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Preparing the 2001 County Budget
Posted 12-18-2000
It is that time of year again that always makes the job of county
commissioner such a challenge. No it isn’t Christmas; it is budget time.
Each year, when everyone else is in the spirit of giving, we end up taking
away, cutting, and saying no to many budget requests. We are probably the
least popular people in county government. But frankly, as I’ve said many
times, we are not complete masters of our own budget.
We have a proposed budget in
the neighborhood of $255 million, yet the general fund, the portion that we
have most control over, is about $77 million. Out of that, we only generate
slightly more than $50 million from property taxes. Much of what takes place
at the county level is determined by decisions in Washington and Harrisburg.
Changes at those levels of government can have a continued detrimental
effect when there is an expectation for the county share of many programs to
rise. So even in areas of county government where a portion of the cost is
reimbursed, we often see an escalation in the county share.
Evidence that we are the
forgotten level of government is even shown by the time of year that we have
to pass our county budget. Unlike the Commonwealth who passes their budget
July 1 or the federal government who passes their budget October 1, we have
to make tough and sometimes unpleasant decisions at the holiday season. It
certainly isn’t the time of year that a person likes playing the Grinch. But
we have to play by the rules laid out for us as county commissioners in the
good Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.
The time has come that all of
the debt refinancings have been done and all of the rabbits have been pulled
out of our fiscal director’s hat. The upcoming budget will feature a
combination of budget cuts and, for the first time in eight years, an
increase in tax millage. We’ll likely cut $1.7 million from the proposed
capital budget and at least $627,000 from the operating budget. We took
another action during 2000 to replace a health insurer for our non-union
employees that will save roughly $500,000 over what we were paying for the
same group of employees. There are many other areas that we will continue to
examine before passing the final budget on December 28.
Our problem is that without
the millage increase, we are facing a $21.6 million deficit by 2003. That
deficit is project to be $40 million by 2004. We certainly intend to chop
those deficits as much as possible by reducing costs, but it is impossible
to do it all by reducing expenses. One mill is worth about $3.3 million per
year and will help cut into those deficits. But in fairness to the
taxpayers, we are committed to doing as much as possible to reduce expenses.
It won’t stop with the 2001 budget, and there will be a continued effort to
increase efficiency and productivity.
Another dilemma that we face
is while we are trying to reduce the size of government and cut costs, we
cannot stop the progress of government. We are committed to improve public
safety through a better radio communication system (800 Mhz), which will be
a considerable capital investment. We are also committed to building a new
Juvenile Justice Center that will serve our county’s needs for many years.
We can have progress while cutting in many areas because, historically,
there has been little effort by commissioners to run government as much like
a business as possible. My two colleagues both ran on that platform, and we
now have before us the challenge of implementing that philosophy.
We are not alone in the
challenges that we face. Many of our neighboring counties face similar
challenges. Fayette, Beaver, Butler, and Armstrong to name a few are passing
tax increases. That may not make it anymore palatable, but it demonstrates
that the problems we have in our county government are not unique. The
challenge for this Board of Commissioners is to make tough choices and
eliminate wasteful spending, while continuing to make sure that we provide
better services. Is the challenge daunting? Yes! Is it impossible? No! |
