A process that began last December wrapped up earlier this week, as Dallas County officially adopted the fiscal year 2020 budget.

The budget was presented to the public during a special session of the Board of Supervisors Tuesday night. The first part of the discussion involved setting the salaries for each of the County elected officials. Based on the recommendation of the Compensation Board, each official received a 3% pay increase from the previous year. The new salaries include: $139,682.34 for County Attorney Chuck Sinnard; $126,089.24 for Sheriff Chad Leonard; $89,083.35 each for Auditor Julia Helm, Recorder Chad Airhart, and Treasurer Mitch Hambleton; and $58,785.75 for each of the three Supervisors.

With that decided, the next step was to dive into the budget itself. Board Chair Mark Hanson and Operations Director Rob Tietz went through the details of where money will come from and be spent starting July 1st of this year. First, Hanson said they estimated the population of Dallas County to be around 92,500 people. That was the figure they used to predict revenues, estimated at $44.6 million. Hanson then went over the proposed tax levies, which was $4.16 per $1,000 of assessed value for urban residents, and $2.34 for rural. Both figures were down from the previous year. He also pointed out that the current estimated countywide valuation is around $6.1 billion, one of the highest in the state.

The meat of the budget was discussed with the expenditures, where the County has allocated around $48.5 million for the new fiscal year. The area with the largest hit against the budget is once again public safety and legal services, which includes the Sheriff and County Attorney offices, assistance to the 5th Judicial Court, and all emergency services. There were no objections from the public during the presentation, so the Supervisors approved the fiscal year 2020 budget as presented.