By Stan Matthews
County Website and Communications Manager
In the introduction to San Juan County’s First Quarter Financial Report, County Administrator Pete Rose wrote, “The reader of this report will get the feeling that this budget is doing OK after the cold winter months.” Based on the accounting of San Juan County’s income and expenditures through the end of March this year, Administrator Rose said the County will not need to go through another early round of budget cuts as it did last year.
During the first quarter of 2012, most economically sensitive revenue sources produced slightly more money than they did in the same period last year, but all remain well below 2008 levels. Sales tax collections were 9% higher than last year, building and land use income rose nearly 27% percent above last year’s dismal performance, and real-estate excise taxes increased due – in part – to an additional “REET 2” tax enacted to fund capital improvements but even though that tax rate has doubled, it’s still producing less than 60% of the amount collected its peak year, 2006.
Rose warned that, though County revenue appears to have stabilized, the County’s 6-year projections show an unsustainable trend. The general property tax levy is the largest source of revenue for the County’s general operating fund (43%). Without voter approval, total property tax revenue from existing development cannot increase more than 1% each year. That is well below the increase in the cost of doing business.
The County’s financial projections indicate that for each of the next six years, the County will fall approximately $400,000 short of its ability to provide the same services it had each previous year. As a point of reference, San Juan County’s 2012 operating budget is approximately $13.9 million dollars.
Under the County Council’s direction, County administration is moving toward establishing a “program-based” budgeting system which will make it easier to evaluate the cost of providing individual services, and how much would be saved by eliminating a specific service.
The Council is also considering ways of increasing revenue, including a proposed increase in sales tax to support law and justice programs, and in the near future it will need to decide how to deal with the scheduled expiration of the property tax levy lid lift, passed by voters in 2009. It is set to expire at the end of 2015. Lid lift revenue is earmarked for programs that were facing elimination or serious cutbacks in 2009. Those included Parks funding, Senior Services, Agricultural Extension programs, Emergency Management, the County’s contributions to the Oil Spill Association, the cost of the sheriff’s corrections officer who oversees community service work crew, support for a deputy County Prosecutor, and the maintenance of County buildings and grounds.
The full Quarterly Report is available on the County website at: https://sanjuanco.com/
Try this for a thought…..why don’t some of those at the public trough take a serious cut.
“Without voter approval, total property tax revenue from existing development cannot increase more than 1% each year.” Yet the County seems well on its way to preclude any additonal “development,” which includes most new homes. “That is well below the increase in the cost of doing business.” Why are costs increasing? No one I know is raising prices or increasing salaries and benefits.
I’m a county employee and gave up 10 unpaid furlough days in addition to cost of living raises that were already agreed upon in a labor contract. Also, we have done our jobs, and taken up the slack from those that were laid off, so we are doing more with less.
There is no free lunch. We can’t have essential public services without paying for them. We call for “belt-tightening” but expect the same level of services. We add even more work with endless requests for documents to challenge the parts of government we don’t like. State and Federal mandates increase without the resources necessary for compliance. Public employees are always an easy target.
The County needs to pay more attention to looking for new and innovative ways to fund their operations and give up trying to make today’s costs fit the blivet we and they have created. Don’t file a bitch without a solution? OK, like being sure that the County really receives all the sales tax revenues paid on goods and services consummed and performed in San Juan County. Aha, you say that would take a re-definition of the word “destination”. So.. re-define it by requireing an affadavit of “goods purchased for resale” on all materials with San Juan County destinations. I think that too much sales tax revenue on stuff headed for the Islands of San Juan is taxed on the mainland therefor sent to counties on the mainland. Whatt’a you think?