $2.8819 per $1,000 of assessed home value. Budget committee member Charlene Morris voted no on both occasions.

It wasn’t easy getting there. Cuts, wage freezes, potential staff reductions and talk of closing the county library and jail monopolized the two-month long budget process as the committee sought $1.5 million in cuts to balance its 2025-26 budget.

Ultimately, the committee decided to fully fund the library and jail and passed on making deep cuts this budget year.

The committee instead decided to use $1.5 million in unappropriated funds to plug the county’s financial hole. Increases to the Public Employee Retirement System, increased insurance rates, the loss of jail revenue, the loss of Secure Rural Schools funds and the loss of grants that once paid for county jobs are among the reasons for the shortfall.

Another source of the shortfall was the yearslong practice of using money from the road fund to plug gaps in the general fund. Ultimately found to be illegal, the practice ceased for the 2025-26 fiscal year.

If adopted, the county’s $88.7 million budget will be just more than $12.8 million lower than last year’s adopted budget of $101.54 million.

Of that $88.7 million, a mere $2.06 million comes to the county in the form of property taxes and right around $800,000 comes in the form of payments in lieu of taxes or PILT. More than half of the county’s approved budget ($53.63 million) is in the road reserve fund.

One year variance

The road fund, school forest fund, city streets and bridges fund and airport reserve fund represent the largest spending drops from fiscal year 2024-25 to this year. The county will spend $14.2 million less on those funds during than they did in the 2024-25 fiscal year.

The airport reserve (-$6,697543), road fund (-$5,653,520), and school forest fund (-$1,369,593) saw the largest drops in spending in comparison to the 2024-25 fiscal year. The county’s city streets and bridges fund is zeroed out due to the sunsetting Secure Rural Schools program. The fund had a budget of $483,132 during the 2024-25 fiscal year.

There were some increases to spending, however.

Forest Title III/Secure Rural Schools funding did not factor into last fiscal year’s county budget but represents a $725,000 line item in the 2025-26 budget. The Grant County Sheriff’s budget will see a $317,182 increase from fiscal year 2024-25.

This year’s budget saw the county’s cash-on-hand drop from just more than $6 million last fiscal year to $4.96 million for fiscal year 2025-26. The county’s unappropriated funds also fell from $4.5 million last fiscal year to $2.2 million.

The number of full-time equivalent employees dropped from 89.42 last year to 79.04 for the 2025-26 fiscal year.

Concern for the future

All three of the appointed members of the budget committee in addition to county commissioners expressed concern that using unappropriated funding to patch the county’s budget hole would lead to further budget struggles. Grant County Judge Jim Hamsher doesn’t see things that way due to the existence of those unappreciated funds.

Hamsher referred to those funds as local assistance funds and was adamant they are supposed to be used in the way the county is utilizing them.

“We’ve never had that extra money sitting around and I’m glad we did,” he said. “That’s what it’s for.”

Hamsher said he wasn’t completely opposed to budget cuts but wanted to wait and see what, if any, state and federal funds the county would receive before committing to cuts. Hamsher also expressed a desire to survey the public regarding what should be cut. He said challenges in generating revenue also factor into the county’s budget woes.

Morris was the lone member of the six person budget committee to vote no to passing the budget and the passage of the permanent tax rate.

“We met many, many times and I don’t think we accomplished much,” she said.

Morris said the county’s long term budget situation is dire and using unappropriated funds to patch the county’s budget hole is not a sustainable practice because the funding isn’t recurring. She said unless business practices within the county court change, budget issues such as this one the county is experiencing this year will continue to manifest themselves.

“I don’t know, there just needs to be a better way to do business,” she said.