Linn residents seek county funds for trails, legal aid, MHDD services

CEDAR RAPIDS - The process of writing Linn County's next budget got under way Monday afternoon with a handful of residents looking on and a few offering advice.

Supervisors heard requests for more spending on trails and legal assistance for county residents, and a call to protect programs for mental health and the developmentally disabled - now undergoing cuts to meet a $5 million shortfall in the current budget.

“We were spending money on things that are not really important,” said Mary Ernzen of Cedar Rapids. “I would really request that you make that a priority.”

But Supervisor Linda Langston told Ernzen, whose brother receives MHDD services, that the county already levies the $8 million limit for those programs allowed by the state. The rest of their funding comes from state and federal sources, and state law bans the county from spending general-levy money on MHDD.

“We are not allowed by law to spend any of that money on mental health,” said Langston.

Steve Hershner, vice president of the Linn County Trails Association, asked supervisors to begin work on extending the present trail system from its present southern terminus in Ely into Johnson County. And Jim Kringlen of Iowa Legal Services asked them to fund the equivalent of one attorney's position in its Cedar Rapids office, which he estimated at $80,000 to $85,000.

The real work of laying out a budget that takes effect next July 1 comes next month, after the state issues its final property tax valuation figures. Supervisors adopted a guideline Nov. 9 to allow up to a 2.3 increase in county salaries while holding operating costs flat.

Supervisors will hear and consider department heads' “offers” through January, finalizing a budget by Feb. 8 for another public hearing tentatively set for mid-March.

Under the county's “budget for outcomes” approach adopted last year, department heads set their basic budgets, then pitch new ideas, or offers, for efficiencies or improvements. Last year's $129.7 million budget included about $1.9 million in discretionary offers.

Langston and Lu Barron, both Cedar Rapids Democrats, were on hand. Ben Rogers, D-Cedar Rapids, and Brent Oleson, R-Marion, participated by phone, and John Harris, R-Palo, was absent.