Following are remarks by Mecklenburg County Commission Chair Jennifer Roberts, on the county’s fiscal 2010-11 budget. It’s an election year and her campaign circulated the remarks to supporters Wednesday morning via email.

Jennifer Roberts

This budget is the most difficult one I have faced in my 3 terms as a County Commissioner. These are extraordinary times. Following several years of rapid growth, where we built schools, libraries, and parks to meet the needs of a growing population, we faced a global economic crisis and declining revenues across the board: permit fees, real estate fees, interest income, and especially sales tax have all seen a steep decline.

This is the second year we are having to cut back on programs and employees. Last year we were able to protect most of our core services, but this year everyone will feel the shrinking of the County budget in one way or another. It is a budget that has been very painful to discuss, when we feel that most of our choices are not really choices but rather attempts to do the least harm.

We determined that it was critical to protect the taxpayer by not raising the property tax rate – this includes both property owners and renters – to prevent sending more property owners and homeowners into foreclosure or premature sales, further contributing to a downward spiral in property values, which would further decrease the tax base and require even more painful budget cuts in the future. We are just now seeing a modest increase in our home sales and values which we must continue to encourage. A small raise in the property tax rates would have exemplified what is meant by the phrase “Penny wise but pound foolish” – it would have lessened the cuts necessary in the short term but deepened the long term problem.

We have not been able, however, to protect all County employees, over 400 of whom will be let go; and those who stay with us will see no raises, no more 401(k) match, and increases in health care costs. We know we will lose many valuable employees because of this and nothing pains me more than to see these mission-driven, service-oriented professionals having to look for other employment.

The Board has worked hard to be fiscally conservative in an attempt to follow our debt and financial management policy, maintain our credit rating, and preserve money for operations. Early in the year we agreed to delay every capital project that is not essential, including new school construction and a new detention facility, to protect our debt policy. In this budget we are restoring money to our fund balance, required by the state and closely watched by the rating agencies, and have left our pay-as-you-go fund intact in order to cover essential capital expenditures like roof and HVAC replacements. We hope that this strict adherence to our policy will allow us to maintain a AAA credit rating even in the face of the high, double-digit unemployment our county and region still confront.

We also are directing our staff to work on finding more efficient ways to deliver service, and our private sector partners, our volunteers, and our government counterparts in the city, school system, and towns are working with us to find efficiencies and eliminate redundancies and overlap. We have not found the same level of collaboration with our counterparts at the state level, who have pushed many millions of dollars onto us even during the current fiscal year, and added to our deficits. But we recognize the challenges that the state also faces and will continue to stay in close communication with them. I have also been in closer contact with Washington and our Federal Government, and I am grateful for a number of grants and Economic Recovery Act funds that are coming to our county, and filling many gaps in our school system and our social safety net.

Some have said the Board is being too optimistic in projecting a 3 percent decline in sales tax instead of the 10 percent decline in sales tax originally recommended by the manager for FY11. We have done careful economic research, including a comparison to the budget projections of other counties and of the state, and believe that we continue to manage conservatively with this negative 3 percent sales-tax budget. Other counties I have contacted, both in our region and in other regions of the state, are budgeting between 0 and ½ percent growth for the coming year. The state of NC is projecting over 1 percent sales tax growth. A commissioner in Wake County told me that their projection of 0 percent growth was “extremely pessimistic” and “very conservative.” I believe our projection is as well. And even if it is wrong by 7 percent, then we will have the fund balance late next year to make up the difference if needed. The sales tax numbers received for March this year show that we have received an average of $12.7 million a month in FY10; our projections for FY11 are $11.6 million a month.

We have not changed the budget very much from the Manager’s recommendation. Indeed, $14 million of changes represent about 1 percent of our total budget. But the board did try to restore some funding to two areas that have received the bulk of the cuts, the Library system and the Park and Rec Department. We also restored $6 million to CMS, because education continues to be in our highest priority category, and we cannot mortgage the future of our workforce and our society by shortchanging our children. We can allow our parks to suffer some lesser maintenance, we can combine a few libraries and operate them more efficiently, but if we lose our students early in life because of lack of teachers, counselors, or support in our schools, we are not likely to get those children back – except perhaps in our jail cells. Our drop-out rate remains too high and this board wants to continue to work with CMS, the City, the business community and the non-profit sector to try to keep children in school until they earn their diplomas.

I support this budget with a heavy heart. There is much in it that I disagree with, and that I would have changed if I had been the only vote required. But I plan to support it in the spirit of compromise and in recognition that we all need to pitch in, own this decision, and work as hard as we can in the coming year to bring jobs to Mecklenburg County and to restore our financial base so that we can restore some of the services we will lose and re-configure others for their long term sustainability. We are making progress in a number of areas, creating green jobs and energy jobs, re-tooling and diversifying our industrial base, combining forces where possible with other local government entities, and continuing to win national awards for service and for innovation. We remain a great County to live in, and though there will be changes, we hope that we never lose sight of the heart that thrives in this community, of the future we are heading toward, and of who we really are.

Jennifer Roberts
PO Box 5243
Charlotte, NC 28299