Sacred cows watch out

Sullivan County budget warnings

By FRITZ MAYER

MONTICELLO, NY — In previously tough fiscal years, lawmakers have been able to balance the budget by not filling vacant positions, delaying purchases and making other moves that are not very painful. But in looking at the 2010 budget, lawmakers are signaling that these kinds of measures won’t be enough this time around, and some tough decisions are coming.

Sullivan County Chairman Jonathan Rouis and vice chairman Ron Hiatt issued a press release on September 30 warning that as the new budget is being formulated, they will be looking at every area of government to find savings and, according to Hiatt, there will be “no sacred cows” as there have been in previous years.

The press release read, “Cutting office hours, cutting service hours and increasing staff workloads are all being discussed. Ceasing to operate non-mandated social service programs and divesting of county services with large price tags are being considered. And, yes, downsizing the size of the county workforce is also being discussed.”

The budget deficit on the horizon for next year is now about $5 million, and may grow larger. Hiatt explained that in order to just keep pace with spending levels in 2009, the county would be required to hike the county portion of real property taxes by 17 percent, and that, he said, is simply not going to happen because the lawmakers wouldn’t vote for it and many residents could not afford to pay it.

A tax hike of some three to five percent, however, is possible, depending on how much money can be trimmed elsewhere.

The tentative 2010 budget will be filed on November 13. Once that happens, the public comment period will open and residents will be invited to submit emails with questions and comments.

Hiring freeze

In the meantime, Rouis has instituted an immediate hiring freeze across the board at the county, which came with a letter to department heads and others that painted a bleak fiscal outlook next year and beyond.

Sales tax in the county is projected to be down by 4.35 percent in 2009 over last year. And while this is less than the shortfall that many other counties are experiencing, it still presents very large problems.

But Rouis’ letter suggests that the biggest fiscal problems the county faces are due to actions in Albany. State officials, for instance, have said they will reduce the amount of money they had planned to send to counties to cover Medicaid payments in 2010.

Also, state comptroller Thomas DiNapoli has directed that counties increase their contributions to the state’s pension system from eight percent of payroll to 12 percent in 2010. Rouis wrote, “That single unilateral act by the sole trustee of the pension system will have an impact of $1.1 million to Sullivan County, which translates to 2.34 percent of the property tax levy.”

Also, Sullivan County’s health insurance costs will be more than $7.5 million by 2014, or nearly 16 percent of the real property lax levy, while Rouis said he expects real property tax values to stagnate or decline.

Therefore, Rouis concluded, he was forced to implement an immediate hiring freeze for all county departments, with the exception of some emergency and state-mandated positions.