Commissioners separate wheat from chaff in budget

Picking up a bottle of water, vice chairman Barry Jacobs told commissioners one way they could save money.

"We ought to buy this in bulk," he said.

The Orange County Board of Commissioners discussed the fiscal outlook for this coming year at a budget follow-up session Tuesday.

During budget work sessions last year, commissioners approved a budget for fiscal year 2005-06 that would result in a $500,000 reduction to the operational budget and $300,000 in cuts to Medicaid, health insurance, energy and utilities.

On Tuesday, county staff members provided the commissioners with a list operating budget items that potentially could be cut or reduced.

County Manager John Link told commissioners that if more cuts were needed next year, the commissioners might have to look past operations and into county services for cuts.

"I think we pretty much squeezed the turnip when it comes to operations," he said.

Commissioners were provided with a list of potential savings and reductions to the operating budget - and a few items on that list raised some eyebrows.

Commissioners had concerns about any cuts to employee development training.

"I think we pay a price if we don't maintain customer service," Chairman Moses Carey Jr. said. "Customer service is what county government is about."

But staff members assured the commissioners that development programs that they've already committed to funding, as well as Spanish language and cultural awareness training, would be maintained.

Concerns were also brought up about taking $5,000 away from the employee holiday social.

Carey said that given that amount of money, eliminating the program would not be necessary.

Commissioners agreed that money could be found in other places.

Even with these potential cuts and areas of savings, this year's fiscal situation still is not entirely clear due to the state budget and recently passed lottery.

Noting that the state budget was passed late in August, Donna Dean, budget director, told commissioners that its impacts still were uncertain.

"We don't have anything definite to report to you tonight," she said.

The county's capital budget also still is waiting on information from the state before further decisions are made.

Last year, commissioners discussed reallocating their target ratio, giving 60 percent of the capital budget to the two school districts and leaving 40 percent for the county.

Though typically the budget is split at 77 percent and 23 percent, commissioners said they felt that some major county capital needs could not go ignored.

Due to the lottery, however, commissioners decided further input is necessary before implementing the new target.

"I think we need to reexamine all of this once we get more information," Carey said. "We didn't really do a 60-40 policy. We called it a 60-40 policy but we didn't do that."

Though no action was taken on the capital budget for the schools, county staff did give commissioners a look at ways to pinch pennies in their own capital budget.

Link told commissioners that the biggest cut in the capital budget was in driving and vehicle usage.

The cut was sensible, he said, because of high fuel costs that already are imposing cut backs.

"We're in a frugal state of how we need to operate a motor vehicle anyway."

 

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