The Warren County Commission approved a $21 million budget for 2020 last week, including raises for county employees.

The budget is a $2 million increase from what was appropriated in 2019. Presiding Commissioner Joe Gildehaus said part of that increase is pay raises averaging 50 cents per hour for county staff. That’s about a 3-percent increase, Gildehaus said.

Elected officials did not receive any pay increase.

Gildehaus said staff with the county road department received slightly higher pay increases to attract and retain workers.

“Our workforce is getting older, and we are not bringing new people in. We’ve had (hiring) ads in the paper for a year,” Gildehaus said. “The younger workforce today is not there. ... Our average age is 55 years old on the road and bridge staff.”

In the next 10 years, he said the county could face a serious labor shortage in the road department.

The other intent of the wage increase is to keep up with statewide minimum wage increases. Missouri voters in 2018 approved raising the state minimum wage to $12 per hour by 2023.

Staff of the Warren County Sheriff’s Department are receiving separate wage increases thanks to a half-cent sales tax approved by county voters in 2018. That tax is expected to bring in about $1.8 million for the sheriff’s department in 2020. The budget for sheriff’s department salaries increased by 11 percent compared to the start of 2019.

Other major items in the budget include $3.7 million appropriated for  the county’s road and bridge fund. Southern District Commissioner Hubie Kluesner said the county plans to pave Smith Creek Road from Highway 94 to Highway N, as well as overlaying Mill Road and Pendleton Cutoff Road.

Part of the road department’s funding this year will also be used to purchase a road grader, which Gildehaus said could cost around $250,000.

Facility improvements included in this year’s budget include new lighting at the county courthouse and administration buildings, water utility maintenance at the courthouse, and an overhaul of phone systems for county offices.

Gildehaus said the sales tax and property tax revenues that support county operations are trending upward each year. But there’s also revenue from the state and federal government that  can fluctuate up or down.

Kluesner added that county finances are in as good of shape as they’ve ever been in his 11 years in office.

“This budget, for me, was the easiest budget for moneys, because there wasn’t a struggle to figure out how to balance it,” Kluesner said. Much of that he attributed to additional tax support for the sheriff’s department approved by voters in 2018.