WATFORD CITY, N.D. (AP) — The McKenzie County Commission next week will review a preliminary budget for next year that one commissioner calls “mind-boggling.”
The preliminary budget for the county in western North Dakota’s booming oil patch is just under $193 million — nearly double last year’s budget and an increase of 775 percent from five years ago.
Recommended Stories
“It’s mind-boggling for an old rancher,” Commissioner Donald Anderson told the Williston Herald (http://bit.ly/1yJEpjj ).
Much of the proposed budget amount would go toward dealing with road issues. Those expenditures have risen from about $67 million last year to a proposed $136 million. The county also has budgeted $22 million to replace a nine-bed jail with a facility that would hold 120 inmates, and it wants to hire dozens of new employees, mainly for the road and sheriff’s departments.
“It will never be a sleepy rural community anymore, where we kind of minded our own business and didn’t let people put in their 2 cents,” Anderson said. “I think the majority of the people are accepting.”
The county is banking on a big increase in state funding from the Legislature early next year.
“McKenzie County is generating 33 percent of oil and gas produced in the state,” Auditor Linda Svihovec said.
If additional state funding doesn’t materialize, some projects will have to be cut, she said.
The county seat of Watford City, which is dealing with an exploding population, is considering a 2015 budget of $104 million, up 216 percent from last year. The 2010 Census listed Watford City’s population at 1,744 people.
“We are heading rapidly toward a 15,000 to 20,000 population,” Mayor Brent Sanford said.
___
Information from: Williston Herald, http://www.willistonherald.com
