Greene County’s financial situation labeled as ‘healthy’ by controller
WAYNESBURG – Greene County has what its controller referred to as a healthy fund balance. However, the county could use more human services money from the state.
Controller John A. Stets delivered the comprehensive annual financial report for 2002 at an agenda meeting Wednesday of the Greene County commissioners.
Highlighting the details was the unreserved fund balance of $1.7 million. Stets said the amount is about $480,000 less than the $2.2 million fund balance the county registered the year before, in part because the commissioners used the fund to balance the 2002 budget without a tax raise and owed a $266,858 refund to Allegheny Energy under an appeal of a prior year’s taxes. Further, Stets said about $285,000 of the fund balance is in the form of receivables from Children and Youth Services, leaving $1.4 million cash in hand.
Stets said that cash could have covered 52 days worth of general fund operations.
“That’s a pretty healthy situation,” he said.
Stets noted his only concern would be maintaining a fund balance.
He said 2002 marked the first time the annual financial report covered all components of the county’s finances, combining the general fund budget and the human services budget.
He quoted $22.7 million as the total combined budget for everything, with $9 million in revenue and $8.8 million in expenditures for the general fund alone.
Stets also pointed out in the report a section that outlines the receipts and expenses of each county office, commenting that some departments like the clerk of courts bring in money and others like the coroner’s office do not.
Less favorable than the annual financial statement was an announcement by Chief Clerk Gene Lee of a notice from the state Department of Public Welfare that the 2003-2004 allocation for the county’s Human Services Development Fund (HSDF) is only $50,000. Human Services Administrator Karen Bennett said all counties received notice of the same flat rate, although Greene County previously received $188,000.
Human-service agencies and clients have been asking state lawmakers for more money after the Legislature adopted the state budget, which includes deep cuts and included Gov. Ed Rendell’s veto of the education portion of the budget.
Bennett said she hopes for some amendment to the state budget that would bring in more money for the services that will suffer from this loss. She said the county is keeping that $50,000 allocation as an emergency fund for now.
She said the Catholic Charities of the Diocese of Pittsburgh uses the HSDF fund for family mental health services but has had to refer clients to Centerville Clinics, which can bill insurance companies and also get some money from the county. She said the HSDF fund also goes toward Community Action Southwest for homemaker services and also to provide transportation services that are otherwise unavailable, although the United Way has pitched in with some transportation assistance.
Bennett said the reduction in the HSDF allocation also means a 100 percent cut for drug and alcohol rehabilitation and an 8 percent cut in the mental health services. However, she said the state gave the county a reprieve with a 30-day extension on the drug and alcohol funding from the last fiscal year, and the county has some money to run the mental health portion of the fund without immediate impact.
She said the HSDF fund is “gap money” for the working poor without other means of paying for these services and state budget amendments are needed to restore the funding.
Otherwise, Bennett reported the county will be a pilot site for a teleconferencing project she called telepsychiatry. She said the county had some money left in the human services budget from the last fiscal year that cannot be carried over into this year’s budget and will use it to purchase video conferencing equipment to put clients in touch with psychiatrists.
The cost is $7,500 a unit for a total of about $30,000 for the equipment.
The county is required to have access to psychiatric care, Bennett said, but it has been difficult to bring this care in person to the area. She said the video conferencing equipment should make it possible to work directly with psychiatrists at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center (UPMC).
She noted the equipment also could allow human services personnel to conduct videoconferences with officials in Harrisburg rather than travel there.
Greene County’s would be a pilot project in Pennsylvania for telepsychiatry, and Bennett noted Minnesota and Washington also use this technology.
Among other matters, Jeff Marshall, the county’s emergency management director, announced the department won a $63,000 Emergency Medical Services Institute, Department of Health, grant to expand the emergency radio network by two new radio tower sites.
He said radio transmission is an issue in the southeastern and northwestern corners of the county. Lee said Marshall will work with the volunteer fire departments to test the areas for “dead spots” and to determine the best placement of the towers.