The revenue picture is much better than anticipated, largely due to stimulus checks and extra unemployment benefits the federal government issued. However Commissioner Don Dixon said the county isn’t out of the woods.
“We have to maintain a realistic view of where we’re headed in the economy in 2021 because who knows,” Dixon said. “Hopefully we don’t need it, ever need it and we can go on down the road, but I’d rather be safe than sorry in this situation.”
The county was hard hit during the Great Recession and had to make huge cuts in 2009 and mass layoffs ensued. Commissioner Cindy Carpenter was clerk of courts at the time. She said the commissioners slashed people’s budgets overnight so “it was brutal.”
“We worked until we dropped, every person did so much work and it couldn’t have been sustained,” she said. “If they were salaried they stayed late and they kept working. Those of us in administration we didn’t have any pride, we went out and helped on the frontline.”
Sheriff Richard Jones always has the biggest general fund budget at around $40 million out of around $109.4 million initially approved for this year. Chief Deputy Anthony Dwyer agreed 10 years ago the sudden cuts severely hampered operations when about 100 full- and part-time people were laid off over two years.
Dwyer said the department trimmed $1.5 million out of the budget this year by not replacing 15 to 20 people who have left and other cost-cutting measures. The 2021 budget they submitted shows 410 full-time equivalent staffers for this year and 393 for next year.
“Our ability to weather what’s been going on this year is better than what occurred back then because those cuts came quick and significant and there was really no time to recover," Dwyer said. “Right now we’re handling what we need to handle effectively. We had time to plan.”
Job and Family Services was not ordered to make the same cuts because it doesn’t rely on the general fund to operate. During the recession however, 50 JFS people were laid off because state and federal funding was cut. Executive Director Bill Morrison said he has not been notified that cuts are in the offing but he’d be “shocked” if reductions aren’t coming.
He said he is supposed to receive funding levels for benefits and administrative reimbursements next month, and with all money the federal government is pumping into this pandemic, those numbers will likely show the impact.
“There has to be some consequence to all these expenditures and I do anticipate we’ll have to go through it,” Morrison said. “And just like last time when it happened, it’s a time where the need for our services grows at the same time that our ability to fund it is shrinking.”
The last time, in order for JFS to continue managing food stamps and other public assistance with severely reduced staff, Morrison said the state relaxed the rules on how they process claims and recertify others.
“There was a lot of work that honestly just didn’t get done,” he said. “That’s important work to make sure that the people receiving benefits actually qualify for them. The state tried to relax the rules to make it more possible to continue processing cases.”
Other departments also had to cut personnel but in smaller numbers. County Auditor Roger Reynolds cut three people earlier this year. He said one of them worked on property conveyances and the pandemic has actually made it so that person isn’t required. During the crisis title companies were forced to use e-filing — something his office already offered — which is more efficient.
Reynolds said residents won’t notice his staffing is down.
“We are going to continue to lean on innovation and technology and a skill set of employees that ultimately are able to do more with less,” Reynolds said.
County Treasurer Nancy Nix said she is also relying on technology to accommodate losing one full-time employee and a part-timer. She said the new property tax software she and Reynolds both use will provide better efficiencies so the public won’t notice she is down to 13 employees, unless something unfortunate happens.
“We would be hard pressed if an employee resigned or became ill since it takes several months to train someone new,” Nix said. “In addition, if delinquencies shoot up next year, we may struggle to keep up. But we’re currently holding our own and the public should not notice any reduction in service.”
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