The Morgan County Commissioners approved a number of money matters Monday morning for their final meeting of 2024.
Commissioner Chair Mike Wankel says that the commissioners approved the allocation of some of the remaining American Rescue Plan Act funds to renovations of the county’s annex at 345 West State Street: “We added to the list basically that we want to do some remodeling over at the annex, which everyone knows is our old Health Department building. There’s some interior renovations that we need to do there to accommodate some future expansion. Also, the roof is in need of repair. We have been doing some recent updating of the building. We’ve kind of dressed the front of the building up, but it’s time we face some more important things of the structural part of the building to move forward.”
The remaining ARPA dollars and some other fiscal recovery money was also placed into funds for either renovations and or expansion of current county housing projects. Wankel says those dollars will be used for anticipated projects coming in the future.
The commissioners also approved the annual tax levy for the county and Marnico Village. Wankel says both levies will remain below a 5% increase, and will not require a truth-in-taxation hearing: “The numbers came in slightly above [the 5%]. However, the board felt that we didn’t want to do a tax levy increase for those amounts, so we kept it under the 5%, which we are capped at. We’re happy to do that.”
Wankel says that previous budgets have placed the county in a good financial position for 2025 to stay under the 5% increase.