State cuts hit home
Cities, counties, schools wrestle with budget woes
Local schools and governmental bodies are scrambling to figure out how they will manage with less state revenue.
On the heels of a 3 percent budget cut in August, state officials announced this past week that the state will have to do without an additional 6 percent.
The state’s Board of Economic Advisers said Wednesday that escalating fuel and food prices, sagging home sales, slumping home values and a shaky job market are to blame.
Because the projected revenue shortfall is even greater than expected, the General Assembly will have to be called into session later this month to order cuts to balance things out.
Local officials say they can’t wait for all the details of future state budget cuts to be decided — they need to take action now.
Sumter County Administrator Bill Noonan said department heads have explored several options for reductions.
“We’ve compiled a list, and we are going through it to see what opportunities exist,” he said. Noonan didn’t elaborate but noted that the shortfall could mean an across-the-board cut in all county departments.
Noonan will present suggested cuts to Sumter County Council during its Nov. 11 meeting.
He said it’s possible that more cuts will be announced at the state level. Lee County Council Chairman Charles Arthur Beasley agreed.
Beasley, who has been on council since March 1988, estimated the overall reduction in state revenues will ultimately reach more than 10 percent for the 2008-09 budget year. “This is the most serious economic crisis we’ve had since I’ve been on council,” Beasley said.
“We’ve been expecting the other shoe to drop,” said Clarendon County Council Chairman Dwight Stewart. “I know they have been talking about some alternatives if we have some type of shortfall,” but no major moves have been made yet.
Stewart said some cost-saving measures, such as leaving heavy equipment at work sites to conserve fuel, have already been taken. And his county’s administrator, Bill Houser, has been preparing council for the looming cuts, Stewart said.
“They said they would come up with some specific recommendations when they know what the cuts were.”
One option off the table is raising millage, Beasley said. The state has mandated that counties cannot raise property taxes past a certain amount if their tax base isn’t growing. In Sumter and Lee counties, that’s 2.8 percent.
So, he said, “We have no other choice but to cut services and operations.”
Beasley expects council to review its options at its open meeting Tuesday. “We might just ask each department to reduce spending by a certain amount,” he said. “And we could leave it to each department head to determine how they will make the cuts.”
Other options identified by Beasley include freezing capital expenditures, reducing the number of employee work hours each week and even eliminating staff.
“The last thing we will look at is cutting personnel,” Beasley said. “That’s the last thing we want to do.”
Bishopville City Administrator Gregg McCutchen said the city will put off equipment and vehicle expenditures until the first of the year.
“We are determined to maintain the same level of service,” he said. “But we might not be able to buy the equipment and new vehicles we wanted.”
Lee County School District Director of Finance Kristie Stokes said the schools were able to address the initial 3 percent cuts — a reduction of about $173,000 — without reducing allocations to schools or cutting back on personnel.
Lee School Superintendent Dr. Cleo Richardson said he is determined to spare personnel from any future budget cuts.
“We’re at a bare minimum when it comes to personnel in the schools and the district office,” he said.
“Everything else is on the table. All schools and all departments are going to have to suffer a little bit. In the meantime, we are going to use federal and state money as much as possible and not use our general fund unless we have no choice.”
State agencies are also suffering. The Item received a news release this week that said that, “while examining cost-saving measures due to budget cuts … in state government, the [State] Law Enforcement Division will start charging the media for the processing of criminal history checks.”
State Rep. Murrell Smith said he would waive his pay if legislators have to return to Columbia for a special session to hammer out a budget shortfall.
“It’s the least we can do when we have to make difficult decisions,” the Sumter Republican said.
While Gov. Mark Sanford, Senate President Pro Tem Glenn McConnell, House Speaker Bobby Harrell, Finance Committee Chairman Hugh Leatherman and Ways and Means Chairman Dan Cooper were working to resolve the situation, Smith said if they are unable to do so, there needs to be a “top-to-bottom review” of the budget.
Every agency has to look at ways to make cuts, Smith said, while ensuring certain programs don’t get slashed completely.
“Health care is a huge concern of mine. Sumter is very dependent on health care, especially Medicaid,” Smith said, and he doesn’t want to see reimbursements cut further or eligibility requirements rolled back.
As far as specific cuts, Smith thinks it’s too early to say, but he foresees the Legislature being brought back into session as problematic in that it would be overly time-consuming.
“You’d have 170 different ideas on how to cut $250 million,” he added.
By RANDY BURNS
The Item
October 11, 2008