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County officials discuss ways to trim expenses from budget
By Justin Goble
How employees use county resources was the main topic of discussion during county commissioners’ budget work session last Tuesday (June 3).
Commissioner Tom Massie brought the issue up, saying he wanted to know how department heads keep up with how county employees use fleet vehicles and cell phones issued for work purposes.
County Manager Ken Westmoreland last week told The Herald that officials limit who can drive county vehicles home in an effort to conserve gasoline. Westmoreland has also suggested adding a $50 fuel surcharge to building and health inspections in an effort to offset rising gasoline costs.
Massie, however, said he doesn’t think the county is doing enough to conserve gasoline. While suggesting the fuel surcharge be reduced to $25, he said county officials need to make sure employees aren’t using the fleet vehicles too much.
“Before charging people a $50 fuel surcharge, I think we need to do everything we can to cut down on the amount of fuel our employees use,” he said. “Not counting the Sheriff’s Office, the county owns 119 vehicles for all of its departments. Before coming in tonight, I only counted 15 cars in the parking lot (of the Justice Center) with county tags on them. I don’t know which county vehicles have been assigned to this building, but I know it is more than 15. I think the employees shouldn’t drive one mile more than they have to (in county vehicles), and we should make that our policy before we start charging people a $50 fuel surcharge. We may not have been too stringent on this in the past, but gas didn’t cost $4 a gallon then either.”
In an effort to cut fuel costs, Westmoreland said the county is looking at producing its own biodiesel at the Green Energy Park. He said the budget includes $177,000 to purchase equipment and begin operations in the space formerly occupied by Smoky Mountain Biofuels.
Massie also questioned whether employees are using their county-issued cell phones for personal business, which he said could be costing the county money.
“I’m not sure if there are checks and balances in place, but I think we need to make sure they’re only using them for the business of Jackson County,” Massie said. “People have to know that these phones are not to be used to call their wife, check on their kids or to share jokes with their buddies. These phones are for people to conduct the business of Jackson County in a more efficient manner.”
Westmoreland said the county’s department heads, along with Finance Officer Darlene Fox, have been trying to keep personal calls under control.
“There have been some instances of people using the cell phones for personal business,” Westmoreland said. “We buy so many minutes, and if a person comes in under those minutes and we don’t have to pay an extra charge, we usually let it slide.”
“We have had a few cases where someone was found to be using their phones for personal business,” Fox said. “In those instances we billed the people for the minutes they used.”
Though stating that he understood why officials should be keeping a close watch on these things, Commissioners’ Chairman Brian McMahan said it would be hard to make sure all county employees followed those guidelines.
“I think we just have to trust the department heads,” McMahan said. “We have clipboards in the vehicles where people are supposed to write down their mileage, and I think we should audit those each month. That should be our policy.”
However, Massie said he brought up these issues to prove a bigger point – that the county needs to start saving money to keep from having to borrow it in the future. He pointed out that the county is nearly at its debt limit and the state will only allow officials to borrow $15,000 for the next fiscal year.
“In this budget, we have $3 million in new spending and only $2 million in new revenues,” Massie said. “We’re transferring $1 million out of the 911 fund to make the difference. I have a problem with robbing Peter to pay Paul. Instead of taking that money out to pay for this year’s budget, I think we should put it in capital reserve so we’ll have to borrow less in the future.
“Things are tight,” Massie said. “I make no bones about it – though we’re lowering the millage rate, we’re making a 2 cent tax increase with this budget. If we’re going to do that, we owe it to the taxpayers to make sure we’re doing everything we can to save money now and in the future. We can’t continue to borrow money and not replenish what we have in reserve. That’s not good business sense.”
To that end, Massie proposed cutting some of the revenues and expenditures. He suggested cuts, including the proposed gas surcharge, to the sum of $1.75 million. He also raised the option of postponing some new positions and reducing expenditures – such as holding off to start a biofuels operation – to cut the same total out of the budget.
Even with those reductions, Massie said the county would have enough money to allocate around $750,000 to help the Tuckaseigee Water and Sewer Association expand its River Road wastewater treatment plant, another $65,000 for the school system (on top of the $7.5 million already budgeted) and other funds for projects throughout the county.
However, McMahan said he thought the county didn’t have to raise taxes this year, suggesting the millage rate be reduced to 24 cents per $100. His suggestion was to hold back money set aside for TWSA and other agencies until they could bring plans for projects to the county.
“The cost of gas is at $4 a gallon and going up,” McMahan said. “The cost of everything is going up. Everything is going up but salaries and we’re suggesting a 2-cent tax increase. In this budget we’re setting aside money for TWSA and other agencies that have no set projects. I have a hard time asking the taxpayers to pay for that with a tax increase. It’s not that we don’t have the money. There’s $16 million in our fund balance if we need to use it.”
Massie disagreed, saying TWSA needs money for improvements to the current system. Without a properly running system that allows for expansion, Massie said economic growth would stop and new revenues wouldn’t come into the county’s coffers.
“When the (local government entities) turned over the sewer system to TWSA, they didn’t give them any money to make repairs,” Massie said. “TWSA has been fighting an uphill battle ever since. Any asset like that has a fixed life and it has to be replaced. When TWSA replaces the system, they don’t make an extra dime. They need money to deal with the current system and allow for expansion in the future. It used to be that the federal government would pay 75 percent for infrastructure improvements and the local government would pay 25 percent. Now it’s the exact opposite.”
Fox also pointed out that money in the capital reserve fund is used to cover county expenses at times when revenues aren’t coming in.
“There’s times throughout the summer where we’re not getting any payments,” she said. “So we use that money to pay our bills and things like that.”
Massie also said that a tax increase will be needed to fund county projects in the future, and if officials choose to do it now they can set aside money instead of having to borrow it later on. That will allow commissioners to avoid having to raise taxes even higher down the road, he said.
“There’s never a good time to raise taxes,” Massie said. “But some times are better than others. We’re nearly at our debt limit and we need to start paying that off so we’ll have money to spend in the future. There’s been no tax increase since 2000, when there was another revaluation. Back then, taxes went up 11 cents. I’d rather have a 2-cent tax increase now than a 10- or 11-cent tax increase down the road. We need to start investing in the future growth of Jackson County. If we don’t, that’s irresponsible.”
County leaders are considering a $60.5 million budget for 2008-09. That figure is based on a 28-cent per $100 valuation tax rate. Though it is an 8-cent decrease from the current millage rate of 36 cents, the proposed figure is 2 cents higher than the 26-cent rate that would have meant a “revenue neutral” budget.
The change in millage rates comes after this year’s property revaluation, which saw Jackson County’s land values rise by some $4 billion to a total of more than $10 billion. Westmoreland said revaluation appeals are another reason this year’s budget was hard to formulate, since it is uncertain how much the county should “back off” in order to allow for pending appeals.
Commissioners recessed their June 3 budget work session and will reconvene it at 4 p.m. today (Thursday) in the commissioners’ board room of the Justice Center.
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