Johnson County communications center budget criticized, again

IOWA CITY - Forty-two percent more property tax revenue is being sought to run Johnson County's joint emergency communications center next fiscal year.

That has led some of the members of the county's Board of Supervisors to criticize spending at the center, an issue they have repeatedly hit on in the facility's short life.

“I was just incredulous the first time I saw this (budget),” Supervisor Rod Sullivan said. “Because all I could think was, ‘Did we not learn anything the past couple of years?'”

The center, which opened last year, combines dispatchers and radio systems for public safety and emergency medical personnel in the county.

It is run by a seven-member policy board with representatives from the county, Iowa City, Coralville, North Liberty and the Johnson County Emergency Management Agency.

That board has the final say over the budget, and the Board of Supervisors must OK that spending plan and include it in the overall county budget.

The supervisors and the communications center's board have clashed over the budget the past couple of years. That is continuing again this year with the initial proposal released this week.

“The increases are alarming,” Supervisor Terrence Neuzil said. “There is an expectation amongst residents to keep taxes at a minimum, and clearly that budget does not do that.”

The budget from the center's executive director, Gary Albrecht, asks for 42 percent more in property taxes for the fiscal year that starts July 1. A tax rate was not part of the information released.

The budget also calls for center expenditures to increase 26 percent, from just less than $3 million this fiscal year to nearly $3.8 million next year.

Albrecht refused to talk about the budget with a reporter, saying it would be unfair to do so until the board gathers to go over it at a public meeting Nov. 18.

The budget proposal was published in a local newspaper Wednesday and is posted on the communication center's website for the public to see, but Albrecht still would not discuss it.

Now that the budget has been published, the board cannot increase the tax askings or expenditures, but it could decrease them.

Regenia Bailey, a member of the center's board and the Iowa City Council, said Albrecht put together a budget based on what he thought the needs of the center are, not the political considerations that accompany increases in taxes and spending. She said the board needs to determine what the needs are and what the community can afford.

“The story behind the numbers is a very important thing to get to,” she said.

Board Chairman Pat Harney, who also is chairman of the county's Board of Supervisors, called the initial budget “eye-opening” but said the center is a new facility that's still trying to get a handle on equipment costs and staffing levels. He also said the budget includes about $500,000 more to boost the center's reserves after those were spent down some this year.

Sullivan and Neuzil said there's no way that, with the state of the economy, any of the local governments represented on the center's board will consider tax or spending increases near the level proposed for the communications center.

“If any one of their department heads in any of their governments came in and asked for a 40 percent increase, they'd laugh them out of the office,” Sullivan said.

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