By JONATHAN ZWEYGARDT
Hays Post

The Ellis County Commission approved the modified 2016 budget at Monday evening’s commission meeting.

After some discussion, the commission elected to cut subsidies to outside agencies back to 2015 levels for next year.

The commission had previously budgeted $1.38 million for outside agencies, an increase of $62,000. The equates to an increase of 0.16 of a mill, according to Auditor Ken Beran with Adams Brown Beran and Ball. The county instead opted to spend $1.32 million on aid to those outside agencies.

The changes reduced the final mill levy to 36.561, bringing the taxes owed on a $100,000 dollar home to $420.45, an increase of $26 dollars from last year.

Commissioner Barb Wasinger said she was disappointed with the budget and said, because of declining revenues, the county is going to have to do more with less.

“We padded this budget so that we wouldn’t have to raise the mill levy too much,” Wasinger said. “When we say we don’t want the public to wait in line and we don’t want the public to be unhappy, I think the public appreciates that these are tough times.”

Commissioner Dean Haselhorst echoed Wasinger’s statement and called on county employees to cut  5 percent for 2017.

“Next year, I’m not going to vote for this budget,” Haselhorst said. “We’re going to cut 5 percent.”

“We may to do more with less and that is just the fact of life,” he added. “You can’t keep asking the citizens over and over to keep chipping in.”

The county’s 2016 total budget will be $13,569,391.