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| 10/29/2009 11:33:00 AM | Email this article • Print this article | Departments scramble after McNamara Building evacuation
Park County commissioners wrestle with 2010 budget
Lynda James
Correspondent
Park County's Board of County Commissioners signed a lease agreement Oct. 15 with Broadfield Solutions Inc. to temporarily house Park County Sheriff's Office detectives in a small house near the McNamara Building in Fairplay.
On Oct. 8 the commissioners closed all county offices at the McNamara Building, except for the Communications Center and Information Technology Department. The action was spurred by a fire inspection completed by the North-West Fire Protection District on Aug. 14.
The six-month lease for the detectives' facilities will cost $550 per month, and it includes utilities. Additional costs will be incurred to install phones and computers.
The commissioners are considering permanent housing for the detectives on the property that contains the Sheriff's Office and Park County Jail. No decision has been made yet whether to bring in a modular building or to build a new building for the detectives.
Park County Human Services was also removed from the McNamara Building. It is committed to providing the same quality of services until new facilities can be located for the department, Human Services Director Mary Baydarian told The Flume.
The offices of Human Services and the detectives were two of several county offices and nonprofits that had to leave the building.
Baydarian told The Flume that all Fairplay telephone numbers for Human Services are working, and clients may reach office personnel through those numbers.
Structural integrity report
A report assessing the structural integrity of the McNamara Building was due on Oct. 9, but it had not yet been received by Oct. 15. The name of the company completing the assessment was not disclosed.
It was disclosed that the company had bid $8,000 to complete the work. The commissioners authorized $2,000 and told the company to do as much as possible with $2,000.
On Oct. 15, the commissioners decided to give the structural engineering company until Tuesday, Oct. 20, to complete the report or another company would be found.
Commissioner John Tighe previously told The Flume that once the structural report and a plumbing repair report were received, a cost analysis would be prepared to determine if the McNamara Building should be torn down or remodeled for county use.
Preliminary budget
Budget and Finance Director Kathy Boyce presented the preliminary proposed 2010 county budget. She told the commissioners that the budget was still a work in process, with some changes to the Road and Bridge Fund already made.
A public hearing on the proposed 2010 budget will be held on Wednesday, Oct. 28, at 1:30 p.m. in the commissioners meeting room in Fairplay. Final adoption will take place on Dec. 22.
Total 2010 revenue is currently projected at $26,570,000 and 2010 expenses at $27,059,000.
The 2009 adopted budget showed $26,426,000 in revenue, which is $144,000 (0.5 percent) less than the projected revenue in 2010, and $28,405,000 in expenses, which is $1,346,000 (5 percent) greater than the projected expenses in 2010.
Those 2009 figures do not include supplemental appropriations approved so far in 2009.
Boyce said revenue from building permits and vehicle licenses were down in 2009 and she expected that trend to continue in 2010.
According to the budget projections, revenue to the Building Department is expected to drop to $308,000. That is almost $124,000 less than received in 2008.
Boyce said that $300,000 in federal Payment in Lieu of Taxes has been designated for operations in 2010 to help balance the proposed budget. Individual fund balances - money in the fund that hasn't been spent -- will also be used to balance the budget.
PILT is funding allocated to local governments by the federal government to offset the county's inability to collect property taxes for federally owned lands.
PILT funding is projected to decrease in 2010 to a total of $1,295,000 from $1,440,000 received in June 2009.
Tighe said PILT funding has been authorized by Congress for two more years. Then a new bill will need to be passed to allocate funding for the program.
The proposed 2010 county budget does not include employee raises nor road improvement projects for 2010.
Tighe said the commissioners have asked for a cost analysis of the county going to a four-day, 10-hour-per-day work week in order to reduce the proposed budget, particularly in heating and electricity expenses.
Tighe said it would help employees by not having to drive to work one day a week. But it could be a hardship on citizens by having one less day per week that they could do business with the county. He said this might further hurt the building industry, which must get permits and inspections in a timely manner.
