Butler County officials starting to officially cut budgets due to coronavirus slowdown

Butler County officials have begun making cuts the county commissioners requested due to hefty general fund revenue losses due to the coronavirus pandemic.

The commissioners approved a total of $369,426 in budget reductions this week submitted by the Butler County Common Pleas Court, engineer, treasurer and Vet Board. Early estimates were the county could lose $20 million from various revenue sources because of stay-at-home orders by the governor when the pandemic struck in mid-March.

The commissioners drained the $12 million budget stabilization fund and agreed to use $1.5 million from a reserve fund that started the year with a $56 million balance to help close the revenue gap. They still needed the others to cut 4.14 percent from the total approved budgets for this year and shave an additional 3.3 percent off the reduced figure for next year.

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Sales tax makes up about 45 percent of the general fund revenues, and county Administrator Judi Boyko is estimating a 30 percent drop this year (from a budgeted $44 million), likely a 10 percent reduction in property taxes due to delinquencies and a 20 percent decrease in property transfer taxes.

Actual sales tax receipts for March came in much higher than anticipated. The county culled $3.4 million, almost triple the $1.2 million estimated in the revised year-end projections. Prior to mid-March the county was on a robust revenue trajectory, which could explain some of the higher than expected proceeds.

Boyko also surmised the higher influx of cash might have to do with strings attached to federal money for merchants. President Donald Trump signed the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act March 27, providing more than $2 trillion in economic relief from the pandemic. Businesses can go 60 days past due on tax payments but the CARES Act was contingent on paid-in-full accounts.

“We have not yet changed that projection, I think we had a solid explanation of why March transactions and May’s collections may have been a little inflated,” Boyko said. “Until we see more trend data that demonstrates our projections were off we’re not at this time going to pivot from them.”

Th Common Pleas Court submitted the largest reduction at $230,401. Court Administrator Wayne Gilkison told the Journal-News previously the court not filling a position in the adult probation department and not hiring paid legal interns this summer. Some other non-payroll and benefit expenses were in batch of reductions.

County Treasurer Nancy Nix laid off one full-time staffer and a part-timer to comply with the request, reducing her general fund budget by $24,118. Some of her employees are paid out of multiple funds, so she also reduced her delinquent tax assessment collections fund by $24,848 due to the layoffs. If further cuts are required?

MORE: Butler County sales tax was triple estimates for March, but what about the future?

“If there’s future cuts they’re going to have to come from somewhere else,” Nix said. “We’re at the floor, there’s just nowhere else. Otherwise you’re getting into operational things that you cut off your nose to spite your face. We’re a collections office, everything we do is bringing in money.”

The sheriff has the biggest budget by far and needed to cut about $1.6 million out of his $40 million spending plan for this year. Chief Deputy Anthony Dwyer said they have not submitted formal cuts for the commissioners’ approval, but reductions have been made.

“They’ve talked to us about what they want and we have agreed that we’ll make those cuts,” Dwyer said. “There’s no need to actually reduce those line items now, we’ll be collapsing our accounts at the end of the year. Those are basically just line item reductions they’re not real money, you don’t have the money it’s just your budget.”

The commissioners approved 11 new sheriff’s staffers at the start of the year when the budget looked more favorable. Dwyer said they froze hiring in March, cancelled overtime and reduced other spending to meet the budget requirements.

County Auditor Roger Reynolds laid off three people but said he hasn’t formally submitted the reductions to the commissioners yet because the positions weren’t actually vacated until this week and he was unsure if the former employees would file for unemployment. Nix had to add a total of $10,035 back to her budgets for both the general and DTAC funds to account for unemployment.

The Butler County Veterans Service Commission and county engineer submitted budget reductions of $110,400 and $10,026 respectively.


Butler County coronavirus budget cuts

The county commissioners have asked all office holders, department heads and independent boards to slash 4.14 percent from their general fund budgets, some have begun the cuts.

• Common Pleas Court: $230,401

• Engineer’s Office: $10,026

• Treasurer’s Office: $18,599

• Veterans Services: $110,400

Total: $369,426

Source: Butler County Finance Department

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