Published: August 20, 2008 10:38 pm            

County looking to trim budget

Commissioners look to find funds for raises, jail

County commissioners heard the final requests for 2009 funding Wednesday, before the heavy lifting really begins on the budget.

Next week, number crunchers and department heads will be going back to the drawing board to whittle down the amounts requested, and hopefully, find some money for raises.

The last requests came Wednesday afternoon from volunteer fire department representatives. Firefighters Bruce Howard and Phil Calvin said the county’s 23 volunteer fire departments need $350 per truck this year, or an increase of $200 per truck. The departments average about three trucks each, they said.

“Cost increases are impacting all the volunteer fire departments,” Howard explained.

They estimated fuel and tire costs are up 100 percent. In addition, volunteers now need more formal training and certification than in the past, and equipment is coming under new scrutiny.

There was some discussion of a county-wide Emergency Services District that could tax residents to pay for volunteer fire departments.

“That may be sometime down the road,” Calvin said. “I think it’s coming to that.”

The problems faced by the fire departments are a smaller version of the county’s budget problem: Higher prices for fuel and equipment, increasing demands from state and federal agencies with no more money to cover it, and a growing population that wants quality protection and services with the same amount of money.

On Monday, the commissioners will vote on a proposed tax rate of just over 58 cents for every $100 in value, an increase of less than a cent. The rate is at the rollback rate, the maximum the commissioners may collect without an election. The final approval of the rate won’t be voted on until late September. Hearings are scheduled for Sept. 3 and Sept. 8.

The commissioners still don’t know exactly how much money they can expect this year, but Navarro County Auditor Paula Welch anticipates having a better idea by next week, she said.

“That’s over the existing fund balance,” she said.

Still, commissioners know what they have to do.

“We certainly have a mandate, we’ve got to spend money on the jail,” said James Olsen, precinct 4.

Faith Holt, precinct 2, said raises for employees should be a priority. In order to get there, the department heads would be asked to go back and reexamine their 2009 requests for funding.

““The department heads, they know better than we do where cuts can be made,” Holt said. “We’ve got county employees with two or three part-time jobs. Before we do anything, we need to take care of our employees.”

Kit Herrington, precinct 1, pointed out that the current numbers show an imbalance of $471,000 more in spending requests than expected income. “Demands outweighs the income,” Herrington said.

That could change when new estimates of income are figured in, Welch said.

“We can’t do anything until we look at the numbers,” said William Baldwin, precinct 3. “What I’d like to do is give the employees a raise, but we can’t do anything until we know what we’ve got.”

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Janet Jacobs may be reached via e-mail at jacobs@corsicanadailysun.com

        

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