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| 1/12/2010 8:00:00 AM | Email this article • Print this article | County leaders hope to start budget prep
Even through the new calendar year has just begun, Williamson County officials are starting to prepare for the county's new budget year - which starts Oct. 1.
Budget Officer Ashlie Koenig said elected officials and department heads have joined her in expressing a desire to get an earlier start on the 2010-11 budget.
"I'm just looking for some direction as far as the process," Koenig said, recalling County Judge Dan Gattis and the county's four commissioners made several last-minute additions and cuts to the current budget, which they adopted last August.
As budget officer, Koenig doesn't set policy, but she does make recommendations and crunches the numbers for court members. She said the process will be easier this year if commissioners get an early start.
Last year's process earned the commissioner court a mild rebuke from County Auditor David Flores. After commissioners adopted the budget in late August, Flores cautioned them not to focus so much on year-to-year variations in revenues and expenses.
"I don't think any one budget year should be as agonizing as we've made this one," Flores said at the time. "This is just one year."
The county's continued growth provides another reason for getting an early start on the budget, Koenig said.
Williamson County is home to about 400,000 people and county government employs more than 1,500 people. The county's current budget is $200 million, funded by a tax rate of 48.9 cents per $100 assessed valuation.
With all that in mind, county government was scheduled to host its first budget workshop of 2010 at 1 p.m. Tuesday.
"The first [workshop] is really going to be kicking around ideas," Koenig said. "What are our priorities? Do we want to cut our budget? Are we going to raise the tax rate? What are we going to do?"
Tuesday's budget workshop was also scheduled to include an overview from Alvin Lankford, chief appraiser for the Williamson County Appraisal District.
Lankford could not be reached for comment, but Koenig said that during the past year fewer new commercial properties have been added to the county's tax roll.
"The biggest thing I think we are going to see [with property values] is in the commercial," she said. "If their value goes down, residential picks it up. But usually that's our windfall each year - new commercial property that comes on the rolls. I don't know that we're going to see that this year."
Koenig said it is far too early in the process to know if commissioners will be granting employee raises in the fiscal year ahead.
Last August commissioners approved $240,000 in raises for non-elected law enforcement officials, but stopped short of adopting the $905,000 "pay for performance" plan Gattis had favored for other employees.
Koenig said that for the current fiscal year the biggest budget variable was county-funded health insurance premiums for its employees. Higher premiums added $2 million to the budget and represented a 22 percent increase from fiscal 2008-09.
"Health care is always an issue," Koenig said. "It only takes a few large claims to bust your budget."
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