Monroe County OKs 2025 budget, but might see near term push to bump pay for sheriff’s deputies

A budget for 2025 that calls for $122.5 million in spending, when home-ruled funds are included, was approved by the Monroe County council on Monday night.

The vote was 5–1, with dissent from Marty Hawk. Cheryl Munson was absent with illness.

As councilor Geoff McKim noted, the 2025 spending plan is technically a “deficit budget” for both the general fund and the PS LIT (public safety local income tax) fund.

For the general fund, spending outpaces the $52.8 million in revenue by about $1 million. For the PS LIT fund, spending exceeds the $3.65 million in revenue by about $875,000.

But McKim pointed out that the expected end-of-year reversions—money that is appropriated in the budget but not actually spent—will cover the shortfall. On top of that, McKim pointed out, there are healthy reserves in both of those funds, to cover the shortfall, even if there are no reversions at all.

For the general fund, the projected operating fund balance at the end of 2025 will be 46 percent of this year’s $53.9-million budget. The PS LIT operating fund balance at the end of 2025 is projected to be 43 percent of this year’s $4.5 million budget.

But the county council could be looking at challenges early next year, starting with a new personnel administration position that they authorized on Monday night, which was not built into the 2025 budget. The council could also see requests from the sheriff’s department to increase the pay for deputy sheriff’s to respond to the significant salary increase that Bloomington police officers will see next year.

The new position is for payroll administration, attendance and benefits, with a salary range of $56,556 to $71,636. The vote on the new personnel administration position was 4–2, with Hawk and McKim dissenting. Councilor Kate Wiltz also expressed reservations about creating the new position for the same reasons that McKim and Hawk voted against it—there’s no identified source of funding for the new position.

But Wiltz wound up voting to create the new job. She said she thinks the personnel services department will function better with the addition of the position, and she felt she would ultimately support it, once the funding source is identified. Because the work to identify that source would fall to the county council, Wiltz did not want to take up staff and the public’s time by postponing the decision to a future meeting.

The standard COLA (cost of living adjustment) for county employees this year is 3.2 percent.

Getting a mention but no action on Monday night was a spreadsheet that chief deputy sheriff Phil Parker had forwarded to the county council, which proposes a significant pay increase for sheriff’s deputies. For the lowest-paid officers, the proposal from Parker would increase the base pay from $72,768 by another 2.9 percent, and add a flat amount of $12,000 to make a total of $86,878.

Hawk said she thinks that a pay increase for deputies is something that the county council needs to consider, in order to keep sheriff’s deputies from switching to Bloomington’s police department.

Council president Trent Deckard countered by saying that his understanding is that the push to increase pay for Bloomington’s police officers was based on an effort to catch up with the pay for county sheriff’s deputies.

Deckard said he’d reviewed some numbers with the council office staff and concluded that between October of 2022 and now, deputy sheriff positions had seen a 31.7-percent increase. Deckard said it’s important to get accurate numbers, and the council needs to talk to sheriff Ruben Marté to sort out priorities for the sheriff and other departments, as the council looks forward to 2025.

Hawk’s dissent on the 2025 budget was based on what she described as a “different philosophy” from other councilors. Hawk, the sole Republican on the seven-member council, put it like this: “I am just a fiscally more conservative than some, and that’s just the way I am, and I’m not going to change now.”

Wiltz said she agreed with many of the sentiments that Hawk had expressed, saying, “I think perhaps I’m more fiscally conservative than I like to admit.” Wiltz said she felt a little uncomfortable relying on reversions to balance the budget by the end of the year.

Wiltz indicated that a more appropriate way to go about it would be to budget more accurately, so that there are not significant reversions of unspent money at the end of the year. Wiltz said she hopes next year that the question of more accurate budgeting can be worked through earlier in the budgeting process.

Councilor Peter Iversen gave the budget his full-throated support, calling it “a significant milestone in Monroe County’s journey forward.” Iversen said, “I believe this budget reflects our commitment to building a resilient community for our residents.

The 2025 budget recognizes the most significant asset in county government, Iversen said, which is “our dedicated county employees,” according to Iversen. He called the 3.2-percent increase a “meaningful cost of living adjustment.” Iversen called the hiring of an employee to work in the area of climate change “a bold step.”

Iversen also said the 2025 budget reflects a strong collaborative relationship between the council and department heads. He put it like this: “We could not do this without department heads, and we are simply the vehicle to make this happen.”

Iversen conceded that the 2025 budget does not address the housing shortage in Monroe County. Iversen also said the county needs to do more work on climate action.

Deckard said the 2025 budget is “not perfect.” But Deckard said, “Under the timeline that we have, this is the budget we have.” Since he started serving on the county council in 2019, Deckard said he has noticed that as soon as the budget for one year is adopted, the next year’s budget is already being developed.

Deckard put it like this: “The minute this budget is done—in fact, as we talk about this budget—the next one is being crafted.”