Finance Committee approves donation
The Crawford County Finance Committee quickly worked through a gutted agenda at their Jan. 17 meeting at the Crawford County Administrative Building in Prairie du Chien.
Several items were left off after the County Treasurer, Deanne Lutz, was unable to make the meeting. As a result the County Treasurer Report and a review of Eastman’s property tax issues had to be tabled for the February meeting.
The remaining agenda involved donation requests and resolution recommendations for the County Board of Supervisors.
WCA Donation Request
The Wisconsin Counties Association (WCA) sent a written request to Wisconsin counties that received money from the Local Assistance and Tribal Consistency Fund (LATCF) through WCA efforts.
LATCF money, originally granted through the American Rescue Plan in 2021, was distributed among tribal governments and revenue-sharing counties to aid in recovery from the coronavirus epidemic. The federal funds, totaling $2 billion, included $100,000 given to Crawford County over two years.
Robin Fisher, County Clerk, introduced the request letter and noted the request was a voluntary donation for one percent of the money awarded through the LATCF.
“Not many [counties] are doing it,” Fisher said. “A lot are denying it.”
“So, they think because they lobbied so hard for it, they expect some sort of payback,” Gary Koch, Finance Committee Chair, said.
Fisher said the amount to be donated would be $1,000, and the letter stated the entirety of the donation would go to fund the National Center for Public Land Counties, “further highlighting the need for the federal government to recognize the economic impact public land has on counties.”
The committee approved a $1,000 donation to the WCA.
Credit Card Policy
Fisher introduced a resolution to amend the county’s credit card use policy for employees and departments. She stated the policy was nearly identical to the current policy with the addition of one passage: “Any individual or department that repeatedly incurs late fees, interest penalties and/or over limit fees may have their credit cards immediately revoked at the sole discretion of the County Clerk. A request for reinstatement may be made to the Finance Committee requiring the approval of a proposal to avoid unnecessary costs.”
“I think it [the additional passage] should be in there,” Koch said.
The resolution was recommended to the Board of Supervisors by the committee.
Sales Tax Update
Koch said, based on the sales tax numbers for 2023, the county could have a surplus of sales tax revenue in 2024. He said sales tax revenue was $165,000 above expectations last year.
“If those numbers came true in 2024,” Koch said, “we’d be over [expected sales tax revenue in 2024]. We raised our budget $150,000 for 2024 for what we are expecting for revenue, so, if we repeat in 2023, we’ll be about $15,000 over.”
Koch later clarified the county had budgeted $1.9 million in sales tax revenue in 2023, which the county surpassed, accruing $2,065,000. The 2024 budget raised the expected sales tax revenue to $2.05 million.
Other Business
-Review of a resolution to post county board proceedings in both the Courier Press and Crawford County Independent. The resolution was amended after the January supervisors meeting when it was observed by Supervisor Mary Kuhn that the Independent was not named in the resolution.
-The next meeting will be Feb. 7.
