Budget is basically
status quo
County finances
offer little
room for new ideas
By TRAVIS
PURSER
Express Staff Writer
With about
the same amount of money available for its budget next year that was
available this year, Blaine County will easily fund the status quo, but
there won’t be much room for innovation.
There will
be no new administrative help that could free up time for county
commissioners to plan public policy. And, public transportation planning
will get only a meager boost.
The county
commission has been hearing budget requests from the heads of its 19
departments and elsewhere since July 10 and is scheduled to give tentative
approval to most of those requests on Aug. 6 when it meets at the old
Blaine County Courthouse at 4 p.m.
After that
meeting, the budget can be reduced but not increased. The commission must
pass the final version by Sept. 4.
County
Clerk Marsha Reiman and her staff have been tweaking the numbers on the
requests this week and are expected to have a tentative budget of about
$13 million completed by Friday. About $5.4 million of that would come
from property taxes, about $5 million from county fees and fines and the
rest from state and federal grants.
One item
that won’t get funding this year is a proposal to hire a county
administrator, something Blaine County has never had.
Commissioner
Sarah Michael pitched the idea on July 12 to fellow Commissioners Mary Ann
Mix and Dennis Wright, who both slammed it.
Michael,
who is in her first year of elected office, said the commission spends too
much time on day-to-day administrative matters, which prevents
commissioners from planning, prioritizing issues and leading in general.
An
administrator would change that by freeing up commissioners’ time,
Michael said. An administrator would coordinate departments, hire staff,
oversee the budget and manage grants.
"The
goal here is to have some consistency" in the creation of public
policy, she said.
In an
apparent dismissal of Michael’s request, Mix said she would "take
it under advisement." Mix said she was offended at Michael’s
suggestion that commissioners don’t lead.
Wright said
he was "absolutely not" ready to consider the idea.
Wright and
Mix were not quite as critical of a budget request from Beth Callister,
Wood River RideShare coordinator.
Callister
asked the commission to approve $23,343, or 30 percent of the $77,810
total proposed budget for Rideshare in 2002. The remaining money would
come from Ketchum, Sun Valley, Hailey and the state.
The money
would pay for the continued services, such as scheduling and emergency
rides home, to people who carpool in the Wood River Valley. Also,
Callister and other transit advocates contend RideShare is a critical
starting point for planning and launching other public transportation
programs.
The largest
increase Callister proposed for the RideShare budget was in labor costs,
from $22,500 to $34,000.
Callister
proposed a marketing increase from $17,187 to $18,000. And, she proposed
spending $2,000 on a Web site and $2,000 on training, both of which were
not on the previous budget.
Mix said
she could not approve Callister’s budget given the negative comments of
about half a dozen county residents to whom she had recently talked. They
criticized current plans supported by Callister and others to expand bus
service in the valley and create paid parking in Ketchum.
"I’m
just explaining the feedback that I’m getting," Mix said.
Wright said
he worried that Callister would each year ask the county for more money.
While
Michael said she was comfortable with Callister’s request, Mix and
Wright said they would consider approving a $15,000 request, not $23,343.