Commitee gives recommendations

After hours of discussion and pouring over the numbers in previous meetings, Jay County Budget Committee now has recommendations in tow.
Committee members Faron Parr, Doug Inman, Jeanne Houchins, Bob Vance, Ted Champ, Dan Watson and Anna Culy, along with financial consultant Greg Guerrettaz, developed 23 recommendations at Monday’s meeting, which lasted nearly three hours.
The recommendations that brought forth the longest and most spirited discussion included decisions regarding the number of county employees, their benefits and pay for part-time elected officials.
The longest conversation revolved around the amount of county personnel, with Guerrettaz explaining that, given the budget situation, the options are a hiring freeze, hiring chill or a reduction in employees.
“I think level one, hiring chill, is a given,” Guerrettaz said in the midst of discussion.
“Why do we call it a chill? Because if you get a sheriff person that leaves, their opinion was we definitely have to replace,” Guerrettaz said, using the example of another county that undertook a “chill.”
When asked what option the committee might recommend, Inman led off discussion by describing a reduction as a last resort.
“I would like to think we can do some combination of things for (2017) so that we don’t have to lay anyone off. I would like to think that. Whether that is reality, I don’t know that,” he said.
Culy indicated a reduction might present a challenge.
“When we are talking about cutting personnel … I know the courthouse offices pretty well, they’re pretty much stacked with their lowest amount when you compare them to counties our size and such, even some smaller than us,” said Culy, who wondered whether cuts could be made elsewhere in department budgets instead.
Conversation eventually led to asking Guerrettaz what a hiring chill would mean for the hiring process.
“It would be asking the (county) council to refill the position so the council would be asking the tough questions about, you know, what’s the work level, what’s those type of things,” Guerrettaz said.
Culy said that would require changing hiring procedures, which currently gives control to department heads.
Inman wondered how part-time employees fit into the discussion.
“I would hate to eliminate a full time person when you’re still having part-time people work,” he said, noting, however, that some departments need their part-time help.
Guerrettaz said the situation around county personnel creates a challenging position.
“That’s what makes this so difficult for the employees. Number one, we don’t want to get rid of anyone. We don’t want to get rid of (anybody). Period. But we also want to reward more in the future as we go, to our current employees. There’s no doubt about that,” Guerrettaz said. “We don’t have a way at this point, given that current mix we’ve got, OK. It’s not in our crystal ball until we get something accomplished.”
Guerrettaz ultimately submitted a recommendation that county council approve all replacements.
“I don’t want to sound like I want to micromanage everybody, but the buck is stopping here. This is where the buck stops, so we need to know what is happening in these departments if the buck is going to stop with us,” said Champ, a member of council.
Near the end of discussion, the general consensus among the committee was similar to the sentiments Inman expressed earlier.
“I just think there so many other things we can look at before we start touching full-time people,” Champ said, with other members signaling agreement.
The committee also brought up employee benefits, deciding not to make any specific recommendation.
Currently, first-year employees get five days vacation, three personal days and one sick day per month.
“Planning long-term, I think we need to come up with something that anyone hired after a certain date only gets this package, not the package that’s offered today because I don’t want to take away from employees. That’s not right,” said Champ, who has brought up the possibility of scaling back benefits in previous meetings.
Culy said that taking the benefits away might not save money, noting that an employee in her office was absent Monday but there was no fill in part-time employee.
However, Watson said it comes into play with departments that are staffed 24/7.
Vance suggested the county personnel committee take over the issue.
“We could sit here and discuss this for 10 hours,” he said.
Guerrettaz’s recommendation asks that the personnel committee meet in the next 90 days and develop proposals on the matter.
The personnel committee would include one commissioner, two council members and the auditor as an ex officio member, Culy said.
The committee also reviewed salaries for part-time elected officials like commissioners and council members.
“The fact is I believe we lead by example, and if we’re going to ask other people to do things then we need to evaluate our place and see if there is any place we can save taxpayers,” Champ said.
Recommendations included a flat $20,000 salary for commissioners between their commissioners and drainage board wages and a 25 percent slash in annual pay for council. Commissioners, between their two positions, currently make $26,000, Inman said.
Discussion also touched on the possibility of cutting the portion the county chips in for commissioner and council health insurance by 50 percent.
Near the end of the meeting, minimum target balances were recommended for the county’s major funds, an objective discussed in prior meetings. They include $1 million for the general and cumulative bridge funds, $2 million for rainy day, $500,000 each for the Economic Development Income Tax (EDIT), Cumulative Capital Development (CCD) and Infrastructure funds, and $1.5 million for the highway fund.
Guerrettaz has recommended the county establish those targets in a resolution that is reviewed annually.
Funding for Jay County Development Corporation was also briefly covered. At its previous meeting, the committee suggested decreasing the county’s allotment to the corporation and asking the City of Portland as well as other county municipalities to chip in more.
That was the sentiment Monday, with a gradually-implemented, proportionally based funding for JCDC recommended. Champ suggested setting up a meeting with municipal leaders to discuss such a funding plan.
Other major recommendations include a freeze on wages in 2017, keeping longevity pay, freeing up the CCD and infrastructure funds to allow them to include more expenditures and adding a line item in the amount of $250,000 to the rainy day fund for emergencies.
The committee will meet next at 4:30 p.m. Aug. 31.