Vanderburgh County plans to cut at least a dozen positions from its bureaucratic structure this year in an attempt to reduce its overstretched budget.
Otherwise, its 2013 budget will spend more money than the county has — at least $1.5 million more.
The county council, its fiscal governing body, hopes that quickly downsizing staff will stave off a dip into the emergency funds.
“We do have rainy day funds and reserve funds,” County Council President Tom Shetler said. “I would rather not dip into those. If some emergency would arise, like the fertilizer plant in Texas — we’ve had tornadoes, we could have a bad thunderstorm. We might have to spend several million dollars to clean up.”
Shetler does not plan to lay off anyone or cut salaries. Rather, when employees leave, retire or take a new job, the council will try to leave those positions vacant. On average about 15 people leave county employment every year.
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More property tax payers than expected hit state-mandated tax caps, causing the $1.5 million gap, county Auditor Joe Gries said. And that figure assumes everyone will pay their taxes this year, which never happens, Gries added.
“Plus, every year there are additional costs,” he said. “The sheriff’s office needs more overtime to staff the jail. They need more food for the inmates. We have a death penalty case this year, that will add costs. We could have workers’ compensation insurance claims. We could have to cut more than $1.5 million.”
With this in mind, the County Council intends to carve about $2.2 million from the approved budget. Two-thirds of that money will come from creative accounting, said Shetler. The Council will use various accounts that are otherwise underused to pay for general fund expenses.
For example, the county has a convention fund budget that collects taxes from area hotels that Shetler plans to use for rent and utility expenses. That should be another $600,000, he said.
The rest will come from downsizing.
The county has 13 elected offices and eight departments. Seventy-two percent of the county’s budget is spent paying the employees who man those offices. Add in health insurance and retirement benefits and that percentage jumps to about 85 percent, Gries said.
Significant cuts to the general fund must come from downsizing staff. Lower level county positions pay about $30,000 a year. With benefits, the average employee costs the county about $50,000, he said.
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