A joint budget meeting between the political entities within Johnson County, including the county and Johnson County Central Schools, was held in the Johnson County Courtroom on Wednesday, September 23 with Senator Bob Hallstrom and 26 Johnson County patrons in attendance.
Representatives of Johnson County were Chairman of the Board of Commissioners David Borrenpohl and County Assessor Terry Keebler.
At the beginning of the meeting, Borrenpohl made a disclosure statement about the need for a hearing on the county's 2026 budget: The amount of the property tax request: $4,230,932.66; The total assessed value of property differs from last year's total assessed value by 12 percent; The tax rate which would levy the same amount of property taxes as last year, when multiplied by the new total assessed value of property, would be $0.241390 per $100 of assessed value; and Johnson County proposes to adopt a property tax request that will cause its tax rate to be $0.268236 per $100 of assessed value. Based on the proposed property tax request and changes in other revenue, the total operating budget of Johnson County will exceed last year's by 19.3 percent.
Jimmy Ray from Tecumseh asked the first question of the night, “Why are you spending this money?”
Ray thought there should be a three-way split between the 25-26 fiscal year and 26-27 fiscal year in spending county funds. According to Ray, the county has already dictated that this money is going to be spent and that having this joint budget meeting came too late.
Borrenpohl responded by saying that no one attends the budget hearings any more. He also explained that when valuations go up, the levy usually goes down. Therefore, the tax-asking amount usually breaks even.
“Where is our money going,” Ray asked.
Borrenpohl said the county commissioners went through the budgets line by line with every entity. As an example, Borrenpohl asked Sheriff Lynn Lyon how much money was cut from the Sheriff's budget. Lyon replied, “$191,000.”
Matt Schaardt, superintendent of the Johnson County Roads Department discussed the increase in rock prices and the fact that the bridge cost match program is still in the state system, however, funding for the bridge cost-match program has not been available for the past two to three years.
“I feel the frustration of the taxpayer and constituents,” said Senator Bob Hallstrom who previously developed a legislative bill to have these county joint budget meetings moved up to July 1 so that the people could voice their concerns before the county and other entities would start formulating their budgets.
“What about people living on fixed incomes, where is it going to stop?” asked Stan Karr of Sterling.
Later in the meeting, Ray asked about the fact that there are three Commissioner districts in Johnson County and that each Commissioner gets $27,000 each for a total of $81,000. “Why raise the Commissioners pay, when that money could be used some place else,” he questioned.
Ken Kerchal of Tecumseh said his taxes increased 50 percent. “What's going to happen when the new school is built?”
Johnson County Central Schools
Superintendent Jon Rother shared the figures for the JCC School 2026-2027 budget. These figures include General fund: $9,199,408.00; Special building fund, $1,659,758.00; QCPU Fund, $353,535.00; Total: $11,212,701.00. The tax rate is 0.938310 which is a 4.61 percent change in JCC's operating budget.
JCC board member Jon Schmid said he found it ridiculous to fund a $2.8 million renovation project in the high school facility and have to prioritize the issues they were going to fix that have been problems for several decades. He also talked about the one chiller unit that had to be repaired at JCC's Middle School in Cook. Schmid added that the $2.8 million renovation project had to be completed by the time school was ready to start on August 5.
Administration and staffing inefficiencies (due to two sites and three buildings) costs the district $600,000 was briefly discussed.
President of the Johnson County Central Board of Education Kim Wellensiek said it's going to cost money to get to a one site campus. “I want teachers there for the education of my kids,” Wellensiek added. Wellensiek also emphasized, “Public schools are required to educate anyone who comes through our door as a member of society and cannot be turned away.”
Stan Karr asked if Johnson County Central Schools couldn't get 80 percent reimbursement of Special Education funds after a year. “The problem is we don't know how much the state is going to give, especially considering the $800+ billion budget shortfall the state legislature is currently dealing with,” Wellensiek responded. She added that JCC can ‘tighten its belt’ too much and then we hurt ourselves two or three years down the road when we need funds for a project and cannot proceed due to budget levers such as the tax asking authority, levy limit, and budget authority."
Rother said the high school alone used up the majority of the Building Fund (that has been built up over the last four years) for a major project due to HVAC upgrades, security entrances, and the fire alarm system. Rother shared that the HVAC in the gymnasium only had one unit working. The fire alarm system required a lot of electronic upgrades.
“Our teachers appreciate the improvements made to the high school,” said Rother. However, Rother also noted that considerable amount of additional funds will be necessary to complete the high school renovation project. “When it comes to expenditures, the building fund and the activities fund are the budget areas that get hit the most,” said Rother.
It was noted that the savings per year in having a new PreK-8 facility would offset the cost of the bond. Board member Dan Jones said the inflation after the $35 million in construction costs is about $4.8 percent or lower. Karr estimated that if 14 cents in taxes is used over the next two years, it adds to the value of the bond.
“People say a good school atmosphere brings more people and kids into a community. However, Wellensiek noted that when parents are looking for a smaller community to raise their family, a smaller school's facilities have to be competitive with other school districts.
“How far are taxes going to increase before we can no longer live here?” questioned Kerchal.
“What's going to happen if our young people can't afford to start farming,” said Velda Koehler.
According to Rother, JCC teachers work very hard in educating our students. He added that all four of his kids have graduated from JCC Schools and the teachers did a wonderful job in educating his kids.
JCC Board member Jones explained that JCC's FFA members approached the board about a year ago with plans they developed for planting crops and farming the land the school had previous purchased for the construction of a PreK-8 school facility. Those crops will be harvested this fall. Another FFA project underway is plans for constructing a greenhouse. JCC schools also plans to create a walking trail as another avenue of learning about our outdoor environment. “We're always looking for something different in educating our students,” Jones added.
Wellensiek concluded the meeting by said the most efficient way for saving costs in school operations is to operate at one campus by passing a bond election.
