Butler County's 2025 budget: Navigating grants, rising costs, and potential cash reserves dip

The Butler County Commission approved the 2025 budget with expenditures exceeding revenues by almost $6.3 million. If the projected numbers hold, the county will need to dip into its cash stores of $21 million to make up the difference.

The sum of projected county expenditures totaled just under $37.7 million. This represents a 36.5% increase from 2024. The county budgeted for large sums of grants, but it is still undetermined if all of these will be received.

Departmental projections show expenses up and revenues down for the 2025 fiscal year. Presiding Commissioner Vince Lampe explained the shortfall in revenue versus expenditures is unlikely to come to fruition, however.

He stated the county tries to over-budget and under-spend. Lampe said the existing county fund of $21 million is the result of years of this strategy and departments spending frugally. It is split between multiple funds, some of which can only be spent on specific purposes by law.

Money not spent in each department’s budget rolls over to this store every year. Lampe noted the money is there to make up for shortfalls in revenue.

“We’ve been trying to get our feet underneath us for about 10 years,” he affirmed, “We’re saving for that bad year.”

Last year’s budget looked similar to this year’s initially with expenditures exceeding revenue. For instance, an emergency fund of $600,000 was budgeted and not spent. The county’s building maintenance of all properties was budgeted $1 million more than the actual money spent. Similar budgets were seen in other departments.

Tax revenues

Budgeted projected revenues would increase 30% over 2024’s actual amount, however, most of this is prospective grant money. Sales tax expectations are expected to be down by $317,648 for 2025. Property tax revenues are projected to decrease by $43,386.

The county expects to take in $300,000 from the marijuana sales tax in 2025, a projected $14,518 drop from 2024’s actual numbers.

“It’s getting harder and harder to live within our means,” Lampe stated. “Everybody’s trying to help and live within their means.”

Eastern and Western District commissioners Ralph Stucker and Larry Wells echoed this sentiment and hoped a use tax could be passed soon to make up the revenue deficit.

Stucker asserted the state-imposed verbiage for the ballot measure dooms the tax to failure every time.

Audit issues

The county was admonished by the Missouri State Auditor for a slew of issues in its audit last year. A major component was $200,000 in over-collected property taxes. Lampe said the amount would be applied to next year’s property tax bill. He minimized the impact of the over-collection and stated it was less than $1.61 per taxpayer per year.

“To me, that’s pretty minute,” Lampe said.

He maintained his belief the auditor was “not 100% correct” in his calculations of the over-collections. However, Lampe said he would follow the recommendations for this specific point until further calculations can be done.

Departmental expenses

The county expects to see heavy increases in the operating expenses of its departments for 2025. The county clerk’s office saw a $161,258 bump in projected expenditures.

The increase comes mostly from new expenses for deputy, clerical and human resource salaries totaling $143,385.

The building and grounds department budget ballooned substantially over 2024’s actual spending by $760,893.

Line item expenditures include a $525,000 increase for repairs and upkeep as well as an additional $57,500 in audit and “miscellaneous fees.”

Lampe stated the large line item value is to be prepared in case of major repairs or a disaster. He said maintenance is in the works for the courthouse ceilings which could total more than $250,000.

He clarified the building and maintenance fund covers all of the structures in the county’s care, not just the courthouse.

“It don’t take much to spend it,” Lampe warned.

The cleaning and security line item increased from $45,000 to $145,000.

The county collector requested $150,000 for the recorder user fee fund in 2025 while the 2024 actual amount was only $34,869.50. The 2024 approved amount was $250,000.

Court administration costs are expected to be up across the board by $42,819.72 with increases in the law library and drug court funds.

The county allocated $12,000 to the veterans’ court fund in 2025. In 2024, the VCF received zero dollars.

For the law library fund, it should be noted the actual expenditures fell short of expectations by $15,687.47 last year. However, the numbers for 2023 show a greater load, indicating the expenses in this category can fluctuate.

For the sheriff’s department, the county allocated an additional $56,342.20 for law enforcement training over 2024. The overall budget for the department expanded by $495,322 over 2024’s actual expenditures.

A substantial portion of the sheriff’s department increase is accounted for by the $1.6 million in ARPA funds in addition to the $1 million used in general revenue.

Lampe added, “We try to make sure he’s got enough money. That’s a 24/7 stop.”

He said a large problem with the sheriff’s expenses came from prisoner per diem. Lampe said the county only gets reimbursed for prisoners’ per diem while they stayed in the Butler County jail if the individual goes on to the state penitentiary.

“Lately we’ve been keeping them,” Lampe noted.

Sheriff’s deputies' salaries also rose by $268,510.75 spread across all deputies.

The county also raised the budget for the road and bridge fund from $4,489,000 to $5,079,500 for 2025. In 2024, the county only spent $3,482,582.64 of this amount.

Intergovernmental revenues

The largest increase in revenues comes from the intergovernmental category which consists of grants, interagency payments, and payments in lieu of taxes. The 2025 expected amount for this category is more than $10 million.

A substantial chunk of this total comes from a Community Development Block Grant for Drainage District 12’s ongoing levee certification efforts amounting to $2,746,000.

According to Mathis and Associates engineer Todd Sittig, the county applied for this grant but has not yet been approved for it.

Other grants include the use of $1 million in American Rescue Plan Act funds and miscellaneous CDB grants totaling $700,000 for projects throughout the county. The listed efforts include paving in Harviell and Broseley, a Black River study, the Broseley Senior Citizens expansion, and County Road 321 improvement.

As with the DD12 project, the grants have yet to be approved and received. The budget also lists $350,000 in grants from the Delta Regional Authority. The amounts for all grants are also listed in the expenditures for these categories.

The expenditures equal the grant amounts, contributing to the overall increase in the county’s expenditure category.

Salaries

Across the board, most county officials received pay increases. Lampe informed this is the third cost of living raise in a row. The increase for employees was 5%.

Some employees saw a specific raise in pay beyond the 5%. The largest was the county prosecutor which saw a $10,000 increase from last year’s budgeted amount of $165,000.

The treasurer, recorder, collector, public administrator, coroner, assessor, and emergency director all saw the 5%raise in salary. The pay is uniform across all of the mentioned positions and increased from $79,659 to $83,642.40.

The buildings and grounds custodian’s salary increased from $86,032 to $92,925.

Notably, Butler County Sheriff Mark Dobbs did not request a salary increase from 2024 to 2025. His pay remained static at $100,000.

These previous pay raises were the subject of controversy following the Missouri State Auditor’s audit of the county last year.

The auditor described these previous raises as, “in violation of constitutional provisions and state law.”

Dobbs and the county commission rejected this characterization.

Under state law, Dobbs could have sought a salary raise in 2025 because it is the beginning of a new elected term. However, he did not request a raise nor did the county allocate one.