ST. GEORGE — Generally, the adoption of the budget for the upcoming year by the Washington County Commission is a routine affair with little in the way of public comment.

That wasn’t the case this year as members of the public got up to speak – sometimes multiple times – about the proposed budget.

Calls for better accessibility and time for public review, as well as questions about what taxpayer money was going toward, were themes among the comments during Tuesday’s commission meeting.

Washington County is looking at a $165 million budget for 2023 that county officials have said is frugal and leaner than it otherwise could be due to concerns of economic uncertainty moving into next year.

“I think that we’ve worked very hard on this budget,” Commissioner Victor Iverson said. “I’m proud of the fact we were able to accomplish what we needed to accomplish without raising taxes. It was scary at times. My hat’s off to department heads and elected officials who’ve worked so hard to stay frugal.”

The official 2023 budget is $7 million more than originally proposed near the end of November when the commission opened it up for public review. Despite this, it remains less than the 2022 budget, which closed at over $174 million.

The changes from the budget proposed last month and the one adopted Tuesday include the transfers of money between differing funds and the finalization of certain department budgets, Washington County Clerk/Auditor Susan Lewis said.

Some money also is being carried over into the next year for departments that are in the middle of projects slated to continue or conclude in 2023. This includes around $19 million in federal funds from the American Rescue Plan Act and Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security (CARES) Act funding that is going toward the expansion of the Purgatory Correctional Facility.

Also noted by county officials and commented on by members of the public was the addition of a $1.8 million federal grant from the Local Assistance and Tribal Consistency Fund. These funds can be used for “any governmental purpose other than a lobbying activity,” according to the U.S. Treasury website.

While this grant has been factored into the 2023 budget, Lewis said, it has only been applied for at this stage and has yet to be granted to the county.

Some county residents also took note of increased budgets in particular county departments and wanted to know the justification for increases that ranged from 9% to 75%.

“Spending has increased, and we want to know where it’s going,” county resident Donna Williams said as she referenced a paper summarizing parts of the budget. “Everything has gone up it looks like. County Commission has gone up 9%, health and wellness services has gone up, the elections have gone up 75% – that’s the highest on here.”

A primary reason for the increases is so the county can maintain competitive wage levels compared with other government entities and the private sector, especially where law enforcement is concerned, both Iverson and Commissioner Adam Snow said.

“When you can go make $15 more an hour working for Sunroc (Construction) – we were losing people like crazy,” Snow said, adding the county recently conducted an extensive analysis regarding county wages as compared to similar jobs in the open market. “We’re trying to be competitive … That’s the justification for a lot of those (increases) – and law enforcement was a huge one. They are the largest office by far … That’s where a huge portion of those changes come from.”

County law enforcement – which consists of the Washington County Sheriff’s Office and the Purgatory Correctional Facility – makes up a large part of the county’s general fund and municipal services fund when in comparison to the rest of those funds’ budgets.

For example, of the general fund’s projected $43 million budget, public safety and corrections comprise approximately 45% of that at $17.6 million. Municipal services account for $12.1 million of the overall budget with the Sheriff’s Office portion coming in at $8.7 million.

The 75% jump in the election’s budget for 2023 was also scrutinized by members of the public who repeatedly brought up lingering issues concerning election integrity and a mounting distrust in vote tabulation machines.

The budget for elections for 2023 is $1.4 million, with $355,000 of that slated to go toward new vote-counting equipment that Iverson has said will greatly improve the transparency of the county’s elections process.

County resident Wendy Godlewski told the commissioners she believes no electronic election machine is secure and can be easily hacked and its data manipulated. She then called for a return to hand-counting of election ballots instead for the next election.

Godlewski is a member of a coalition of county residents who feel the county’s election process is flawed and has made this claim repeatedly since the Republican primary election for House 72 that produced results she and others continue to dispute.

“We shouldn’t be using computers in our elections. Period,” she said. “We need hand-counting.”

Iverson replied that the county plans to delay the purchase of any new election equipment until after the 2023 Legislature session. Many election-related bills are being proposed for next year that may impact how elections are run, he said, which has prompted a pause in any potential adoption of new voting machines.

A facet of the budgeting process that the commissioners noted could be better is making the public more aware of how the budgeting process works and increasing accessibility for review. While the county posts public notices in the local paper, on its website and other places online, Iverson said they can do better.

A suggestion Iverson made involved the possibility of town hall-style meetings where the public could attend to learn about the budgeting process and the particulars of where the county gets its money and how it is spent. This idea drew a measure of applause from those attending the meeting.

Snow agreed.

“We will work on trying to make things more accessible,” he said.

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