One arm sailed upward as the other was drawn precipitously lower.
Practically chained to the podium for most of the morning, Terri Daly's brief illustration depicted for the Amador County Board of Supervisors the troubling trajectory the county's budget was locked into Tuesday. At some point, the increased costs of running the small county would intersect with falling revenues, a trend that, if aggravated by the state's budget deficit, could mean layoffs beginning in January.
Daly, the county administrative officer, is hoping to avoid the fate of surrounding counties like Calaveras, El Dorado and San Joaquin, which have or are considering reductions to their work forces. But if the projections are correct and a $28 billion deficit the state is facing over the next 18 months is made up, in part, by sapping Amador County of $2 million to $4 million in revenues, Daly made it clear that layoffs may be inevitable.
"Most counties around us have already implemented some kind of layoffs," she told supervisors during her budget update Tuesday. "That's something we have fought against. It has a devastating effect on a community."
Besides the obvious repercussions to the jobless, Daly suggested the pall of layoffs could hurt the county's economic development and recruitment efforts.
The fact is, however, that little is certain right now. Despite dire warnings that $5 billion in public works projects could be halted in two weeks without a quick resolution to the budget stalemate, a joint session of the California Legislature on Monday yielded little headway on a crisis that grows larger by the day. And each day the deficit grows larger is another day local jurisdictions may feel the financial crunch.
"If we didn't have any outside influences, we would be OK. We would be able to live within our means," Daly said. "But there are outside influences, and a couple of big ones that, if we put our heads in the sand, I'm afraid we will get beat up."
On the immediate horizon is the costly update to the county's general plan, which will require the drafting of an environmental impact report next year. Also next year, the county is expected to spend roughly $2 million on finalizing the closure of its long-inactive landfill. Both will be expensive, Daly explained, but both would only grow more costly if put off.
The state's shortfall is far more troubling.
"One of the only means the state has of balancing its budget is by passing that deficit to the counties," she continued. That decision could manifest itself in a number of debilitating ways, from program cuts to the evaporation of grant monies to the borrowing of property tax revenues. Even Williamson Act allocations, which trade tax incentives for leaving agricultural land undeveloped, and which make up a relatively thin slice of the state's budget, is under the chopping block.
Each possibility has its troubling implications. Property tax payments make up the bulk of the county's general fund revenues, local law enforcement relies heavily on state grant money and program cuts could result in lost services as well as layoffs.
Preparing for hard times
Back in September, when Amador supervisors adopted their final budget, a few measures were included to compensate for a slowing economy.
Voluntary furloughs, a hard hiring freeze and an early retirement program were all implemented to save the county some money. Incentives offered for early retirement netted 27 takers, projected to save the county $100,000 this year and nearly $2 million next year. Voluntary furloughs will save about $250,000.
The slowdown has since ground to a glacier's pace, but Daly said Amador is faring better than other jurisdictions because of its tendency to budget conservatively, estimating lower revenues and higher expenses than will likely occur. That cushion has been the difference thus far, but the story doesn't end there.
In the past five years, county revenues have increased 41 percent while costs have gone up 62 percent. A big portion of the rising costs, Daly explained, is due to personnel expenditures. In the 1990s, personnel costs took up roughly 45 percent of the county's expense budget. They're now at 65 percent and trending higher.
"What is alarming to me - and I will sound the alarm on this - is we are now hovering over 60 percent," Daly said. "We can't do that on an ongoing basis. We can't have more expenditures than revenues on an ongoing basis. So we need to make some changes."
The county isn't backfilling any of the 27 positions vacated by early retirements. At most, it's shifting some staff to other departments and consolidating positions. That is what's happening in the Auditor's Office, which is losing a payroll specialist and accountant this month to early retirement. For a staff of eight, Daly said, that's a "hard hit."
"Even in good times, I'd say they're operating pretty lean and mean," she added.
To offset the losses, supervisors agreed Tuesday to simplify the positions and advertise them to county workers in other departments. By reorganizing the workload, each position will pay between $5 to $10 an hour less.
Reorganization was a common theme Tuesday, as the county figures out how to do more with less.
Moving days
If it's true that necessity is the mother of invention, Amador County is about to get truly inventive.
The Health and Human Services Department was the first to go through a massive reorganization. When Director Tracy Russell retired in August, Daly became interim director. Now it's the Behavioral Health Department that's being restructured.
Daly explained that the restructuring would be happening regardless of what was occurring at the state level, as Behavioral Health had nursed a $500,000 operating deficit in each of the past five years. A recent state audit criticized the department for its form of mental health delivery, an open-ended process that offered services one-on-one rather than on a case management model. Using this model, Daly said the department would be able to get more mileage out of Mental Health Services Act funds distributed by the state, returning to solvency after five years of borrowing from other departments.
Behavioral Health Director George Sonsel further explained the shift from what was essentially a private practice model, with some clients seen up to 18 years, to a model with fewer staffers and reduced services.
While the department officially averages more than 500 clients a month, Sonsel estimated it actually only saw about 300. As a result, the number of therapists would shrink from seven to four, and the number of counselors would drop from five to three. There would also be a cap on the number of clients served through the county's drug and alcohol program, which includes those court-mandated for treatment under the state's Proposition 36.
"The census in that program fluctuates sort of wildly, and I'm not sure why," Sonsel told supervisors. "So this would reduce that."
The department would institute a waiting list for the clients it doesn't have room for. Asked if that presented a problem, particularly with the court-ordered clients, Sonsel said the county was only required to provide "some level of services until they can get in."
Thinking smaller
One of the unexpected draws on the county's budget is the new Health and Human Services building in Sutter Creek, a spacious facility the county has been unable to fill.
Officials have discussed renting out portions to other agencies and organizations, but the process has been slow going. With the Behavioral Health Department expected to transfer into a section a third of its current size, the pace has quickened.
Criticized for its small allotment of space in the Amador County District Attorney's Office, the Conservator's Office will soon move into the new building on Conductor Boulevard, in turn freeing up room for the Victim-Witness Office to slide into the DA's Office.
Both will be more natural fits, Daly explained, with the conservator's office serving many of the same clients as Behavioral Health or Social Services, and DA's staff being able to help supplement those in Victim-Witness.
The Victim-Witness Office is currently across the street from the old county courthouse, which the grand jury labeled a safety concern for its visitors.
"Moving Victim-Witness alleviates the public safety concerns because we don't have law enforcement there as we did when the courthouse was still operating," said District Attorney Todd Riebe. Ideally, the office would be situated near the current courthouse, Riebe added, "but this is the best arrangement that we can make to service the victims of Amador County, given the financial limitations."
Digging for change
Limitations will be a constant for at least the immediate future.
The first property tax payments were due Wednesday, which Daly said would be one indicator of which way the county was heading. Some sort of state budget, depending on when it comes and whether the governor can secure millions in federal money he's requesting for infrastructure upgrades, will be the other shoe that drops.
In the meantime, the county is continuing with its own moves. Mandatory furloughs, across-the-board paycuts for management and mid-management, revamping the motor pool and even selling county-owned property were listed as possibilities.
Board Chairman Richard Forster pointed out that, in the current market, "the property wouldn't be worth much."
"I think we're in trouble, all counties are in trouble, because of what's happening with the state," he added.
"Maybe we can ask the Exxon Mobile Company to bail out General Motors," joked District 3 Supervisor Ted Novelli, referring to the company's recent announcement of record profits.
"We may be the next ones asking for a bailout," Forster responded soberly, "all the counties."
| Raheem Hosseini |