NORWICH – Finance committee supervisors waded through 2007 projections for two of Chenango County’s biggest budgets on Monday: $9.5 million for highways and $22.9 million for social services.
Neither department asked to raise the levy beyond 2005 levels; however salary and fringe benefit increases are still unknown.
“That retirement number is not going to be positive,” Treasurer William E. Evans said. “It could be between $1.7 to $1.8 million this year. Plus union contracts are demanding more. If we end up breaking even, I’ll be happy.”
County leaders poured over high fuel costs and equipment and employee needs, cutting very little despite the 3 1/2 hour work session.
After six years of imposed budget constraints, the Department of Public Works will attempt to get back on a regular road and bridge maintenance schedule next year. An administration directive in 2004 called for a 50 percent reduction in equipment costs across all departments. Also, rising Medicaid expenditures beginning in 2000 required departments to hold the line on increases.
As a result, the roads are only in “average” condition today, Public Works Director Randy Gibbon said. “We’ve been falling farther and farther behind by responding to problems instead of doing the work that has to be done.”
A suggested 11.7 percent increase, or $450,000, in maintenance expenses would put the DPW back on a regular six-year schedule. The increase would be for materials and machinery rentals for widening roads and maintaining roads and bridges.
Taxpayers won’t see the increase in next year’s levy because Gibbon intends to apply rolled over allocations from Consolidated Highway Improvement Programs. CHIPs funds from this year were used to cover expenses until Federal Emergency Management monies begin flowing in to cover expenses related to the flood disaster this past June.
But taxpayers will begin footing that regular maintenance bill in 2008 unless officials find allowances elsewhere or dip into surplus. The treasury plans to apply $227,000 from surplus to cover 2007 highway appropriations.
Town of Pharsalia Supervisor Dennis Brown asked whether some of “that evil pill” should be paid for this year instead of all of it in 2008. Evans and Gibbon said they considered doing so, but elected to wait.
“We have it on the table now, so we will know in 2008. Then, if it becomes a question about going forward or cutting back again with the schedule, we can make that decision then,” Evans said.
To cover the county’s future highway expenses, Brown suggested applying any fund balance left over from the 1 percent sales tax previously imposed on taxpayers to afford the newly built Public Safety Facility. Supervisor Wayne C. Outwater, R-Lincklaen said while county roads are used more often, towns need some relief, too. “I feel that the towns are just as much in the same situation with their roadways,” he said. Evans said he worries about being too close to the constitutional taxing limit to consider the option.
Brown asked whether the county’s stagnant population and economic growth even justifies improving the roadways. “Can they (taxpayers) afford to do what we want to do with the roads and bridges? ... Can we afford to? ... Will having good roadways bring in business, keep businesses and people happy that’s here?” he asked.
New standards designed to make roadways safer for the country’s aging population, such as widening roads, making signs and lettering larger, and using more reflective materials, must be followed, Gibbon said. “Can we afford not to?” he asked. “We need to worry about liability issues. If you are not making improvements, you do open the door for liability.”
“It’s to the community’s detriment if we don’t focus on the roads,” Committee Chairperson Lawrence Wilcox, R-Oxford, said.
Lawmakers cut $8,000 in equipment, education and supplies from the suggested $57,000 budget for recycling operations next year. The total included $54,000 for equipment and $20,000 to hold a household hazardous waste disposal day next year.
Even though the Social Services 2007 budget projects a savings of $652,000 for the county, the supervisor from Pharsalia said he wasn’t “ecstatic” about it. Justifying four new employees to a staff of 91 is “awfully easy” when a budget is down, he said. Numbers are projected to be down to record levels in day care, Family Health Plus, Foster Care, medical assistance and other areas next year.
“If down,” Brown asked, “Why add four people?”
Commissioner Bette Osborne’s request for a new caseworker in the employment unit, in particular, was picked apart.
Recent federal and state reimbursement rates for employment services are at stake, she said. Chenango County needs to position itself to be successful in the changes in order to reduce the potential financial liability. New areas of community work need to be implemented, families that have multiple barriers to employment must be identified, and preventative case management services implemented in order to help them attain self sufficiency to what ever level they are able. Physical, mental health and drug and alcohol disabilities no longer exempt individuals from being included in the “work limited” classifications. More creative and intensive supports are needed to enable engagement of this percentage of the cases.
“We are handling more difficult people, even though the numbers are down,” Osborne said. “Before we took them at a loss. We have to find something that the feds will classify as work for them to do.”
Brown lamented spending $150,000 on a three member staff “to deal with these people who have little or no success working.”
“Do you find that your roll these same people over and over and over?” Outwater asked.
Osborne said the department usually has about a 25 to 30 percent turn over, but 200 clients is a static number. “There will always be some people in the county that we will always have to take care of,” she said.