Sunday, September 9, 2007
Recent Kendall County Budget and Tax Increase
On a unanimous vote, Kendall County Commissioners Court approved the 2007-2008 Budget requiring a property tax increase of 12.4%. This action increased property tax collections from 9.7 million dollars in 2006-7 to 10.9 million dollars in 2007-8. What do you think about the property tax increase and the County's budgeting process?
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
5 comments:
RECENT KENDALL COUNTY BUDGET AND TAX INCREASE
At the August 30,2007 Commissioner’s Court meeting on the Fiscal Year 2007-2008 Budget, only four residents had anything to say. There were several important issues brought up that were not highlighted in the press.
PREPARATION OF THE BUDGET
On June 14, 2007, I sent the following email to the County Judge with cc to Commissioners Miertschin and Rusch:
“I noticed that the budget workshops began June 11th, and would like to remind you that during your campaign for County Judge you promised to implement “Zero Budgeting” if you were elected.
I hope you will be successful and supported by the Commissioner’s Court in carrying out your promise.
The current budget carries a lot of baggage, built up over the years, that is now burdening the Kendall County tax payers with unnecessary expenses. Example: the $100.00 a year “Seniority Bonus.”
The Meritorious Increases that have been included in past budgets have not been effective because almost everyone gets the raise regardless of their performance.
I would urge the Court to give consideration to the creation of a new position, Purchasing Director, which would pay for itself by centralizing all purchases for the county. Such a position would offer better control, take advantage of volume discounts and make the purchase of materials more competitive.
If you need clarification of the above proposals please do not hesitate to call me. “Let’s Do It Right”, Sincerely (signed Frank)”. To date the message has never been acknowledged.
The following definition of Zero Budgeting was read to the court at the meeting:
“A budgeting system where all existing activities are assessed and cost justified in the same way as new proposals. The system removes the implied right of existing activities for the continued allocation of resources.”
During the budget workshop meetings the department heads presented their “wish lists”. It was apparent that they were not examined as though they were new proposals, but continued allocations of resources.
The workshops were open to the public and a quorum of commissioners was present which characterized them as official public hearings, yet no minutes were taken. We, the public, will never know what happened at those meetings.
On August 18, 2007, more than 10 days prior to the budget meeting, I sent an email to the webmaster of the Kendall County website requesting that they publish information about the proposed budget. I pointed out that other nearby counties and districts had already done so. For example, the Comfort ISD had 27 pages; Blanco County had 66 pages, Comal County had 113 pages, Kendall County Zero. I also pointed out that the City of Boerne presented all the needed information on their website, including an Organization Chart, List of Key Personnel and explanations of major variances from last year. During the August 30 budget meeting, Commissioner Miertschin said the Audit Department, responsible for assembling the budget, did not have the software necessary to upload that kind of information, but included in the proposed budget was $90 thousand for new software.
I also informed the court that when I visited the Auditor’s Department to review a copy of the proposed budget report, I received a unbound , two inch stack of computer runs with no index, no summaries, no explanations of priorities or variances compared to last year’s budget. I explained to the Court that a simple “Pie Chart” using Excel software would have been of some help in understanding what all the numbers meant.
In my opinion the budget is a “shamble” of meaningless numbers.
CONTENT
In order to get some idea of where the money was coming from and where it is going, I made the following analysis from the figures available and presented it at the August 30 budget meeting:
REVENUES
The proposed Fiscal Year 2007-8 Budget for the General Fund is $16,900,000. Property Taxes and Sales Taxes will generate 75%, or, $12.7 million. The remaining 25% will come from fees, permits, fines, grants and miscellaneous other sources.
EXPENDITURES
There are over 50 different categories of expenditures to which money will be allocated from the General Fund. Just five will consume more than 53% of the budget. They are:
Sheriff Dept/Jail $4.1 million
Contingencies Comm.C 1.3 “
Roads & Bridges 1.3 “
Emergency Medical Service 1.2 “
Transfers Out (?) 1.0 “
The ten receiving the least amounts, which represent 1% of the budget, include several volunteer fire departments:
Historical Commission $ 1 thousand
Alamo Springs VFD 4 “
County Surveyor 6 “
Veteran’s Services 7 “
Dept.Public Safety $ 16 thousand
Waring VFD 18 “
Sisterdale VFD 34 “
Bergheim VFD 35 “
Emergency Mgmt. 41 “
Kendalia VFD 43 “
A sampling of some of the other activities includes:
Election Dept.(New) $ 125 Thousand
County Judge 150 “
Parks $ 403 Thousand
Animal Control 210 “
Court House & Bldgs 686 “
County Auditor 489 “
County Clerk 419 “
Parks Dept. 403 “
County Treasurer 126 “
County Health & Welfare 90 “
County Conservation 55 “.
There is no available information as to how priorities were established and what assumptions were used for all the above activities!
The Judge as Chief Financial Officer and Director of the Budget of Kendall County missed a great opportunity to save the taxpayers money by possibly lowering the tax rate if recognized and up to date budget procedures had been used.
By not revealing budget information to the public for discussion, he did a further injustice to the taxpayers. Changes are needed.
Frank H. Wetzel
Great information Frank!
I was one of the four residents that showed up. The majority of the audiences were County employees. I don't know if this is because of general apathy or because the budget process and taxes are so difficult to understand.
I suspect it is the latter, and there is absolutely no attempt on the part of our County commissioners to improve this situation.
After the Budget meeting, I asked the County Auditor Dana Baethge why there wasn't some summary of the budget; something simple for the taxpayer to understand. She said nobody asked her to prepare anything. She could have and would have if the Judge or a Commissioner asked her.
This is important for the County residents, and voters to be aware of ... election time is just around the corner.
It is clear when you pass from the bumpy broken roads of Kendall county into the nice smooth roads of Bexar county, that we have far too long been stingy with our taxes in Kendall county. This tax increase in long over due and now they obviously are having to make up for those before who refused to do the job right the first time.
At the close of the Special Budget Meeting held on the evening of August 30, 2007, the judge, and several of the commissioners, stated ...."don't forget we are taxpayers too and pay our taxes. I think we need to pay our people." (And myself, the commissioners and all the other elected officials) "I don't apologize for any of the pay increases. They are well deserved in my opinion."
Among the pay increases granted to elected officials, the Judge will receive an increase of $3,278, each Commissioner $2,567, each Justice of the Peace $4,115, plus approximately an additional 35% of Employee Benefits.
The pay increases they gave themselves will be more than the increase in their taxes; however, the majority of other taxpayers, who do not work for the county government or, are on a fixed income, do not have that option.
The total amount of Salaries and Wages and the total amount of Employee Benefits is 56% of the total budget, $16,900,000. The remaining 44% will be used to pay all of the other county operating expenses such as, debt repayment, contingencies, legal fees, repair parts, supplies, contract payments, maintenance of building, roads and bridges, parks, etc. etc.
An amended budget was approved by Commissioner's Court on September 10, 2007. The tax statements are in the mail and you should feel good paying your increased taxes knowing that Commissioner's Court did the right thing!
Frank H. Wetzel, Boerne
I find it quite ironic and telling that right after approving a huge tax increase on the citizens of this county, the Commissioner's are now considering giving tax breaks to new businesses.
Obviously, they know which side their bread is buttered on!
Post a Comment