Sutter County facing layoffs for first time since 1993
Sutter County has been able to avoid confronting layoffs despite the recession — until now.
A budget the county proposes for the new fiscal year starting Thursday calls for dropping two employees and leaving 27 other positions unfilled amid sliding tax revenues and a yawning state budget gap.
The layoff plan, to be announced at today's Board of Supervisors meeting, would result in the county's first job cuts since 1993. It also proposes further drawing down the county's reserves, which officials have called a point of strength in the recession but have fallen from nearly $30 million to $17 million in the past year.
If current trends continue, reserve funds could last until 2013, according to Shawne Corley, the county's assistant administrative officer.
"One thing we're not banking on is a quick recovery or a full recovery," she said Monday. "We're trying to plan for the long haul, and things might even get worse before they get better." The two planned job cuts — which would take place Jan. 1 — would come from the county's animal control services, a casualty of the recession's effects on Yuba City. The city's budget outline announced in May allots only $375,000 for animal control expenses shared with the county and Live Oak, less than the $450,000 it earlier promised.
Public works and law enforcement would bear nearly half the weight of the job vacancies. Seven public works positions would remain dark in 2010-11, as well as those of three sheriff's deputies and three correctional officers.
But more ominous may be a shriveling tax base the county's chief executive warned could burn through a third of its reserves — at best.
Though that stockpile peaked a year ago at $30.95 million, "the Great Recession has been so deep, so prolonged, and has affected so many sectors of the economy that our revenues no longer cover our ongoing expenditures," County Administrative Officer Stephanie Larsen wrote.
Another $1.26 million in savings is needed to avoid taking more than a third of the available reserve funds, she added. Some $11.9 million of reserves are not already committed to other uses and are considered available for patching the budget.
Sutter County's general fund is expected to total $70.6 million in the 2011 fiscal year, part of the planned $251.5 million in expenditures.
A tentative recovery in California and the U.S. has failed to stop revenue collapses in the county, Larsen wrote. Total assessed property values are expected to drop 4.5 percent from fiscal 2010 levels, while the county's sales-tax take is set to drop by $1.15 million for the general fund and by $750,000 for public safety use.
Also, a $1.7 million million accounting gaffe discovered in April exposed financial woes even worse than previously known. The 18-month misallocation of tax money to the general fund — rather than into a transportation fund shared with other cities and counties — inflated Sutter County's revenue forecast by $2 million over two years and forced a 5.3 percent cut in the general fund prediction.
The financial pressure does not yet appear to match the grim outlook in Yuba County. Supervisors there last week accepted 37 layoffs and a 20 percent general fund cut in most departments as the price of closing a $10.6 million shortfall.
CONTACT Howard Yune at 749-4708 or hyune@appealdemocrat.com.
