As the year comes to an end, the Carbon County Commission must be presented with the proposed 2023 budget to begin the annual process. This was completed on Wednesday evening by Carbon County Clerk/Auditor Seth Marsing.
Marsing stated that each year, they meet with department heads to determine what is proposed for the next year’s budget. With that, they have prepared a tentative budget for the upcoming year, of which a copy was previously given to the commissioners.
During the meeting, Marsing presented a brief, high-level overview of the proposed budget for 2023. He said that the best way to do that is to compare the proposed budget for next year to the current budget.
The process began with Marsing going fund by fund. Fund 10, the general fund, has most of the county departments within it. There is a proposed increase of $509,000 to that budget to total over $17,000,000. The increase is mainly due to health insurance premiums increasing by $460,000 year over year.
Fund 15 is tourism, and there is a proposed increase of $35,000 for a total budget of $712,000. Marsing continued with the funds, including funds 24 and 25, which pertain to the senior center. There is a proposed increase of $100,000 to those combined funds and would bring it to a total of $370,000 for fund 24 and $767,000 for fund 25.
The main reason for the increase is due to continued price increases for food as well as Robbie Jensen stepping down from the Carbon County center. His position will have to be filled as he is no longer covering both Emery and Carbon counties.
There is a proposed decrease of $60,000 in the economic development fund. The change is because last year, there was approximately $60,000 budgeted for what was left of the Brownsfield grant expenditures and the county will no longer have that as an expense.
The airport fund also has a decrease, with the total budget being $148,000. The main change was for the remaining snow removal equipment shed expenses that will not exist next year. The final fund discussed, Fund 56, is the municipal building authority. It also has a decrease of $600,000 with the total budget being just over $2 million.
The change there is that $600,000 was budgeted in 2022 for additional costs associated with the Southeast Utah Health Department (SEUHD) remodel. All of that is covered by bonds that are paid by the SEUHD and there will no longer be expenses related to that remodel in 2023.
With this said, the tentative budget for the new year was approved by the commissioners. A public hearing date for the budget was then set for the next commission meeting, which will take place beginning at 4:30 p.m. at the administration building on Dec. 21.