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Resident urges commissioners to trim 'padding' after budget analysis
Summary
Carolyn Huddleston presented spreadsheets showing multi-year budget surpluses and urged the Seward County commissioners to reduce contingency 'padding' rather than rely on reserves, citing multi‑million-dollar leftover balances for recent years and an accounting adjustment tied to a Conestoga repayment.
Carolyn Huddleston told the Seward County Board of Commissioners that the county routinely finishes fiscal years with millions of dollars left unspent and urged officials to trim what she called budget 'padding.' Huddleston said she compiled tables comparing budgeted versus actual expenditures for 18 county departments and several funds and found roughly $7,000,000 left over at the end of each year for 2022–2024.
"Leftover money is leftover money, and it should be able to be shifted to cover operations in the department where it sits," Huddleston said, urging the board to consider lowering the contingency percentage the county holds in reserve.
Huddleston told commissioners that the 2025 rollover initially looked much smaller — she reported an early estimate of about $2,400,000 — but that staff later told her the 2025 figure was thought to be around $4,500,000. She said that amount includes a $1,000,000 Conestoga payback, which reduces the 'extra' to about $3,500,000 in her calculation.
Huddleston also noted that the county had pursued an 8‑mill tax increase but was rolled back to revenue‑neutral treatment, and that the most recent budget reductions still required drawing about $2,000,000 from reserves to balance the year. She said the county's contingency levels appeared to be 24% in 2022, 20% in 2023 and 18% in 2024 and contrasted that with a commonly recommended contingency of about 5% for comparable businesses.
Commissioners thanked Huddleston for the data packet and the effort she put into compiling figures and asked no immediate follow-up questions during the meeting. The item was public comment; the board did not take formal budget action at the meeting.
