It can be somewhat difficult, at the state mandated public budget hearing, to follow a budget analysis when the public is not provided a copy.....and the online copy of the draft budget dated for the day of the public budget hearing is, in actuality, not the budget document being discussed at the budget hearing. Typical Elbert County protocol: confuse the public, make sure no copies are available of document under discussion thereby prohibiting intelligent citizen inquiries, and inform the citizens in attendance that "we will post the draft budget we are discussing right after the budget hearing is over." But, hey, this is Elbert County....we soldier on!
Some musings on the proposed 2016 county budget.... and some concerns about the financial future of EC. Once again, as has become the pattern for budgets in our county, our priorities are not the priorities we should have if we ever expect to dig ourselves out of this financial hole. And as we all know, doing the same thing over and over...and expecting different results.... just doesn't work.
At the auditor's presentation in June of 2015 (for the audit of 2014), if the auditor said it once, she said it 10 times, "EC must find additional revenue sources." She basically said that we are selling off assets to pay our bills and that we are running out of assets to sell; she used the example of our roads when she said, "Your roads are one of your financial assets, but you can't sell them." We continue to overspend our revenue: for 2012 and 2013, it was over $3 million per year; for 2014, it was $1.8 million.....which the county thought was a great accomplishment because we reduced the loss. County administration continues to say, "It was just a paper loss" because of the depreciation line item in the budget; a loss is a loss, no matter how you try to dress it up.
But before getting into the specifics of the proposed 2016 budget, let's reiterate words that all 3 current county commissioners campaigned on. All of them stated that they would appoint a volunteer citizen budget committee, made up of financial experts, CPAs, etc. from within our county.....a resource EC definitely has. This committee, according to all 3 of them, would assist in the preparation of the budget....put some experienced, professional eyes on the big picture. (Perhaps our county manager could take a look at the Town of Elizabeth's budget or the EC library district's budget....both much more professionally prepared, more thorough, and more easily understandable to the public than the county's budget. This volunteer committee could be invaluable at this task). But we are now into the final year of Mr. Rowland's and Mr. Ross's terms, and one-fourth of the way through Ms. Dore's term. Has any of this materialized? Perhaps that is part of the reason we are where we are.
So let's move along and take a look at the proposed 2016 budget under the "revenue" heading. Property taxes, our main income source, have gone up approximately $1 million, but overall (because some sources of revenue will be declining such as licenses and permits, intergovernmental, charges for services, etc.)....our overall revenues are only projected to increase by a little over $36,000. And expenses are projected to increase by $3.4 million, leaving an ending fund balance DECLINE of approximately $2.5 million. One can only imagine what the auditors will have to say about that.
So, one then must analyze where our monies are being spent, where the increased expenses are occurring, and where our priorities should be in order to increase revenue for 2016.
GENERAL GOVERNMENT EXPENDITURES are up $1 million - this includes an increase to the county attorney from $106,000 in 2014 to $138,000 (the budgeted amount for 2015) to $629,000 for 2016....an increase of over a half million dollars in just 2 years. Without getting into specifics here, the facts are: these commissioners, by operating in secrecy, by thinking the rulings of the court don't apply to them, by continuing to appeal and beat a dead horse, are clearly wasting taxpayers' money. So to recap, we are showing a $36,000 revenue increase, but increasing the county attorney's budget by close to a half a million dollars. How many citizens would prefer that half a million dollars be spent on roads and infrastructure?
PRIORITIES: We have removed funding for the clerk of the board. This person is responsible for taking minutes at BOCC meetings and basically communicating information to the public. Have you taken a look at the minutes posted on the county website? They are 2 months behind, with several months previous to September 2015 having only one set of recorded minutes, when there were at least 2 BOCC meetings every month. Why is this funding being removed? Because it allows the public to see what's going on - clearly not a priority for this board.
I. T. (Information Technology) is being increased by $140,000. Have you looked at the website lately? It basically hasn't changed in over 2 years; the calendar has been totally inaccurate for several months (it was finally partially corrected a couple weeks ago, the result of emails being sent to various department heads by citizens asking for clarification on meeting dates). We clearly may need to increase this budget, but how about requiring some progress be made in order to justify the increase in funding?
The budget for the ASSESSOR is being reduced....a revenue generating arm of the county that should be more adequately funded. There is no funding for a BUILDING INSPECTOR. This position has been advertised since April, but since EC won't pay a competitive salary, it remains vacant. How many folks have been waiting months to have a roof inspected as a result of the hail storms this past summer? COMMUNITY AND DEVELOPMENT SERVICES recently lost one of their senior planners and will lose another one in December. Yet the salary this county is offering is not even competitive for a brand new college graduate, let alone the senior planner with experience that is needed. We will soon have no licensed, certified planners in our planning department.
We have no CODE ENFORCEMENT OFFICER in this county and none budgeted for. There are so many structures being built, remodels being completed, etc. etc. etc. with no permits being pulled. With no enforcement, this pattern will unfortunately continue.....therefore the county misses out on those fees, and the citizens are not protected from shoddy workmanship. Ditto for the LICENSING OF CONTRACTORS. We are one of a very few counties in the state that do not require a contractor to be licensed, insured and bonded. Again, we miss out on those fees and the citizens remain unprotected.
Our budget for "other administration" will have doubled from 2014 to 2016. Where is this money going? Clearly not to the revenue generating departments....but the budget presented does not itemize or explain the "other administration."
So we are not providing adequate budgets for the departments that would increase revenue for the county....and the other side of the coin is that we are overpaying for other non-revenue generating positions. We continue to increase dollars to the county attorney's department, we are paying far more than the going rate for a county manager (for a county our size).....and we have put "golden parachutes" into both of these contracts, offering these persons 6 months' pay if they are terminated without cause!
These revenue generating ideas have been presented to these commissioners, suggestions have been repeatedly made to more adequately fund departments that might bring more money into the county, and the dead-end road to litigation is fairly obvious, given the lack of success our county legal department has in the courtroom.
If the county commissioners would spend as much time trying to seek out revenue sources, many of them quite simple to implement, as they do infighting with each other...and if they would dare to listen to some diverse viewpoints from within the county, we might actually make some progress.
