Carbon to staff: ‘Tighten belts’

Carbon County officials are trying to tighten up on department requests as they work toward the 2018 budget.

Right now, nonpersonnel requests are totaling over $600,000 more than what the county has in its coffers and other proposed items essential to operations are pushing that deficit to near $1 million. Annual employee raises are also being questioned as a result of the deficit.

On Thursday, the county commissioners spoke about the upcoming budget and about the deficit they are trying to whittle down to balance next year’s spending plan to avoid a tax increase.

Carbon County’s real estate tax millage may need to go up around a half-mill if more items aren’t cut.

Jeff Weiss, financial consultant for Carbon County, said the $600,000 deficit does not include personnel requests, or other big-ticket items like central court, which has been proposed by the courts to help move cases through the system.

He said that he will be sending all department heads their budget requests and see if they can cut an additional 10 percent from the nonpersonnel items.

If department heads can do that, it would cut approximately $1 million from the proposed spending plan and give the county a way to balance the budget.

Jail, court costs

Weiss said some big-ticket item requests are driving figures above the $600,000 deficit, many of which are court-related due to the escalating number of court cases going through the system.

These items include central court, which would require additional security and cost in excess of $108,000; the sheriff’s office, which is working to update security measures at the courthouse; and additional staffing in many of the court offices to be able to handle the additional caseloads coming through the system.

“All of these items are not in the $600,000 deficit,” he said. “Those are on top of that number.”

Commissioner William O’Gurek said many of the items are out of the county’s control too.

“We don’t have control over the escalating numbers that are happening at the court that trickle down to every other office,” he said.

O’Gurek pointed out that so far this year, the county has been forced to spend $644,444 over what was budgeted for things that the county is required to cover.

Of that amount, $268,000 more than budgeted was spent at the jail due to personnel costs, physician services and medical supplies.

“If the public doesn’t know, we’re up to around 250 inmates,” O’Gurek said. “When we have them in our care, we are responsible for their well-being and medical and drug costs and that has driven the county’s budget $268,000 more than what we budgeted.”

He said people have rights to a public defender, and due to the growing caseload, the county had to spend $67,500 more on public defenders than anticipated for 2017.

“It’s like a runaway freight train,” O’Gurek said. “There doesn’t seem to be an answer to this and it’s problematic to us.

“Big ticket items are really nailing us and I’m talking about six figure costs,” he added.

Carbon County’s retirement board is also looking at recommendations to change to different procedures for its retirement fund, which would jump the annual required contribution from $640,000 to $870,000.

“Those are the big numbers that kill us,” he said, bringing up one last item that may or may not happen in 2018.

Three percent employee raises cost the county $240,000 and officials said that if things aren’t cut in programs, employees may have to forgo an annual raise.

Tax base

Weiss said the biggest issue, in addition to the escalating costs for required services, is the county’s tax base growth.

“You do not have any tax base growth,” he said, adding that the county should only expect about $20,000 additional in real estate taxes coming in. “That follows three years of about the same or even negative growth due to (tax assessment) appeals, especially the year when you had the glut of appeals where your tax revenue base actually dropped.”

Commissioners’ Chairman Wayne Nothstein said that over the past four years, the county has had a number of big business tax assessment appeals that cost the county approximately $110,000 annually in taxes collected from businesses.

“These are the reasons the tax base is not going up,” he said. “Most of these appeals are court ordered and it has put a burden on us, municipalities and school districts.”

Nothstein said the other major question in the budget annually are the state and federal budgets.

“We never know when we approve our budget what the state and federal government will do,” he said. “What if they decide to cut all funding sources for things like human services (like the 10 percent cut the state took for these services a few years ago)?”

“There is no way to make up additional revenue,” Weiss said, adding that the county needs business development to finally see an increase in tax revenue. “State grants are surely not going to go up and the only way you have to make up additional revenue is increase taxes.”

“It’s hard to sit here and try and hold the line and not raise taxes,” Commissioner Thomas J. Gerhard said, noting that 2013 was a tough year when the county was forced to implement a tax increase. “And here we are sitting four years later and the revenues are not there. Hopefully we can cut 10 percent off our budgets. We are definitely going to tighten up our belts.”

Officials now have a few weeks to see what can be cut before the commissioners adopt the tentative 2018 budget on Nov. 16.