Commissioners cut over a million in revised budget
April 9, 2009 -- Meeting in a special called session April 3, the Greene County Board of Commissioners unanimously adopted a revised fiscal year 2009 budget that makes the necessary reduction to account for the bad economy.
With sales taxes, building permit fees, and hotel/motel taxes all significantly less than they were at the same time last year, the Greene County Commissioners are opting to take preventive measures to keep expenses in line with falling revenues.
“We know that county taxpayers are being hit hard by this poor economy,” said Chairman Dene Channell. “If they’re tightening their belts and spending less, we should do the same. Hopefully, this revised budget does make us more lean.”
The revised budget the commissioners adopted at Friday’s meeting cut the county’s $15.5 million budget by $1.1 million to $14.4 million—a number lower than the previous year’s budget. The county also managed to make the cuts without affecting personnel and forcing layoffs or furloughs. The County Manager sent out the request for departments to voluntarily cut their budgets in late January.
“I cannot thank the department heads and constitutional officers enough,” said County Manager Byron Lombard. “The commissioners could have just told me to cut 10 percent out of everyone’s budget, but they didn’t do that. We asked everyone to identify places to cut in their budgets, and for the most part, everyone did exactly that and made the commission’s job a lot easier.”
Many cuts pertained to items like training, office supplies, machinery and contract services. Still, bigger projects were postponed indefinitely and funding for open, vacant positions was cut.
“If someone quit, retired, or moved, we are opting to save money by simply not hiring a replacement,” Channell said. “The tricky part will be next year. Do we fill that position or cut the funding out entirely? The economy will play a big part in our plans during the 2010 budget planning sessions that will take place in the summer.”
The commissioners know that raising property taxes is politically unpopular and sends the wrong message to county taxpayers in a time when they might be having trouble paying their own bills. On top of that, the county commissioners have cut the millage rate in half over the past decade—either lowering or maintaining the millage rate year after year. They don’t want to break that trend.
Simultaneously, the commissioners don’t want to dip into their fund reserves if they can help it. Using your fund reserves to supplement operational expenses generally is frowned upon by lenders and could even lower Greene County’s high bond rating—making it more expensive for taxpayers when Greene County pursues bond financing on future capital projects.
“We will keep a close eye on Greene County’s economy,” Channell said. “If revenues stay down, we may be forced to make some hard decisions. However, today is a good sign. By cutting expenses before the revenues forced our hand, we’ve put ourselves in a better position moving forward.”
For questions, please contact:
Chris Edwards
Public Information Officer
1034 Silver Drive, Suite 201
Greensboro, GA 30642
706-453-7716
cedwards@greenecountyga.gov