A decent account

One week after the Chico City Council heard a rather dreary annual budget report, their counterparts on the Butte County Board of Supervisors were painted a relatively rosy economic picture.

The city is looking at a $15 million deficit while the county’s budget is balanced and totals about $475 million. In fact, among the actions requested of the board was to provide direction to staff “that if the general fund balance available exceeds $15,565,000, the additional amount, up to $1 million, will be used to increase the general fund reserve.”

That reserve is projected to be $5.5 million, said Paul Hahn, the county’s chief administrative officer. He said the county is “on a path toward fiscal stability while it continues to address long-term fiscal challenges.”

Hahn said the total budget is a bit less than in recent years because $25 million to $30 million in funding sources such as the Affordable Care Act have been shifted from the county to the state. Federal funding generated by the leasing out of jail cells and beds for federal inmates also has disappeared, Hahn said.

“We now need those beds for our own inmates,” Hahn said, noting that the state-funded AB 109 Prison Realignment Program has taken its share of the jail facilities with the court-ordered transfer of state prisoners to county jails.

“We now have no contracts with the federal government for the jail beds,” he said. “That was $2 million a year in general fund revenue we are no longer getting.”

Since the budget was first put together earlier this year, some adjustments have been made. The general fund balance included the freeing up of $523,283 from the state prison-realignment plan for other uses. Plus, higher-than-anticipated property-tax receipts increased general purpose revenues—money not earmarked for specific purposes—by $1.3 million. Hahn credited the department heads for contributing to the balanced budget and said the fiscal health of the county is in good hands.

“This idea that budgets take just a few months of the year is wrong,” he said. “This is a year-long activity and the people in this room are the ones that make it work and they deserve a great deal of thanks that we can put this document in front of you, hopefully with little controversy.”

The board voted unanimously to adopt the budget and the only thing that came close to controversy was Supervisor Maureen Kirk’s request to continue to fund year-round operations at the Cohasset fire station, particularly in this time of drought. But Supervisor Bill Connelly said if he went along with that his constituents in places like Clipper Mills would ask for the same. Supervisor Steve Lambert said those who choose to live in the rural areas of the county shouldn’t expect all of the same services that are provided to city dwellers.

The city of Chico’s proposed budget included reducing funding for the Chico branch of the county library from the $100,000 it received last year to $75,000, which could mean a reduction in the library’s hours. But Hahn directed staff to hold off on making a decision on the hours until sometime next year, because the funding needed to keep the library open at its current level may well be available by then through the county.

He said the budget reflects the county’s dedication to public safety, with almost 70 percent of the general fund expenditures put toward the sheriff, district attorney and probation offices. In addition, development services including the Public Works and Code Enforcement departments are restoring their office hours, which had been cut back drastically in recent years, “back to the pre-recession level,” Hahn said.

Hahn also noted that last week it came to light that the county’s unemployment level has fallen to 7.9 percent, the lowest it’s been since 2008.

“We still have a lot of people unemployed, but we are seeing positive signs,” he said. “There still are some challenges, there still are some gaps that we need to address, but the overall trend is continuing—much slower than I wish it was, but it is in the right direction.”

While the budget news at this point is good, Hahn said, there are still some “cautionary tales and challenges” ahead due to the uncertainty and instability of the state and federal budgets.