The Colusa County Board of Supervisors on Tuesday unanimously approved a final budget for 2022-23 that takes a hefty dip into their reserves, as they predicted it would in June.
The board approved the $137.5 million ($39 million General Fund) budget without laying anyone off or cutting salaries and benefits, but they did make some adjustments after department heads came together to get the county through a crisis.
“It was a hard conversation…a very hard conversation to have,” said County Chief Administrative Officer Wendy Tyler.
In June, the county began to work through the challenge of a permanent $1.7 reduction in general fund revenue after a six-year audit by the State Board of Equalization discovered an error in the method of allocation of unitary taxes related to the PG&E plant.
County officials also faced a drop in general fund revenue, particularly in the Agricultural Commissioner’s office, related to the second year of drought that impacted fees and programs.
“It was rough,” Tyler said.
Tyler said the good news is the county does have a plan to offset some of the losses, including shifting some programs to Health and Human Services and Behavioral Health, at least for a year or so, while also taking $1.7 million out of reserves, which is a drop from $2.5 million they anticipated in June.
“It was pretty grim, but things are better,” Tyler said. “We made things better. We have the ability now to have some time to really strategize and work through how we solve that deficit within the general fund.”
Tyler said the county’s spending plan is about $15 million more than the last year, largely due to increased funding from the state and federal governments for health and human services and road projects. The county has also included about $5 million in this year’s budget for their required share of cost for the new jail, and $3 million in American Rescue Plan Act funds, of which $1.3 million has been allocated to flood/storm/water conservation projects through the county’s participation in the Sites Reservoir Project.
The budget also funds all of the county’s debt services, which includes the county’s first $156,750 a year payment on the $1.6 million loan for energy efficiency improvements.
The county will also increase its payment by $750,000 on the county’s pension liability, which has reached $83.4 million, bringing the total payment in this year’s budget to $7.14 million.
The 2022-23 budget funds about 424 full time positions, which is an increase of four positions in Behavioral Health, one in Probation, one in Public Works, and one in the custodial division. It also converts seven library employees classified as extra help to permanent part time positions.
Salaries and benefits comprise 36 percent of the total budget, with the county actually paying out about $3.5 million more in cost of living and step increases than last year.
Operating revenue increased from $80.2 million to $84.4 million this fiscal year, across the entire budget, Tyler said. The county budgeted $754,000 for contingencies.
“Things are going to break; things are going to come up unexpectedly,” Chairman Merced Corona said. “We want to make sure we have some coverage there.”
The county budgeted for four Sheriff’s patrol vehicles and one animal control vehicle, although many requests from departments were turned down this year.
“A budget crisis is not fun,” said Supervisor Kent Boes, a member of the budget ad hoc committee. “But sometimes it forces you to kind of look at how you’re doing business and find some efficiencies and do things a little bit better and more creatively. We got a really good product this year out of that. That is the silver lining in this dark cloud. We were actually able to build a better structure.”
But while the county balanced the budget by making creative shifts and dipping into reserves, the board recognized that budget difficulties will be ongoing as they work through the permanent reduction in revenue.
“We’re not without our challenges next year,” Boes said. “It got us through our challenges this year but we are going to have challenges next year…we are not out of the woods yet.”
The county’s adopted 2022-23 budget can be viewed in its entirety on the county’s website, located at countyofcolusa.com. ■