County adds half-mill to 2010 budget deficit

Tack another $479,726 to Whitman County’s 2010 spending deficit. Maybe.

County commissioners Monday approved on a 2-0 vote the fourth amendment to the county’s yearly spending plan. Commissioner Pat O’Neill was not present after having his knee replaced last week.

The amendment means the county now figures to spend $827,866 more than it collects in revenue this budget year.

Commissioner Greg Partch questioned the numbers, seeing the deficit grow much steeper than he expected.

"Something is wrong here," he said several times Monday while reviewing the amendment.

This was the first amendment prepared by Auditor Eunice Coker since she took over the finance duties earlier this year.

Commissioners Partch and Michael Largent said they did not review the amendment until Monday’s 10 a.m. public hearing.

Both said they were preoccupied with 2011 budget negotiations, and overlooked an email containing the amendment.

"I’ll take that on myself. I should have gotten to this last week," Partch said Tuesday.

He added waiting to review the amendment further before approving it would have caused problems throughout the county.

"We had to approve it because departments had bills they had to pay," said Largent. "It was incomplete, and I didn’t like that, but we had to get it through."

The end-of-year deficit will be balanced out of the county’s cash reserves. Whitman County had $2,155,794 in its cash account at the end of September, according to the monthly report presented Monday by Esther Wilson, the county’s system administrator who has been acting as the finance department.

"I am very concerned about that," Partch said.

"If these numbers are accurate, we are in a serious situation. You take that cash in our treasury and subtract $900,000 from that and we’re in trouble."

Bulk of the increased spending was $375,000 in planned capital improvements. Remodeling of the former Harrison Building into a new elections office accounted for $225,000, while cost of a new roof on the jail came in at $150,000.

Unexpected costs included a $22,910 legal bill from the county commissioners for their representation in the August recall filed by Roger Whitten of Oakesdale.

Increasing costs across various county departments was the commissioners’ June decision to restore scheduled pay raises to the county’s non-union employees.

The decision allowed those employees, nearly one-third of the county’s labor force, to receive "step" raises of three percent which are given for every 18 months employees work for the county.

Those raises, which amounted to a $19,379 budget increase, had been frozen by commissioners in November as a bargaining chip in union contract negotiations. The unions have yet to finalize a collective work agreement for 2010.

Revenues, for the most part, stayed on the 2010 pace.

Falling hard was expected revenue from the pay phone in the Public Service Building. That revenue was reduced from an expected $2,000 to an actual total of $15.