Perry County Tribune:
Where Does the County Spend All Its Money?
This article, written by Ben Carpenter, was first published in The Perry County Tribune on October 30, 2017.
It’s interesting that I have had several people recently ask about the Counties budget. The Commissioners have spent the past couple months with budget hearings. Listening to each elected official or department head present their 2018 budget proposal.
Many people feel that County Government, like our Federal Government has what seems to be unlimited money to spend. There often are Federal mandates that get passed to each State to implement and fund. In turn the State of Ohio has the option to past funding responsibility to the Counties. One such State mandate that could come to the counties is the proposal to eliminate the 4th and 5th degree felony charges and make them a 1st degree misdemeanor. The financial ramification of that, is the cost of incarceration will fall on the County not the State.
To answer the question where does the County spend its money is complicated to answer. To print out a document of all the accounts our Auditor has for the county would be well over two inches thick. I’ll try to hit some of the bigger numbers. In 2017 we budgeted $1m for the expense to house prisoners. We had to increase that appropriation last month to $1.4m. All three of our judges concur that there is no light at the end of that tunnel regarding this. There many come a time that it will be more economical to build our own Perry County Jail. That prospect is a regular discussion with our Auditor and Judges.
Our county employees and their family are paramount in all our budget discussions. The county is self-insured to cover the medical insurance for employees. By many comparisons we have a very good plan for our employees. The cost of insurance county wide will reach $4.68m in 2017. This cost climbs every year.
Changes to the Sales tax collected on services provided to the MCO’s that provide Medicaid coverage also will cause lost revenue to each Ohio County. The federal government told Ohio to fix its Medicaid Managed Care Organization tax. Part of this sales tax funded State and Local services. Revenues from this tax drew hundreds of millions of federal funds from Medicaid services into Ohio. This tax also provided close to $200m a year to counties and transit agencies. The State had to find a fix and protect health care yet not deepening cuts to local government and public transit. This cut will cost Perry County $7000,000-$8000,000 per year in lost revenue. At the time of this article the plan is that the State will pay Perry County a one-time payment of $3m.
Our total 2018 budget requests exceed $9.8m with anticipated revenue at $8.5m. That’s a $1.4m deficit in what is asked of the County Commissioners and what we have to spend.
Some would say; It’s easy, you will have $3m from the state. Use half of it in 2018 & 2019. My response is; Yes, we hope to have $3m but if we perpetuate deficit spending for the next two years, what happens in 2020. If we used 7-8 thousand per year then it lasts 4 years instead of two and we are faced with the same problem. We will use the planned receipt of $3m but we cannot responsibly approve a budget plan, (short term and long term) that is not sustainable. Our goal is to not cut any office but maintain level funding for all county offices from 2017 to 2018, but even that may not even be possible. Public safety, maintenance and operation of county offices are expenses we must cover.
