Manitowoc County Executive Bob Ziegelbauer presented his proposed 2024 budget to the full County Board Tuesday night.
Ziegelbauer tells Seehafer News that the slightly more than $91 million spending package includes a tax levy of just over $32 million and a slight reduction in the county property tax rate for the typical taxpayer in Manitowoc County for an 18th consecutive year.
He says this “conservative budget” contains three main priorities as we (the county) strive to deliver high quality services throughout the county.
They include “combating inflation with an investment in our employees to compete in the labor market, expanding our Human Services Department to address mental health, child welfare and the opioid crisis and continuing with an aggressive highway maintenance program with total construction costs of more than $7.5 million.”
Ziegelbauer says shared revenue from Madison for the first time in several years helped ease the burden on making some very difficult choices.
“It very much helped allowing us (the county) to increase our expenses for inflation and not raise property taxes,” he explained. “It came out to a little more than $1 million. I’m happy we got the increase, and we will put it to good use.”
A very important point The County Executive emphasized is that there’s no money in the budget for the courthouse repair and renovation project, adding “That will come in a later resolution, maybe in a couple of months or this winter and we’ll start on that program next year.”
The Public Hearing on the budget will be Monday October 30th at 6 p.m. in The County Board Room at The Heritage Center with the full board scheduled to at on the budget November 7th.
Copies are available on the Manitowoc County website.
