Link to October 3 Wausau Daily Herald article, "Marathon County officials make cuts in hopes of keeping property tax rates the same".
Excerpt: Marathon County Administrator Brad Karger has eliminated a projected $2 million shortfall in the county's $159 million 2011 budget through cuts to county departments and county-funded programs.
The cuts should keep the county's property tax rate the same as it is in 2010 and, combined with a 1 percent drop in the value of all county taxable property, the owner of a home valued at $138,000 would see a decrease of about $14 in county taxes.
That should make home-owners happy. But the cuts also have left program managers howling, worried about how the reductions will affect hundreds of county residents.
The proposed cut to the Marathon County Public Library is not specified but we do know that it's somewhere between a 1.2 percent reduction in building maintenance ....to a 12.5 percent cut in the Health Department.
I'd also suggest that the headline is misleading. It's the Marathon County Administrator who has made the proposed cuts. That's not to say that the Finance, Property & Facilities Committee* or the full County Board won't follow suit and approve them, but those votes haven't taken place yet. And I suspect there'll be much discussion before the finance committee's vote on November 11.
*None of the 9 women on the county board serve on this committee.
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