From the Goshen News:
County government employees may be looking at a 3 percent raise next year, but that raise will likely come with some significant cuts to department budgets over the next two years as county officials try to deal with what could be a $4 million budget shortfall for 2014.
Speaking before the Elkhart County Council Saturday morning, Elkhart County Commissioner Mike Yoder laid out some of his preliminary predictions for what the county’s budgetary situation will look like for 2014. What he relayed was not the rosiest of pictures.
“As we approach this budget this year, it’s going to be extremely tough,” Yoder said. “Using just the big numbers, and thinking philosophically about how we approach the budget this year... this is a weight loss program for county government this year I think.”
According to Yoder, continued losses in funds due to things like property tax caps and rising medical and insurance costs could very well lead to a budgetary shortfall of at least $4 million for 2014.
Also adding to that funding loss prediction is what Yoder considers one of the commissioners’ biggest priorities for the coming year — providing raises to county employees.
“We need to give our employees a raise next year,” Yoder said. “The commissioners I think are in agreement that that needs to be in the neighborhood of about 3 percent because of how long they have been without a raise. We feel like our wage scale is falling behind this recovering economy, so that’s going to be a priority for us.”
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That raise, Yoder said, will likely cost the county between $500,000 and $750,000. Yoder also noted that the county will be looking at some additional medial and health insurance costs for next year that could fall anywhere from $300,000 to $900,000 depending on the number of employees involved.
“In addition to that, we’re operating this year with a budget that contemplates taking a couple million dollars out of reserves,” Yoder said. “This year we’re pulling $1 million out of EDIT and some out of the Rainy Day fund to balance this year’s budget. So we’re in that $4 million range — $2 million in losses that we’re projecting to experience this year plus an additional $2 million through the raises, health insurance and caps.”
Faced with such a significant shortfall, Yoder made the suggestion that the county try to deal with any necessary cuts to county departments by dividing them over a two-year period, rather than making all the cuts within one budgetary cycle. By dividing the cuts between two years, Yoder said, it would give the county a much better picture of what cuts may or may not need to be made down the line, especially if the county receives an unexpected boost to its revenue in 2015.
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See the full article here:
http://goshennews.com/breakingnews/x1097422861/County-budget-may-see-4M-shortfall
