County Commissioner's Office

County Talk
By
Lamar Paris - Commissioner

Q.  We hear that the cost of government operation continues to increase.  Why can this not be stopped? 
A. Let me give you a perfect and recent example.  Our Union County budget operates on a calendar year and we do our budget based on Jan. 1 to Dec. 31.   State agencies and the school system do their budgets based on a June 30 calendar year. Last year, in mid year, the school determined, because of state mandated expenses dropped on them unexpectedly, that they could no longer pay for their portion of the Union County library funding.  So in midyear and not in our budget, I had to come up with $38,000 additional money to fund the Union County library, unannounced and with no one else to provide that funding other than the county.

Q. Are there other examples of unavoidable budget increases that impact the county?
A. Yes, there are many. Here is another recent case. Union County is in the Enotah Judicial Circuit with White, Lumpkin and Towns County.  The state recently added a third superior court judge to our circuit because of the overload of cases. The state pays for the majority of the judge’s salary, but not all, and that still leaves the other costs related to an office and operations that the counties must fund. 

Because of the added drug cases and arrests in our side of the circuit, Towns and Union counties, we had to add an additional Assistant District Attorney, which the counties  have to pay for.  So for the new judge and ADA and salary increase costs, Union County’s share of the total cost will be an increase of 13% or $19,684. This will begin in the middle of our budget year.  (In other words, this amount of money is not in our budget, but we have to figure out a way to make it work whether it can be paid from fund balance or budget increases.)   You can simply multiply and add to this the increased jail inmate cost, inmate medical care increases, increased fuel cost almost daily and much more to see how a county budget is negatively impacted.  Last year the Enotah Judicial Circuit budget increased 18.65% and we added a full time juvenile court judge. As you can see from these figures, new and increased expenses are the norm in local governments and collectively, they have a huge impact on our bottom line, as often, the increases are much larger than the cost of living.   

For those who simply do not understand, these are costs that can not be avoided by local governments, poor economy or not, and every county in North Georgia is facing and will continue to face the same financial challenges as we continue to grow.    

Q. Are there other financial challenges in operating the county?
A. Yes. An adjacent county last week reported in their newspaper that the local Board of Health was asking for $114,000 increase in their budget, or three times what the county is currently paying.  While our impact is not as great, our Board of Health has also requested additional taxpayer funding in mid year. The Health Dept. may be required to have some staff reduction and this crisis could continue deeper if our economy remains slow over a prolonged period of time.  The bottom line is that should these cuts be necessary, the citizens will not be served as well and some employees and family may face an uncertain future.  Part of this problem is caused by the fact that the State of Georgia has not kept up with the cost increases in providing public health and the county is always expected to make up the difference. The poor economy and the reduction in service fees also impacts these budget shortfalls.  There will be a concerted effort this next legislative session by counties and Boards of Health to lobby the Georgia Legislature for increasing Health Department  funding for 2009.  This is a major problem in many counties throughout the state.

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