Commissioners pick through county budget

Faced with a potential shortfall in the county’s general fund reserves in two years, two budget workshops this month saw the County Commission meticulously pick through the preliminary figures county staff presented to them.

This month’s workshops began with County Administrator Randall Reid outlining the priorities of the county’s proposed 2014 budget, which tops $1 billion for the first time since fiscal year 2010. Commissioners scrutinized items, such as the addition of 101 new positions from last year’s budget; a 3% raise for county employees; and other potential spending measures. After lengthy discussion, many details have yet to be nailed down.

One reason for the close reading of the budget was addressed at the beginning of the June 12 meeting: Projections have the county potentially running out of reserve funds as early as fiscal year 2016. The county uses reserve funds to cover a gap between revenue and spending.

Although 2013 figures could still change, when the budget was finalized last year, $33 million was set aside to be spent from the reserve, and projections showed $15.9 million in spending. County Chief Financial Planning Officer Steve Botelho said $9.2 million was most likely the minimum needed to be spent from the reserve when the 2013 fiscal year concludes. Projections for FY2014 include $45.7 million budgeted from the reserve and $27.7 million spent.

The projections were described as conservative, and a number of variables remain in flux, not only for future budgets but also for the one currently being drafted. Still, commissioners balked at rubber-stamping several elements of the preliminary budget.

“Because we’ve started to use reserves, it’s like we’ve become comfortable with not balancing the budget,” Commissioner Nora Patterson said.

A millage rate increase was not discussed as a potential fix in the near-term; the rate is scheduled to remain flat at 3.39%. Revenues from millage are slated to increase more than $4 million from 2013 due to a preliminary 3.37% uptick in the county’s taxable values at the proposed rate. This illustrates part of the “conservative” nature of the projections: State projections, used to forecast future revenue, predicted just a 1% increase in taxable values.

The other reason for the scrutiny of the budget is the sheer increase in spending. Up almost $125 million from the FY2013 budget, the $1.02 billion preliminary budget saw most of its growth come from a roughly
$90 million boost in capital spending.

Most of the proposed positions and expenditures are designed to help restore programs and service levels that were cut due to the economic downturn, Reid said. He added that more than 400 employees have been laid off since 2006, and 70 of the new positions were ones the commission added during the past year.

Commissioner Joe Barbetta objected to the idea that positions should be added solely to restore staff from before those cuts were made.

“We were way overstaffed, inefficient and run poorly,” Barbetta said. “I don’t want to say that ‘we’re just getting back to where we were.’”

Reid clarified that department heads highly prioritized any additional staff and spending, and many requests had been denied. Some of the requests from individual departments — such as $100,000 for library collections or $130,000 for overtime expenses for SCAT bus operators — were left for the board to vote on, so it could decide the level of reserve spending with which it was comfortable.

“This is an issue of how much the board feels is appropriate to expend,” Reid said of much of the discussion at the month’s workshops.

He also said that returning to the funding levels of 2006 was not a target for the county.

“That is not our goal, nor would it be wise, because the world changes,” Reid said.

Despite the protracted examination of many of the finer details of the budget, Reid said the process was still on schedule.

The county’s final tax valuation will be issued July 1, and the millage rate will be formally set July 10. A final budget workshop will be held in August, and two public hearings will be held in September before the budget is formally adopted.

Contact David Conway at [email protected].