County considering cutting off services to junior taxing districts

To reduce costs from Whitman County’s general operating budget, commissioners are considering eliminating its long-standing administration of junior taxing districts.

In a 2010 budget session Tuesday morning, Commissioner Pat O’Neill asked Auditor Eunice Coker to research the potential savings the county could receive from cutting off the county’s fire, cemetery and park and recreation districts.

The county currently oversees payroll services and keeps the books for those taxing districts without charge.

O’Neill said the county’s budget crunch means it may no longer be able to afford to offer those services. His fellow commissioners agreed that could be a permanent solution to lowering expenditures.

“Adversity often times presents opportunity,” said Commissioner Michael Largent.

Commissioner Greg Partch agreed.

“If we don’t start it somewhere, it’ll never get started,” said Partch.

Coker was asked to gauge the expenses spent by her office and other county departments in administering the books of taxing districts.

“We need an actual number to see what that will save us,” said O’Neill.

O’Neill suggested the junior districts could band together to hire someone to oversee those services for them.

Sharron Cunningham, county budget director, said it would be likely that a county resident may volunteer to provide the services.

Coker said more savings could be found if all the fire, park and cemetery districts were to consolidate into countywide districts. Consolidation would ease the work of the assessor, treasurer and county elections departments, she said.

Commissioners have been negotiating with various department heads to assemble a 2010 budget. The annual task is made more difficult, as county projections show a $610,000 gap between projected spending and revenue for 2010.

Complicating matters is a $311,000 current year budget gap that county leaders are trying to erase before the end of the year.

Commissioners are trying to balance the budget for both this year and next without tapping the more than $3 million the county has in reserves.

Largent explained if reserves dip below the point of covering day-to-day expenses, it could lower the county’s bond rating.

That could cost the county more if it receives a B rating when it goes to issue promised bonds for development of Boise-based Hawkins Companies proposed stripmall site at the state line in the Pullman-Moscow Corridor.

Commissioners in 2007 pledged to fund construction of roads and a water system at the long-planned site. Hawkins project manager Jeff DeVoe said this summer that the company’s project has been delayed because the national economic recession has made retail businesses less willing to expand.

Commissioners eye the development as a boon to county coffers because of increased revenues from sales and property taxes that would be derived from the shopping center.