Budget Policies and Fiduciary Responsibilities
The head of the nail that Nevada County keeps missing: Balancing the budget and ensuring core services.
This post is in response to Nevada County’s SR 24-0241: Approval of the 2024/2025 proposed Budget Schedule and Policies, as discussed at the Board's January Workshop.
According to the 2024-2025 Budget Policies document, CEO Alison Lehman has a fiduciary duty to the public to make sure the budget is balanced (expenses not to exceed revenue) and, furthermore, to ensure the Core Services needs of the community are achieved from year to year.
Each year, "Fiscal Stability and the maintenance of the County's Core Services is at the core of our eight objectives," 2023-24 Adopted Budget.
Likewise, the Board of Supervisors also has a fiduciary duty to the public to ensure the budget is balanced and their yearly Objectives are achieved with measurable results.
In reading the 2024-2025 Budget Policies document, some belt-tightening will be necessary to provide the Core Services and meet Board Objectives. In Reviewing Budgets from the past six years, expenses have exceeded revenue. This needs an explanation.
The attached spreadsheet reveals that expenses exceeded revenue from FY 2018-2019 to FY 2023-2024. It reveals that executive staff salaries increased 42% during this time frame, while county employee salaries (including executive staff) increased by only 19%. It's apparent that county executive staff salaries show an unfair skimming of taxpayer funds that do not reflect value for work performed.
How are the CEO and the Board of Supervisors going to mitigate the unsustainable salaries of county employees when they represent 40% of the budget and in recent years have exceeded 45%? Surely, this extravagant and unjustified policy impinges on providing Core Services and accomplishing Objectives.
The Long-Term Forecast for 2024 to 2029: County General Fund Balance-Baseline Projection shows a projected reduction in the General Fund from $41.1 million to 31.5 million ($9.6 million). This reveals a concerning trajectory that must be corrected.
In order to address this problem, "The General Fund forecast looks at four possible scenarios that include different assumptions":
1) increased revenues
2) reduced expenses
3) both increased revenues and reduced expenses, or,
4) worst case scenario, reduced revenues and increased expenses.
With the potential of reduced State Revenue on the horizon, the health of the General Fund seems in jeopardy.
The public is curious as to how staff and the Board of Supervisors will bring the budget back into balance and possibly replenish the lost revenue from previous years. It does seem the taxpayer is due an explanation and a plan.
To the Supervisors:
I request that all future scheduled budget meetings be held in public in the Board of Supervisors's chambers and are video recorded for public access and transparency.
I also request that all meetings for salary negotiations with staff are similarly open to the public and video recorded. For the future, there has to be a 'realistic comparison' of salaries with counties of similar populations and budgets to Nevada County. Certainly, executive staff salaries should not exceed those of executive State employees.
Heidi Hall, et al.: Please respond to this request.
It is only by allowing complete transparency, participation, and feedback from the public that a balanced budget will be achieved.
Pauli Halstead
Nevada City