VIENNA — The Maries County Commission discussed mounting budget concerns and reviewed ongoing issues with 911 operations and law enforcement funding on Oct. 23 during their regularly scheduled meeting.

“Really, the only thing I’ve got is I was just trying to find out about what we’re doing about our fourth-quarter transfer,” Maries County Sheriff Mark Morgan said, speaking of the transfer of tax funds to the sheriff’s department.

Morgan expressed concern about insufficient funds for the final quarter of 2025, noting only $34,000 remained in the citizen safety fund. Morgan, who is under budget for the year, said the department faces difficulty meeting payroll and other obligations.

Declining revenues are a major factor affecting county operations. Even though all budgets have been set and approved, there is currently not enough income to meet those needs. Commissioners and Morgan discussed options such as borrowing from the bank, but expressed concern about repayment without new income sources.

Eastern District Commissioner Doug Drewel said the county’s financial strain was anticipated early in the year and, even with that advance knowledge, not all offices made enough adjustments to their budget.

“We done knew this coming into the year,” he said.

Maries County Clerk Rhonda Rodgers added, “I just feel like in January we knew, and most everybody has not done a thing about it. Here we are in October, and it’s happening, what we knew was going to happen, and we’re trying to figure it out, and we should have been figuring it out 10 months ago. I had to do this for 20 years in my life, raising two kids by myself. Is it a want, or is it a need?”

Drewel asked Morgan, “How much money do you think you’re going to come up short this year?”

Morgan replied that $35,000 remained in the citizen safety fund. Drewel asked how much money the sheriff’s office was going to need for the rest of the year.

“A lot more than $35,000,” said Morgan.

Drewel asked, “So every quarter is basically the same, right?

“Correct,” Morgan said.

“So how much was it last quarter?” asked Drewel. “However much money you got to have to make everything work, whether it comes from 911, whether it’s citizen safety, how much money does it take every quarter for you to survive?”

“Oh, I have to add it all up if you want 911, citizen safety and all of it combined,” said Morgan.

Drewel told Morgan that he should have an idea of what each of his quarters cost.

“It’s hard for me to see, and it’s going to sound like we’re beating you up here, but it’s hard for me to see that. You should know how much money it takes and if you can’t tell me, and we’ve had all year, and you’ve went through three quarters, and you’re like, your fuel, your fuel runs pretty well the same from what we look at,” said Drewel. “That’s what I’m looking at. So the first couple of quarters fuel was, let’s say, $5,000 Well, the next quarter, it comes in $5,000 so that means the last quarter you need about $5,000 right? So each thing that you’re running down there should be pretty well the same, except for maybe food, little bit of jailing, because your jailing goes up and down, but basically it runs about the same on an average, right? So that’s the reason I asked you how many more dollars you got to have.”

“So, you want a total of what it’s going to cost me to get through the end of the year?” asked Morgan.

“Well, you should know that,” said Drewel.

Morgan said, “I have a general idea, but I’m not going to start spewing out figures and try to figure out what it’s going to be for 911 versus citizen safety, versus the jail.”

“How do we know how much money it takes if you don’t know?” asked Drewel.

“I don’t understand where the shortfall is, because I know I’m under budget,” said Morgan. “Now, if I was over budget, this would be a different discussion, but I’m well under budget because I have made a lot of cuts, and we have run bare bones.”

Drewel said that there is no income available to pay back a loan from a bank if money has to be borrowed to cover expenses.

“I’m responsible for the sheriff’s office,” said Morgan. “That’s what I’m looking at.”

“And we’re responsible to give you that money,” said Drewel.

“I did a budget that was approved. It was a balanced budget. It was approved. Now less revenues came up hugely short,” said Morgan. “I don’t understand why in the world my budget…I don’t have the money to fund it.”

Stratman clarified saying, “We’ve got to submit a balanced budget to the state, and to do that, we had to show that we had the capacity to borrow $220,000. That is an absolute last resort to have to do that. We’re figuring on everybody saving money and getting through the year, if at all possible without actually doing that.”

“It’s my first year and this 911 thing is a complete nightmare for me,” Morgan replied. “It’s something I have never dealt with, and I’ve been pulling my hair out all year with it. I really, really hope that we get this 911 board, because I want it to be gone. I don’t want to have anything else to do with it.”

Morgan again raised concerns that a fourth-quarter transfer hadn’t been made to his department.

“I’m just responsible, just like every other department in this building, for staff that they expect me to make sure they get paid. And I’m concerned. I can’t believe nobody else isn’t a little bit concerned because the fourth-quarter transfer ain’t come in, but I’m obviously concerned, but I can’t tell you how you’re going to come up with it, because I honestly don’t know. You’ve been here longer than I have,” Morgan said.

Drewel said, “The only way you come up with it is to go borrow the money, but it’s got to be paid back, but there’s no money to pay it back. There’s no way of foreseeing how it’s going to be paid back.”

Rodgers added, “Next year we’re going to be sitting here, and you’re going to spend what you spend, and then what? Then we’re going to have to go borrow more money again.”

“I don’t want to go into it next year like we did this year. Me owing all this money to AT&T and all these dadgum jail bills and stuff,” said Morgan. “I started in the hole. I don’t want to do that again.”

“But somebody, another fund, paid a lot of those bills for you.” Rogers said. “I mean, the Restitution Fund paid a lot of bills. ARPA paid a lot of bills. I mean, Pat (Kleffner) come in here, and he had how many bills to be paid from the previous administration, but he had to figure it out in his own budget. He didn’t get extra money from these other funds to pay for it.”

“Yeah, but I intentionally got hosed by the last administration,” said Morgan.

“Who’s to say he didn’t?” said Rodgers. “They bought a new grader there wasn’t funds for.”

“Ed did not do him that way,” said Morgan. “Ed didn’t shut down the jail and out house all these inmates that put us $50,000 in debt in a jail out building intentionally, that was done intentionally. I don’t think we can compare offices.”

The group also discussed the 911 budget and the upcoming one percent sales tax proposal intended to create a 911 Board to oversee all operations, including budget, of emergency dispatch services in the county. Commissioners agreed that even if the measure passes in November, revenues would not be available until 2026 when the new cash flow from the tax comes in.

Discussion turned to the 911 system’s staffing and the potential cost of transferring dispatch operations if local funding collapses. County Attorney Tony Skouby said state law requires someone to answer 911 calls, even if the county must contract with another jurisdiction.

“If it doesn’t pass,” Presiding Commissioner Victor Stratman said, “it’s going to be a real problem.”

The question of the legality of a recent vote concerning the proposed purchase by the sheriff’s department of a $12,000 Grappler system for one of the patrol vehicles was called into question by Stratman.

“Hey, on them grappler things, that meeting that we had out here at the restaurant that day, that wasn’t an official meeting, because we didn’t have a quorum. We only had two out of five,” Stratman said.

“I think that’s a question for Tony (Skouby),” said Morgan.

Skouby also reported that a county employee, Samantha Bodie, would begin training to perform court-approved blood draws for DWI cases. The $1,000 training cost will be covered through the Law Enforcement Restitution Fund. It was noted it would save time and resources by allowing tests to be done locally rather than at out-of-county hospitals.