Kent faces $1.7 million budget hole
Posted by Melissa McIntire on December 15, 2009 · 5 Comments
Money woes have hit the county again. More than half of the county’s expected income tax distributions have vanished. The commissioners are voicing their shock — and whacking away at expenses.
Pat Merritt, the county’s chief finance officer, was at the Kent County Commissioners meeting Tuesday to discuss how to close yet another widening hole in the budget.
The county is expected to receive $1.7 million less in income tax distribution for Fiscal Year 2010 and 2011, Merritt said. Add to that the more than $900,000 the state took form the highway user fund, the county’s increased unemployment rate, and the drop in the number of millionaires that live in the county — and it’s easy to see how the budget became so thin.
“I still can’t get through my head that in one year a county can lose 56 percent of its income tax. I keep waiting to wake up and have someone say we’ve made a mistake,” Commissioner Ron Fithian said. “We’ve never, ever been faced with something like this.”
To prevent raising taxes, which is something none of the commissioners want to do, the county government is making more cuts.
“This is the second time we’ve been hit with this this year. The first time we were able to shuffle some numbers around without avoiding furloughs or layoffs. We’re not able to do that this time,” Fithian said.
The county plans:
*To cut $444,000 out of its operating budget.
*Stop or cut back on its contributions to employee tuition reimbursement.
*Reduce payments to the disability fund.
*Eliminate two positions from court house security, one from the Office of Emergency Services, one-half a position from public landings, one and a half positions from solid waste management.
*Close the office of economic development.
*Not fill 18 vacant positions.
“I know for myself when you’re talking about peoples’ jobs and their lives this is probably the hardest thing I’ve done,” said Commissioner Roy Crow.
The biggest change will be the closure of the office of economic development. The responsibilities and services the office provides will be distributed to other county agencies.
“This is not an abandonment, this is a restructuring,” said Jack Steinmetz, director of economic development. “We can continue to provide the services we have provided. It won’t be centralized anymore. The process will simply be different.”
Speaking from the audience, Cindy Genther, executive director of the Chamber of Commerce, expressed concern about the message being sent to businesses with the closure of the economic development office.
“It’s equivalent in the business world of shutting down your sales and marketing department. We need to make sure we have resources available to answer questions from businesses.”
The commissioners agreed, but if changes are not made now it will only get worse.
Crow said, “If we don’t make the structural changes now the impact to the county in 2011, 2012, 2013 will only keep compounding,” till there is no other option to put it back on the tax payers.
He said the commissioners would look at the cuts and budget again today and see if there was anything else that could be trimmed. He also asked department heads to look over their budgets and see what could be eliminated.
Clap! Clap! Clap!
Our politicians are speaking like the true democrates they are… “We may have to raise taxes and not fill 18 vacant possitions?”… Really?
Come on people, you have to realize that part of this problem has come from ideas like the increase in the state sales tax from 5% to 6% (I know many people who are so mad about that, that they are traveling to Delaware to show it)and government waste projects like the Kent County Community Center in Worton (that buy the way didn’t use any local contractors to build it- of course that would have put money back into the community.)
You might be surprised to find you will create more jobs by lowering taxes on the businesses that hire the workers and the people buying the local products. The workers will pay income tax money to the government and the businesses will pay more taxes by selling more product.
A jobless recovery is no recovery at all.
Trim the fat out of this government and give the people the freedom to be successful.
One more time, someone jumps to conclusion without fully understanding what was said!! All three County Commissioner’s have said that there would NOT be a tax increase of any kind and that we all three understand that that would be the worst thing we could do at this time. That is why we had to discontinue these positions. That is called trimming the fat. What would really be helpful would be instead of just complaining about the so called fat, maybe you should be specific and identify where You would cut the so called fat. Then let us know. Then you could probably be part of the solution!! Wouldn’t that be different!!
As far as the community center project goes it was bid out and everyone in Kent County had an opportunity to bid on the job. David Bramble done a lot of work on the project who the last time I checked was a local business man who employ’s local workers. Again so much for knowing what your talking about!!!
Perhaps Brooke would like to join us Tuesday mornings at the county commissioner meetings and see and hear what actually is happening in our county. Then he could offer any suggestions he has for the CC’s and staff first hand. And I’ll offer this invitation to anyone who is interested in seeing how our county is governed. I think you’ll find that we are fortunate to have a professional staff who not only helpful, but know what they’re doing.
I’m not sure where anybody would get the impression that the commissioners were going to raise our local taxes, because they have consistently said that they wouldn’t. In fact last year they gave property tax relief to 60+ year olds with low income.
The community center is an asset that we all should be proud of… and if it hadn’t been built this year it never would have. And as far as I’ve seen in almost 4 years of observation, there has never been a project that was ‘given’ to an outsider at the expense of a local business. It’s open process and a fair one.
These are some very tough financial times for local governments as the economy has taken it’s toll on revenue sources like income tax, property transfers and state funding. We’re fortunate that the commissioners have used a very conservative approach to spending our tax money over the years and even so they had to make some very tough budget decisions. The thing that has impressed me through this process is that they always put the employees first. The staff and the commissioners have come up with some creative restructuring that hopefully will lessen the impact of any service reductions to the community.
It’s easy to criticize from afar, but it doesn’t solve any problems.
In response to the comments about the Community Center, there were numerous local contractors used on the project. David Bramble, Inc. provided the paving of the parking lots and walking paths as well as fill material for the site work. Ted Reed supplied sand and gravel. Gillespie and Sons supplied the majority of the concrete and storm water structures. Unity Landscaping had the contract for seeding the softball, baseball and sports fields at Kent County High School as part of this project. Cole Diamond Floors provided epoxy floors for the bathrooms and concession stand. Chester River Landscaping supplied the plant materials and landscaping for the site. DMS and Associates were the civil engineers for the project. The Williams Family Farm supplied numerous straw bales during the construction.
In addition to the local contractors, many of the out of town contractors purchased meals and lodging in Kent County during the construction. Whiting Turner, the construction managers had an account at Chestertown Lumber which they used to purchase supplies for the project.
As a parent of two children that have been active in the County’s sports programs, I view the Community Center as a long overdue project which will benefit the entire County community.