More cuts on county horizon

Layoffs and service cuts staunched the red ink during Calaveras County’s budget negotiations last year, but more may be needed, according to a new staff report.

Amid the worst recession since the Great Depression, the county’s financial situation at mid-year is “gloomy” despite the “painful” and “significant” cuts made in preparing this year’s budget, reads the report.

While county departments are collectively running about $360,000 below budget, revenues are more than $1 million below projections, which, along with other shortfalls, puts the county on pace for a $700,000-plus general fund deficit.
  

“We’re going to have to make some adjustments,” said Jeanne Boyce, county administrator, who prepared the report with Shirley Ryan, assistant county administrator.

Some of last year’s cuts are costing the county. Unemployment insurance payments to laid-off county workers who have not yet found jobs is 15 percent above expectations, according to Boyce. The county may have to dip into contingency funds to absorb the rise.

While many county revenue sources are simply depressed, delays and money grabs by the state are also playing a role in the county’s budget woes.

“The gravity of the state’s fiscal crisis and continued economic uncertainty continue to pose a threat to the county’s financial stability,” the report reads.

However, the county did get “great news” when the state Legislature voted to exclude smaller counties, including Calaveras, from a plan to significantly delay cash payments to counties, Boyce said.

“That was a major bonus for us,” she said. The bill now awaits the governor’s signature.

Boyce said the county will continue badgering the state for the reimbursements it is withholding. That worked in her experience as the head of the Health Services Agency, she said.

“You’ve got to get on the horn and say, ‘Where is our money?’ ”

The Calaveras County Board of Supervisors will consider Tuesday how to adjust this year’s budget and direct staff how to proceed with the preparation of next year’s budget.

The board will also consider throwing its support behind two grant applications for stimulus funds to bring broadband to more areas of Calaveras County.

The first, and preferred grant, which supervisors have already given an informal green light to, would put down the “middle mile” infrastructure in Calaveras — in other words, the lines to which Internet providers connect their customers.

The second grant would bring Calaveras into an effort to connect higher education, research facilities and county offices of education with fiber-optic cable to create a backbone from which more rural areas could be extended broadband.

The two applications are competing for the same funds, thus it is unlikely both will be awarded. However, applying for both improves the county’s chances, according to the staff report.

Calaveras County Board of Supervisors: 9 a.m. Tuesday, Government Center, 891 Mountain Ranch Road, San Andreas.