By LINDSAY LORENZ, Register Staff Writer
Gainesville Daily Register
Cooke County —
While a new fiscal year begins each October, budget officials will likely tell you preparations for the next financial cycle never really stop.
The same rings true for Cooke County Commissioners who have the task of allocating more than $30 million worth of ad valorem taxes between essentially five budgets.
Aside from a road and bridge fund for each of the county’s four precincts, perhaps the most difficult part of the process is hammering out which departments get which part of the general fund.
Currently the county is operating on a general fund of $18,176,625, but in order to ward off a tax increase, next year, more than a dozen departments must share a budget nearly $1 million less.
“Budgeting is not only putting the next year’s budget together, but making this year’s work,” said County Judge John Roane. “In a sense, we’re planning all year round.”
Although the process officially begins with budget hearings, usually held in June, Precinct 1 Commissioner Gary Hollowell said commissioners should be keeping an eye on how things progress throughout the year.
“If we’re doing our job correctly, we’re looking at line items and that stuff all year round,” he said.
However, the real task begins in June, when county department heads are given worksheets that show the status of their entity’s budget in comparison to the last three years. After using that information, department heads decide how much funding they need and request everything from new equipment to staff raises.
During a series of budget hearings, department heads essentially plead their cases to commissioners who must decide how to distribute taxpayer’s money.
Keep in mind, during hearings, commissioners only have a general idea of how much money the county will bring in during the next year, as they won’t hear from the appraiser until about a month later.
However, Roane and Hollowell said that since the county shows no significant signs of growth, they assumed it would be similar, or even less than this year’s.
“We try our best to anticipate what our revenue is going to be,” Roane said. “In general we knew that the revenue was not going to be any better, or possibly worse.”
After the hearings, commissioners meet with the auditor and the chief financial officer to hammer out where cuts, if necessary, will be made.
“You burn the midnight oil to understand the impact and what effect its going to have on the people,” Hollowell said.
When reducing a budget, commissioners consider three criteria: What they learned at budget hearings, line items and personnel.
In order to stave off tax hikes, all three of the considerations are reflected in next year’s proposed budget. The county will lose a dozen full and part time positions, no raises have been approved and line items were reduced in the majority of departments.
However, when the county’s appraisal came in, commissioners realized they had to slash an additional $300,000 or so. Overall, the county’s budget for next year will be about half a million dollars less.
“Basically, if we didn’t reduce it by half a million, then we’d have to raise taxes,” Roane said.
Keeping the citizens in mind, commissioners said they did not raise the tax rate, but switched to an effective rate.
“I think we do everything with the taxpayer in mind and we don’t need to burden them anymore,” Roane said. “We work for the taxpayers and we don’t feel like the taxpayer needs to fund anything extravagant that we don’t need.”
So, without a tax increase, commissioners slashed about half a million from this year’s budget.
Hollowell said while laying off county employees is a hard decision to make, “We’re attempting to be good stewards with the taxpayers money.”
And although the budget won’t be officially approved until late August, Roane said there’s a good chance approved changes, like the layoffs announced earlier this week, will remain the same unless department heads can make a very compelling case.
“Last year we didn’t have to make that many cuts because we had more revenue,” Roane said.
Commissioners are still working to finalize details of the budget, and said there will be a public hearing for citizens to voice their concerns on Aug. 16.
At a later meeting, the budget will be officially approved and will remain dormant until October.
“I would just say that this commissioners’ court does the best that it can in keeping the taxpayer’s of this county in mind,” Roane said.
