County: New budget gap on top of $68 million shortfall

2009-09-17T03:15:43Z

On top of its current $68 million shortfall, Sacramento County has a new $8.1 million budget gap from falling sales tax revenues, Sacramento County officials told the Board of Supervisors Wednesday.

The new budget gap means that layoffs — in addition to the 382 currently proposed — are a definite possibility, which is unfortunate, said County Executive Terry Schutten in response to a question from The Sacramento Press.

The Board of Supervisors was scheduled to make final decisions today to balance its 2009/2010 budget. However, the situation changed in light of new information that the county’s sales tax revenues are plummeting again. The board now plans to make its final budget decisions on Tuesday.

Planned budget cuts include the 382 layoffs and shortened work schedules for about 7,000 employees, according to the most recently updated information available Wednesday from county spokesman Zeke Holst.

Schutten said that county executives met on Monday and nearly balanced the supervisors’ final budget priorities.

“However, at 4:45 p.m. ... on Monday afternoon, our chief operating officer received notification from our tax consultant that, for the last quarter, our sales tax were down 26 percent. And for the entire year-to-year, our drop was approximately 14 percent,” Schutten told the supervisors.

Those figures create a $4.1 million gap, he explained. The county lost another $4 million in revenues from sales taxes that are collected statewide and then delivered to local governments for public safety programs, Schutten said. The loss of the sales tax money that goes to public safety programs will affect the Sacramento County Sheriff’s Department, Probation Department and District Attorney’s office.

Meanwhile, the vice chair of United Public Employees Local 1 told the supervisors that the union would make concessions on retirement benefits if the county drops its proposal to shorten the work schedules for about 7,000 employees represented by unions.

“As a show of good faith yesterday, UPE is willing to defer the Retiree Health Savings Plan accounts that we have, which potentially saves the county millions of dollars," said Beverly Kearney, vice chair of UPE Local 1. "We’re hoping that this will save jobs and mitigate layoffs.”

But Schutten told The Sacramento Press after the board meeting that UPE’s proposal would not garner the savings the county needs. UPE’s “main concern was the retirement health care account, and that’s for $8 million,” Schutten said. "Of that $8 million, only $1.9 million is local dollars. So it’s not near enough to cover the shortfalls that we have. It was a good suggestion. We certainly appreciate it, and look forward to working with them.”

Photo of Supervisor Roger Dickinson by Kati Garner.

Photo of presentation on sales tax by Anthony Bento.

Kathleen Haley is a staff reporter for The Sacramento Press.

Newest articles on The Sacramento Press tagged as "beverly kearney"

County: New budget gap on top of $68 million shortfall