02/02/2005: "A Little Dust-Up At The BOCC"

John Shannon
At the regular scheduled 1:30 P.M Tuesday meeting of the BOCC with the Public Works Director, regarding the County Facilities Budget, there was some -shall we say- disagreement, as to what was done by whom, and when, and who is going to empty the wastepaper baskets. And if there is a need to have more workers to, for example, dust the cobwebs, or empty the wastepaper cans in the Court house, then some cuts will have to be made in other areas.

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Jon Shannon, the Public Works Director, presented the state of the current budget to the BOCC as being inadequate to effectively complete the descriptions of tasks and obligations listed in it. This was in some ways a repeat of his comments during the original budget workshops, to the extent that he had stated then that he could not meet all of the expectations of the BOCC with the funding that was available. The main topic was the expenses of the County Facilities Operating Fund. His suggestion was to be creative in how we operate, and that a new integrated budget using and Internal Service Fund be adopted that would allow his department to “sell” their services to the other departments. This would in effect provide him with “additional” funding He then laid the blame for the problems squarely on the past BOCC. He stated that there “simply is not enough money to provide the services the previous BOCC wanted”. This brought a quick response from Commissioner Miller, the only surviving member of the past BOCC. Miller stated Mr. Shannon “misrepresented” what had happened in the budget process, in that the original amounts used for the line items in the budget were not a presented budget that was cut, but a draft budget, or a “wish list”, and the BOCC had asked the departments to make the cuts out of this wish list they felt were appropriate to meet the total amount of money that was anticipated to be available to the county. She pointed out that it was the departments that decided what areas were to be reduced or cut, and not the BOCC. Mr. Shannon then took issue with Commissioner Rhea’s history lesson by stating he “did not make all the decisions “ in the budget cuts, that Si Stevens (the County Auditor) was involved in making cuts in his Public Works budget. Si, in turn informed the Commissioners that his only involvement in Mr. Shannon’s budget cuts was to make sure enough money was left in to pay for the county’s utility bills for the year (Apx $76,000.00).

The meeting then moved on to the complaints being made about the cleanliness of the Court House, and the lack of adequate staffing to do the work. Mr. Shannon repeatedly noted the lack of money in his budget may mean that wastepaper baskets may not be emptied as often as they should be. He also stated his concerns that there were times when only one person was able to be assigned to a task, and this meant that there could be situations where there was one person on top of a ladder without a second person to hold the bottom of the ladder. The discussion was then expanded by the Court Clerk who pointed out the Court House carpets were in such a worn condition that duct tape was used over the numerous tears, and they had gotten to a state where they could not even be cleaned.

Commissioner Lichter stated he “takes John’s word that we don’t have enough money; lets find a little money for John”. Commissioner Ranker agreed with Lichter, but said “another issue is the ongoing neglect that we need to address, but I don’t know what to cut”. Commissioner Miller suggested that Commissioner Lichter, as the liaison from the BOCC to Public Works solve this problem by coming up with the money he suggested we give Jon, by evaluating what can be cut out of the existing budget, and reporting back to the BOCC. There was no discussion about any potential ramifications resulting from moving funds from one line item on the budget to another line item.