Council cuts deeper – department heads protest – reorganization planned

By Stan Matthews
County Communications Program Manager

Faced with a projected revenue shortfall of $1 million to $1.5 million dollars this year, the San Juan County Council ordered County Administrator Pete rose to prepare a reorganization plan for 2009-2010 that will “improve the budget shortfall and County operations, and include a discussion of the implication of a levy lid-lift for November 2009.”

The Council also adopted guidelines for its budget cutting and budget planning process for the next two years which will have it make 2009 budget cuts in such a way as to also help balance the 2010 budgets, and create a budget that allows the County to have an operating cash balance equal to 10% of its “county current” revenue at the end of each budget year.

The County Auditor has projected that with falling revenues and the current expense budget, the county could run out of operating cash as early as next year.

At the opening of the Council’s Monday budget work session, Auditor Milene Henley and County Administrator Pete Rose presented the Council with a list of proposed cuts totaling nearly $900,000. Rose said that additional reductions in personnel costs will be needed, but cannot legally be discussed by the Council or administration in public before negotiations with representatives of the County employees union.

The proposed cuts reduce or eliminate spending on equipment purchases, travel, training and other operational costs in most departments – but all of those areas had already been trimmed in previous rounds of budget-cutting; so the lion’s share of the reductions will come from personnel costs.

At Monday’s council work session, elected and appointed department heads briefed the council on how the proposed cuts would affect their departments and the services they provide.

Sheriff Bill Cumming, noted that demands on law enforcement tend to increase during times of economic stress, then said flatly, “Cuts to the Sheriff’s Office – in our core services – communication and the officers on the street – is not a cut of any kind of fat nor is it a of muscle; it is in fact breaking our bones.”

He reminded the Council that the Sheriff’s office had personnel cutbacks last year and under the proposed cuts he would be losing a part-time dispatcher and be unable to fill a vacant deputy position. “In my opinion, to cut back the only law enforcement agency in this county is putting our population at considerable risk.”

District court administrator Marion Melville said her office had absorbed a wide range of responsibilities over the years and said she would be willing to try to save money by acting as the District Court bailiff and by recruiting volunteer bailiffs to help out, but “I believe that a staffing cut in district court would unravel the department,” she said. “We work at very high efficiency and we haven’t had a staff increase in nine years.”

The Council heard similar stories from other departments – Health and Community Services (HCS) Director John Manning noted that HCS had started out 2009 with a budget 13% lower than in 2008. It now faces the loss of office support and reducing its funding to travel to non-ferry served islands to do water and septic tank inspections. He said that the Health Department will probably also have to further reduce its influenza immunization program despite the expected resurgence of the so-called swine flu next fall.

Assessor Charles Zalmanek said his office will not be able to add much of the new construction in the County to the tax rolls this year because of a lack of appraisers. Moreover, he said, “I’m concerned that we’re going to even get all of our work done this year, which makes me concerned about my ability to certify the tax rolls as required by law. . . this is something that has never even existed in my imagination – that we would not be funded well enough to get all of our work done.”

He told the Council that the lost revenue from taxes on new construction would amount to approximately $100,000 to San Juan County itself, and much more than that to the dozens of other taxing districts in the County.

The Council has scheduled a hearing on the proposed cuts to the 2009 budget at its meeting on June 16 and could adopt them at that time. The Council has resolved to begin work on a framework for the 2010 budget shortly thereafter.

Council member Richard Fralick, a member of the Council’s budget subcommittee, pointed out that the Board of Freeholders, which has the power to revise the county’s charter, is scheduled to reconvene in 2010. He said that offers one avenue that could be taken to help modify the shape of the County’s government.