May 30, 2012
The second almost full day session of work on the budget was held on Tuesday May 29, 2012. As I did on the first session, I will give you my take on the budget and various subjects discussed that I feel all of our members will be interested in.
There will be another session on Monday 4 June 12 at 1:00 pm in the County Administrative Building at the corner of Broad and Craven Streets. I hope some of you will attend. After this meeting,
the public hearing will be held on the budget in the same room at 7:00 pm. If you find something in this report you would like to address with the Board of Commissioners, PLEASE BE THERE!
You can find the budget on line at http://www.cravencounty.com/admin/documents/2012/FY2013_ProposedBudget_May-21-2012.pdf.
Before the meeting,
I was challenged on my belief that the county budget is actually growing in comparison with last years. My point is that if the budget grows by the same amount in the coming year as it did in the past year, the growth rate will be about 5%. The Commissioners then proceeded to validate my concerns by gathering a consensus that
$25,000 should be added to the budget for The Coastal Women's shelter, $10,000 for RCS' Homeless Shelter (a reduction to half of last year's as a message that RCS should look for other funding for their shelter), and Hwy 70 and Hwy 17 lobbying groups each got $25,000 added to the budget (a $5,000 cut for Hwy 17), and Merci Clinic got $10,000. The Red Cross got $4,000. The Commissioners requested that the directors of Promise Place and Structured Day Reporting come before them with more details about their requests. They also wanted more information about the City of New Bern's
request for $24,000 to hire an advertising agency to develop a
"brand" to promote our area. They want the county to pay to hire
North Star, a company based in Nashville that does this sort of work. It seems to me that New Bern is on a big spending spree and should leave the county out of it. The Commissioners asked for more information.
The Commissioners are trying to reduce the budget for Special Appropriations, but they look at a request from an agency or organization and discuss the good work they do and say that if they don't get taxpayer support, the county would have to take over the work, or citizens would have to do without it. I believe
they should first consider that charity is not a legitimate function of government. Should the service provided by this organization be paid for by the government or by the concerned citizens directly? Take the RCS Homeless Shelter mentioned above as an example.
26 churches originally started this program. There are
over 300 churches in Craven County and some of the original member churches no longer contribute. RCS stands for Religious Christian Services. More churches have built onto their church buildings than participate in this very worthy charity.
That's because in the past it has been easier to convince 7 commissioners to give them taxpayer money than to get off their duffs and get church goers to support them. That appears to have changed with the current commissioners. A BRAC lobbing group asked for $7,500 without indicating how it was to be spent and, so far, have received nothing. Swiss Bear has also, so far, received nothing. The town of Havelock made an off the wall request for $440,019 (No, that is not a typo!). They got nothing.
If commissioners
do believe that an organization performs a legitimate function of government, they should then look at the specifics of the request like the organization's budget and what specifically they intend to do with the taxpayer money.
Most of these requests are not accompanied by such supporting documentation. The organization merely gives the Commissioners a wish list and quotes what good work they do.
THAT IS NOT ENOUGH! County staff is beginning to learn that as the Commissioners are more and more insisting on detailed information before granting their requests. The organizations getting money in the Special Appropriations part of the county budget need to learn that as well. As noted above, the commissioners have made a good start on this.
At the first budget study session , the first discussion of the day was what to do with the
current (2012) surplus. Since no decision was made, I am repeating the options presented by the finance officer:
1. Let it flow into the fund balance. Money would be available for unforeseen needs in the future.
2. Appropriate in next year's budget.
3. Lower the tax rate.
4. Put it in the Capital Reserve fund for future capital improvements without having to borrow.
5. A combination of two or more of the above.
Some commissioners still point to the removal of 12 county staff positions as evidence that county government is getting smaller, not larger. So I repeat, Some 12 or so employees have been let go due to a "Reduction in Force (RIF)."
However, it was noted that the total allocation for salaries and benefits in the recommended budget is 1.3% ABOVE THE CURRENT BUDGET! The RIF and the increase helps pay for the 3% COLA the other employees are getting. They may be smaller in number, but they are more expensive! And, to me, there is still too little documentation, facts and figures, to justify the new employees requested by the county manager.
The proposed budget includes
an increase of $20,000 for legal services. The commissioners have asked the county attorney to come before them to discuss his proposals and possibly to negotiate with him. That is a good step, but why not really open up the possibility of savings by putting our a request for bids?
There was
no discussion of the provision in the new budget to increase in the rescue squads' base budgets from $170,000 each to $185,000 each. What new need is to be met by that? It seems to me that it is the same mentality that just expects the price of government to continue to grow.
No justification for this increase has been offered or requested.
