The apparent impasse on how to keep the county out of the red until June 30 and also present a state mandated balanced budget for 2012-13 continued last Thursday, February 16 at the regular meeting of Clinton Fiscal Court. All members, as well as between 30 and 40 spectators, including some current and former county elected officials, were on hand for the one-hour meeting held in the upstairs circuit courtroom.

Although discussion, questions, recommendations and comments were abundant, no official action pertaining to the county budget, the sheriff’s and county clerk’s budgets was taken.

The only official votes–and even few motions–that took place were early on in the meeting when the court, after a few questions on some bills, voted to pay claims and bills, approved the treasurer’s report and fund transfers. They also voted to accept a refund from the Cumberland Green River Council, a former conservation program, which is now non-existent after not being continued for federal funding.

Greg Abston told the court about the discontinuance of the program and said that prior to the Resource Development Program being cancelled nationwide, it had benefitted schools and recreation in Clinton County.

The bulk of the meeting then turned to budget matters, when Judge/Executive Lyle Huff opened discussion on ways to remedy the county’s financial condition and prior to making his own recommendations on raising revenues and making cuts, asked for magistrates to voice their input.

Third District Magistrate Willard Johnson stated this could be the most harsh decisions since the Great Depression, and then read a prepared list of his own recommendations, which included: appointing a board to study jail costs and determine whether or not making it a 96-hour holdover facility would save on expenses; require county employees to pay 50 percent of their own health insurance premiums; cut all donations of any kind to organizations and others; hire one person–on a percentage collected–to be in charge of collecting the county’s Occupational Tax (saying that several persons working in the county did not pay the tax, for example, out-of-countians employed here); cut the magistrates’ and judge’s travel expenses, across the board; establish an ambulance board to operate as a taxing district so that service could be self-funding; and, begin taking the 4 percent property tax rate allowed by law each fiscal year.

Following those recommendations, Fifth District Magistrate Charlotte Bernard made the statement that despite what some public perception may be, she was “totally against taxes,” but rather favored cutting the budget where necessary. Later in the meeting, Second District Magistrate Patty Guinn also emphatically stated she had not one time voted in favor of increasing taxes.

Fourth District Magistrate Ricky Craig also inserted that Magistrate Johnson had some good points in his recommendations and was firmly behind some of the measures presented.

First District Magistrate Phillip Parrigin, however, in questioning an ambulance service taxing district, asked what if the county couldn’t get anyone to serve on such a board and also suggested other type cuts, such as in utilities.

Judge Huff said the court was advised last January (2011) of possible budget shortfalls and had been in discussions with officials from the Department of Local Government and local finance officers from that branch of state government.

Huff said the cost of fuel, insurance and everything else had gone up, and one of his recommendations was to proceed with creating an ambulance board, making it a taxing district and allowing the board to set a tax rate for that service.

Director of Emergency Services Lonnie Scott also told the court that most of the ambulances currently on the road have high mileage, with only one having under 100,000 miles and the average mileage in the fleet being 162,000–basically meaning new ambulances will be needed in the future.

County Attorney Michael Rains, who had researched the ambulance service taxing district issue, told the court that a tax rate of no more than 10 cents per $100 assessed value could be levied, under state law.

Judge Huff noted that a proposed 2012-13 fiscal year budget would be prepared and presented for review in a couple of months and reminded court members the state has to sign off on any budget presented and it has to be a balanced budget.

When Magistrate Johnson moved to approve the judge/executive’s recommendation to establish an ambulance board, and set a taxing rate for the ambulance service on real and personal property, the motion died for lack of a second.

Judge Huff then went on to his recommendations for the county clerk’s and sheriff’s office budgets, neither of which have been approved, even though Department of Local Government representatives, at a call meeting earlier in the month, had urged the court to do so.

Huff noted that if revenues and/or cuts of $300,000 weren’t made, the county couldn’t come up with a balanced budget and said “the state will cut it for us.”

He recommended cutting $38,000 from the clerk’s budget, some $30,000 in employee salaries and $8,000 in office supplies.

When the judge asked for a motion on the budget, pursuant to his recommendation, no motion was made.

He then moved to the sheriff’s budget, basically recommending keeping much of the budget as is, but requiring the sheriff to pay his own salary from fees collected through his office. Again, no motion was made.

County Clerk Jim Elmore and Sheriff Rick Riddle both voiced the similar sentiment that if their budgets as recommended by Judge Huff had passed, they may have to close their doors.

Elmore said that a few years ago his office employed up to six people to handle the business that came through his office and he’s now down to three employees. Riddle noted that due to shortfalls in tax collections and other fees in his office, he couldn’t maintain a staff.

