Marathon County Administrator Discusses Departments Handling of High Fuel Costs

Friday, July 15th, 2022 -- 8:01 AM

(Mike Leischner, WSAU) Marathon County Administrator Lance Leonhard provided the executive committee with a mid-year update on how each department is handling the high cost of fuel.

He says for those that have a gas or diesel budget, most have been able to absorb the cost so far by moving money from their salary budget to fuel if they have vacancies. “We do have that strategy based on vacancies where we are, at this point, confident that we will be able to manage that internally in the budget.”

He says for other departments that don't have a fuel budget they are still seeing the impact of the IRS mileage rate. “The vast majority of our departments are really impacted more by the IRS Mileage Reimbursement increase than fuel. And why that is is because most of our departments don’t have fuel line items, they have training and mileage reimbursement line items.”

He says the Sheriff's department is one of those that's moving money around to make up for the increase, so they can avoid methods such as decreasing patrol time or mileage. “They want to continue to provide a high quality service.”

He says the highway department is also prone to the costs, but because they are somewhat protected. “Because they purchase fuel in bulk through RFP every other year. So, they are able to lock in a fuel rate that, I think, you or I would be very happy to lock in.”

Leonhard says at this time there's no one department that's in danger of going so far over budget that they would need some sort of emergency funding, but he is keeping an eye on the situation.

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