Anticipating hard times ahead, Bob Main, Chairman of the Coos County Commission, called a meeting of all department heads and gave the stark details. The County may see its last O&C (Oregon and California) federal timber payments this September, after decades of payments made to offset the loss from not cutting trees in areas with threatened species.
Not only have the payments been declining these last several years, down from $6M to $2.5M this year, but foreclosures and reduced property values will contribute to upcoming budget woes. Reserve funding will see the County through another year but when annual public budget work sessions begin this spring and Main wants people thinking ahead of time about cost cutting measures as well as creative ways to bring in new revenue.
Amongst the legacies of one term commissioner, Kevin Stufflebean, were his rearrangement of budget items. We first saw evidence of this at New Year’s Eve, 2008, when a budget “projection” he presented to justify laying off 60% of the road crew indicated the department had been operating in the red for several years. It hadn’t, but by separating fleet services from road maintenance and moving revenue around that had once been combined, it looked that way.
Stufflebean, did the same thing with the IT department, except in reverse, where he stripped line items from each department earmarked for IT and lumped them altogether into one giant $1.3M fund. Today, Whitty said she had always found that confusing and would be requesting they go back to tracking IT expenses per department.
Main ended the meeting by encouraging everyone to think of creative ways to save money to avoid laying off county employees and to also bring in additional revenue.
To the last, I will throw in my two cents in one word. Energy!
*Note: Originally, I was not going to publish this on the blog because Stufflebean is gone and why kick a man when he is down? However, the budgetary shenanigans and some other actions came to mind today, so, just for fun, here is a fun re-enactment of one of Kevin’s signature speeches.
