Committee names five service priorities after operational planning exercise

Facilitated by county staff, Dunn County supervisors on June 30 completed an operational‑planning exercise that asked each committee member to name priority services and services open for review. The exercise produced a five‑item priority list and a separate list of services for potential review or alternative funding.

Jenna (staff facilitator) summarized that the group’s top five priorities were: election administration; human resources management; cyber security (including IT infrastructure and patching); tax collection; and public communications. The group then identified additional areas to study for sustainability or alternative funding: dog licensing operations (possible reduction or transfer of duties to municipal treasurers), marriage-license fee adjustments, centralizing paid tech support to municipalities as a revenue source, property addressing services, and grants/budgeting and financial planning improvements.

Committee members emphasized two themes: most of the services are legally required at a baseline level and therefore shift burden rather than eliminate work if county service levels are reduced; and many ideas under consideration focus on revenue generation, intergovernmental consolidation, or efficiency (for example, using fee adjustments or a grants specialist to recover administrative costs).

What’s next: staff will compile the standing‑committee summaries and the services selected for review, provide those to the executive committee for consideration in the 2027 budgeting cycle, and return departmental budgets to this committee at the next meeting on July 16.