Johnson County is beginning the budgeting process for Fiscal Year 2021 (FY21), which will begin July 1, 2020.

Here are some ongoing budget issues, and my take on them:

General Fund versus Rural Fund: If you pay property taxes in Johnson County, you pay into the General Fund. All taxpayers do. If you live in the unincorporated area of the county, you also pay into the Rural Fund.

The Rural Fund covers expenses specific to rural residents – mostly roads, but also libraries, landfill, and a couple smaller expenses.

There are wide variations between counties as to what should be supported by the rural fund.

Johnson County pays for virtually everything from the General Fund. (The Rural Fund is only about $6 million of the more than $100 million dollar budget.) Other counties do things differently.

Any single individual can easily create a budget: It isn’t that hard to support the programs and services you like, then cut the ones you don’t.

It is much more difficult to do this for 160,000 people.

Similarly, it isn’t that hard to decide how much you think you ought to pay in taxes, then apply that county-wide.

It is more difficult when you then recognize how many valuable services would need to be cut.

Creating a budget that works for 160,000 people is challenging.

It is easy to oppose a budget. It is hard to agree on one: It isn’t that hard to criticize the decisions that get made and vote against the budget.

Doing so is lazy. Acting proud of it is grandstanding.

The public needs someone to step up and do the required work. Find common ground.

Voting “no” without doing the work to find compromise positions is an abdication of duty.

Taxes versus services: I had a man complain to me about his taxes. The next day, his wife complained about the condition of their road.

They simply can’t have it both ways.

Yes, this is an anecdote, but it sums up the fundamental budgetary difficulty that people want to pay less in taxes but get more services. It cannot be done.

Want to know a government’s priorities? Look at the budget.

With that said, I encourage citizens to join us at our budget meetings. The calendar is on the website.

Meanwhile, what are your priorities? Now is the time to let us know.