County Budget 8-31-12

Published 12:00 am Friday, August 31, 2012

Projected deficits have hit-and-miss history in county


By Billy Davis

Panola County supervisors adjourned their fourth and final budget meeting Wednesday morning after viewing figures that projected a $176,095 shortfall for the upcoming 2012-2013 fiscal year.

At about the same time, the county’s general fund had shifted from black to red with a deficit of $258,046, with four more weeks to go until October 1 according to Kelley Magee, the county administrator.

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The Panola County Board of Supervisors is expected to approve its budget at its September 10 board meeting after a public hearing.

Panola County government has taken a beating in recent years, beginning with ballooning spending under David Chandler, the former county administrator. Chandler was blamed for deficit spending that climbed to $800,000 while Magee, his replacement, was credited for bringing down the figures.  

At about the same time the recession hit. Revenues for automobile tags and property taxes slowed to a trickle, and supervisors begged for department heads to cut their budgets and limit expenditures.

Then came 2012.

This year the culprit is the bankruptcy of electricity producer LSP Energy, which currently owes county government property taxes for 2011 and 2012 due in January, said Magee.

In the past couple of years the county administrator encouraged worried supervisors that LSP Energy would boost the struggling general fund government when the company’s tax exemption expired, landing it on the property tax rolls for the first time.

Then the company announced in February it had filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy.  

The Panolian has reported that South Mississippi Electric Power Association was the high bidder to purchase LSP Energy in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Delaware.

The winning bidder is a non-profit electric power cooperative, which is exempt from county taxes.

 Asked about the projected deficit for 2013, Magee said $3.6 million in cash reserves helped Panola

County last year and will do so this year if the county fails to collect its taxes from LSP Energy.

“We’re hoping they come up with the money,” Magee said flatly, hours after the final budget meeting.

It’s known in county government that Magee uses conservative figures to estimate revenues and expenditures, a practice that appears gloomy during budget meetings. But Panola County ended 2009 and 2010 with $234,000 and $240,000, respectively, in ending cash balance despite dire predictions.  

The 2010-2011 fiscal year didn’t end as well: Panola County finished the year approximately $338,000 in the red according to Magee’s own estimations, though the shortfall was expected to top $556,000.

At their Wednesday meeting, supervisors were eyeing a projected shortfall of $154,501 before they agreed to include a pay raise for part-time employees. That added approximately $21,000 to the projected shortfall.

First-term Supervisor Cole Flint was the lone holdout. The projected shortfall “has jumped $100,000 from where we were last week,” he said.

Other figures the Board of Supervisors had in front of it included:

•    $125,725 for hiring two sheriff’s deputies and one investigator
•    $103,055 for raises for full-time employees
•    $15,000 for Batesville Boys and Girls Club
•    $30,137 for a new hire in tax collector’s office
•    $12,728 to add two constables to county health insurance
•    $53,000 in cuts to the county jail budget, $44,000 cut from the sheriff’s budget, and $41,850 in cuts to the Civil Defense budget.