County faces $2.8 million budget gap
Saturday, October 30, 2004 11:39 PM PDT
By Sally Ousley
Printable version
E-mail this articleCowlitz County faces a $2.8 million budget shortfall for 2005, and county officials say additional reductions in services likely are on the horizon.
County Financial Manager Claire Hauge said Friday that revenues are not keeping up with expenditures. For the past five years, the county dipped into reserves to make up for shortfalls.
"When the reserves are gone, they're gone," she said.
Commissioner George Raiter said the commissioners are looking at all possible revenue sources, but he wasn't specific.
"It's obvious there will be further reduction in services," Raiter said Friday.
This is not the first time county commissioners have faced a severe budget crunch.
Commissioners cut the county's 2002-03 budget by $2.5 million. In December 2002, commissioners axed 43 positions through staff cuts and vacancies.
Commissioners eliminated the jobs of some of the county's highest paid employees, such as former Chief Administrative Officer Mike Wilson and former Director of Building and Planning Larry Frazier. They also didn't fill the vacant position of health and human services director.
Wilson was paid $105,000 a year, and Frazier' s salary was nearly $70,000 a year.
Raiter said the county already is operating on the lean side, and Hauge echoed his sentiment.
"In the past, we've been able to absorb increases because of the growth in revenue, but with voter-approved legislation, such as Initiative 695, the revenues have decreased rather than increased," she said.
Initiative 695 drastically reduced car tab fees, which helped pay for law and justice. After voters approved the initiative, the state covered the shortfall until 2002. Now, counties are expected to cover the costs.
Property tax and timber sales revenues and sales taxes that make up 75 percent of the general fund revenue are either declining or are flat, leaving the county unable to pay for normal inflationary costs, Hauge said.
Governments thoroughout the area are struggling with rising costs and flat or even declining revenues. The city of Longview, for example, this month projected it will have to take more than $1 million from its reserves over the next two years to remain solvent.
Hauge said she is meeting with county department managers in the next couple of weeks to examine budgets more thoroughly.
Raiter said that some people might wonder about the county spending money on the new jail annex and a new conference center, but money for those two projects did not come out of the county's general fund.
The jail annex project is funded by money the commissioners transferred from the landfill fund. That fund is to provide money for closing costs when the landfill is forced to close in about ten years.
The new Cowlitz County Conference and Special Events Center at the fairgrounds was built with money with state sales tax rebate money that otherwise would have been sent to state coffers. An increase of the hotel-motel tax that voters approved in September of last year will help market and operate the center.
The general fund has suffered, however.
"The revenue just is not coming in," Raiter said.
Hauge said it's too early to tell what will be affected.
"It's really premature to say what will be done," she said.
Hauge said she plans to make recommendation to the commissioners in about two weeks. She said commissioners won't have to make adjustments in the budget immediately and may deal with the shortfall throughout next year. County commissioners approved the two-year budget last year. The end of this budget is Dec. 31, 2005.
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