The court then turned its attention to a long-standing issue, that of employee health insurance. The cost to the county for the insurance in the current year is $207,896 and that, under the proposed rates from the insurance carrier, would increase to over $243,000 this year.

Judge Huff recommended discontinuing county employee health insurance, which he estimated would save around $68,000 for the rest of this fiscal year. It was also noted during the discussion that at this particular point, the county’s budget doesn’t have enough revenues to last until the end of this fiscal year on June 30.

Magistrate Johnson brought to the court’s attention that about a year ago, he had recommended requiring employees to pay a percentage of their own health insurance. Also, Magistrate Craig stated “no one is going to make a motion to cut employee health insurance.”

Magistrate Bernard then suggested making some types of smaller cuts now and continue to look at other options as the fiscal year continues. She also told Judge Huff he was “not leaving (the court) a lot of options…it’s all or nothing,” adding it was hard for court members to make a wise decision and added the judge couldn’t blame (the budget situation) on the court.

Some members from the audience, including some that would have a stake in budget cuts, made comments and/or suggestions, as well as asking questions.

Park Director Bobby Reneau emotionally told the court that as of this point (at $10,000 per year donation to the Park Board), considering there were about 300 kids who use the park annually, the county was only paying about nine cents per day per child. “We need to come together to keep this park,” he added.

There was then a question about the number of employees at the Clinton County Jail and the turnover of employees that seem to be frequently hired.

Jailer Gene Ferrill said that state minimums were set for staffing and at the current time, the jail had 14 employees, 10 full-time and two part-time and even with that, as far as state requirements, they are too short on part-time employees to meet state mandates.

Deborah Brown, an employee with the sheriff’s office, then asked if there weren’t any other options besides cutting the county clerk’s and sheriff’s budget. Judge Huff said that the state DLG, in a listing of essential and non-essential things the county must fund, said the sheriff’s salary was non-essential, or not mandated by the court to pay.

Again, Sheriff Riddle said if he had to pay his own salary from the current rate of collections, he couldn’t maintain his staff and noted that some cutbacks in hours had already been made, further stating he may have to lay off most or all of his current staff.

Magistrate Bernard asked the county clerk and sheriff if they could take away some services now while other options are explored, but Sheriff Riddle said his office has already started to lay-off and Elmore said he now has three people doing the work of six.

Magistrate Craig also inserted, “We knew this was coming.” He said of the approximate 90 county employees, 52 are currently on the county’s insurance plan. In the past, some employees have publicly stated that they are primarily “working because they have the insurance.”

Magistrate Johnson then asked the audience in attendance for a show of hands on how many would favor raising taxes. Only a couple of hands were raised.

Another spectator again said that county employees should pay for their own insurance, saying a lot of people who work don’t have it.

Judge Huff noted about the road fund (when the road department was called into question) was in good shape, since it was operated with its own state funds and has a surplus, as well as does the LGEA, which can only be used for certain services. He added it was the general fund (which county government operates under to supply services) that was under pressure.

When some questioned road department employees’ work or lack thereof, several magistrates were quick to point out the work the road crews–including in the winter months–do, noting they were out in all types of weather at all times of the night doing their jobs.

Another question arose about the necessity for overtime at the ambulance service and former judge/executive Charlene King questioned the ambulance service collection rates.

Scott also answered that question in noting that, for example, if a person working that is about to be off the clock in 30 minutes gets an emergency call to transport a patient out-of-town, they have to make that run. It was also noted, insofar as ambulance revenue, that most patients are on Medicare or Medicaid and those entities only pay a certain amount, regardless of what the transport cost would be. For example, a patient who is on Medicare may have a bill of $2,000 but the Medicare may only pay half of that amount, leaving the ambulance service to have to absolve the remaining amount.

Greg Abston also voiced his support for the idea of the ambulance service becoming a taxing district to raise its own revenue to sustain itself. He told the audience that, “either you, me or someone you know is going to use the ambulance service.”

Former Magistrate Charlie Stearns also suggested that three fiscal court members at a time meet with County Treasurer Dallas Sidwell (as to not constitute an illegal court meeting with a majority present) to work out recommendations about the budget to present to the full court.

Magistrate Craig also said the court needed to start with reducing the cost of health insurance and go “line-item by line-item” in the budget on finding ways to cut.

After the meeting, Judge Huff said he had presented the facts and recommendations to the court on how to correct the budget situation as required by the Department of Local Government and local finance officers, who had attended an earlier work session on the budget prior to last week’s regular meeting.

Following a few more questions and comments from the citizens on hand, no further official action was taken and the meeting adjourned.

The next regular meeting of Clinton Fiscal Court is scheduled for March 15 at 5 p.m. and is open to the general public.