Based upon those instructions the auditor prepares a base budget for all the departments, and using that information each of the department heads develop their budget using budget strategies and then submit them to the CAO and auditor for budget hearings. During these hearings, Daly explained, the department heads make their case for increasing their budget. “The Auditor and CAO use their red pens to cut expenditures,” although Daly explained that was not enough this year as the budget after the final process had a 6 million dollar shortfall. “I went to work to find 6 million dollars and went through several rounds of budget cuts. I had to trim the fat but not the muscle.”
The budget appeared before the Administrative Committee last week without the 6 million dollar shortfall. Daly then highlighted the budget. “In general we have two major elements of the budget. We have the General Fund which is primarily made up of property taxes and sales tax. And the other funds we have are more specific fund revenues that come in and have to be spent in a specific area,” she said. Daly reported that the way Amador County manages their budget differs from other counties. For instance she explained that larger county’s have budget analyst while Amador County depends on the CAO and Auditor. Daly said that while looking at revenues the County is very conservative and when looking at expenditures they always use a higher percentage to be safe.
She then discussed the numbers associated with this year’s budget.:
The Budget total for all funds is about $68 million dollars. The General Fund is estimated at about $36.2 million which is a .8% increase as last year they estimated $35.9 million.
Property taxes she stated are going to level off this year because of the change in the economy. She also reported another hit to the budget was the reallocation of the sales tax revenue from the Martell area. Daly explained the money was solely allocated to the cities and that at some point the monies will be refunded to the county, but she said they are not sure of how much or when.
The Budgets total recommended expenditures are $72.9 million a decrease from last years budgeted $73.7 million.
General Fund expenditures are expected to be $42.4 million, a $1.9 million increase. Daly said the increase is primarily due to a $1.67 million swell in General Fund contribution to the Capital Improvement projects the county has undertaken.
She explained the costs will significantly decrease next year.
She went on to say there are other noteworthy cost in the General Fund budget such as $360,000 in expenses for the General Plan Update and $500,000 in expenses for outside County Counsel utilized to fight illegitimate Indian gaming endeavors.
Daly said this year the County has frozen a number of positions as well as have been very frugal in allocating any additional fixed assets such as computers, which she described as “a little scary.” She said that the County will only be able to operate in this manner for a couple years because clearly positions need to be filled and computers updated and replaced. She reported that those weren’t the only cuts made. This year the County eliminated local travel, meetings and conventions, and staff training (with the exception of those that require training every year).
Also eliminated was $20,000 formerly allocated to the grant writer. Also the Supervisors discretionary fund was cut from $10,000 to $5,000. Which Supervisor Forster pointed out was at the request of the Supervisors themselves. “We felt that if the departments take a hit than we should take one also.” Overall this year’s budget is looking tighter than the County has seen in almost 10 years. The Board of Supervisors on Tuesday thanked Terri for her hard work and Novelli even joked, “Terri when you call Pat (Blacklock), call him collect.” The final budget will appear before the board sometime in August.
