From the Evansville Courier & Press:
Expecting a significant local revenue shortfall in 2013, the
Vanderburgh County Council has decided it will not appropriate money for new positions or programs until the state releases the county’s budget order later this month.
“We’re waiting for the state to tell us how much money is available,” said County Council President
Tom Shetler Jr. after the Council’s Wednesday meeting. “Put it this way: It can only go down. It never goes up.”
County governments like Vanderburgh’s have seen budgets reduced by millions of dollars each year since voters approved caps on property taxes in 2010. They were enacted as a way to stabilize property tax rates from year to year, said County Auditor Joseph Gries.
About 50 percent of the county’s budget comes from property taxes. The cap means the tax money the government actually receives is consistently less than what was budgeted. In 2012, the Vanderburgh County lost about $1.9 million to tax caps. This year, Gries predicts it will lose $2 million.
“The property tax caps cannot be replaced through increasing property taxes,” Gries said. “The only way to deal with that would be to reduce the budget or find other revenue. What the Council has said in the past is we might have to look very hard at reducing the budget.”
Some budget reduction could be manifest as staff reductions. The county has had a hiring freeze in place since 2009. Departments including the auditor, assessor, treasurer have lost positions as staff members retire or leave and are not replaced, Gries said.
In this way, the county has been able to stabilize it’s budget, but that won’t last. It is likely they will have to dip into one of its rainy day funds, as soon as this year, Gries said.
“We’ve been able to keep the same level of services,” he said. “But it’s getting to the point where that is going to be harder and harder to do.”
The county’s budget is expected to be returned from the state by mid-February.
http://www.courierpress.com/news/2013/feb/06/no-headline---county_budget/
