Crawford County officials still struggling to fix budget deficit

Crawford County's general fund budget deficit for fiscal year 2015 has narrowed by more than $100,000, but the quorum court still has to find a way to cut $229,000 from its budget within the next 30 days. County Judge John Hall said the court will meet Thursday night (Nov. 20) to discuss further cuts to the budget, but he is not sure where else there could be cuts.

Requests for expenditures by all county departments totaled $7.226 million at the start of the budget cycle, but County Treasurer Beverly Pyle said the county only has anticipated revenues of $6.817 million.

In order to meet the tight budget constraints, Hall said the court will look at every possible solution to the funding gap before layoffs become a solution to the funding problem.

"The need to take at look at what is least offensive to people in the system (county employees)," he said. "To start cutting positions is pretty hard. If there are other ways, everyone would be a whole lot happier. But I don't know what they're going to do."

The largest portion of the budget, 64.3%, goes to fund the sheriff's department and other law enforcement obligations. Requests by Sheriff Ron Brown in the 2015 budget include $2.263 million for the sheriff's department and $2.121 million for the county jail for a collective request of $4.384 million.

And according to Brown, his requests were reduced to help the county balance its budget this year, in spite of the fact that the majority of his requests include salaries. The personnel requests from his budget requests total $2.719 million. An additional $240,285 to hire six new jailers, he said, come from a portion of the quarter cent sales tax passed earlier this year to fund law enforcement operations.

"I made $140,000 (in cuts) at the last meeting. What I basically did was cut the operations out of the general fund and just used the remaining balances of the automation funds and the Act 209 money and the sheriff's communications fund and that just leave salaries coming out of that (general fund)," he said.

According to county officials speaking on background, there has been discussion of asking Brown to operate a larger part of his budget from the quarter cent sales tax since the new county jail the funds are meant to operate has not yet been constructed. But asked whether it was something he was willing to entertain to cut costs in the general fund, he said it would not solve the long term general fund issues which have cropped up in several of the last few years.

"My only concern with that is I budgeted when we started planning for this 270 bed jail and I budgeted $2.8 million," Brown said. "I get $1.4 million for the jail now. That quarter cent at the lowest (is projected to) produce about $1.5 million per year. It can grow as the economy grows. … If you take the $1.5 million and the $1.4 million, that's $2.9 million. My concern is if they start using this quarter cent on long term budget items such as salaries, when we open the new jail is there going to be money to operate the 270 bed facility?"

He equated it to have savings set aside for a family vacation, but dipping into the savings before taking the vacation.

"You dip into it for a washer and dryer, this or that with the mindset that we'll make it back. But in three years, you can't go to Disney," he said.

Hall said additional options are limited, noting that his office accounts for about 11% of the general fund budget and includes basics that literally keep the lights on, such as the electric bill and other items including property insurance for buildings.

He said 5% of the budget goes to the circuit clerk and 7% to the county clerk.

"When you get right down to it, there's not a lot of areas (to cut from)," Hall said, though he said one possibly he would float during Thursday's budget meeting is possibly cutting from the election commission which originally requested $137,000 for next year, including $72,000 in salaries, $34,000 in supplies and $31,100 for "total other services." The election commission had a total 2014 budget from the general fund of $184,200 which included a general election, something the county will not have next year.

"Is that something they can get by without?" Hall asked rhetorically. "That's half your deficit right there."

He said another option includes reviewing the level of anticipated revenues to determine if estimates from Pyles' office are too conservative and could be raised.

Regardless of what decisions must be made to balance the budget, one thing is certain — Hall said a tax increase is still "off the table." But instead of a guarantee of a veto by Hall if the court were to pass a millage increase, he said time has now made that decision.

"You have to do it (by) November, so it's totally off the table."

The Crawford County Quorum Court Budget Committee will meet Thursday at 6 p.m. at the Crawford County Circuit Courtroom #2, 220 South 4th Street in Van Buren.