County savings make sense
By SARAH MICHAEL
Blaine County Commissioner
I have always been conservative when it comes to money. I pay off credit cards each month to avoid costly interest rates, I don?t buy things that I can?t afford, I save money to buy a new car, and it is in my nature to avoid being in debt. As your county commissioner, I approach Blaine County?s budget in much the same way, conservative and cautious about spending.
I am writing this guest editorial in response to a headline in the Aug. 4 Mountain Express that read ?Legislators critical of county?s $4.9 million savings fund.? Then on Aug. 6, the Express? editorial read ?Why ?piggybanking? in time of need.? The edito-rial then suggested that Blaine County should use our savings to expand public transit.
State Rep. Wendy Jaquet and State Sen. Clint Stennett have been critical of Blaine County?s savings efforts to pay for our new county office building. The Express article (editorial?) indicates that they would prefer that the county give a rebate to the taxpay-ers, and then ask the voters to raise property taxes through a bond issue. In the long run, this would cost taxpayers more because of finance and interest charges and would put the burden solely on those who pay property taxes. The county?s solution was to save money from all of our revenue sources (remember county prop-erty taxes only fund 30 percent of our budget) to build a new courthouse annex. To me, this approach, one that was started be-fore I became a commissioner, makes total sense.
I agree with the Mountain Express that the county should not piggybank funds when ?demands go begging,? and the next big-gest demand is financing and building a new county jail, consoli-dated dispatch center and sheriff?s office. The need for a new public safety facility has been recognized for more than 10 years and construction costs range between $8 million and $10 million. Besides putting funds aside in a savings account, the county commissioners and the sheriff have looked at using existing reve-nues to fund bonds to pay for it. Recently, the county clerk and the county?s CPA projected the county?s revenues and expendi-tures five years into the future. Preliminary findings show that Blaine County isn?t as rich as I thought we were and that we will probably need to use a combination of savings and future reve-nues to pay for this new facility.
My fellow commissioners and I believe that we should use savings and existing revenues to fund the new county jail and not raise taxes. Blaine County voters will be asked their opinion in a ballot question in November 2004.
I also feel that Blaine County needs to take a more detailed look at our revenues and expenditures so that we know with more certainty that we will able to finance a new jail, and whether there will be sustainable and predictable revenues to fund other projects, such as expanding the Peak Bus. One of the main reasons that I support the hiring of a County administrator is to provide more in-depth professional budgeting advice and to have more certainty about what we can and can?t afford. Until this happens, I think that playing it safe with taxpayer dollars, saving our money for big ticket items, and being cautious about expanding programs make sense to me.
