County budget has $7.1 million deficit
Fayette County property owners could face a tax increase of nearly 80 percent if the county commissioners can’t close a $7.1 million gap in the 2005 budget unveiled Friday. The proposed budget is based on $16.7 million in revenue and $23.8 million in expenditures. The county currently collects approximately $3.5 million for each mill of real estate tax, based on the standard 85 percent collection rate.
Although the commissioners didn’t include any 2005 millage rate in the proposed budget – saying they have until its final adoption Dec. 30 to tweak the document – it would take a 2-mill increase at the aforementioned rate to close the budget gap.
The county’s millage rate currently stands at 2.5151 mills, which includes debt service on a bond taken out in 2000.
The current rate means taxpayers pay $25.15 for every $10,000 of assessed value on their property.
An additional 2 mills would come close to raising the $7.1 million needed to balance the budget – but it would also come close to doubling the county’s current real estate tax rate. It would result in taxpayers paying $45.15 for every $10,000 of assessed property value.
The hypothetical owner of a property assessed at $100,000 would see his county real estate tax jump from $251.50 to approximately $451.50 under the plan put on the table Friday.
Unlike past years, when the commissioners whacked millions from the spending plan prior to final adoption, such a tactic doesn’t seem in the air this time.
The desire to end past “fuzzy math” practices is a big part of the reason for one commissioner.
Commission Chairwoman Angela M. Zimmerlink said that the most recent figures supplied to her by auditors show that approximately $4 million of the $7.1 million is needed to correct deficits from 2004 and prior years that were masked by poor or misleading accounting practices.
“It’s creative accounting that the county has used for years,” said Zimmerlink.
“It’s a ‘rolling inheritance’ (of debt) from year to year, that’s what it is.”
Zimmerlink added that the audit for 2003 is still not done, but that recently completed audits for prior years revealed much fiscal chicanery, including a $1.9 million cumulative deficit for years prior to 2004. She also pointed to $1.1 million in 2003 budget-balancing transfers from the Domestic Relations Office and Tax Claim Bureau, and a hard-to-track $1 million deficit from the current year.
Zimmerlink said she remains upset that she’s still unable to get reliable financial information from the office of county Controller Mark D. Roberts, after spending most of her first year in office literally begging for accurate reports.
Commissioner Vincent A. Vicites, who like Zimmerlink stuck around after the meeting to discuss the budget, said his most recent conversations with Roberts provided somewhat different numbers: $1.9 million in deficits from prior years, including the $1.1 million in budget-balancing transfers from 2003; a $1.5 million deficit for the current year and a projected $3 million deficit in 2005.
Zimmerlink said that Vicites’ set of numbers aptly illustrates her continued frustration with deriving an accurate picture of the county’s fiscal health, in that even at this late hour no one seems to know exactly where the books stand.
In a general sense, Zimmerlink acknowledged that a tax increase for 2005 is likely, with a big part of it going to cover prior years’ debt that has been hidden in a type of accounting shell game.
“We’re going to sort of bite the bullet …and not let them (the rolling deficits) linger on and on,” said Zimmerlink, adding, “It’s very difficult to run a county when you don’t realize that you have a deficit as high as you do.”
Vicites and Zimmerlink each said that borrowing additional money via a bond issue isn’t being seriously discussed as a means to raise additional revenue. That admission would lend further credence to the likelihood of a tax increase in 2005.
During public comment at the meeting – which was recessed from the morning until 3 p.m. so the commissioners could work further on the budget – South Connellsville Borough tax collector Joseph Helms addressed the commissioners.
Helms said that his county compensation was slashed by 53 percent earlier in the day, when the commissioners voted to change the method of compensation for tax collectors from a 3.5 percent commission rate to a $1.50 per bill flat fee starting in 2006.
Helms suggested that the commissioners look inside the courthouse to find further savings.
“I’m sure there are a lot of other pork areas within the walls,” said Helms. “My encouragement to the board of commissioners would be to not stop there (with tax collectors).”
Zimmerlink told him, “I won’t stop there.”
Commissioner Joseph A. Hardy III left the meeting as soon as it was over.