County Administrator Judi Boyko said revenues to-date have remained strong “however with uncertainty at the state level with property taxes and probable consequences to the economy based on federal policy” that side of the budget equation will remain fluid.
On the expense side she said the commissioners have “declared a cautionary omen to the departments and offices to be mindful of expenditures, especially personnel which cumulatively increases at a greater rate than other categories of costs,” she said. “It will be an interesting next few months as economic influences are further defined and impacts known.”
State legislators are mulling many property tax reform measures including erasing all inside millage which would cut an estimated $21.5 million from the budget. They have suggested commissioners can raise sales taxes to make up the difference.
Commissioner T.C. Rogers said the county is in “great shape” financially but external pressures are worrisome.
“We have to be ever more mindful because some of the things that are in the possibilities are significant cuts to county revenues, without us raising taxes,” he said. “This commission has worked hard to continue to not raise taxes. Our thoughts going into the budget is we are not going to raise taxes.”
The approved budget for this year includes 1,784 full-time equivalent positions, excluding elected officials and board members. The tentative total in the tax budget is 1,789. Commissioner Don Dixon called for a hiring freeze for the rest of this year and next.
Some offices like the area courts, clerk of courts and treasurer have asked for fewer people and the sheriff and water and sewer department a few more.
The water and sewer department has requested seven new people due to “due to workload increases.” Dixon said part of the increase is partially his doing, because “we have a lot of people aging out, top people, and I said you need to get some people in here and get them trained.”
“Part of that is building that succession team,” Dixon said. “And they’re not out of the general fund. They’ve been running pretty tight.”
Water and sewer is one of several departments that don’t rely on general fund dollars, they exist on fees for services.
The sheriff is another matter, his budget consumes nearly 40% of the main operating general fund. His tax budget submission totals $51.1 million and 411.3 full-time equivalent employees up from 407.7 this year.
Chief Deputy Anthony Dwyer noted the hiring freeze directive was issued after the tax budgets were submitted and “we are aware of and abiding by the commissioners’ direction as best we can, the sheriff supports that, to be cautious at this time.”
The future is a bit hazy however, since Sheriff Richard Jones went back into the immigration detention business earlier this year. He entered a new contract to house U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement detainees in his county jail in February.
Dwyer previously said they once housed 160 ICE detainees “on a fairly regular basis.” On May 27 — around the time protesters started gathering outside the jail — 263 out of 940 jail inmates were ICE detainees. Dwyer said recently they had roughly 620 contract prisoners —not all of them were ICE detainees — but “that’s significantly higher than what we’ve had in many, many years.”
The county is being paid $68 daily to house the detainees plus $36 per hour to transport them to court hearings and in the past they also took them to the airport. The tax budget shows an 8.8% increase in boarding of prisoners from $8.5 million budgeted this year to $9.25 million next year. The actual collection in 2024 was $7.8 million.
Dwyer said it’ll likely end up being “way more” than $9 million. The overall general fund expense budget increase was estimated at 4.4%.
He said it remains to be seen if they will need to hire more people to deal with the influx of inmates, “there is no black and white” because so many variables come into play.
“We’re handling it right now, status quo,” he said. “But we’re at that point where the numbers are so high we have to look at what’s tenable to manage when it comes to the number of inmates we have.”
The highest general fund request increase is 19.3% from the Board of Elections, but their spending ebbs and flows with the election cycle.
“ln gubernatorial election years, the Board anticipates significantly higher voter turnout,” BOE Director Nicole Unzicker wrote in her submission. “As a result, additional overtime and temporary staffing are necessary to support the increased workload associated with two countywide elections.”
The commissioners will approve the tax budget now and officials will continue to fine-tune the document throughout the summer. The commissioners hold individual budget hearings with the various office holders and departments in the fall before passing the final spending plan in December.
Dixon said the hiring freeze — payroll costs have increased $10 million since 2022 to stay competitive in the post-pandemic market — wasn’t established on a whim and they are very aware trouble could be ahead.
“I’ve been watching this and I don’t want to say it’s dangerous territory but it’s certainly uncertain territory, he said. ”We’ve built our finances so we can withstand a lot of different financial impacts, but we still have to stay ahead of the game."
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