“Right now, for one year, it doesn’t look all that bad, yea we’ve got enough for that, we can handle that,” Commissioner Don Dixon said. “But when you roll that over five years or ten years we’re going the other direction in a huge way, in a negative way, it just rolls up to astronomical numbers and our (revenue) increases won’t keep up with that, they won’t.”
The county has had a structurally balanced budget since 2013, which means they refuse to dip into reserves to make the expenditures and revenues balance. Prior to that there were many hard years when officials said the Great Recession and wild spending nearly pitched the county off a fiscal cliff.
The commissioners heard from 38 office holders and department heads throughout October, to consider spending requests that top $97 million for the general fund. For the budget to be structurally balanced they need to get to $92.1 million. A federal mandate erased about $3 million worth of Medicaid sales tax and spoiled what had been looking like a rosy revenue picture. Administrator Charlie Young has said it is going to be tough going over the next six weeks or so.
“We’ve got a monumental task ahead of us just to get down to an operating budget,” he said. “Now it’s monumental every year to some extent because we’ve faced similar sized gaps. But it feels like it’s going to be more difficult this year, partly because of the $3.1 million cut.”
Ray Pater, executive director of the triple combined agency Job and Family Services (JFS), Children Services and Ohio Means Jobs, turned in the largest request at $551,564 for nine additional people. He also asked for another staff attorney for the Child Support Enforcement Agency, another agency under his command.
“Butler County social services, which include Jobs and Family Services, Children Services, Ohio Means Jobs, and CSEA, conducted a long and thorough examination of what our hiring needs were and what our budget could afford and sustain,” he said. “The new staff that we requested can fit into our very responsible fiscal budget, and help us to continue to our mission of providing social services that improve the quality of life for the children and families of Butler County.”
The heroin epidemic has taken its toll on Children Services — just like many other county offices — and a new state mandate that "marries" public assistance and job seeking help have put pressure on the rest of JFS.
Commissioner T.C. Rogers said he believes the office holders came to the hearings and honestly presented their needs. There are concerns facing the county, like heroin, and he said they do need to address them but they can’t lose sight of other issues that also influence decisions they make today.
“We want to be prepared for a downturn so we don’t have to hire people now and then have to let them go four or five years from now,” he said referring to the all the layoffs and hiring freezes that were the norm for years in the county, during and after the recession.
One thing Pater has going for him, budget-wise is that his agencies are not paid for by the general fund.
Children Services has its own tax levy and JFS operates on state and federal funds.
The judges however are another matter. Juvenile, probate and the area courts are all asking for additional personnel to handle burgeoning caseloads that are brought about by many factors. The judges however do have the power to force the commissioners to approve their budgets.
Juvenile Court Administrator Rob Clevenger said he can’t imagine his court taking the extreme measure and they understand the county needs to live within its means.
Probate Judge Randy Rogers said he won’t — might make for a tense Thanksgiving dinner with his brother Commissioner T.C. Rogers if he did — play that card. He said if he ever would have considered challenging a budget decision it would have been in 2008 when they took $200,000 out of his $900,000 budget.
“The financing woes are real and I understand that, we’ve been through this before…,” he said. “I believe everybody needs to understand that they are part of a whole and it’s not us vs. them, it’s all us.”
Just a couple years ago the annual budget hearings were very adversarial in nature. People were tense and at times argumentative. Auditor Roger Reynolds tangled more than once with the commissioners and staff. He said when he took office he made many cuts in the name of efficiency and cost cutting, so when the finance staff and commissioners tried making across the board cuts during the financial melt down, he pushed back.
He and others have noticed the meetings are much more cordial and feel like the parties are in a partnership, not in a game of tug-o-war. Commissioner Rogers said it was refreshing not to have to deal with the contentiousness of years past and it appears the entire county is buying into the commissioners’ lead where finances are concerned. Ditto says the auditor.
“I think there has been a concerted effort on all of our part to try to work together in a professional manner,” Reynolds said. “The level of respect from office-to-office has improved and increased. I believed all of us realized as big a challenge we were in as a county and all that we had to do, fighting was not the best for the tax payers.”
Between now and mid December county officials will work to hone the budgets down to a structurally balanced state, but the spending plan they eventually pass isn’t necessarily written in stone, according to Commissioner Cindy Carpenter.
“In order to have a balanced budget we’re going to have to cut,” she said. “However as the year progresses there is a very good chance we will increase our sales tax collection and be able to appropriate for critical needs as they occur.”
NEW HIRE REQUESTS FOR 2017
Area Courts: one bailiff for $48,000
Children Services: assistant director and three workers for $293,429
Coroner: additional investigator for $52,725
Child Support Enforcement Agency: one staff attorney at $77,733
Job & Family Services: four new employees at $221,517
Juvenile Court: four new clerks $183,728
Ohio Means Jobs: one new employee for $36,618
Ohio State University Extension: two new positions for $71,262
Mental Health and Addiction Recovery Services: one associate executive director at $100,000
Probate Court: one bailiff and two clerks at $89,388
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