HERMANN — If you think you needed a lot of stamps to mail your Christmas cards, consider the plight of Gasconade County government officials facing a much larger bundle of parcels that will be going in to the mail.

County Assessor Julia Baker Thursday morning told the County Commission it will cost her office about $14,000 to mail out all property assessment forms for 2026 — the primary reason she said her office soon will be going paperless. County Clerk Lesa Lietzow will be sending out new voter identification cards for the 2026 elections. That will cost about $10,000, she said.

While Baker might be able to greatly reduce her postage cost by having property owners fill out forms online, Lietzow doesn’t have a choice about writing a big check to the United States Postal Service (USPS): State law mandates her office send new voter ID cards.

The County Collector’s Office is another county government department that pays a big postage bill to send out tax statements in November of each year. The cost of doing business was briefly discussed during Thursday morning’s session of the County Commission.

In other matters, the county clerk noted that county administrators are about to get busy in crafting the 2026 operating budget. The first public hearing to formally kick off the budget-writing process will be held later this month with the Commission coming in after Christmas to begin work on the new funding plan. The last day for county government to pay bills is Thursday, Dec. 18. With the 2026 budget put together in January, the county won’t be writing checks again until February.

The Commission also will be convening on Monday, Jan. 5, 2026, to meet with individual officeholders about their departments’ budget requests — if necessary. Budget forms are expected to be presented to the various departments in the coming weeks with the departments’ requests due back to the County Clerk’s Office when business resumes after New Year’s Day. Lietzow said the Commission should plan to be in the courthouse “as long as it takes that day.”

The Commission also decided to meet Thursday, Jan. 8, in Owensville City Hall. It did not meet in Owensville this month because the commissioners needed to attend the meeting of the county’s Salary Commission that day in the courthouse. And because the first Thursday of the month is New Year’s Day, county administrators agreed to meet in Owensville on Jan. 8 — the second Thursday of the month. The Commission traditionally convenes its first-Thursday-of-the-month session in Owensville City Hall to give greater access to county government workings to residents of the southern portion of the county.

Regarding the upcoming budget work, county administrators could be in the best position for allocating taxpayers than they have been in for many years. County Treasurer Mike Feagan reported that as of the end of November, the county’s bank account balance was about $700,000 higher than it was a year ago.

“Everything looks pretty good,” Feagan said, referring to the November balance sheet. “Things have gone well for us,” he said.

Indeed, they have, as noted by Lietzow. She said she and Feagan have been closely monitoring the revenues generated by the county’s various sales taxes and pointed out that the General Fund Sales Tax, the Use Tax, the Law Enforcement Sales Tax and the Motor Fuels Tax all will exceed the amounts they were projected to raise when this year’s operating budget was put together.

“Every one of them will be higher than we budgeted for,” she said.