KINGMAN – The Mohave County Board of Supervisors approved the FY 2009-2010 Tentative Budget Monday, July 6, at the County Administration Building in Kingman.
A notice of public hearing was given that the Board intends to adopt the Final Fiscal Year 2009-2010 Budget on August 3. The Board will also hold a public hearing on that date to establish tax levy rates which will be adopted on August 17.
The total of Primary Property Taxes for the coming fiscal year is estimated to be $32 million. The county will have approximately $75.1 million in General Fund Expenditures from all revenues.
County Manager Ron Walker thanked the many county departments for “coming together …. (to) understand the realities from a financial standpoint. We did not budget to spend more than we will (generate) in revenues.” In spite of the hits from the state Legislature, “we will be able to live for another year, although we will be at a diminished capacity….”
“At this point, we appear to have dodged major bullets that we were concerned about with the state (Legislature’s) solution of their problems,” Deputy County Manager of Management Services John Timko said. “The (state) budget that has been approved, the part that has not been vetoed, does not include the (threatened) shift of county Vehicle License Tax revenues to fund state K-12 obligation. That would have been a $1 million-plus hit to our revenues. That was not in the version that is passed by the Legislature. What remains that will impact the county General Fund directly is the requirement that the county pay 100 percent for patients sent to the Arizona State Hospital.”
Timko explained that those increased costs will depend on the number of people sent and how long they are required to stay.
“We can’t really calculate that,” he said. “It depends on who comes through our Criminal Justice System.”
Prior to the meeting, Timko explained that Mohave County’s Criminal Justice System cost for the next fiscal year is estimated to be $41,620,000; a total of “130 percent of all property taxes for the year and 55 percent of our total General Fund.”
Due to the state’s budget, “Counties will pick up an addition 20 percent of Justice of the Peace salaries,” Timko said. “We are currently paying 61 percent of those salaries.” That will increase to a county cost of 81 percent, or $96,000 more for that item. “We plan to absorb that into the (county) budget.”
Another added cost to the county General Fund will be a 10 percent reduction of County Assistance Funds that come from the State Lottery, he said. “We have been receiving $550,000 a year from that.” The state will now keep $55,000 of that. “That is already incorporated in the staff recommendations and Tentative Budget.”
The county is also scheduled to “be hit $691,000 and some change” by the state from Mohave County Highway User Revenue Funds (HURF), Walker said.
There are no cost of living increases or merit raises for county employees in the budget, Walker said.
The Board voted two to one to approve the Tentative Budget. Supervisor Buster Johnson, Dist. 3, voted no. The Final Budget will come before the Board on August 3.
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