County finance upheaval means late 2011 budget

Just days before Whitman County's 2011 budget is supposed to be available for public review, county commissioners have yet to receive a complete proposal from Auditor Eunice Coker.

Until they receive the preliminary spending plan for next year, commissioners will not be able to target cuts to close what is now expected to be a $131,000 gap between spending and revenue.

"We just don't know," said Commissioner Michael Largent. "This budget situation is holding up a lot of decisions and strategizing."

Citing a series of state laws, Coker took control of the 2011 budget preparation after the finance department was disintegrated in June.

She said Monday the delay in preparation was because the budget was a new addition to her "already full plate" of duties.

"There has been so much on our plate in the auditor's office this summer, anyway, nevermind the financial snafu," she said.

Commissioner Pat O'Neill Monday noted commissioners were supposed to have received a complete preliminary budget by Sept. 1.

Public hearings on the 2011 budget are set to begin Dec. 6. A legal ad published in last week's Gazette said copies of the budget will be available for public review next Monday, Nov. 29.

Coker said those deadlines are likely out of reach.

"It's later than usual, but this too shall pass," she said. "We'll get there. It's gonna happen."

But commissioners are worried they may be running out of time.

Last year at this time, they were bargaining with various department heads to try and close a near quarter-million dollar deficit.

Particularly contentious negotiations were held between commissioners and Sheriff Brett Myers.

After those negotiations, commissioners still had to use $156,888 of the county's cash reserves to balance the 2010 budget.

Since that time, increases in spending and decreases in revenue have widened the gap between spending and revenue to $827,866. The county will likely have to use its available cash reserves to close that gap.

Cash reserves sat at $2,155,794 at the end of September, the last reported balance. Another almost $1.2 million sits in a restricted reserve fund that can only be tapped with official approval from commissioners.

"Those reserves could quickly evaporate if we continue to not match expenditures with revenue," said Largent.

Further eating into the reserves is a possible write-off of more than $200,000 the county is considering. A contracted accountant earlier this year discovered the county's books showed it had invested some $216,000 more than could be confirmed on bank statements.

County officials are looking at erasing that balance from the ledger at the end of this year in order to make sure the county's books are balanced for the transition to the New World accounting software.