11-12-25 COMMISSIONER BETH SEIBERT

Allen County Commissioner Beth Seibert joined Todd to discuss the onging budgeting process.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Today we have a commissioner, Beth Cybert with us and studio. Beth,
good morning, Good morning Todd. Well, it's a budget season,
and I guess that's always a lot of the work
that commissioners do to make the budget and then takes
a lot of input from different people. Of course, all
the departments come with their ask, their request, and then
you get your budget projection from the Budget Commission. Let's

(00:24):
start there, because the number that you're going to bring
in is where you have to start. And I guess
this year, for the first time in several years, that
number is not going to be an increase. Your projection
revenue next year is what flat?

Speaker 2 (00:40):
It is flat. The Budget Commission, which is represented by
the County Auditor, the County Treasurer, and the County Prosecutor,
certified that of the one hundred and fifty some sources
of revenues that support the general fun budget, that we're
going to be right at the level we were last year,
and last year we approved a budget of about thirty

(01:03):
seven point five million dollars.

Speaker 1 (01:06):
What's the main one or two sources to the general fund?

Speaker 2 (01:11):
Well, the primary source sixty one percent is sales tax,
and we've certainly seen steady sales tax there and we
project that going into the new year. And interestingly enough,
we were at a meeting of like six different counties
of county commissioners recently and we all had to admit,

(01:34):
and I think Mercer County commissioners were in the room
and Auglaize County commissioners were in the room, Allen and others,
and we all agreed that it was really hard as
we look at the sales tax reports on a monthly basis,
and those are like three months in the rear, so
what we're looking at right now really is from three

(01:54):
months ago. But we, most of us, I was interested
to find look at what the other counties are realizing
as well. And you see a percentage of increase or
decrease and there's no correlation. It's really frustrating. And we
the first time I heard commissioner's voice that in the room.

Speaker 1 (02:15):
And so in other words, the results from other counties
are different wide margin.

Speaker 2 (02:21):
We didn't well wide enough. I mean, for us, a
percentage point is wide. But you know, I've been frustrated
by that for well over a year. But to hear
Mercer County commissioners sit there and say something similar. I'm like, Okay,
I'm not the only one experiencing this.

Speaker 1 (02:39):
And of course a budget doesn't always get spent for
whatever reason. Now, when that happens, if you get to
the end of a budget year and the budget you
laid out, there's money that wasn't spent, whether it's by
one department or many, probably many combined, I would make yeah,
some get real close, some may be missed by a

(03:02):
percentage or two. What happens to that budget, assuming that
the money actually came in right, what do you do
with that?

Speaker 2 (03:10):
Well, the money that doesn't get spent. And this is
something I've been studying and I believe that Corey and
Brian have too. As we look at where can we
cut the current budget? You know how much money are
we carrying over? Cumulatively? We've been carrying over as twenty

(03:30):
seven plus agencies something to the tune of five million
dollars a year. We budget as three county commissioners, every
agency to the to the amount that they ask us
for and or need, because we pair that down some.
But commonly where we have an overlap is there's a

(03:53):
vacancy or vacanceason in positions and I'll use the Sheriff's
department as an example, and the sheriff was very successful
this year and getting cadets into the academy and filling
a considerable gap of employees that he had, but it
was that gap that that absence. We fund him to

(04:14):
the to the full amount of the road deputies and
the jail staff. But if you're down in staff, that
money carries over. And so we've we've been looking at everybody,
everybody's budget, including ours, for that unspent amount and trying
to justify why it's there. And if it's simply explained

(04:37):
that that somebody or somebodies were vacant there and now
we've filled them, well then that's that's pretty easy to
look on.

Speaker 1 (04:46):
Well, if you had a let's say, had a budget
of ten dollars, then we get to the end of
the year and the county only spent nine dollars and
fifty cents, why don't you just take that fifty cents
and put it on this year's budget, well, the board
or do you wait?

Speaker 2 (05:01):
Well, you could, but I believe that myself and my
fellow commissioners, we believe that it's good budgeting to budget
for the annual revenues that the cash because any excess
is going to carry over and populate our cash balance.
Those are one time moneies that we can spend to

(05:24):
the benefit of our agencies, and we do. But we
cannot build cash reserves into an annual budget because eventually
your revenues will not support the budget you're creating, and
then that'll cause some very drastic cuts to have to

(05:44):
be made.

Speaker 1 (05:45):
Yeah, that's a good point there, and I guess lesser
number one in budgeting, right.

Speaker 2 (05:51):
Yes, yeah, I mean it's no different than your household budget.
It's just a bigger scale.

Speaker 1 (05:56):
And clearly for the county, things that are in just
a general life are costing more, whether it's a food
or energy. Most prominently, I would imagine.

Speaker 2 (06:05):
I believe we're looking at nearly a quarter million dollar
increase in our budget as we look at it today,
just a fund electric and gas and associated utilities for
our nineteen or so campuses that we support.

Speaker 1 (06:24):
Well, speaking of campuses, that would be a physical plant,
an office, a place. You're building a new one on
Main Street there at North Street, the Administration building, and
this will be the last full year you're not in there, right,
You're going to move in.

Speaker 2 (06:40):
So that's right now we're down to less than a year.
We hope that if the plan and everything stays on progress,
then in October of twenty twenty six, we're moving our
agencies in.

Speaker 1 (06:54):
And with that at some point, once that's pretty well established,
now you have to earn your attention back to the
courthouse as to what to do with it or how
to move forward.

Speaker 2 (07:05):
Right some years ago, as the as the Commissioners were
looking at building an administration building and they had a
plan in place up in twenty eighteen, twenty nineteen, and
it was like version number four or five of what
that looked like. And our goal is to put all

(07:26):
the courts back into the courthouse, and we hope by
the year twenty thirty one, when the county celebrates its
birthday two hundredth birthday, and so we're hoping to start
to frame that up and start from the point that
we were at version number five in twenty eighteen, twenty nineteen.

(07:51):
But we know that the judges will come together with
us and help us decide what will that renovated courthouse
look like, what you know, what will it need to
serve and our click for courts will be in that
building as well, because they are the business office of
most of the courts.

Speaker 1 (08:11):
Well, certainly a lot of work to be done on
all of those fronts and the budget. When do you
get it done? How's the timeline go.

Speaker 2 (08:18):
It's our goal to have it presented to the elected
officials and department heads by the fifteenth of December. That's
still our goal, but we certainly haven't buttoned it up yet.

Speaker 1 (08:30):
Well continued good luck with that, Beth. We appreciate you
coming in.

Speaker 2 (08:33):
Thank you