$9.2 Million

You may have heard about the County's $9.2 million 2016 budget deficit, mentioned briefly by Treasurer Dan Crowell at the end of the last County Board meeting, and surfacing shortly thereafter as an article in the Star and then an editorial.

What was not flashed across the headlines was that Treasurer Crowell also said, when presenting the budget summary, was that we're at about the same place we've been in September of most budget years. There's a big gap and we have to close it, and close it we do.

Two items on his list concern me, though. First, revenue projections in the DSS budget will decrease by $1.2 million by next year. As you may know, I chair the Human Services Committee, which oversees DSS, and we've been struggling with this – and similar issues – for a while now.

The short version of this is that DSS's budget is almost entirely comprised of costs for mandated services and the reimbursements we receive from some of them. It would be nice if the State sent us a check in January for what we spent and claimed during the previous year (or some similar, naively simple scheme), but they don't. Checks from the State, and pass-through money from the Feds, show up at random times, and are often difficult or impossible to determine just what they are for. And then – often four or five years later – out of the blue, the State will “claw back” some of that money, for reasons which are not always clear, either, but generally have to do with their impression that we were overpaid.

We're making some personal appeals to NYS Comptroller Tom DiNapoli about this, on behalf of us and most other counties. This kind of thing has to stop, and the departments in Albany responsible for this funding stream must become more organized and timely, because $1.2 million makes a big difference in Otsego County.

Another $1.2 million item is the local cost of the new towers being built to create a much more comprehensive communications system for our emergency services personnel throughout the county. The project has been going on since before I was on the Board, and the total pricetag is over eight million dollars. We hear of progress almost monthly; right now, we're hoping to have it in place and working next year.

This project has been grant-funded. I don't remember hearing, in previous years, about a $1.2 million local share at the end of the project; we certainly haven't been talking about preparing for it financially over the long term. It's something we all need to learn much more about.

The Daily Star urges us “to be judicious in making whatever cuts necessary to balance the budget.” We always are, and we will be again, with our without the Star's urging. We'll have a balanced budget, that everyone is able to examine and comment on, by the end of December.