Loading...
HomeMy WebLinkAbout1975-01-06 RM Exhibitsx DISCUSSION OF POLICY FOR 1975/1976 BUDGET Chm Davis It is my feeling as I put down in my letter of December 10 that, if we're going to have a budget policy at which we want to hold down taxes this year or hold down the cost of government, I think that now is the time that we advise Department Heads our feeling on capital expenditures, on additional personnel, or the type of raises we'll tolerate, the number of raises we'll tolerate I think now is the time that we should make our feelings known so that the budget battles can be worked out before they get to us In other words, what I'm saying, when the budget is printed and comes to us, I would like to see it cut by the people who know how to cut it and more or less held back on a departmental level rather than have us in half an hour when it takes a man (what would you say it takes? Two or three weeks to put up a budget per department head?) and we give him 30 minutes and chop here and chop there and I think if we'll more or less let them know what we want and what we expect, we'll have a better opportunity of getting it and they will know what to expect when they get here Comm Vaughan That's the County Manager's job You don't want to be writing the Department Heads if that's the same letter you're referring to We wouldn't any of us wanting to be writing the Department Heads We'd be in the same way as another government here Comm O'Shields Well I think Peter, his idea, is more directed maybe for Dan, for the Department Heads a policy, guideline, if you want to call it that Chm Davis I've been through two budget sessions with Mr Vaughan and Mrs Wright and Buck sat through one last year and he knows what goes on, the time it takes, the amount of fighting, and I just think a lot of it could be stopped if we let Dan know our feelings and if we take a public stand and let the Department Heads or who else know Comm Vaughan If he doesn't know my feelings, I'd like to have him fired right now I voted ten to one last year for cutting it, and for every one you voted for cutting, I voted for ten Is this a change of policy on your part or what is it? Chm Davis It's a change of policy that the budget cuts should be done in the planning stage of it, Mike, and not by just recklessly saying, "Well they don't need that or they don't this!" Comm Wright I don't believe you're being very realistic when you say it's a change of policy because,even if you tell them that you want everything cut to the bone before it gets here, you're still going to go through it line by line because that's your job, and there's no way to get around that Chm Davis All right, the personnel policy says that we can, for instance, give up to, give raises to 60 percent of the personnel Possibly we might want to hold that back to 40 percent merit raises this year, 50 percent We might want to right now say that we're going to only give a 5 percent cost-of-living raise to those people over $15,000 and for those who are making less than $15,000, may get a 7 5 percent cost-of-living raise Comm Vaughan I wouldn't agree to that under any circumstances I think you've expressed that several times Just because a man is good enough to get a high pay, we don't give him as much raise as somebody else? That's a way to really set your morale down in the County when you tell your Department Heads that they're not worth as much raise as the others DISCUSSION OF POLICY FOR 1975/1976 BUDGET Page 2 Chm Davis Well, there are two ways to look at raises, Mike One of them is an absolute dollar raise, and the other is a percentage raise And I think when you give a man a thousand dollar raise, you say, "Gee, we're giving you a thousand dollar raise," I think he takes it as that And when you take another man further down the line and say, "We're going to give you a three hundred dollar raise," the top guy gets $700 more, three times as much But if the percentage is different! I mean you can look at it all sorts of ways I don't think there's any iron-clad Comm Vaughan The bottom guy gets 20 percent of his taken out by the government, the top guy takes 40 percent of his out Chm Davis That's not usually the case, and you know it Comm Vaughan Why? A man that gets $20,000 pays about 40 percent to the govern- ment, don't you? Chm Davis uh uh It's 34 percent, $50,000 rates 34 percent Comm Vaughan Let me ask you this, Peter If somebody could make a rule that you couldn't sell but, you had a real estate company and you had two people working for you and say they ordinarily sold five houses and you sold ten houses, and now somebody made a rule that they could sell seven but you couldn't sell but eleven, do you think that would be fair? Chm Davis Mike, that's not the same thing Two years ago, we gave a 5 percent cost-of-living raise Last year we gave a 7 5 percent raise If you remember, we saw some top echelon people get raises of around 25 percent Comm Vaughan I was proud that they were good enough people to deserve it Comm Wright I really think this is something that's not going to accomplish anything today Could we move on to another item? Comm. O'Shields I think the biggest thing in the budget would be capital expense items Comm Wright No it's not, it's your schools They take about 2/3 of the whole County budget, and if you're not willing to cut there, you might as well not worry about the rest of it That's really why I think you're wasting your time today worrying about this because nobody will cut the schools Comm Vaughan I would have, Mrs Wright Comm Wright I know you I except you from that Comm Vaughan But the other three people here last year, the School Board just snowed them completely They voted for everything they wanted Chm Davis Do I take this then, Mrs Wright, that you will accept the budget next year as it comes in and not feel like any changes are due? DISCUSSION OF POLICY FOR 1975/1976 BUDGET Page 3 Comm Wright You haven't listened I made a whole bunch of motions, to cut in a whole bunch of areas this year that you didn't support That's why I think your setting a policy does not mean what the paper's written on because you won't stick by that policy It depends on who's sitting on the other side of the table making the request as to whether they get questioned or whether they get cut And it will be that way again this year regardless That was proved last meeting when we had another outfit to come here for donation Chm Davis Vivian, you have got to take each situation on its own merit Comm Wright That's why I say it's no good to discuss it