It's budget time again! | Eastern North Carolina Now

    Publisher's Note: Jim Bispo's weekly column appears in the Beaufort Observer.

    I downloaded the 2013 County budget (all 168 pages) and have been through every page in it. I worked my way through it one page at a time to get a "fix" on what's in it.

    The County Staff has done their usual good job in putting this document together. It would be interesting to know just what constraints (if any) they might have been faced with as they went about what is always a tedious job - even without external constraints (read political influence).

    Over the past several years, the County has been working toward including some quantified measures of output to "bounce" against the input ( i.e. dollars). That was an extremely laudable effort, however it has apparently ended with this budget. Do you suppose the change is the result of some "new" marching orders or was it simply impossible to get the "operating folks" to come up with anything?? (Or was it something else??)

    The Health department is the only activity that comes close to identifying what they do even though there is no quantification. (budget page 76 et. seq.)

    There is one real surprise in this budget That is that it looks as though there is no funding for the Turnage in it (unless it is really well hidden). I would have bet there would be and it may still may turn up, depending on how much pressure the "movers and shakers" in the county (read C of 100) bring to bear on the four liberals and one (apparently "born again") conservative comprising the fabulous five Commissioners. Hmmm...

    The budget is formatted like most government budgets (surprise after all it is a Government budget). You start with the base" (which is the Prior Year number) add or subtract from that number the changes and arrive at the "new" budget. Virtually all the conversation addresses the changes. We hear precious little about what's inside the "base". Once something is institutionalized in the base, it seems like it is never heard from again. The Chambers of Commerce funding is a good case in point, as is the EDC. The showing of "historical" budget numbers does provide a useful perspective.

    It is interesting that the County Manager who it seems has apparently been tasked to get the fund balance from the current 19% of General Fund Expenditures to 26.5% (which is generally considered to be an "appropriate" level) is at the same time saddled with a "requirement" to fund some of the local 501(c)(3) organizations around the area.

    In his defense, the County Manager does rather clearly point out that the $300K included in the budget in the Culture and Recreation Program is ".. to provide services to residents outside the normal functions of the county ..." . We are left to wonder why, in these times of tight budgets we are spending taxpayer money on things which are not the county's responsibility. Answer: The "Culture and Recreation Program" in general represents little more than four of our Commissioners taking our tax money and handing it out to their preferred charities and one taking our tax money and handing it over to the three Chambers of Commerce in the County. I suspect that there are more than a few Beaufort County taxpayers who would rather decide for themselves to whom the contributions should be made.

    The "Culture and Recreation Program" also includes the Hwy. 17 Transportation Association. The Hwy. 17 Transportation Association is not at all unlike the EDC. We get an occasional slick Power Point presentation providing us with a whole lot of information that is rather easily gleaned from the NC Department of Transportation site. We also get a recitation of all the contacts with legislators to discuss Rte 17 improvements. That's about what we get for our $35K investment. Their latest tax return shows over $169K for salary, other compensation and employee benefits. Not only does that sound like a lot, but adding insult to injury it seems that most of it appears to go to Craven County (just like the EDC salary).

    As a matter if interest, the Annex of God line item in the Culture and Recreation section was "zeroed out" this year. That may have avoided some questions as to whether the County is promoting a religion or not. On the other hand, I suspect that the Commissioner who sponsors that charity, has not had his final say yet. (Hmmm...)

    EDC seems to be a single line item in the Planning Department. (Could that possibly be some subterfuge??) The payment on the "blue elephant" (not white elephant, but blue elephant) debt didn't jump out at me, but it's there somewhere.. The way the EDC is being treated makes it look as though it's going to be business as usual. You would think that even if it continues in more or less the same rut it is in, the salary requirements would be less unless the new "shill" is still going to be the highest paid person in county government not a real happy thought (unless you are the shill). In any case I would have expected some "salary lapse" as well as a lower number for the salary rate. I didn't see any ( ref: page 145 146 of the budget). Interesting.

    Additionally, the budget document does not even attempt to address the financial condition of our Economic Development activities. We need an income statement that shows ALL revenue and expenditures - preferably in excruciating detail - and a balance sheet that reflects the assets and liabilities. Admittedly this would be new ground for the county (and the EDC) to plow, but it certainly is sorely needed. We have spent way too much taxpayer money to treat this activity as a "regular" government type operation. It claims to be "business oriented" and it needs to start acting like it. Comprehensive financial reporting should be only the beginning.

    If you are a budgeteer, the "Py change CY" approach to budgeting is good. If you are a reviewer; not so good. The "change" explanations helped some, but the lack of anything telling us what the organization's outputs are expected to be (never easy to get, I know), leaves something to be desired.

    Here's a little more food for thought. The commissioners have been talking about doing a new assessment because of the downturn in the real estate market. A lot of folks seem to believe that a reassessment which lowers the assessed values will result in a corresponding decrease in their property tax (give me a break!!). If we do a reassessment, it will cost in the neighborhood of $1M. which represents almost two cents in the tax rate. That money will have to come from somewhere. Implicitly, if there is enough slack in this budget to fund a $1M reassessment, there is enough money to either credit that amount to the fund balance or reduce the current real property tax rate from 53 cents to 51 cents.

    D'ya think??