The proposed county budget is not something to brag about because it relies too heavily on fund balance, and it doesn't address the capital needs of the county or the schools. School funding is at state average but still much less than the schools had requested. And while .595 is better than .576, it will likely leave our county short of funds to meet growing needs in the coming years.

On the good side, the leadership of Arnold Chamberlain, Chad Mitchell, and Jon Barber agreed to some of the highest priorities. The employees got full COLA, funding for insurance, and the compromise on merit was a fair one. The schools got state average. This is a start, but it is clearly not enough.

The capital needs, while not addressed, were at least talked about, and now the public is starting to recognize that we have some long-term needs that aren't being met. As soon as the budget is finalized, our county commissioners need to start pushing to have a committee formed that will begin mapping out a strategy to meet these needs. With various community leaders at the table, this committee needs to determine the latest reasonable start date for all of these projects and map out a tax rate strategy that will meet these needs. This committee needs to have a few respected community leaders and business people at the table to lend credibility to this process and the commissioners need to not serve on the committee so that it will clearly be seen as independent of political influence.

This work needs to be done quickly and openly so that this committee's conclusions will be made public before the end of the year.

This action will show leadership on behalf of our county commissioners.

— Austin Doby

Rockwell