Commissioners Jason Renshaw, Pat Fabian and George Skamai unanimously agreed to re-open the County budget for 2016 to try to cut expenses and the need for a tax increase.
by Jonathan Weaver
At the end of 2015, then-County Commissioners David Battaglia, Bob Bower and Rich Fink passed a $21 million budget for 2016 with a 1.5 mill tax increase.
But that book is not yet closed.
Newly-sworn in Commissioners Pat Fabian, Jason Renshaw and George Skamai unanimously agreed Thursday that the budget should be re-opened.
Commissioner Chair Fabian and Commissioner Skamai agreed that they sat in on the budget planning, but want to dive into the budget more intently.
“Even though we’ve been involved prior to this, I haven’t looked at the entire budget - every single line-item,” Fabian said. “I want to look at that.”
Commissioner Jason Renshaw said there could be more long-term budget-saving strategies found, but admitted to considering opening the budget “every single day.”
“We have to look at how those funds are used throughout the whole year,” Renshaw said. “But, our main goal is to lower them. We’re going to look at all these departments, how they use them and how they are allocated over the long term.
“Are there some quick fixes? Yes, if we can do them. I can’t make any promises.”
There is even more of a need to re-open the budget after more funding cuts were announced earlier this week.
According to Fabian, the Armstrong County Jail will be only subsidized to house nine State parole violators instead of the 39 that were permitted in 2015.
Commissioners budgeted $400,000 in revenue this year –and shocked Commissioner Skamai when the notification came.
“You can do the math and see that we’re going to lose significant revenue that we budgeted for,” Skamai said.
Commissioners estimated the County received $70 for each parole violator while it only costs taxpayers about $50 per inmate.
Director of Administration Jen Long said about $407,000 in revenue was received through December 2015 from housing State parole violators. She said, while the dollar amount per day increased, it does not guarantee the full number of inmates at all times.
“That’s going to take probably two-thirds of the budget right there,” Long said. “That’s going to be a big hit.”
“It adds up,” Skamai added.
“The current budget calls for a tax increase given the revenue we had expected. Seeing that we have that revenue no longer only puts us in a more-challenging financial situation. There are no obvious areas I can see where cuts can be made significant enough to affect what’s set in the budget right now.”
And Armstrong County received more than $600,000 in 2014.
Renshaw said continual changes to cut excess spending can be made throughout the year, not just in their first month of office.
“We’re always looking at the budget. Our ambition is to lower taxes, lower operating costs and create revenue,” Renshaw said.
“We’re going to be looking at this budget every day, every second.”
Commissioners next meet for an advertised work session Tuesday morning. County code permits them the rest of the month to open the budget, but it must be adopted by February 15, according to Skamai.