The San Juan County Council on Monday put its stamp of approval on a revenue and spending plan for the coming year that might best be described as a work in progress.
In other words, there are financial holes that still need to be plugged — either on the revenue or expenditure side of the equation — in order for the 2010 budget to remain in balance.
For example, Administrator Pete Rose noted, the budget of the county solid-waste operation, totaling $2.6 million in 2010, at this point is balanced on an “undetermined source of revenue”. The county Solid Waste Advisory Committee earlier this year recommended additional revenue could be raised by implementing a countywide parcel fee or by instituting a gate fee.
Meanwhile, an additional $75,000 will be transferred out of the road fund’s construction account and into the county general fund to help offset its expenses. That’s in addition to nearly $1 million that’s been siphoned out of the road fund and into the general fund each year for nearly a decade. The construction account could wind up in the red by 2011 without a change in course, Public Works Director Jon Shannon said.
“We’re already at a point, the first time since the year I started, where we’re one major winter storm away from being in the red,” Shannon said. “We’ll be going into next year basically with no cash balance.”
The additional transfer of road fund revenue could prove a setback to finding a solution for a long-standing parking debacle in the Deer Harbor hamlet. What had been earmarked as a $300,000 project when the six-year transportation plan was endorsed earlier this year has been reduced to $50,000 in 2010. Council Richard Fralick, Orcas West, warned that the county could find itself in a vulnerable position by ignoring its obligations in Deer Harbor or by underfunding that planning effort.
“”We’re in this problem because previous councils dipped into the road fund for the sake of county current (general fund),” Fralick said. “We’ve got to get out of this hole, and we’ve got to break ourselves of this habit.”
At least for now, old habits will prove hard to break as end-of-the-year revenue has fallen short of projections.
In a unanimous decision, council members agreed to dip into so-called “operating cash reserves” as a means of balancing a general fund that in 2010 totals just over $13.4 million. The council, after cutting nearly $1 million out of this year’s general fund, had expected to get by next year without tapping that “reserve” account. Instead, it will rely on shifting nearly $122,000 of cash collected in 2009 over into next year and begin 2010 with a general fund that will less than 8 percent of the overall fund set aside in cash reserves.
Still, with exception of the voter-approved 12-cent property-tax hike, which will raise roughly $966,000 in revenue and is earmarked exclusively for support of 11 separate jobs or programs, the 2010 budget represents a tightening of the belts. Rose noted that general fund expenses will be roughly $762,000 less next year than in 2008. The county will begin 2010 with 154 full-time employees, or 13 fewer than just two years ago.
Overall, the 2010 county budget totals $48.6 million, however, according to Rose, when transfers among various funds and duplicate figures are subtracted, next year’s budget totals $37.2 million.
