LAURINBURG — As it stood at this week’s recessed meeting of the Scotland County Board of Commissioners, the draft 2024-25 budget is at a $4.3 million shortfall.
“Right now, where we are, we need $4.3 million to balance the budget,” said County Manager April Snead.
According to the board chairman, this is normal however the county has its work cut out.
“I want to say first for everybody here listening, this is not unusual for us to have to at this point figure out what we need to do Tim Ivey said addressing the public. “This year is quite a bit more than normal but also this is the first year that we’ve had in quite a while we haven’t had those AARPA funds to fall back on and some of that’s the reasoning.”
“I don’t want everybody to think that we have a $4 million shortage … That doesn’t mean that everybody is going to get what they say they want. As a matter of fact, there’s probably a lot that probably won’t get what they say they want,” Ivey added.
At one point during the meeting, Commissioner John Alford charged the manager to go back to each department head to rethink what they could do without.
“Respectfully, Beth and I have already told the department heads to cut two times. They’ve cut 20% … We’re looking at real numbers before we would get to drastic means of what it would take to operate,” Snead said.
“So now we have to make the tough decisions, all the fat is gone. We’re getting down to the lean now,” Alford said.
While tackling the lopsided budget, commissioners questioned major line item increases in EMS, the Sheriff’s Office and Parks and Recreation. Also, notable was a significant increase in information technology monies due to the county hack.
“You’ll expect to see it go up next year then you will see it level back out,” Snead said about the IT, which is budgeted at about $500,000.
The Sheriff’s Office budget has increased by about $1 million.
“The increase for that is the offset with the ARPA dollars. The last two years we’ve been able to supplement salaries and benefits for the sheriff’s department … So that has, of course, gone away so we are now feeling the effects of the increase in payroll,” said Beth Hobbs, the county’s Finance director.
With EMS, the recrafting of the shifts within the department and the addition of two paramedic positions were causes for the increase in the EMS budget, Hobbs said. Plus, Snead noted that the department’s salaries were significantly under-budgeted last year for the current fiscal year.
“Last year, EMS, those salaries were under budget and so we’re having to make up some of that this year so you take into account they were under-budgeted last year which means it should’ve been higher anyway and now we’re adding two paramedic positions and fringe,” Snead said. “Overtime and part-time staff at EMS really, really cost.”
Snead pitched several ideas to diminish the shortfall like potentially freezing hiring on vacant positions and decreasing the non-essential part-time staff positions.
When Commissioner Darrel “BJ” Gibson questioned how essential and nonessential staff workers are determined, Snead said, “That’s subjective.”
“If I ask those departments, they’re going to say, ‘No, I can’t go without it,’ but we can’t have everything,” Snead said. “We cannot continue to operate where we are this year so we’re trying to look at ways that hurt the least I guess.”
Snead said this is possibly something Commissioners would decipher — what they consider essential and non-essential.
When searching for ways to increase the revenue, Commissioner Ivey said he believes the county is under-projecting sales tax revenue.
“We projected 10% last year and we met that number. I believe we’ll meet it again this year,” Ivey said.
In a pivot, Commissioner Alford told fellow board members they needed to reconsider the $10 million they agreed to allocate to Scotland County Schools. The board voted to agree to the allocation with Alford voting against it.
“We need to rethink that and go back to ‘em. We approved that prematurely … We don’t have that money … We can’t give them what we don’t have and that’s what we’re proposing to do,” Alford said.
Ivey asked Commissioner Darrel Gibson, a former school board member, for suggestions on how to approach the matter with the school board. Gibson said it would take a meet-up between both board’s chairmen.
“I just don’t even know if we have the time to meet again (as a board) and I just don’t know if I have the energy for our two boards to meet … I don’t know if it would be profitable,” Gibson said.
Alford pitched giving the school district $200,000 less than the $10 million agreed on.
“They can accept it or reject it … We don’t have it folks,” he said.
Commissioner Whit Gibson did not support the decrease because the board made a “gentleman’s agreement.”
“I think we made a commitment to the school system. Not y’all but those of us on the Liason Committee,” Whit Gibson said.
Commissioners discussed balancing the budget with the Fund Balance which has already dropped slightly below the board’s self-imposed limit of 15%.
“We’re like at 14.87%,” Hobbs said.
The Local Government Commission recommends a fund balance equal to an amount of at least 8% of expenditures.
Ivey recommended not using any more than $500,000 of the fund balance to balance the budget.
The county commissioners plan to present a balanced budget before the public on June 3. The budget must be approved by June 30 and go into effect on July 1.
“We’re going to wave a magic wand,” Ivey joked.
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