Serving Lincoln County for more than a century!
Serving Lincoln County for more than a century!
Budget typically balanced with cash reserve
DAVENPORT—Budget season is here, and the Lincoln County Commissioners are faced with their annual problem of balancing a budget as expenditures grow year by year. This year, the budget gap is $1.2 million, and commissioner Rob Coffman said the commissioners plan to cover that gap with a reserve cash balance the county has accumulated over the years.
Having a budget gap isn’t a new issue facing the county. $1.2 million was the same gap the commissioners needed to balance for the 2021 budget. Coffman said there’s been a gap every year since he was elected in 2010, and a gap in every year he knows about since before then.
“Expenses always come in higher than revenue,” Coffman said. “This is an inherent problem facing small governments.”
The county gets most of its revenue from property tax and sales tax. Sales tax, which brings less money in than property tax, is up this year, but so are expenses.
“Tax revenue is up this year, but not enough to make all our expenses covered,” Coffman said. “For example, our insurance went up 17%.”
Another rising cost in the county is salaries, where cost-of-living adjustments must be contractually fulfilled. Almost every county department’s proposed budget is higher than last year.
“We’re contractually obligated to do those COLA raises,” Coffman said. “Then, we have to raise elected salaries, so people don’t make more money than their bosses.”
Raises are indeed in store for many positions countywide according to the preliminary budget. The commissioners held budget meetings all day Nov. 1 with several department heads, where this fact was discussed.
Coffman said typically, very little from those proposed budgets is tweaked because most of the operating budget has to do with employee compensation and benefits.
“We’re operating with less people in every department,” Coffman said. “There’s not a lot of room in the budget for pencils and staples and things like that.”
Coffman said the commissioners usually draw from the reserve fund to balance the budget, because the alternative is laying off county employees.
“We’re operating on a very barebones budget,” he said.
The commissioners have to balance the 2022 budget by the end of the calendar year. The last commissioner’s meeting is Monday, Dec. 20.
Drew Lawson is the editor of the Davenport Times. He is a graduate of Eastern Washington University.
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