HUNTSVILLE — All offices at the Madison County Courthouse now share a single fax machine, a change expected to save the county $2,500 this year.
Changes to telephone service for county offices will save another $3,000.
The changes to the fax and telephone service are likely something many residents will notice. Up until this year, if a resident went to the state revenue office and needed a listing from county assessor’s office, a dedicated phone line allowed the two offices to communicate quickly, County Judge Frank Weaver said. The assessor’s office could fax the information to the state revenue office.
But because of budget cuts this year, the assessor’s office no longer has a dedicated phone line or fax machine, and residents likely will have to drive to the courthouse to pick up any missing information.
For 2014, the county plans to spend $82,886.92 less from its general fund than what was budgeted last year and $250,285.03 less than what was budgeted two years ago. The cuts follow a failed sales tax election in September that Weaver anticipated would have raised as much as $1 million for the county general fund.
Voters rejected raising the county sales tax from 2 percent to 3 percent, but the additional 1 percent tax would have provided money for repairing the courthouse; creating a building fund for projects such as a new county jail; and funding county libraries, solid waste and rural fire departments. The total sales tax currently levied in the county seat of Huntsville is 10.5 percent, with 6.5 percent going to the state, 2 percent going to the county and 2 percent going to the city of Huntsville.
The county has 120 employees this year. The county has cut six full-time positions, with every elected official losing a position, Weaver said.
The county judge’s office this year also will share a secretary with the county treasurer’s office. A veterans’ services office in Madison County now will open one day a week instead of two days a week.
Budget cuts did not affect operating hours for other offices, but the cuts will affect the level of service residents are used to receiving, Weaver said.
Because of this year’s budget cuts, County Clerk Faron Ledbetter has two assistants this year instead of three.
“Things will not bedone as quickly,” Ledbetter said. “We’re just going to take it day to day. We will still try to serve the public as best we can. Each of these offices are going to try to operate the same with less people.”
On paper, the county’s total budget, which also includes the road and bridge fund and the ambulance fund, appears to be $10,408,431.73, up $1,767,542.54 from 2013, when the total budget amounted to $8,640,889.19. But the higher total primarily reflects changes in state regulations that affect how county budgets are structured, Weaver said. If the total budget for all funds, including county general, were structured the same as in 2013, the budget actually would be about $8 million.
The county general budget cuts roughly $23,000 from the county judge’s office, $19,000 from the county clerk’s office, $80,000 from the circuit clerk’s office, $15,000 from the treasurer’s office, $39,000 from the sheriff’s office, $45,000 from the collector’s office, $31,000 from the assessor’s office and $35,000 from the county’s Department of Emergency Management.
Some increases are budgeted. A state grant and some money from the Federal Emergency ManagementAgency are paying most of a $131,000 project to waterproof the courthouse basement, Weaver said.
The county budget includes $964,681.07 in onetime disaster aid money awarded to the county from FEMA and the Arkansas Department of Emergency Management. Another $130,000 in state money for rural fire departments is a required line item in the budget. The county is budgeting $88,000 to cover election expenses and $120,000 to cover an extra payroll period caused by the way dates fall on the calendar for 2014.
Madison County’s largestsource of revenue for the operating budget is property taxes. The county levies a property tax of 5 mills, the highest property tax allowed under state law, and the millage is expected to generate $903,749 of the $2.65 million in total revenue anticipated for 2014, according to county budget documents. County officials anticipate receiving $177,000 in state turnback funds, money distributed to all 75 counties in the state.
Counties depend on property taxes, sales taxes and state turnback money for revenue, and some counties also receive payment in lieu of taxes from the federal government, said Chris Villines, executive director of the Arkansas Association of Counties.
The state distributes “turnback” funds to help counties operate jails and collect property taxes for other entities, including school districts and cities, Villines said.
About 15 percent of the all property taxes collected by counties remains with the counties, Villines said. Most of the property tax revenue collected goes to schools, Villines said.
Weaver anticipates that county general revenue will remain flat and operating costs will continue to rise.
That’s why the county proposed a sales tax increase of 1 percent that voters turned down in September.Half of the current county sales tax goes to the road and bridge budget and half goes to the emergency ambulance service budget. No sales tax is in place for the county general budget.
The 2014 budget is a legal budget that keeps the county’s expenses in line with revenue, but the budget does not allow the county to put the jail into compliance with state standards or to repair the aging courthouse, unless the county receives grants, Weaver said. Within the past month, the courthouse roof has developed two new leaks.
The county maintains a jail that houses only men, but a state Criminal Detention Facilities Review Committee notified the county of deficiencies in the jail that could warrant the jail being put on probation or closing, such as staffing and being too small for the number of inmates the jail must accommodate.
Most budgets take about a month to prepare, but the county clerk’s office spent three months on the 2014 budget, one of the most difficult budgets Ledbetter has prepared in the 15 years he has been in office because of the size of the deficit he had to overcome, he said.
“We were very limited on the options we had left,” he said. “When you start looking at all these cuts, it was very challenging. It had to be done. We can’t run in the red.”
Northwest Arkansas, Pages 7 on 01/07/2014