Board adopts 2017-18 budget, challenges remain

EL CENTRO — Following the discussions regarding last week’s budget hearings, the County Board of Supervisors voted on Tuesday to adopt their budget for the 2017-2018.

As reported last week, for the 20172018 fiscal year, the projected revenue for the county will be $254 million, while expenditures were calculated to be $271 million. The county will also get $9.5 million from the remaining fund balance available from last year, but even with those outstanding funds, the county’s budget still reflected a deficit of $8.1 million.

The proposal to remedy the deficit is to use resources from realignment funds through Public Health and Behavioral Health Departments for $900,000 and $390,000, respectively, in addition to a $7.46 million transfer from the Revenue Stabilization Fund to balance the budget for the upcoming year. However, once the proposed transfer is completed, the stabilization fund balance would dwindle down to just $800,000, meaning the board would need to find out another way to balance future budgets.

The only change to the proposed budget presented last week was the addition of reclassification of a handful of employees as well as the addition of a senior engineer location for the Air Pollution Control District. APCD director Matt Dessert said during last week’s budget hearings the position will be a need for the department due to the expected increase in activity around the Salton Sea. Since the funds to cover the position wouldn’t come from the county’s general fund, the board voted to approve the augmentation.

A request made by County Librarian Crystal Duran for another position in order to extend the days the Heber branch of the library opens from four to five days was not approved at the time, however, the board gave staff direction to identify additional options to fund the additional position.

One of the main reasons for the rise in expenditures is due to rising costs to deliver services. Officials said costs from Social Services and public safety have increased and that they expect the trend to continue as Inhome support services will go from being administered through the state level, to the county level. The hardship of balancing the budget wasn’t a surprise, earlier this year county officials requested the departments to plan cuts of 15 percent.

The most notable of the augmentation requests that was not approved at the time, but is still under consideration, include three different requests made by the Imperial County Sheriff’s Office for $765,000 to fund eleven positions that will be needed to staff the new jail upon its completion early next year. These positions would include seven new correctional officers, three correctional clerks and one lieutenant.

The county finds itself in a complicated situation as the $33 million Oren R. Fox detention facility, which was funded through the state, has to be operational within 90 days of completion. The facility is expected to be completed in February, making the hiring of the additional staff a complicated issue. Even if the county had the funding needed at this point, the timeframe to hire the personnel and have them go through background checks, medical exams and training will make staffing of the new jail a challenge.

The board will continue to discuss options regarding the issue with the new jail on Monday at 1:30 p.m.