Blounty County sheriff James "I'll Burn Your House Down And Kill Your Family And Your Dog" Berrong wants $60,000 from you to add 60 parking spaces to the Blounty County Justice Center For Kiddie Porn*. Yet 80 parking spaces remain unused at a county building next door. The sheriff claimed to have no parking on jury selection day, but county commissioner Jim Folts saw only sheriff patrol cars in the public parking lot.
Note how the sheriff has to write $10-million in additional traffic tickets to cover the budget deficit in 2011...
*Google judicial commissioner Dustin Hatcher, convicted felon, son of ex-deputy court clerk Tom Hatcher
From: James Folts
To: list@blounttn.net
Subject: REPORT ON NOVEMBER COUNTY COMMISSION MEETINGS
Date: Sun 11/21/10 10:29 PM
To My Fellow Blount County Citizens,
The Finance Director gave a presentation to the County Budget Committee saying that $10 million would have to be cut from the Budget, or there will be a double digit tax increase next year. Twenty four hours later, the Commission decided to consider a BUDGET INCREASE!
A summary of your County Commission's activities in the month of November is available on:
www.jimfolts.com
ONLY YOU CAN STOP A MAJOR TAX INCREASE NEXT YEAR
Please come to the Commission Meeting on Dec. 16 at 7 PM at the Courthouse room 430
Please pass this message on to those on your email list. Please send the email addresses of anyone you think would be interested in this information.
Thank you for your continuing support.
November 2010 Report
by Commissioner Jim Folts
JimFolts.com
Finance Director Presentation to Budget Committee 11/8/2010 - Major problems ahead
Finance Director Jennings made his first public presentation on the severe financial problems that face our County. The presentation was an improved version of the one given privately to each Commissioner, which I described in last month’s report to you.
Mr. Jennings told the Committee that the County will spend approximately $7 million more than it takes in, this year. If the current trend continues, the County will spend $10 million more than it takes in, next year.
The county has been making up these huge deficits by emptying its savings accounts (fund balances). Unfortunately, by the end of this year, there will be so little money left in the savings accounts that the County’s credit rating will be in danger. Since the County is carrying a very heavy load of debt ($230 million) and must refinance a $46 million balloon payment, a reduction in our credit rating could be a disaster.
The bottom line is that the budget games the County has been playing are over. The Commission must stop letting County expenses grow at 2.5 times the inflation rate. The County must either cut expenses and employees, or impose a major tax increase on the citizens in these tough economic times. But old, bad habits are hard to kill, and just one day after Mr. Jennings presentation, the Commission was hard at work talking about ADDING expenses to the budget. See below.
Agenda Meeting 11/09/2010 – $60,000 budget increase returns
At last month’s Commission meeting a request for a $60,000 budget increase to provide 60 more parking spaces at the “Justice Center” was withdrawn, when it became clear that the money would be taken from the County’s dangerously low savings account. Unfortunately some Commissioners still don’t seem to grasp the idea that the County has serious budget problems. Commissioners Burchfield, Folts, Lail and Caylor voted against this spending madness. Commissioners French, Kirby, Burkhalter, Gamble, Samples, Carver, Greene, Lambert, Wright, Harrison, Lewis, Farmer, Hasty, Melton, Helton and Moon voted to put this budget increase back on the Commission agenda, despite Finance Director Jennings’ warnings at the Budget Committee meetings just 24 hours earlier.
The resolution to allow the Planning Commission and Board of Zoning Appeals (BZA) to opt out of State mandated training requirements came up again, with changes that limited the opt out period to this year only. This resolution stirred up my curiosity. I requested the training records of the Planning Commission and the BZA. The State requires that detailed records of this training to be kept for three years. John Lamb was able to produce most of the required records for the Planning Commission. Unfortunately, Roger Fields, the County Building Commissioner, could not produce a single record of any of the State required training, for himself or any member of the BZA. This lack of attention to training, and the law, may go a long way toward explaining some of the very poor decisions that have come out of the BZA, while Mr. Fields has been in charge.
I requested a new agenda item, providing for a regular report from the Mayor at each Commission meeting, highlighting good and bad budget performances by the various County departments. In view of the severe budget problems we face, I thought this would be a no-brainer. Instead, it was shuffled off to the Ad Hoc Committee on Commission rules.
Commission Meeting 11/18/2010 – It is easier to spend another $60,000 of taxpayer money, than to adjust a schedule
The major item to come up at this meeting was the request for the $60,000 budget increase to build a 60 space parking lot at the Justice Center. I produced an aerial photo that showed a substantial number of additional parking spaces had already been added to the “Justice Center” parking in recent months. None of these additions were mentioned in previous discussions. The bank next to the Justice Center built a 28 space parking expansion for the “Justice Center” in return for access to certain County-owned driveways. The bank also built a driveway connecting the “Justice Center” parking area to the old County Health Department building parking lot that contains nearly 90 parking spaces. Since this building has been vacated by all County agencies, these parking spots are available to the “Justice Center”. Why do we need to spend another $60,000 on this problem, I asked?
