More discrepancies found in county budget

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Roosevelt County administrators scheduled several meetings with county officials and commissioners Friday to break the news that the county deficit has increased to $1.3 million.

The county deficit, when originally discovered in January, began at $800,000 then was later cut in half by various county departments making cutbacks in expenses.

“All of the department directors have been encouraged to speak with their staff and to share, because we knew the likelihood of it becoming very public, so in an effort to be transparent, we wanted to bring numbers to light ahead of time,” County Manager Amber Hamilton said Friday night.

Hamilton said two more large discrepancies were discovered in the county budget, causing the deficit to spiral upward again:

The amount of money the county pays to Roosevelt General Hospital for gross receipts tax was not factored into the budget. Hamilton said the county is just a conduit for the GRTs that go to the hospital, so the money is stored in the county’s bank account then paid to the hospital every month.

Debt service money, such as funds that go to the road department and county fairgrounds, were also budgeted incorrectly in the past.

“The debt service, that’s money that is not just a budget adjustment,” said Michael Steininger, the Department of Finance official who has been working with the county to identify discrepancies. “Not only was it not budgeted; it’s physical cash going out the door. There is a big difference between fixing budget and the cash impact it’s going to have.”

Steininger said upon reviewing former county audits, he estimated the discrepancies dated all the way back to 2009.

Hamilton and Steininger said despite the large increase in the deficit, the problem is still repairable.

“Everything the county manager and commission has done has been a pre-emptive thing. The bomb has not gone off. They’re still diffusing it,” Steininger said. “There is nothing in her (Hamilton’s) budget right now that I would not do if I was the county’s finance director. Based on everything we know and everything we foresee, it’s (the new budget) as solid as we can make it.”

Reversing the deficit will mean draining the county’s $1.5 million reserves, leaving an estimated $200,000 cash in the bank and nothing in reserve.

“At this point, we are looking at every possible way to further trim expenses and to explore options that the county will have to reduce our expenses for the remainder of the fiscal year,” Hamilton said.

Steininger said DFA usually gives counties one year to replenish their reserves, but he said considering the size of Roosevelt County’s debt, the state may possibly consider allowing the county to have two years to replenish the funds.

The county may also have to give monthly budget reports to DFA for a period of time.

Steininger said three factors that could reverse the county’s deficit are if the county implements Hold Harmless Taxes if the state no longer provides them, increasing property taxes and the $441,000 from the Payment in Lieu of Taxes (PILT) funds.

But all of these factors are either not a definite or will not be on hand for a while, he said.

Hamilton said a special meeting will be held Thursday for all department directors and commissioners to bring ideas to the table on how to further cut back expenses.

She said one suggestion she will take to commissioners is shutting down the fairgrounds from April 1 through June 30. The fairgrounds cost the county over $150,000 each year, a large part of the county’s debt-service funds.

She said furloughs for salaried employees will be a last-resort option.

“Our number one asset at the county is our people, and we want to take care of everyone, but we also have to be fiscally minded and explore options of what is it going to take to make this work?” Hamilton said. “They (department heads) wanted to look at their budgets over the weekend and see if there was any other way to possibly look to trim in any area and to really think outside the box and be extremely creative.”