Sorry for not being here for a while...but I am waving signs, taking pictures, uploading files working on anti-tax policy etc...takes up time.
So let's go back a week or so and take a look at a Gazette story titled:
Pulaski County’s hard calls paying off
By L. Lamor Williams
So, I found some interesting quotes in this article....the first;
"Since 2005, Pulaski County’s policy has been bare-bones spending and it has slowly dug itself out of a hole created by years of overspending based on faulty projections from an unqualified comptroller who was eventually convicted of raiding county coffers for his personal use, said Comptroller Mike Hutchens and Treasurer Debra Buckner."
and then...
“We hit the wall in 2005,” Buckner said. “We laid off 100 deputies and had about $78,000 in the bank at the start of ’05. They cut jail beds, and everybody took a 10 percent pay cut. It was a nightmare.”
A tight rein on spending hasn’t been the county’s only saving grace."
So they had to go back to the drawing board after realizing that there was this simple FACT:
"WHAT WE ARE DOING IS NOT WORKING"
They then retooled and this is what happened;
“I applaud counties like Pulaski that have done really well managing their money and have been conservative,” he said. “In general, I feel really good about where we stand compared to counties in other states. Part of that is that we’ve had a very responsible state government that hasn’t pushed a lot of unfunded mandates down onto counties.”
“You can look at it this way: If you set aside $2,000 a month to run your household, if you pay off your car, you’re down to an expense of $1,500 and if you get a raise, your $2,000 a month is now $3,500 a month. We paid off some debt and actual medical expenses at the jail [that] were less than expected, we had a lot of vacancies and no raises, so we kind of got a break.”
They should think outside the box "retool" and come up with solutions...instead of the "$todola Mega Tax" standard operating solution of "more is better"
The most interesting quote was this.....
“For 2011, we projected a 14 percent decrease in our sales-tax collection and it’s tracking that we’re going to be dead-on on our projection,” he said.
and this is the BIG point...I told the Mayor & City manager the last 2 budgets...increase sales tax projections were nuts!!!
“The key is to be conservative,” Hutchens said. “To say that the market and economy is volatile right now is an understatement. I’m not taking shots at anybody, but I don’t know how anybody could’ve projected an increase in sales tax based on the indicators we saw.”
Sorry, but I am still trying to figure out haw to make it so you can upload..so read the whole story on the jump....
LITTLE ROCK — As municipalities around the state and nation struggle to balance budgets, Pulaski County, which just six years ago was desperate for cash, is sitting pretty and preparing to add a 240-bed addition to its jail.
Little Rock is preparing to take an ax to its 2011 budget to avert a midyear shortfall ahead of a special election next month to raise the city’s sales tax. Conway recently boosted alcohol taxes for the same reason and others are also considering tax increases to boost revenue.
Since 2005, Pulaski County’s policy has been bare-bones spending and it has slowly dug itself out of a hole created by years of overspending based on faulty projections from an unqualified comptroller who was eventually convicted of raiding county coffers for his personal use, said Comptroller Mike Hutchens and Treasurer Debra Buckner.
“We hit the wall in 2005,” Buckner said. “We laid off 100 deputies and had about $78,000 in the bank at the start of ’05. They cut jail beds, and everybody took a 10 percent pay cut. It was a nightmare.”
A tight rein on spending hasn’t been the county’s only saving grace.
Hutchens points out that the majority of the county’s budget comes from property-tax revenue, compared with Little Rock, which relies heavily on sales tax.
“Property tax revenue is not nearly as fluid or dynamic as sales tax revenue,” he said.
Don Zimmerman, executive director of the Arkansas Municipal League, said that around the state, counties are faring better than cities because counties rely mostly on property-tax revenue.
Hutchens said making accurate projections is also important.
“For 2011, we projected a 14 percent decrease in our sales-tax collection and it’s tracking that we’re going to be dead-on on our projection,” he said.
The county’s $58 million 2011 budget reflects a general reserve fund of about $8 million and a public safety reserve of about $1 million after nearly $4 million was appropriated from that fund for a jail addition.
“The key is to be conservative,” Hutchens said. “To say that the market and economy is volatile right now is an understatement. I’m not taking shots at anybody, but I don’t know how anybody could’ve projected an increase in sales tax based on the indicators we saw.”
Little Rock’s $134.4 million 2011 budget was based on sales-tax revenue growing by 1.9 percent, the city’s finance director, Sara Lenehan, has said.
Lenehan reported in late July that sales-tax revenue was $810,580 below budget as of May and that for the third year in a row, the city needed to make midyear budget cuts to keep the budget balanced.
On Sept. 13, Little Rock residents will vote on a 1 percentage point sales tax increase that City Manager Bruce Moore and Mayor Mark Stodola have said is needed to boost revenue. The city has already made to-the-bone cuts and the only way to avoid mass layoffs and the further deterioration of city services is to raise more money, they said.
However, cities have also been hurt by the population shifts revealed by the 2010 Census, Zimmerman said, noting that cities that lost residents also lost state turnback money allocated per capita. Turnback funding is state aid to municipalities.
“There’s street turnback and general turnback,” Zimmerman said. “It comes out to be about $16 per person for general and about $47 per person for street turnback.”
Chris Villines, executive director of the Association of Arkansas Counties, pointed to Pulaski, Washington and Saline counties as those doing particularly well in the state.
“I applaud counties like Pulaski that have done really well managing their money and have been conservative,” he said. “In general, I feel really good about where we stand compared to counties in other states. Part of that is that we’ve had a very responsible state government that hasn’t pushed a lot of unfunded mandates down onto counties.”
Villines said he was the tax collector in Saline County in 2005 when Pulaski County was practically broke. He attributed part of the county’s financial comeback to Buckner.
“I remember well what they were going through,” he said. “I watched Debra aggressively go after delinquent [property tax] accounts. Plus, since then, the county has just managed its money well.”
Buckner said some other factors contributed to the county’s rosy financial position.
She noted that about 500 of the county’s 1,200 employees are in the sheriff ’s office, including deputies and jail workers. After the deep cuts of 2005, the office had trouble keeping workers. Sheriff’s deputies were leaving for higher paying jobs in nearby cities. Jail deputies — already a high turnover field — were also leaving in droves, Buckner said.
“I have 50 employees in my office, so when I lose a few, there’s not a big impact on the overall budget,” she said. “But when the sheriff loses people, it can have a big impact on the bottom line.
“You can look at it this way: If you set aside $2,000 a month to run your household, if you pay off your car, you’re down to an expense of $1,500 and if you get a raise, your $2,000 a month is now $3,500 a month. We paid off some debt and actual medical expenses at the jail [that] were less than expected, we had a lot of vacancies and no raises, so we kind of got a break.”
Gregory Minchak, a spokesman for the National League of Cities, said he couldn’t pick out specific cities that were doing particularly well or particularly poorly.
“Generally, most cities are facing economic difficulties,” he said. “We’re seeing some cut fire, police and public safety simply because they don’t have the resources they did prior to the recession. They’re making the tough decisions to accommodate this sort of new-normal.”
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Thanks for your interest in Arkansas Online
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