I was answered by a torrent of commentary from the inhabitants of the “Justice Center” (JC) (Sheriff’s Department, Circuit Court Clerk and the Judges) pointing to a huge traffic jam that had occurred, Tuesday, two days before the meeting. The jam was supposedly due to lack of parking. However, the discussion uncovered the fact that 300 potential jurors had been summoned to show up at the “Justice Center”, all at the same time, on Tuesday morning. This not only caused the traffic jam, the jury room was not big enough to handle the crowd. The JC inhabitants also admitted that even the 60 space addition would still not be sufficient to handle this crowd. I said I had visited the JC at 9:15 am on Tuesday morning, and enough people had already left, so that I could easily find a space. It seems to me that smarter scheduling would solve the parking problem, without any more taxpayer funds. For instance, if we asked 100 jurors to arrive at 9:00, 100 more at 10:00 and the rest at 11:00, the problem would be solved.
An indication of the real importance the JC inhabitants attach to this problem is that they did not include the new parking lot in this year’s budget. The inhabitants have a combined budget of more than $22 million. By taking just 0.3% out of their existing budgets, they could solve this problem without any additional taxpayer money. With all these facts, and the tough economic climate our taxpayers face, you would think the Commission would have summarily rejected this budget increase. Instead the Commission decided to send the request back to the Budget Committee for more discussion. Only Commissioner Helton and myself voted against this madness. If the Commission continues this casual attitude toward budget increases, how in the world are we going to cut $10 million from next year’s budget? Maybe some Commissioners think that voting for a double-digit tax increase will be easier than facing off with the Sheriff on budget cuts. I hope not. Call the Commissioners and tell them to get started on the hard work of cutting the budget.
December 2010 Report: Blount County sheriff has no liability insurance on fleet of 300 cars
by Commissioner Jim Folts
Budget Committee 12/6/2010 - Budget options presented - still no decisions. $2.6 million problem in the insurance fund.
Last month Finance Director Jennings gave a presentation to the Budget Committee describing the serious financial problems faced by the County. The Finance Director asked the Budget Committee (Commissioners Lail, Melton, Lewis and Samples) for guidance in preparing the budget for the next fiscal year, which starts in June. His question was pretty simple. Should he prepare a budget that cuts expenses and people from the County payroll, or should he prepare a budget that includes a major (nearly 20 percent) increase in taxes. The Budget Committee avoided giving Mr. Jennings an answer. Instead, they asked him to prepare several "budget options" with different levels of spending cuts and tax increases.
At this month's Budget Committee meeting, the Mr. Jennings returned with four budget options, ranging from one which holds the existing tax rate and makes significant cuts to the County budget, to a 'business as usual' option that results in nearly a 20 percent tax increase. Once again, the Finance Director asked for guidance in preparing next year's budget.
The discussion in the Budget Committee was interesting. Concerns were voiced about cutting county workers. Concerns were voiced about asking County workers to contribute $50 per month to their medical plan costs (they currently contribute nothing). Comments were made about deeper cuts in the schools. Yet, not a word was voiced about closer scrutiny of other large budgets, like the Sheriff's department.
And, no one mentioned the terrible impact a major tax increase could have on the citizens of the County. Nearly 30 percent of the real estate transactions in the county involve foreclosed homes and properties. Ten percent of our citizens are unemployed. Nearly 20 percent of our citizens are on Food Stamps. A major tax increase will increase foreclosures and cause more small businesses to fail, further increasing unemployment. There is really no viable alternative to cutting the budget. Unfortunately, the Budget Committee again put off any decision until January.
Finance Director Jennings also brought another major financial problem to this meeting. The county self-insures for liability and workers compensation. It seems that our previous Financial Director did not do the actuarial reviews necessary to assure that there was enough money in these funds to pay our insurance claims. Worse, during the previous administration, nearly $900,000 in accounting "errors" were made in calculating the amount of money in these funds. These errors went undetected by the state auditors, until this year. After Jennings reviewed all these matters, he discovered there is no money in these funds, and it will take an injection of $2.6 million of taxpayers' hard earned money to make these funds sound. This led Commissioner Samples to openly wonder why the County is in the self-insurance business at all. Clearly, the County has not been managing their self-insurance very well.
A $40,000 budget transfer from the Civil Defense department to the Sheriff's department was discussed. It seems that the head of the Civil Defense department is a former Sheriff's deputy. He told the Commission he wanted the budget for his salary to be transferred to the Sheriff's department. He said this was necessary so that he could maintain his POST certification. He also said he would somehow continue to report to the Mayor, even though he would now be paid by the Sheriff. This sets a terrible precedent. Having a person paid out of one group, but responsible to a different group is something most well-run organizations try to avoid like the plague. Who evaluates the employee's performance? Who does the employee take orders from - the person who pays him, or the person who he is supposed to report to? Even worse, changing organizational structures and budgets to suit the convenience of an employee, makes no sense at all. Despite all these problems, the Commission voted to take this matter up at the Commission meeting. I was the only dissenting vote.
Commission Meeting 12/16/2010 – Canceled
The Courthouse was closed due to weather on Monday, December 13 and Thursday December 16. This resulted in the cancellation of the Commission meeting. If we are to address the pressing financial issues facing us, we certainly need to find a greater sense of urgency.
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