County hanging in there, for now

Trinity County department heads are generally making do with their current budgets, but all are worried about the next fiscal year that begins July 1 as California continues to grapple with an estimated budget deficit nearing $20 billion.

“Our managers get it — they are doing an excellent job of living within their means, getting creative and dealing with their issues,” said Sup. Howard Freeman during an annual mid-year budget review held by the Board of Supervisors last week.

County Administrative Officer Dero Forslund agreed, noting that although there are some revenue shortfalls and adjustments to be made in various departments, there is nothing disastrous to report involving the current budget and the county’s cash flow position is in good shape.

“The worry is what will come at us next year from the state,” Forslund said, adding Trinity is already working to line up support for another exemption of small, rural counties in case the state defers payments owed or issues IOUs again like it did last year when cash flow dried up.

As long as the banks are willing to pay on registered warrants known as IOUs, Forslund said there is little real impact on the county, but a deferral of payments owed by the state is far more serious.

Out of a $57 million county budget, only about $15 million is general fund — the rest is either money from the state or federal government for specific programs vulnerable to costcutting or deferral.

“We don’t have a rainy day fund so we are at huge risk if they stop paying us,” Forslund said.

When the state deferred payments to counties last year, he said Trinity was looking at office closures, furloughs and layoffs “and found we couldn’t even afford to lay off our employees — none of it we could actually weather and we got the exemption. Our first goal now is to get small counties exempted again.”

LAW ENFORCEMENT SHORTFALL

Another big worry looming involves funding for local law enforcement that comes through a portion of the state’s Vehicle License Fee program scheduled to sunset in June 2011.

There is currently a projected shortfall of $100,000 or more in the VLF revenue that was budgeted for this year in the Sheriff’s Department, Probation and the District Attorney’s office.

Forslund said the shortfall is covered by the return of money the state borrowed from county property taxes — departments that took furloughs are getting their share of that money back. The remainder is available to cover the VLF shortfall because of other cuts and savings achieved in this year’s budget to balance the $400,000 grab by the state.

“But those VLF dollars are set to go away altogether in the next two years and that’s a bigger nut to crack,” Forslund said.

County Undersheriff Eric Palmer projected a worst-case scenario of a $600,000 loss in the Trinity County Sheriff’s $2.9 million budget as of June 30, 2011.

“From one day to the next, it will go away and it will shut us down — we’re done. Where that money will come from I have no clue,” Palmer said, adding the losses would actually exceed $600,000 because Probation and the DA’s portions are leveraged to access additional funding sources.

“The total package is a lot of money that won’t be here at the end of 2010-11 and the question is whether we take the hits now to soften the blow or take a gamble that everything will be fine. I don’t hear of any plans for a VLF extension gaining any traction,” Palmer said.

Sup. Wendy Reiss said she believes the state’s action to raise VLF fees while promising that law enforcement would be fully funded has backfired.

“In my opinion, people aren’t registering their vehicles now because they can’t afford to, so there goes the revenue,” she said.

Palmer agreed, saying “we see that all the time. People would rather put food on the table than register their cars.”

He said that if not for the VLF shortage, the current year’s budget for the Sheriff’s Department “isn’t looking that bad. We’re under budget in just about everything. We are pinching every fricking penny we can find and juggling all the balls we can trying to save some bucks to plug into that deficit.”

Jail staffing continues to be a problem even though the budget included funding for two additional correctional officers. Those positions haven’t been filled because of the revenue shortfall and the fear that next year will be worse. Existing staff is working overtime to meet minimum requirements and avoid taking deputies off the street to work in the jail.

COURT CASELOADS UP

Chief Probation Officer Terry Lee reported that court collections are up about $100,000 at mid-year due largely to having “twice as many CHP officers on the street writing tickets and citing DUIs. I’ll need some extra help to process the workload.”

He added that with the higher caseload there are additional costs to the DA as well, but he believes the bottom line will be a $60,000 increase to the general fund above what was budgeted.

Lee said his greatest concern is also the VLF funding that will leave his department about $300,000 short when it goes away “and that would close the juvenile hall. It would be out of business while I still have the mandate to provide detention services. When I say I’m concerned, I am really concerned and the state position seems to be to push all corrections responsibilities off to the counties except for the most violent offenders.”

BUILDING REVENUES LOW

Other areas of concern during the mid-year budget session were building department revenues that are below projections and capital improvement expenses to fix or replace failing facilities that were not budgeted for.

Sup. Reiss wondered “if we shot ourselves in the foot by reducing the building department to the point we have where there’s not enough staff to process applications so people build without permits, so there’s not enough revenue and services get reduced further.”

Director of Building, Planning and Transportation Rick Tippett said the county has a major problem of un-permitted, illegal structures and badly needs a code enforcement officer “to help bring building fees back in line. Right now, I think it is a choice people are making because they think they can get away with it rather than not being able to afford it.”

He added that both the building and planning departments are at such a reduced staffing level now they can’t be cut anymore without eliminating the departments and he will be asking for help from the board’s contingency fund to finish out the fiscal year.

Director of Buildings and Grounds Mark Lockhart said contingency funds will also be needed to pay for capital improvements that were not budgeted for and had to be handled on an emergency basis.