The weather beacon is coming back.

In adopting its preliminary 2003 budget Monday, the Burleigh County Commission agreed 5-0 to spend $61,000 to restore the landmark to its original 1954 red, green and white glory atop the county's Provident Building.

Insurance from weather damage to the beacon in 2001 will pick up $24,500 of the total.

"I think it's important," Commissioner Bill Delmore said. "People like to be reminded of the way we were."

The beacon has been dark since 1999, when the commission decided an earlier repair hadn't taken and simply stopped illuminating it. "It wasn't bright enough," said Commissioner Jerry Woodcox, who has the building and grounds portfolio. Storms of hail and wind a year ago June settled the matter.

Woodcox said the county has a 6-month-old bid in hand from the Cook Sign Co., of Bismarck and Fargo, and work could begin this fall or wait for spring.

The beacon, originally neon-lighted, dates from construction of the new headquarters building of the Provident Life Insurance Co., by 1954 the largest privately owned financial institution in North Dakota. The beacon and still-operative time-temperature sign on the west side of the building were said to be the largest sign project in North Dakota history up to that time.

Most Bismarck residents of 30 or so will remember the jingles associated with the beacon's different colors and moves, as in, "Weather beacon's white as snow, down the temperature will go."

Provident Life was purchased and folded into another company, USLICO, in 1982, and the county bought the building in 1995. The beacon grew old and dim, and its fluorescent technology, dating from 1960, was replaced by neon in the ill-fated repair three years ago. According to Woodcox, the Cook Sign Co., which built the original, plans to work off the 1954 specifications, which apparently means another attempt at returning to neon.

Other budget items

The public hearing and final action for the budget will be Sept. 25. If there are no changes, spending supported by the property tax will jump 15 percent, to $9.2 million, from this year's $8.1 million. Some of that will be absorbed by new construction, but the taxes on existing property will go up, too.

Tax mills are up by 3.61 mills in the city of Bismarck, to 66.98, so a $100,000 house here will see its county taxes increase by $16.11 - to $301.41. However, the increase is $25.85 - to $310.57 - for the "average" $100,000 house, which grew in value by 3.04 percent - to $103,040 - in the past year.

At that, the county is responsible for only 14 percent of the tax bill. The rest is accounted for by the school district, city and park district, which are still setting their own budgets.

Commission Chairman Claus Lembke said the county simply needed to catch up after a decade of adjusting mills downward nearly every year to keep taxes steady on existing property.

"We could have done more cutting, but that would have required a more severe adjustment down the road," Lembke said Tuesday.

Last year, the commission tapped cash reserves for $600,000, this year for nothing.

A good portion of the "new" money - $288,000, before benefits - will go for salary increases, County Administrator Clyde Thompson said. That's 2 percent for cost of living, which everybody gets, and 2 percent of existing payroll to be distributed on a merit basis.

There are two new officers for Sheriff Bob Harvey, whose department is busier than ever transporting prisoners and handling the growing "meth" drug problem. The commission also increased the levy by three-quarters of a mill for the jail-building fund.

"We could have left it where it was and let somebody else worry about it, but it's so evident we are going to need new jail space," Lembke said. The existing jail, expanded in the mid-1990s, is full most of the time.

Commissioner Marlan "Hawk" Haakenson voted against the budget, saying that a few departments had not honored the commission's request that they trim their original budget submissions by 10 percent. He also disagreed about the increased levy for the jail, saying, "If there's going to be a new jail, let the people vote on it first."

(Frederic Smith can be reached at 250-8253 or at fredsmith@ndonline.com)