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Talks about county’s looming deficit put on hold in Jolivette’s absence

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By Dave Greber, Staff Writer 12:48 PM Thursday, May 27, 2010

HAMILTON — Although the clock continues to tick on the need for action, commissioners held off on decisions Thursday, May 27, to implement a plan to fill a $4 million-and-growing financial hole in the general fund.

It wasn’t even a topic of public discussion because of the excused absence of Commissioner Gregory Jolivette. Commissioner Chuck Furmon said such decisions are too weighty not to have the full three-member board present.

On Monday, May 24, commissioners were presented with five scenarios to take care of the looming deficit that included a dip into shrinking county reserves coupled with employee furloughs, layoffs, steep cuts or a combination of the three.

County Budget and Management Director Pete Landrum warned commissioners Monday a delay in the process could widen the financial gap and impact the county’s bond rating, which is used to determine the cost of borrowing money.

In early May, Landrum and the county’s finance department tallied the deficit, which encompasses a $2 million drop in prison boarding at the Butler County Jail, and more than $737,000 in unplanned expenses. Those include a $115,000 payment to the Miami Conservancy District for improperly collecting taxes from residents, an additional $140,000 needed to cover attorney fees and $90,000 in rent to the county’s law library.

Department heads who showed up to Monday’s meeting asked commissioners for more time to comb through their respective budgets to ease the impact of impending cuts.

Instead, Furmon said the vote will happen first; a decision that he and others hope will come during a special commission meeting next week. As of Thursday afternoon, that had yet to be scheduled. The next regular commission meeting is June 10.

Furmon agreed that further delay — caused in part by allowing department heads the first crack at their budgets — could be detrimental.

“We can’t do that because it will cost the county big bucks,” Furmon said. “It’s crunch time. We have to give them (department heads) some kind of route to take.”

The scenarios presented to commissioners Monday are:

• Enacting a two-week furlough for all employees — including those from the bargaining unit if agreements could be reached — and a yet-to-be-defined percentage reduction for all departments.

• Reducing the Butler County sheriff’s budget $500,000 to $2 million, and an additional $2 million in reductions for all other departments.

• Enacting a two-week furlough and a 3.3 percent reduction to all departments’ discretionary spending.

• Two different equations that take into consideration the reduction of all departments’ discretionary spending by 6.5 percent or by a variable rate from 1.2 percent to 6.1 percent.

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