today because we've got to go through it at budget time Comm Vaughan I think that's just what she said She said that whoever is sitting over there is going to determine how you vote on the budget That's what happened last year Chm Davis I think it is totally unfair for us not to give our Department Heads or our County Manager some direction to take in the budget this year, and this year when the budget comes in just cut it up helter-skelter without any regard to what they're asking Comm Wright I think that our Manager knows that we want it cut as much as possible and he'll do as good with that as he can, and when it comes to us, we'll do a little more hopefully He knows we don't want to throw away money and raise the tax rate unnecessarily Chm Davis Is it the feeling of this Board then that we should not offer any guidelines on the 75/76 budget to the County Manager Comm Wright I can offer you my guidelines for it Chm Davis Well, that's what I asked for Would you give them to me? Comm Wright Sure would I think in cases where you have charitable sorts of groups coming before the County that you ought to consider whether their request is a proper function of government before you put them in the County budget I don't think just because they're a good outfit that they ought to be automatically included and that we ought to force people to pay taxes to support them In cases where it's County Departments, I think they ought to realize that the taxes we set they've got to pay too, and they ought to be willing to cut a little bit where it's possible I think our Board ought to be more responsible in trying to cut and they shouldn't let themselves get snowed They ought to study everything as thoroughly as possible, and they shouldn't back down just because somebody's sitting over there staring at them Now that happens too often You know you're right and you ought to cut it, but you won't Chm Davis Would you like the Chairman then to write a letter saying that due to the economic situation that we're asking these agencies that we contribute to to hold this back? DISCUSSION OF POLICY FOR 1975/1976 BUDGET Page 4 Comm Wright I don't see any use in writing and telling these to hold it back when you're adding new ones in That's why I tore up your letter at the last meeting because I figured it wasn't worth anything And I'm going to bring it up to you at the next meeting when you bring up your tree program again Chm Davis Vivian, I love your attitude Comm Wright I'm just trying to make you remember what you said, Peter, and I'd like to have this discussion included in the record please Chm Davis Vivian, I know what I say Comm Vaughan Why have you got a sudden change of heart about economy in government? Chm Davis I've never had a change in heart It's the same attitude I've had the whole time It is a responsible attitude, Mike You just can't run pell-well, helter-skelter down a path through a budget Comm Vaughan We did that last year Chm Davis Yes, we did and a lot of cuts I can remember you and Mrs Wright didn't even want to approve decent urinals for the schools Comm Wright Now, Peter, that is an exagggeration They had those items included in the bond issue, they had them included in the regular budget, they had them disguised everywhere imaginable And you wouldn't support the change in the thing Comm Vaughan You couldn`t see through it You didn't even find out that they didn't have a two-column budget there until half-way through when somebody told you Chm Davis Mike, that's completely incorrect, and we know it Comm Wright You take the item that they had, they included extra lights for the Chestnut Street School gymnasium They said it wasn't lit well enough They had a problem, they just had to have these lights Well it so happens I went to Chestnut Street when it was first built, and we didn't have a single problem with the lights they had back then in '46 Chm Davis Well people used to use candles to read with, Vivian, do you think the schools should be lit by candles? Comm Wright There were plenty of lights in there, we had nighttime affairs, there were no problems But now all of a sudden they've got to have an extra $900 worth of lights Comm Vaughan How about the water coolers? There was $18,000 in there for water coolers, it takes about three people to operate them, why do these kids have to have ice water? I didn't have it when I grew up, and it doesn't do me any good to have it right now DISCUSSION OF POLICY FOR 1975/1976 BUDGET Page 5 Chm Davis Mike, you didn't have the medicine back in your day, you didn't have the automobiles, you didn't have the roads, you can't compare Comm Vaughan At the time when there's a shortage of energy, why in the world did we spend all that money? Comm Alper Mr Chairman, this us nowhere I'm quite sure that you're going to be very ale enough water in there for you to you're going to stop them It's is a fruitless, time consuming discussion getting that if you send a letter to the Department Heads rt when it comes to budget time, they'll put in be alert and to squeeze I don't know how on earth a natural thing Comm Vaughan I move that by common consent we tell the County Manager to try to submit a reasonably tight budget during the coming year Chm Davis I'll make a substitute motion that would encompass that and also that the County Manager Comm Vaughan This was common consent, you have to vote it down If it doesn't pass, well then your motion Chm Davis Well, it's not a common consent Chm Davis I would move that the County Manager write the Department Heads and advise them of the feelings of the County Commissioners that this year expenses should be held back wherever possible Do I have a second to that? Comm O'Shields It's the same thing as the common consent Chm Davis No, his didn't have a letter Comm O'Shields This is just the fact that the Manager Comm. Vaughan Don't tell him how to run his business He's a good Manager If he doesn't do his job right, we'll fire him Comm Wright Let's move to Item 22 Comm O'Shields Will you change that, Mike, for the common consent to include a directive to Mr Eller Comm Vaughan No, I think he knows how to run his business We ought not tell him how to do it Chm Davis Mike, I don't want to hear you and Vivian moaning about the budget this year when it's up Comm Vaughan Did you notice how many motels had their literature in the Chamber of Commerce mailing? Chm Davis I'm not a member of the Chamber of Commerce, Mike Comm Vaughan Well you had it come to you as a County Commissioner, my friend, don't use that excuse End of Discussion