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Hernando Today

Are county officials playing games with taxpayers' money?

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By HERNANDO TODAY EDITORIAL STAFF

Published: September 26, 2007

Is the county board taking the easy way out? We applaud the proposed lowering of the tax millage by a total 1.57 mils, which looks like it will fly tonight at the final budget hearing. But is this all a shell game?

Instead of cutting expenses, are county officials merely manipulating funding sources? We know they are taking $660,238 out of reserves to make up the revenue shortfall.

There is also a plan to divert $2 million out of the balance cash forward account that is used to operate county government until tax revenues come in to pay for day to day expenses.

Tax bills go out in November and recipients are urged to pay them early so the county will have money to operate. The lag between the county living off funds in the balance cash forward account until enough tax revenue comes in could be three months or more.

We understand the balance cash forward account has $32.5 million in it. Slicing $2 million out of that account, leaving $29.9 million in the kitty could prove dangerous, especially since the county spends as much as $20 million a month to pay its bills.

If we come to the end of the year with no money in the balance cash forward account, what will commissioners do to pay the bills? Borrow from investment accounts? Or borrow from other sources? We would certainly hope they would not have to borrow money and pay interest.

This tax cutting approach seems dangerous. It also seems imprudent to siphon off money from reserve accounts, because cutting down revenues is a one-time action to pay reoccurring expenses.
That's like taking money from your savings account to pay your mortgage payment. The problem is what do you do when the savings are gone or you have an exceptional expense and no savings to fall back on?

In the past, commissioners and county officials have told us how important the reserve accounts are and we should never divert funds from the reserves to operating unless the county is in danger of shutting down. Why is taking money from reserves all of a sudden OK now?

Wouldn't it make better sense to cut the County Attorney $700,000 budget down and cut other reoccurring operating expenses like payroll? The tax cuts are fine but let's cut expenses rather than using reserve and balance cash forward funds.

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