County Board asks for public response to proposed cannabis ordinance, continues 2025 budget planning

Kirsten Wisniewski | July 27, 2024

Agenda topics at the most recent Board of Commissioners meeting ranged widely from a proposed cannabis ordinance to making changes to county roles and job descriptions, to the county’s financial standing, to a couple of new roofs on county buildings.

Cannabis Ordinance

One of the agenda items that received the most attention was the draft cannabis ordinance that County Attorney Molly Hicken presented to the board during the Jul. 23 meeting. County Administrator James Joerke told WTIP that before the draft becomes a law, there is a public process that it will go to. The process begins with a public hearing on Aug. 6. Joerke said that after that meeting, the board will keep the public comments period open through the following week in order to give residents ample time to review the ordinance and submit comments, even if they are unable to attend the hearing. The draft of the ordinance is currently available on the county’s website.

Financial Management Plan

During the meeting, Bruce Kimmel, a municipal financial advisor at Ehlers presented an updated of the county’s financial management plan to the board. Kimmel made the updates in response to the Board’s decision to change course on the Capital Improvement Plan. They have shifted from a justice center plan to making improvements and additions to several buildings. According to Kimmel, the county is in a good position to continue on with the newly devised plans. Joerke told WTIP, “We’ve had a history of being very conservative in forecasting revenues and trying to make sure that that, you know, we are staying within board approved budgets. And the result of that has been that we actually are in really great shape financially.”

Budgetting for 2025

The board is in the midst of additional financial discussions, focused on the 2025 budget. Over the past several weeks the commissioners have seen presentations by the heads of different departments to review budget requests for next year. Joerke told WTIP that there will be some additional expenses in next year’s budget. However, he said that the conversation with commissioners has begun earlier this year compared to previous years, since the board is still committed to finding a way to keep the levy within the same range as the past few years. He said, “Even though there are new expenses, I don’t want listeners to come away with the idea that suddenly there’s going to be some huge levy increase, because we really don’t anticipate that. And we’re going to put this budget together in a way that that avoids having that happen.”

WTIP’s Kirsten Wisniewski spoke with Administrator James Joerke about the Jul. 23 meeting of the Board of Commissioners. Audio from that interview is below.