County Government Not Affected By Shutdown, Says Norem

With the federal government still shut down and going on day seven, there is some concern that the shutdown at the federal level will have affects locally in the county, but commissioner Kathy Norem told WKVI that they are currently seeing no impact from the shutdown and don’t expect any problems if it does continue.

Norem said the county mostly receives funds from property taxes, and that stream of revenue has not been interrupted.

“The county’s funding is primarily through property tax. That’s how we fund county general. We have other revenue streams as well, but that is the one that when we talk about our tax dollars, that’s the one we usually are referring to on a local level here, and that’s not affected. So unless we’re doing a special project where we get some federal funds or we’ve got some sort of a program that is federally funded, it’s not going to affect us locally,” Norem explained.

Norem said the highway garage has also suffered no ill effects from the shutdown, though their funds do come from the state. To her knowledge, she said, they’re not supplemented with federal funds and are therefore running smoothly.

However, the welfare department and Head Start do receive federal funds and those organizations could be affected. The county government, however, is not expected to feel any impact from the shutdown.