As the belts tighten

Alan Mauldin

May 28, 2009 10:43 pm

— MOULTRIE — Among the $42,000 in cuts the county is imposing on outside agencies, Moultrie-Colquitt County Library will take the biggest hit at approximately half of the total.
The cuts to those outside agencies, which also include the health department, mental health, and Museum of Colquitt County History, were approved earlier this week by Colquitt County Commission. The cuts were made as commissioners sought to trim the amount of reserve funds that will be used to balance the county’s budget for the fiscal year that begins July 1.
The spending plan initially required using up to $785,000 to balance estimated expenditures with expected revenues. Action taken at Tuesday’s commission meeting, which also included cuts to equipment purchases, left the anticipated gap at $330,971.
Commissioners voted Tuesday to accept all spending cuts recommended by County Administrator Brian Shuler, with the exception of trimming three full-time and one part-time positions. Commissioners had earlier instructed Shuler to identify positions where layoffs could be made.
Library Director Melody Jenkins said that the approximately $21,000 cut comes on top of a 10 percent reduction in state funding for the current budget year. The library receives about two-thirds of its funding from the state and the remainder from local funding from the commission and Colquitt County Board of Education.
“Everybody’s being hit, and we realize we’re just going to have to find ways to save,” Jenkins said. “The library is no better than any other department in the county.”
The library recently had a new air and heating system installed, replacing a decades-old system, and the new efficient unit is bringing in savings, she said. A switch from patrons printing documents from computers on an ink jet printer to a copier also should save significant money.
Jenkins said that there are no plans to reduce library hours in Doerun or Moultrie or to furlough employees. The Moultrie library has 13 full-time-equivalent positions, and has not asked for a new position in a number of years.
“I choose to look at it as an opportunity,” Jenkins said of the cuts. “It never hurts anyone to look closely at what they’re doing. This is forcing us to do that. We’ve found ways that don’t hurt us much to save money.”
The library is open 51.5 hours per week, and last year had more than 95,000 visits with more than 2,000 monthly uses of computers, Jenkins said. Funding from local sources last year totaled $406,000.
Blue Shaddix, executive director at Serenity House, said the agency should be able to weather its cut, which will total about $1,000 out of its total annual budget of about $171,000. The county’s portion of the agency’s total budget in 2008-2009 was $20,000.
Serenity House has seen an increase in the number of families, likely driven by the weak economy which can exacerbate domestic situations, Shaddix said.
“Of course we hate it because money is so tight,” she said. “We’ll obviously go along with what they decide. It won’t be that detrimental to us. I’d hate for anybody (county employees) to lose their job.”
Fund raising also is down for the agency, but Shaddix said she is optimistic she can “make do” until the economy recovers and donations pick back up.
Serenity House is averaging about 12 people per night sleeping in the shelter, up from last year, Shaddix said.
The cuts voted on this week by commissioners, if no further changes are made, would reduce the total general fund budget to $19.1 million, down fron nearly $19.37 million as originally proposed, Shuler said Thursday. No increase in the tax millage rate is anticipated, but the millage rate will not be set until after the county receives the final tax digest.
Included in the capital spending requests eliminated this week were: $105,000 for a tractor boom mower and $59,700 for an asphalt roller, both of which were in the Roads and Bridges Department budget as originally recommended, $30,000 for the sheriff’s office criminal investigations for a vehicle and renovations, and $15,000 for a used truck for youth investigations.
“Given a lot of the work our Roads and Bridges is going to be doing catching up on the repairs on dirt roads, they don’t anticipate doing as much asphalt work,” Shuler said. “If we have a need our equipment won’t meet, we have other options.”
Shuler said that does not think the county is not short-changing departments on equipment requests when the financial situation is taken into account.
“I think we’re doing what we need to do to balance our budget,” he said. “I think we do need to recognize going forward how we will account for those needs in future budgets.”
The commission will hold a public hearing on the proposed budget at 6:30 p.m. Tuesday.