Almost every department head the county Board of Supervisors have talked with in budget discussions has described the stress caused by the hiring freeze.
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The new program calculates the numbers for property tax and that information will be passed on to the Treasurer’s Office for actual billing of property tax, he explained. The two departments’ software programs do not interact. So this year, the county will use the state department of revenue to generate the bills at a cost of $18,000 and then next year, move to the new process.
Though his department has many priorities, the 2011 appeals of property values by owners who disagree with assessments is the major one. Appeals have increased during the past few years, he said. There were 1,400 last year, but that number dropped in the current year to 900.
Another priority is getting new construction on the books so new valuations are properly recorded.
When asked by Supervisor Richard Searle if he had considered a one-time project for approval that was needed, Leinendecker replied, “Send more money.”
Leiendecker wants to fill two of the nine vacancies so that a person can be assigned to the new program and give a salary boost to his staff who are accepting more of a work load due to reduced staff. He’d also like to have several new laptops for field work so information can be entered on the spot.
Library district
County Library District Director Lise Gililand wants to expand the catalogue to include law books that are used by county attorneys and justices.
She also wants to increase bandwidth for faster exchange of information on the Internet.
Though the library service is funded through secondary property tax, Searle has been a proponent of reducing the tax rate since there has been a build-up of funds from year to year. Right now, the tax rate is $0.1451 per $100 of assessed value, which brings in more than $1.5 million a year.
Heavy fleet
Trying to gauge what the county will spend on diesel fuel to run the heavy equipment for the solid waste, highways and the book mobiles is not an easy task with fuel prices that seem to bounce around every day. But for heavy fleet, that cost is essential for adequate funding.
Ortega feels confident that setting $3.05 per gallon as the cost for annual consumption of 321,000 gallons is a safe bet. Last year, he budgeted $3.75 per gallon and ended up paying an average of $2.69.
There will be a slight reduction in fuel costs due to decreased transportation miles of hauling solid waste, according to Marty Haverty, solid waste directed.
However, the Highway and Floodplain Department puts heavy use on vehicles, tractors and the various tools like blades. In the 2008-2009 year, highways put about 30,000 hours on the heavy equipment; this year that has jumped to 44,000 hours.
Part of that increase was due to work done on the Airport Road project that involved eight miles of roadwork plus hauling over two months, Searle said. Crews also performed road improvements on Turkey Creek Road and other roads leading back to the Chiricahua Mountains that hadn’t seen maintenance in 10 years.
Tourism/economic development
With the state pulling back funding from tourism and economic development, staff had to cut the budgets in half to make ends meet. Ortega plans to meet with the cities in the county to discuss what direction to take in the future.
• County assessor
Revenues, $96,720
Expenditures, $1,949,254
• Heavy Fleet
Revenues, $2,767,205
Expenditures, $2,767,205
* Library District
Revenues, $2,393,869
Expenditures, $2,393,869
• Tourism
Revenues, $136,143
Expenses, $136,143
• Economic Development
Revenues, $32,798
Expenditures, $32,798
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