Commissioners plan budget for ’06
At the final meeting of 2005, a budget of nearly $4.5 for fiscal year ?06 was finalized by members of the Presque Isle County Board of Commissioners. ?I still think we had quite an easy time putting this budget together with the people we worked with,? said chairman Allan Bruder. ?I thank the department heads for keeping it under control.? County officials hope to be saying the same thing 52 weeks from now, as the first part of 2007 could be potentially lean if a conservative approach isn?t adopted.
According to county clerk Sue Rhode, who burned the midnight oil to prepare the documents for the December 28 board meeting, all obligations with District Health Department No.4, mental health, along with the substance abuse and child care funds were met as a part of the new budget. Raises for non-union court personnel, as well as elected and appointed officials also made it in. The only group that is not a part of the new budget is staff from the sheriff?s department. Their contract is headed for arbitration.
Revenues and expenditures at the onset of ?06 were balanced at $4,460,205. County treasurer Pat Cornett said ?We did get some luck by getting extra revenues in this year, which helped us out considerably. Interest rates on CDs went up and that gave us more revenue. The sheriff was able to house more prisoners, so that was a big help.? About $57,000 was collected from housing prisoners from other jails, about $35,000 above projections. Rhode said there is a healthy $129,000 contingency fund, an amount Bruder would like to see preserved in ?06 as much as possible.
?MY HOPE is that this coming year we do not touch that contingency more than we have to, because the more we can bring over, the less we have to borrow in the early part of ?07,? said Bruder. The potential problem in 2007 is money flow. Cornett said, ?We are doing well. We increased our fund balance, which is what we had aimed to do in ?06, because in ?07, we are going to have a period where we won?t have tax revenues.? Because of state revenue sharing cuts, the county has had to put away one-third of the county tax allocation of 2004 for three consecutive years (2005, 2006, 2007).
The interest from the reserve fund is supposed to compensate for the loss of state revenue sharing dollars.
?That was $958,000 each year for three consecutive years, to build this little nest egg for ourselves,? said Cornett, Friday from her office. ?In 2006, it will be the last payment to that. It is supposed to be booked in December. If we don?t have the money in there, we don?t need to book it until we have the money.
?Allan was talking about possibly having to borrow from that reserve fund, because we won?t have any tax revenue for the first six months. I?m pretty sure we can do that, but that is something I will be checking on. We are just playing out our options.?
BRUDER URGED representatives of the County Development Commission and Presque Isle County Tourism Council to approach 2006 cautiously. ?I think we should advise them that we probably will have some problems that first part of the year in 2007,? Bruder said. ?Before any appropriation is made to them, before we make that
decision, I would at least like to have a meeting with them.? The county is asking the CDC/EDC boards, along with the Tourism Council to not spend all of the money in their budgets this year, if possible, and save some for next year. Bruder said if money is borrowed from the reserve account, there could be a loss of interest the rest of the year.
?If we do get into that (reserve account) problem, and we may not, and I?m not trying to scare anybody, but I know we have to be fiscally responsible,? said Bruder. ?This is all caused by what the state did to us. It?s nothing that you and I around the board had any control over. The state just took a chop at us. This is being said so nobody can say ?you blind-sided us.??
Commissioner Stephen Lang said t
IN OTHER matters to come before the board:
? The resignation of Dave Viegelahn, County Development Commission chairman, was submitted. The two-paragraph letter was dated December 27. He is stepping down for ?personal reasons.? He thanked the county board for the opportunity to serve on the CDC board since its inception. ?I will continue to support your efforts and if you have any questions, please don?t hesitate to call,? Viegelahn stated.
? An increase in mileage was approved from 35 to 40 cents.
? An agreement was reached with Montmorency County to share the services of equalization director Sharyn Malone for another year.