Sheridan County reviews ‘Option C’ for 2025–26 budget, approves one Road and Bridge operator

At a special budget meeting, the Sheridan County Board of Commissioners reviewed a new “Option C” iteration of the proposed 2025–26 county budget that the county budget officer said leaves the plan short by $396,408 and approved one Road and Bridge operator position.

The revised budget packet presented as Option C included department-level requests the board had asked staff to model after a prior meeting. County Budget Officer Ida Shunk Thompson told commissioners that with the additions shown in red the “amount of additional cash needed to balance the budget truly is in parenthesis negative at $396,408.” Option C reflects requests or directions the board had made and several line-item corrections staff incorporated since the earlier options.

Sheridan County Sheriff Levi Dominguez told commissioners his office reduced operational line items “significantly,” but personnel adjustments already made or missed in last year’s update produced a net staffing-driven increase. “That 1.9% increase” shown for patrol “is because of the personnel and where we’re at with adding and also hiring between January and now,” Dominguez said. He said the detention budget shows about a 3.5% increase tied to hires and promotions and noted both patrol and detention still list a single vacancy that he does not intend to fill under the hiring freeze.

Dominguez described an added courthouse deputy in the sheriff’s request and clarified the deputy’s duties would be primarily courthouse security and administrative work; “if there’s no court hearings going on that day, one deputy can certainly do that,” he said, adding that deputies assigned to the courthouse would not be used for regular patrol in outlying communities.

Budget materials also included revenue revisions. Staff told commissioners a large part of a reported revenue increase in the sheriff’s budget was caused by accounting changes and timing: a split-sentencing/work-release line had been budgeted for $65,000 but year-to-date receipts were about $132,000, which explained much of the variance. Staff said a school resource officer reimbursement line had been duplicated in earlier estimates and was corrected by creating a separate revenue line item.

The board heard staffing and organization updates from other departments. With Assessor Paul Fall’s input, staff modeled restoring a chief deputy and several property-appraiser positions and flagged multiple scheduled retirements that created vacancies; Fall told staff the assessor’s office has been “overloaded” because of recent property-tax changes. The county clerk described a reorganization that eliminated the chief deputy position in favor of cross-trained leads, and requested a new part-time deputy clerk (20 hours per week) to start in December to help cover title work; she said that part-time hire adds roughly $21,500 to her budget but the overall county clerk budget still shows a 22.14% reduction from the prior year after reorganization.

Commissioner Jennings moved to approve one Road and Bridge operator position to preserve basic county operations; a commissioner seconded and the motion passed on a voice vote. The board directed that Road and Bridge retain two seasonal employees and one mechanic as previously discussed; staff said they had adjusted pay and benefits projections to reflect a recently filled hire.

Commissioners discussed timing and legal deadlines for adopting a proposed balanced budget. Thompson reviewed statutory timing and told the board she must publish a summary of the proposed budget one week before the scheduled public hearing; the board discussed a special meeting schedule and settled on reconvening for further budget decisions on the 24th at 9 a.m. Commissioners also discussed potential additional cuts, including a suggestion to reduce the commissioners’ own budget and reconsider membership in the Wyoming County Commissioners Association.

The meeting record showed the Option C packet and the department worksheets attached to it will be used for the follow-up session. The special budget meeting adjourned at 10:41 a.m.