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Highlands Today

County Will Consider Reducing Pay Raises

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By JIM KONKOLY

Highlands Today

Published: September 12, 2008

SEBRING - The planned across-the-board 3 percent pay raises for Highlands County employees could be out the door, replaced by 2 percent raises.

The county commissioners also may cut $74,750, or 10 percent, of the recreation money it distributes each year to the three municipalities, Sebring, Avon Park and Lake Placid.

Highlands County Health Department could see a $43,000 decrease in the new 2008-09 fiscal year, beginning Oct. 1.

Those are three of the 18 budget cuts that county Administrator Michael Wright proposes if Highlands County commissioners decide to reduce the property tax millage rate from 7.33 mills to 6.99 mills.

"If" is the key word, as Wright is not calling for those cuts and the commissioners have not yet committed to them.

Last week, three county commissioners said they would consider dropping the millage rate from 7.33 mills to 7 mills after the second public hearing on the budget. At both hearings, about 10 people complained, sometimes emotionally, about high taxes and tough economic times, and called for deep budget cuts by the county.

Wright was instructed by the commissioners to suggest where last-minute budget cuts could be made to produce 7 mills of property tax instead of the current 7.33 mills.

The commissioners will decide if they will go ahead with the budget cuts Tuesday evening, when they vote on the 2008-09 budget following another public hearing that starts at 5:30 p.m.

In total, Wright lined up 18 possible budget cuts totaling $1.3 million.

"What we tried to do is, first of all, give the board (of commissioners) some options, and, second, look at some issues where we thought we could save some money, and not terribly hurt any one particular operation," Wright said Thursday.

Even if the commissioners approve the cuts suggested by Wright, though, the millage rate can't come down to 7 mills unless the five constitutional officers - sheriff, clerk of courts, tax collector, property appraiser and supervisor of elections - also cut their budgets by a similar percentage, Wright said.

Of the $75.4 million in total county general fund spending proposed for fiscal 2008-09, Wright explained, the county commissioners account for only $39 million, while the five constitutional officers spend the rest.

Sheriff Susan Benton said she would cooperate with the county commissioners, and has submitted proposed budget cuts of just under $750,000.

Of the other four constitutional officers, Property Appraiser Raymond McIntyre said he will not cut his budget further because he has already cut it by 9.6 percent. McIntyre said his budget "already is bare bones."
Clerk of Courts L.E. "Luke" Brooker told Highlands Today last week he would cooperate with the commissioners and make the same percentage cut in his budget as the commissioners make in theirs. As of press time Thursday, county officials had not received a budget cut proposal from Brooker or the two other constitutional officers, Joe Campbell, supervisor of elections, and Charles Bryan, tax collector.

If the county commissioners approve Wright's suggested budget cuts, and the five constitutional officers make similar size cuts, the savings for property taxpayers would run between 1.7 to 2.3 percent, depending on where a person lives in the county, Wright said.

Wright said the biggest budget decisions, and the toughest spending-cut decisions, will come next year, because total property valuation for the county is expected to drop about 10 percent during this calendar year from 2007. That will result, he said, in necessary cuts of about $4 million in county spending for the 2009-10 fiscal year.

"We will have to be reducing costs permanently, we'll have no choice," Wright said about the 2009-10 fiscal year, which begins Oct. 1, 2009. "We're going to have to adjust to the circumstances we find ourselves in."

Revenue for county government was down this year, but the commissioners avoided layoffs and deep cuts in programs by taking about $8 million out of the county's $24 million reserve or "rainy day" fund. They put that into general operations to keep services about the same.

The reserve or "rainy day" fund is, in effect, the county's savings account, Wright said. It is built up each year and held for emergencies, such as a direct hit on Highlands County by a major hurricane.

"I strongly urge you not to take further money from reserves to balance the budget," Wright said in the e-mail to the commissioners in which he outlined his suggested budget cuts.

"It's like taking from your savings account to pay your mortgage," Wright told Highlands Today. "It's OK to do that one time in an emergency, but if you keep doing it you're going to get yourself into trouble."

Cutting the pay raises from 3 to 2 percent would reduce the budget by $181,500, according to the county's Office of Management and Budget.

Besides the two other proposed budget cuts listed at the start of this story, recreation at $74,750 and health department at $43,000, Wright also suggested the following budget cuts for 2008-09:

•Reducing travel by county employees by 20 percent, for a savings of $106,710;

•Canceling new carpet for the county government center, $25,000;

•Canceling purchase of a generator for the health department, $60,000;

•Canceling purchase of a back-up air conditioning system for the tax collector's office, $30,000;

•$17,000 cut from funding for the Highlands County Industrial Development Authority/Economic Development Commission;

•$100,000 less for right-of-way land acquisition for road or sidewalk projects;

•Cutting the employment of work-study students in summer or part-time jobs in half, saving $32,316;

• "Recalculating" the money paid into worker's compensation, $186,395;

•Eliminating the "Pride Program," which gives bonuses to employees for exemplary performance, above what is expected, for a savings of $25,000.

•A reduction of $25,688 for the county's contributions to five Community Redevelopment Agencies in Sebring and Avon Park;

•Eliminating purchase of new furniture for the Natural Resources Department, saving $3,500;

•Eliminating $25,000 worth of professional services, for private firms hired by the county engineer's office;

•Reducing by $40,051 certain records copying done by the county engineer;

•Reducing equipment maintenance by $30,000 in the Road and Bridge department;

•Cutting $200,000 in equipment purchases for the Road and Bridge department; and;

•Reducing the "fuel reserve fund" by $100,000, taking it down to $200,000.

The last item, "fuel reserve," amounts to a guess and taking a risk, Wright said. This fund is budgeted to cover unexpected increase in the costs of gasoline and diesel fuel for the county's vehicles.

If gas would skyrocket in price, Wright said, the commissioners might use this fund up and have to take money for fuel out of other operations.

Jim Konkoly can be reached at 863-386-5855 or e-mail jkonkoly@highlandstoday.com

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