City, county face funding issues

City and county governments in 2009 face one issue above all others: budget constraints.

The city of Springfield faces budget impacts from numerous sides, according to City Manager Greg Burris, with lower-than-expected sales tax revenues being first and foremost.

Through its February collections, the city's sales tax revenue is down 1.87 percent to $25.3 million from the first eight months of fiscal 2008. Burris said those numbers are made more troubling by the fact that the city budgeted for 3 percent growth this year.

The sales tax shortfall is compounded by the Feb. 3 failure of the proposed 1-cent sales tax to bolster the city's Police and Fire Pension fund, Burris said.

If the numbers hold steady for the last four months of the fiscal year, which ends June 30, they will be very close to the worst-case budget scenario Burris presented to Springfield City Council in January.

That scenario assumed the proposed 1-cent tax would fail and sales tax revenue would drop by 1.5 percent in both fiscal '09 and fiscal '10. Under that scenario, the city would need to cut $5.75 million from its general revenue budget for next year, in addition to continuing $5.2 million in cuts already made this year, to meet the required actuarial pension contribution.

The new budget must be presented to council by May 1, a point Burris said is complicated by the fact that a new mayor and as many as three new council members will be elected in early April.

"We'll be doing a lot of work with council to orient them not only to the city but to the budget, the budget process and the economic condition of the city," Burris said. "In terms of economic outlook, those are the gorillas in the room."

Burris hopes, however, that Springfield's tendency to be resilient during rough economic spots will continue throughout 2009; he notes that the city will keep up its efforts to promote economic development, "because that equates to jobs and sales tax revenue."

"We're not shutting down the city," Burris added. "We're continuing to move forward."

County concerns

The outlook is a little brighter for Greene County, according to Presiding Commissioner Dave Coonrod.

While the county's sales tax total was down 2.3 percent to $23.2 million in 2008, Coonrod said the setback has not forced the county to cut employees or benefits.

"We couldn't give any pay raises this year, although we did give a 3 percent across-the-board pay raise last year," Coonrod said. "Our employees know that we're going to do our best to not lay anyone off."

The county's biggest issue for 2009, as it has been for several years, is funding its criminal justice system, from the county jail and sheriff's department to public defenders, prosecutors and juvenile justice.

The main problem, Coonrod said, is insufficient funding from the state for services the county provides, such as housing more than 400 state prisoners in the county jail on average daily.

"For example, it costs us about $48 a day to keep a state prisoner, which is mainly what we have in the county jail - we have about 100 federal prisoners, but by and large our population is state offenders," Coonrod said, noting that the state now pays the county just $22 a day per state prisoner to cover those costs.

Coonrod said the county has lost more than $1.5 million in the last seven years due to underfunding from the state.

"We've made our legislators aware of this, but they just shrug their shoulders and say they have budget problems of their own," he said.

"It's been going on and on like this for years; enough is enough."

The other big concern for the county is water supply. While Coonrod said the Springfield urban service area has plenty of water from its reservoirs at Fellows and McDaniel lakes, the rest of the county and the region depends on ground water.

"A study by the U.S. Geological Survey and the (Army) Corps of Engineers shows a considerable depletion of our water table," Coonrod said. "That's something that could sneak up on us if we're not careful."

Coonrod said a county committee is looking into solutions for the issue, which will likely include a combination of increased conservation efforts and water-sharing agreements with surrounding areas.[[In-content Ad]]