It’s budget time again in Park County, and this year both the county and many organizations it supports are looking at less revenue. 

On Tuesday the commissioners approved the county clerk’s presentation of the tentative budget for the upcoming fiscal year.

“It’s going to be a couple more weeks before we figure out where we’re going to be this year,” said Chair Dossie Overfield, but the county is expecting a roughly $2.5 million drop in revenue from the prior year. 

The board also heard from a variety of organizations who are once again requesting funding from the county. A number of them expressed concerns about a potential loss in federal government funding due to the Trump administration’s budget cuts. 

The Powell Senior Center, for instance, upped its request this year as it lost $70,000 in revenue when a federal grant went away. However, Executive Director Linda Dalton said that, since she’s announced the loss of the grant, the community has already raised more than $13,000 for the center. She's also working to bring in more grants to cover the deficit.

Crisis Intervention Services Executive Director Lisa Peterman said her organization is also facing potential cuts, but she didn’t ask for any more county funding this year; she noted that the county will have less revenue because of the Legislature’s passage of a homesteader tax exemption and a general 25% cut in residential property taxes.

Commissioners plan to meet with staff on June 23 and 24 to hammer out the details of the budget for the July 1, 2025 to June 30, 2026 fiscal year. One task will be to determine how much funding they’ll provide to the 16 nonprofits that are seeking county funding — ranging from the Powell and Cody senior centers to CYAIR, which works to bring more airline service to Yellowstone Regional Airport.  They’ll also need to set budgets for the various county departments, ranging from the sheriff’s office to clerk of district court.

The county’s budgets have grown in the last few years with rising property taxes and the availability of Covid-era federal grants. The legislation passed in the recent session brings the revenue amount down to the levels of a couple of years ago, though expenses remain higher due to inflation. 

In speaking with Shelly Waidelich of the Cody Senior Center, Commissioner Kelly Simone noted that the county having less money to give could impact what kind of matching grants senior centers can get, describing it as an added impact of the county’s reduced revenue.

“Some of these funding cuts are going to affect other services in the county who need a match,” Simone said.