As government budgets get tighter and tighter, the Cook County Board of Commissioners is strategizing how to provide good service with the least amount of money necessary. Department heads will each be required to submit their annual budget requests this summer, and to help them understand what direction the board wants them to take and to help the board understand what the departments’ needs are, they met in a work session on June 28 and another on July 8.
In light of a call for zero percent budget increases in recent years, Public Health and Human Services Director Sue Futterer asked if the board wanted to dip into the fund balance, reduce services, or alter staff positions. Department heads need to know this in order to put together their budgets, she said. Some of the services her department offers, Futterer said, prevent the county from paying for more expensive services when problems go unchecked or needs go unmet.
County Attorney Tim Scannell pointed out that while he has wanted to add an investigator position, he has not put one in his budget because of the board’s desire to not increase the budget. But then sometimes, in the middle of the year, he said the board will grant a large unplanned request in the amount that would have covered that investigator position.
Scannell said he would not stop prosecuting cases in order to save money. Futterer said her department’s No. 1 priority is safety for children and adults, but they rely on other departments, such as the Attorney’s Office and the Sheriff ’s Office, to accomplish some of their work.
Commissioner Fritz Sobanja stated that Community Center Director Diane Booth usually stays under budget by her own initiative. Others pointed out that she is a department of one that does not provide any mandated services.
Personnel Director Janet Simonen said she thinks that while department heads don’t get a sense of the needs of the other departments, they do a great job keeping costs as low as possible.
The board asked department heads to prepare lists of which of their services are mandated and which are not and which they consider essential, whether mandated or not. Commissioner Sobanja said legislators want to know how effective their services are, he said. Are they making a difference?
Programs that are mandated include the county attorney, assessor, auditor, management information systems, personnel, recorder, sheriff, planning and zoning, environmental health, and emergency management. Counties have discretion regarding how much of those services to offer.
Non-mandated programs include the airport fund, the EDA, emergency medical and rescue services, the Senior Center, the Violence Prevention Center, the library, the Historical Society, recreation, the MN Extension Service, the Soil and Water Conservation District, AEOA transportation, and higher education.
Sobanja suggested that allowing budgets to rise with inflation might be acceptable if they want to avoid being faced with steep increases all at once down the road. “That happens a lot,” said Auditor-Treasurer Braidy Powers.
State shutdown
Futterer said that if the state government shut down, she would have to decide whether to stop offering certain services or have the county pick up the cost. At the second budget work session on July 8, the state shutdown had been going on for a week. When bigger governmental units don’t fund services adequately, Commissioner Jim Johnson said, “I think it’s probably the obligation of the local government to pick up the slack.”
“I had figured cooler heads would prevail by now,” County Engineer David Betts said. The Minnesota Department of Transportation had told counties not to do repair work on state roads during the shutdown, but the Cook County Highway Department will not jeopardize public safety, Betts said. “I’m not going to abandon the public just because people in St. Paul can’t figure things out.” Some state workers are on hand to deal with emergencies, Betts added.
Reserve and fund balance policy
When is it time to dip into a fund balance? That question was part of the discussion during the second budget meeting. Auditor-Treasurer Braidy Powers said, “We do have a significant fund balance, which we’ve had as long as I’ve been here.”
The state recommends that counties keep a fund balance of 35-50 percent of their annual expenses, and Cook County currently has 64 percent. Cook County’s fiscal policy requires that the county maintain an undesignated fund balance of no less than 50 percent of the annual budget.
“Could the state take that away from us?” Commissioner Jim Johnson asked.
“I suppose they could,” Powers answered. The state has the authority to garner money counties have in their fund balances.
What if a road washes out and there’s no FEMA (Federal Emergency Management Agency) money to fix it? Commissioner Fritz Sobanja wondered. “We need a reserve.”
Technically, reserves are set aside for a specific purpose and must be used for that purpose. Fund balances can be either “designated” or “undesignated” but if they are “designated,” the board has the right to “undesignate” them at any time. Powers said designating portions of the fund balance for specific purposes might decrease the likelihood of the state demanding that money from the county.
County Attorney Tim Scannell noted that the county’s bond rating could go down if its fund balance went down. Auditor-Treasurer Powers said he would like to see Cook County retain or increase its fund balance and would like them to keep at least 50 percent unreserved and undesignated. Save a dollar to spend five
Highway Maintenance Supervisor Russ Klegstad gave an illustration of how cutting back the budget can increase future costs. He said the county is putting up 20-25,000 cubic yards of gravel a year, although it needs 38,000 to keep the roads properly maintained. They can’t put calcium chloride, which binds together gravel road surfaces, on some roads because they don’t have the gravel they need to put down on the roads first. Some roads are falling apart because they have not been maintained properly, he said.
Klegstad suggested that they make a two-year investment in gravel so they don’t spend each summer waiting around for the next load of gravel to be available and that they spend an extra $40,000 a year to keep up with the need for gravel.
Commissioner Johnson said he figured other departments would have needs mounting over the years as well that could make larger, otherwise unnecessary expenditures necessary all at once when the needs became critical. “We’ve got to start thinking longer-term rather than short-term,” he said, adding that they may need to spend a dollar now to save five dollars down the road.
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