LAKE COUNTY >> After a few months of review and discussion, the county has approved their Final Recommended Budget of $230 million for this fiscal year.
County Administrative Officer Carol Huchingson said she is pleased to have document completed, but funds are still very limited and the county is still on the rebound from the recession hit in 2008.
“While the state and most other counties are fully recovered or actively recovering from the dip that hit us from the recession, we here in Lake County continue to face many financial challenges,” Huchingson said.
Some of the challenges include rebuilding after the fires of 2015 and 2016, increases in labor agreements to account for safety and increases in retirement contributions. Yet Huchingson said this year’s budget offers many solutions to the series of financial difficulties, both in the allocation of funds and in easing staffing concerns.
“It poses looking into new revenue streams and operational efficiencies as well and even though the financial picture is not as exciting as we would like it to be, it is a time of opportunity to reinvent the way we do business,” Huchingson explained.
The county is using one-time funds to hire consultants and look for ways to increase revenues. If the county wants to meet revenue needs in the future, it requires economic development, a growing tax base and stepping up use of technology.
Other positives Huchingson mentioned in the budget are an increase in the General Fund over the next seven years, maintaining services levels at the Sheriff’s office, fully funds the Sidewalk Project in Clearlake Oaks and increases funding for roads by almost $1 million.
With this year’s tight budget and the county’s efforts to keep employees, some self-funded departments were able to increase pay for their employees by 5 percent. Deputy Human Resources Director Sarah Jansen said this bump will hopefully attract more people to apply for positions and keep them in place.
“Given the financial repercussion of the last two years of fires and the storms, the county is not in a financial position to increase salaries across the board,” Jansen said. “The three departments we are recommending doing the increases for are the Health Services Department, the Behavioral Health Department and the Special Districts Administration.”
Huchingson said she would like to see this happen to all departments but there are many financial challenges that restrict the county in doing so. If there is a possibility to do so, the county will be able to have more people apply for these positions and not just use the county as a training ground for jobs.
“We’d like to do this for all of our employees, but we have to start somewhere,” Huchingson said.
With the use of one-time funds, the budget is balanced to support appropriations, but not structurally balanced. The amount of one-time funds is less this fiscal year than it was last year.
In June when the county first started reviewing the budget, they approved recommendations from the various departments and heard their concerns. This guided staff members in completing the project.