On the other hand, Tighe said that having county offices open later on four days a week might be more convenient for citizens who commute.
Boyce said another option was to ask employees to take days off without pay, freeze any new hiring and cut positions. She said one position in the administrative office had been cut.
Boyce later told The Flume that 58 percent of the budget is employee salaries and benefits.
Commissioner Mark Dowaliby said the county needed to stop using PILT and fund balances to balance the budget.
"There will be a day of reckoning in the future if we don't balance the budget better without using them," he said. In hard times, he said, the county needed to prioritize cuts as families must do.
The General Fund, which covers most county operations, projects revenue of $12,608,000 (about $100,000 more than 2009 projections, which is a 0.7 percent rise) and expenses of $13,279,000 (about $200,000 more than 2009 projections, which is a 1.5 percent increase).
Using $668,000 of the fund's reserves to balance the General Fund will bring the fund's reserves down to $2.431 million.
The Sheriff's Office and Park County Jail budget within the General Fund account for almost $5 million dollars in projected expenses. Animal Control and Victims of Crime Services are not included and have separate budgets.
The jail is projected to have expenses of a million dollars more than revenue. The jail is requesting two new positions because four were cut in 2009. The written request said that cutting four employees was too many and safety in the jail had been compromised.
Contract attorney fees are also projected to rise in 2010 to $200,000. In 2008, attorney fees cost $187,700, and in 2009 they cost $190,200.
Building maintenance is projected to rise about $80,000; mainly due to increases in electricity, water and sanitation, heating, vehicle fuel and roof repairs.
In the 2010 proposed Road and Bridge Fund, expenses are projected at $4,678,000 with revenue of $4.31 million. This is down by $538,000 from 2009 projected expenses. Projected revenue is also down by $130,000.
Boyce said that $368,000 of the fund balance will be needed to cover operating expenses.
Funding from the state Highway Users Tax Fund is expected to drop to $3.75 million from a projected $3.9 million in 2009 and from $4.160 million in 2008.
According to the proposed budget, salaries and benefits for Road and Bridge cost $2.467 million. That is $82,000 more than projected salaries in 2009.
Tighe said that even though no projects were planned for 2010, the chip and seal projects in the Bailey area that were not completed in 2009 would be funded in 2010.
Dowaliby said his biggest concern was making sure the Road and Bridge Fund had enough money to keep the roads cleared during the winter. He said snow removal is the biggest expense in the Road and Bridge budget.
In the third-largest fund, Human Services, revenue remains about the same as 2009, at $4.2 million, with $550,000 more in expenses than revenue. Those expenses include a transfer to another unspecified fund of $600,000.
Decisions yet to be made for the 2010 projected budget include requests for new staff and position upgrades in the amount of $524,000. This includes two new positions in the jail, three in communications, two plus a work study position in the Assessor's Office, two seasonal positions in Environmental Health, and creating a new position of executive director of the South Park Heritage Program in the Office of Historical Preservation.
If the new executive director position is approved, the requested salary is $55,000, with another $45,480 to supply an office and operating expenses.
Requests in the amount of $449,000 for 15 new vehicles also have not been approved by the commissioners. Of the 15, seven have been requested by the Sheriff's Office and jail.
Other departments requesting vehicles are the Treasurer's Office, Coroner, Environmental Health, Planning, Emergency Management, and Code Enforcement.
The commissioners must also decide on a $2 million request to build a new communications center and whether to allow the Clerk's Office to use $479,470 the office projects it will not spend in 2009 for employee raises in 2010.
Code Enforcement has requested $50,000 to clean up properties that are in code violation.
Requests for computer equipment not already in the budget are $53,360, including $11,000 for a new recording system in the commissioners' meeting room.
A new annex building in Fairplay was requested for $30 million.
Total requests not in the 2010 budget, excluding a new annex building, would increase expenditures by approximately $3.5 million.
The commissioners will make a decision on these requests before a final budget is adopted in December 2009.
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