County looking to cut $5m from next year's budget

CANTON — St. Lawrence County officials plan to cut more than $5 million in spending next year and reduce current-year spending by more than $1 million to help close an expected multimillion-dollar budget deficit in 2011.

"We've gone through over 7,000 lines of budget code, looked at every line and chopped anywhere from $50 to $1,000 out of those lines," County Administrator Karen M. St. Hilaire said. "We're paring about $5.3 million out of the budget next year. We need to go to that level of cuts because we're facing a $13 million to $15 million problem."

A $1.5 million increase in employee health insurance, a $2 million increase in pension costs, a reduction in federal medical assistance funding and uncertain sales tax revenues all contribute to the expected 2011 shortfall.

Lawmakers also have not settled contracts with the county's four unions, two of which expired at the end of 2007. Ms. St. Hilaire has said once that happens, officials are expecting to be on the hook for retroactive pay increases of at least $3 million.

Next year's financial outlook, however, is not as bleak as originally thought, she said. Officials expected federal medical assistance to be eliminated and sales tax revenue to continue on a steep downward spiral. They since have learned that the county is on track to receive $1.5 million in federal medical assistance, and sales tax receipts appear to be trending upward. However, sales tax revenue still is expected to be about $1 million less than the $39.5 million budgeted for this year.

"Our goal by the end of the year is to have saved about $800,000 from not filling vacancies or putting them on hold for 30 to 60 days," she said. "We're anticipating another $500,000 by cutting back on purchases and travel, so we're looking at saving about $1.3 million this year. There will be more money for us to take out of fund balance to offset property taxes."

At this point, Ms. St. Hilaire expects the county to spend $5 million from fund balance to close the budget gap and to impose a 2011 tax levy increase of $2 million to $3 million.

"We're feeling pretty good about where we are because when we started we were looking at a 30 percent property tax increase. That's nowhere near acceptable," she said. "It looks like it will be a 6 to 7 percent property tax increase. I'm very pleased with that. We're still looking to see if we can get that down even more, but it's a far brighter picture than it was Jan. 5 when we started this process."

The 2011 budget proposal will be presented to lawmakers next month.