A spending plan for fiscal year 2011 that was cobbled together over the past week by the Barrow County Board of Commissioners came unraveled Tuesday night when the county’s new CFO announced that incorrect figures had been provided by her department at a budget session the previous day.
The commissioners came into Tuesday night’s meeting thinking that after two budget meetings of the full board, they had managed to close enough of last week’s $6.3 million budget gap to enable the finance staff to generate a balanced budget. The preliminary budget was to have been presented Tuesday night and was to have included no tax hike. But a series of mistakes and misunderstandings by county staff left the budget incomplete.
CFO Rose Kisaalita told the BOC that she had come to them empty handed because data provided by her staff at Monday’s budget session mistakenly included a 5-percent cut of all departmental expenditures, including payroll.
Barrow budget process falls apart
Salary and benefit cuts totaling $1.1 million should not have been included in those operating cuts, she said. Inaddition,hundredsofthousands of dollars in additional revenue identified at Monday’s session already had been included in earlier revenue projections and therefore could not be used to close the budget gap, Kisaalita said.
Also Tuesday night, BOC chairman Danny Yearwood announced that preliminary tax digest numbers from Chief Appraiser Cecil Highfield on Tuesday indicate the county may collect up to $1.5 million less property tax revenue in the upcoming fiscal year, which starts Oct. 1.
The bottom line for the BOC: Even after slashing $3.3 million in spending and cutting another 5 percent of non-payroll operating expenses for most departments, the budget needs a $2.8 million fix.
“It just doesn’t look good,” Yearwood said. “It’s bleak. And every time we have gotten somewhere, something seems to hit us in the face.”
SERVICE CUTS?
Taxpayers — and employees — also can expect to share the pain. Services, and possibly jobs, may be cut. Property taxes may be hiked.
Commissioner Ben Hendrix asked the public to weigh in immediately.
“How much of a decline in services are you willing to take and in what areas? What is most important to you? Call us. E-mail us. Tell us how you feel about it,” he said. “Do you want to stand in line longer to get a tag, or wait longer for an animal control officer to pick up a dog? I don’t think you want to wait longer for an ambulance and a sheriff’s deputy and I don’t think you want to wait longer for a fire truck. I know I don’t.
“But you have got to decide what critical services you expect and we as a body have got to decide what we can fund.”
For more on this story, see the July 28 edition of the Barrow Journal or click here to read the full story online when you subscribe to our new e-edition.
Also Tuesday night, BOC chairman Danny Yearwood announced that preliminary tax digest numbers from Chief Appraiser Cecil Highfield on Tuesday indicate the county may collect up to $1.5 million less property tax revenue in the upcoming fiscal year, which starts Oct. 1.
The bottom line for the BOC: Even after slashing $3.3 million in spending and cutting another 5 percent of non-payroll operating expenses for most departments, the budget needs a $2.8 million fix.
“It just doesn’t look good,” Yearwood said. “It’s bleak. And every time we have gotten somewhere, something seems to hit us in the face.”
SERVICE CUTS?
Taxpayers — and employees — also can expect to share the pain. Services, and possibly jobs, may be cut. Property taxes may be hiked.
Commissioner Ben Hendrix asked the public to weigh in immediately.
“How much of a decline in services are you willing to take and in what areas? What is most important to you? Call us. E-mail us. Tell us how you feel about it,” he said. “Do you want to stand in line longer to get a tag, or wait longer for an animal control officer to pick up a dog? I don’t think you want to wait longer for an ambulance and a sheriff’s deputy and I don’t think you want to wait longer for a fire truck. I know I don’t.
“But you have got to decide what critical services you expect and we as a body have got to decide what we can fund.”
For more on this story, see the July 28 edition of the Barrow Journal or click here to read the full story online when you subscribe to our new e-edition.
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