How to resolve AdBlock issue? The supervisors unanimously approved the county’s 2017-18 final recommended budget, which County Administrative Officer Carol Huchingson presented at the board’s Tuesday morning meeting.
The budget’s appropriations total approximately $230,395,789, based on the resolution the board approved.
That total breaks down as follows, according to the resolution:
- Salaries and benefits: $78,263,474;
- Services and supplies: $74,395,443;
- Other charges: $34,428,739;
- Fixed assets: $3,615,005;
- Construction in progress: $41,624,650;
- Other financing uses: ($3,593,160);
- contingencies: $1,661,638.
This year’s budget is nearly $11 million more than the final recommended budget the board approved for fiscal year 2016-17.
Budget narratives and documents for the meeting can be found under the meeting date at budget item at https://countyoflake.legistar.com/LegislationDetail.aspx?ID=3144840&GUID=B84A1B0D-507A-4DCF-8FE7-D91086266A47.
Over the years, it’s been common practice for the board to hold its most substantive budget hearings in September, when the final recommended budget is presented.
However, this year, Huchingson rearranged the process, with the board having an extended hearing in June in which there were presentations by each of the county’s department heads.
It’s that process that Huchingson indicated on Tuesday would be used going forward, as she said it made more sense to hold the longer hearings at the start of the fiscal year, not a few months in as has traditionally been done.
With the significant hearing held in June, on Tuesday Huchingson said she saw no need to hold another lengthy hearing. As such, her presentation and the board’s brief discussion took up only about 20 minutes of the hour-and-a-half-long meeting.
Huchingson’s presentation was both realistic and optimistic, sizing up challenges and emphasizing that the budget will take on those challenges in new ways.
“While the state and most other counties are fully recovered or actively recovering from the dip that hit all of us in the recession, we here in Lake County continue to face many financial challenges,” Huchingson said.
In particular, the county continues to face the many fiscal impacts resulting from the wildfire disasters of 2015 and 2016.
Tuesday was the second anniversary of the beginning of the most devastating of those fires, the Valley fire, which burned from Sept. 12 into early October of 2015.
The Valley fire resulted in four confirmed deaths, destroyed more than 1,950 structures – about 1,300 of them homes – and scorched more than 76,000 acres across the south county. It continues to be listed by the state as the third-most destructive fire in California’s history.
The Clayton fire, which occurred in Lower Lake in August 2016, burned more than 3,900 acres and 300 structures, 200 of them homes.
In addition to the fires, Huchingson said the county had costs increases in its labor agreements with safety employees in 2016 and 2017 that it is still working to cover.
There also have been retirement contribution increases for the workforce, although the county always had had a very modest version of the CalPERS retirement program compared to other jurisdictions, she said.
She also thanked the county’s department heads for their support and cooperation in bringing forward the budget, which included a new approach to budget narratives meant not just to present numbers but also to give a fuller picture of what each department does.
“This final recommended budget poses many solutions to these challenging fiscal times, both budgetarily and in terms of staffing,” with the document looking both at new revenue streams and operational efficiencies, she said.
Even though the financial picture is not as exciting as county officials would like it to be, "It's a time of opportunity to reinvent the way we do business, and so it is really an exciting time,” Huchingson said.
In terms of revenues, Huchingson said the 2017-18 budget includes the assumption of an update to the master fee schedule, which staff will be bringing back to the board on Sept. 19. The schedule was updated last year and the staff is now in a regular cycle of updating it, which she said will help the county’s revenues in years to come.
"As a whole, if we're going to meet our revenue needs in the future, we must focus on economic development in the county. We have to grow our tax base. Our property tax revenue is among the lowest of California counties and it was low even before the wildfire disasters decimated 22 percent of our land mass here in Lake County,” Huchingson said.
Huchingson said this budget also provides for consulting services to help look at other revenue enhancements and operational efficiencies.
“We're really at a time in which we need to reinvent ourselves,” she said.
Huchingson said staff also is recommending the establishment of “a technology modernization reserve.”
They’re proposing to put $500,000 of one-time funds into a reserve and then establish a committee that will compile recommendations for the board’s future consideration regarding technology advancements.
Huchingson said the county also must take action to address increases in the county’s retirement program which, while modest, is still expected to see costs rise “tremendously.”
She said staff has established a pension stabilization fund as part of its planning for those increases. Over the next seven years, the county’s general fund is anticipated to have increases to the tune of $18 million due to those growing retirement costs.
Absent new revenue, the county has to use one-time fund balance carryover to balance the budget, which Huchingson said comes at the expensive of one-time projects and building maintenance.
However, Huchingson noted of the budget document that it’s far from all negative.
The positives include maintaining service levels to the sheriff’s office, fully funding a sidewalk project in Clearlake Oaks and increasing funds for roads by almost $1 million, she said.
She said the budget is balanced, which means it has sufficient revenue to support its appropriations, although because of the use of one-time funds to support ongoing operations it’s not structurally balanced, which has been the case for the last couple of years.
Huchingson said the amount of one-time funds proposed to be used in the 2017-18 budget is less than the previous year.
Deputy County Administrative Officer Jeff Rein, one of the staffers who Huchingson cited as being key in preparing the budget, told Lake County News after the meeting that the county’s 2016-17 budget had used $1.5 million in one-time funds to balance, while the amount in this new fiscal year is smaller, coming in at $1.1 million.
He said the goal is that the use of those one-time funds will be eliminated after three years.
Huchingson told the board that despite the continuing pressure of diminishing funds and staffing challenges, the county’s departments continue to provide quality services.
Salary and benefits are as much factors as keeping up with volume of recruitments that the county needs, said Huchingson.
Filling jobs is such a concern that earlier in the meeting on Tuesday a new standing agenda item debuted in which staff reports on current job openings and recruitments.
Huchingson said the county’s compensation plan has lagged behind the other counties to which Lake typically is compared, and on average the county government’s salaries are considerably lower than other counties, which is why Lake serves as a training county.
“So we are facing many challenges,” said Huchingson. “It’s a strange time because at the same time I tell you I'm excited about the prospect of reinventing the way we do business, through the engagement of your board and with the dedication of department heads I believe that we can confront this budget year with positive momentum. It's really a time of opportunity where we look for new ways of doing business.”
“It always amazes me how we can do so much with so little,” said Supervisor Rob Brown.
He said the county hasn’t laid off people, which is something that would normally have to be done in tough budget times. “Our employees are our most valuable asset,” he said, adding that the county is fortunate in its department heads.
Board Chair Jeff Smith said this is the 19th budget he’s been part of, and recalled the many ups and downs the county has faced.
He said that he hopes a solar project to benefit the county’s senior centers will be done eventually. “I’m still hoping that’ll get some legs and move on after I’m gone,” said Smith, who intends to retire after his fifth four-year term is up.
In finalizing the budget, the board unanimously approved four items – including three resolutions to adopt the final recommended budget, approve position allocations and cancel general reserves, and the continuation of a hiring freeze, delegating authority to Huchingson to waive the freeze as appropriate.
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