Lucas County officials aim to cut budget by $10 million in three years

Dec. 10--Lucas County commissioners last year called the 2019 budget the toughest they'd seen in a long time, but financial projections show there will be even more belt-tightening in the next three years.

The commissioners unanimously approved a $153.3 million 2020 general fund budget on Tuesday, but not before discussing a plan to reduce expenditures by $10 million by the end of 2022. Officials plan to leave 30 open positions unfilled in 2020 and work to identify other areas to cut costs while trying to avoid future layoffs.

"This is the beginning of three years of very significant reductions that have been imposed on us by the state of Ohio," County Administrator Megan Vahey Casiere said while presenting the county's budget proposal to commissioners.

She is referring to changes to the sales tax. During the recession, the state gave every county the ability to collect sales tax from managed health care organizations, Ms. Casiere said. But that ended in 2017 and caused Lucas County to lose about $10 million in general fund revenue they previously counted on.

"A few years ago it was removed in one fell swoop, essentially creating a hole in our budget of $10 million," she said.

The state did give Lucas County about $9.3 million in 2018 to help offset the loss, a figure that county officials are spreading out through 2022 to try to ease the pain of the cuts they say they have to make.

"We couldn't take $10 million in one hit. It would have been unsustainable," Ms. Casiere said. "So each of the next three years we have to address this shortfall so that we have a permanent reduction in our budget by at least $10 million. That is significant."

General fund expenditures are up about $2 million from 2019's general fund budget of $151.3 million, which Budget Director Kelleigh Decker attributed to $1.5 million in additional health insurance costs and a $600,000 expenditure for new voting machines.

Sales tax collections still make up the bulk of the county's general fund revenue, and officials predict they'll take in about $99.9 million in 2020. That brings the total projected revenues to about $152.8 million, about $600,000 shy of expenditures.

Commissioners will need to dip into the county's rainy day funds to cover that gap and balance the budget, but Lucas County's reserves will remain at about $23.2 million -- adhering to the county's policy of maintaining 15 percent of the general fund's revenue in savings.

"It's a caution to us when we have to go into reserves to balance our budget," Commissioner Pete Gerken said.

The general fund is in addition to a $628.7 million spending plan that funds operations for county offices, agencies, and law enforcement.

The 2020 projections are up drastically from the $483.8 million non-general fund budget in 2019, but Ms. Decker said the increase is a bit artificial because of the county's conversion to a new budgeting system next year. Several county projects have existing purchase orders in the old budget system that need to be re-entered into the new one, and therefore some expenditures are double-counted.

The commissioners also approved a slim 2020 capital improvement plan that includes $800,000 for emergency improvements and administrative costs.

Ms. Wozniak said the austere budget doesn't mean they're backing off capital plans already under way, such as building a new dog shelter and combining the county's Job & Family Services, Child Support Enforcement Agency, and OhioMeansJobs offices into one location.

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