The
Director of Social Services came before the board with yet another idea for greatly expanding county government. He started his presentation by stating that there are 15,635 Medicaid patients in Craven County and an estimated 15,000 citizens who don't carry insurance. His contention seemed to be that those people are not being seen by doctors in the area now, so there are over 30,000 people in the county who aren't able to get medical care from the private providers.
He proposed that the county DSS apply for "Federally Qualified Health Center" status. Allowing them to provide service to nearly one third of the Craven County population. Here is what I have found out about these FQHCs:
"The FQHC benefit under Medicare was added effective October 1, 1991, when Section 1861aa of the Social Security Act (the Act) was amended by Section 4161 of the Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1990. FQHCs are "safety net" providers such as community health centers, public housing centers, outpatient health programs funded by the Indian Health Service, and programs serving migrants and the homeless. The main purpose of the FQHC Program is to enhance the provision of primary care services in underserved urban and rural communities." Taken from a .gov outreach website.
The
Director of Social Services asked the board for $45,000 to hire a consultant
to guide DSS through the process of qualifying as an FQHC. He held out the threat that if DSS doesn't do it, someone else might and get all that government support. The Director stated that the FQHC might have a multiple million dollar budget and could be set up in 6 months.
This was a new idea presented to the Board of Commissioners and they asked for time to study the proposal and get more information and details and find out from Merci Clinic what they think of the proposal. There are other people to consider like those in private medical practice. I think the Director believes the FQHC would provide a valuable service that would not hurt private practice, but I'm not so sure.
I DO KNOW THAT I THINK THE GOVERNMENT SHOULD GET OUT OF HEALTH CARE AND NOT EXPAND THEIR PRESENCE THERE!
BY THE WAY, STILL THINK THE SIZE OF COUNTY GOVERNMENT IS GETTING SMALLER?
Well, a big surprise to me was the
retiring (resignation?) of Mr. Davis, the Director of the Economic Development Commission. The Commission was apparently formed under the
"Committee of 100" and
the only control the county commissioners had over it was in the area of their budget. I have heard dissatisfaction expressed about this in the past, and I had some sympathy for the commissioners on that because they had to
commit taxpayer money to the organization without a voice in how it managed it's affairs. It was very expensive and showed very little tangible results. The county will take over the operations of the Economic Development Commission and bring it under county staff control with the over-site of the elected Board of Commissioners. This seems a better arrangement to me. There might even be a reduction in taxpayer funding required.
The Commissioners are still struggling with a proposal to withdraw from the Regional Library System. I'd like to see that. I want a more autonomous county government without all these regional government setups (RPOs and the like).
Regional groups are open invitation to implement Agenda 21.
Then came the request from
Cove City Fire Department for $30,000 matching funds they would like to have for gear the firemen wear to a fire. This request was made by Commissioner Taylor, who conferred with the firemen by phone during the meeting.
The threat was that if the Board did not grant the request, the rating of the department might drop and citizens in that area of the county would have to pay higher fire insurance premiums. Several commissioners were reluctant to grant this request because the fire commissioners had been informed that they would have to budget within the fire tax funds provided by the citizens of their fire districts. If Cove City fire department received general fund taxpayer money,
all other fire departments would want additional funding as well. I agree with this assessment. Either have fire taxes, and live within them or do away with them and provide county wide funding. Not a mixture of the two. I see no fairness in that. It got kind of comic when someone suggested that maybe they could get a grant from someone to get the matching funds for their grant request.
WHAT IS THE WORLD COMING TO? Commissioner Taylor said he would get back with the Board on this issue.
Commissioner Tyson was kind enough to read my last report and take it seriously. About the assigning of the county garage to the Water Department, Commissioner Tyson stated that Rusty Hayes is the Director of the County Water System and, as such, is better able to supervise the county mechanics. I guess, the water system operation and maintenance being more mechanical in scope than directing a bus operation. I'm still not so sure. Oddly enough, I once owned and operated a large bus company. I would have hated to have the fleet maintenance manager report to someone else. I guess time will tell. I do appreciate Commissioner Steve Tyson commenting on it.
I've got one more beef then I will sign off for now.
Commissioner McCabe (a really nice gentleman, in all other ways)
proposed several government cost increasing measures. Fortunately, his requests weren't granted by the board although sometimes supported by Commissioner Sampson, and sometimes not.
He asked for:
1. A 6 % pay increase for county employees instead of the 3% raise.
2. A 3 % increase in Commissioners pay.
3. A $1300 increase in Commissioners travel allowance annually.
4. He stated that if an organization asked for more funding, give it to them.
I wonder if the citizens of his district really want him to continually try to redistribute the wealth in the county and get as much as possible for himself.
IS THIS WHAT THE PEOPLE OF HARLOWE AND HAVELOCK WANT?
Respectfully submitted:
Hal James
Coastal Carolina Taxpayers Association
Issues and Watchdog Committee Chairman
