Assistant County Manager Matt Landers provided a snapshot of the current financial status of Genesee County government tonight and, although the complete picture has yet to develop, it does present a clear view that steps being taken in light of the COVID-19 pandemic are resulting in significant cost savings.
Speaking at the Genesee County Legislature’s Ways & Means videoconference meeting, Landers projected that the county will be $1.4 million on the plus side before any potential state aid and sales tax losses are considered.
“When you take into consideration about $800,000 on the departmental level and an additional $600,000 through various measures and means, we’re looking at possibly about $1.4 million to the good,” Landers said. “These are all pre-state cuts and pre-sales tax implications as well, and doesn’t have mortgage tax figured in – and that could be another $100,000 or so.”
Landers reported information received from department heads and County Treasurer Scott German as the basis for his forecast.
“In general, what got reported back to us … in essence, the savings on a departmental level are about $800,000 on their budgets through the course of the year and going forward, projecting out,” he said.
He said departmental revenues would decline by $1.5 to $1.6 million for the year, but expenses will be down about $2.4 million for the year – resulting in the $800,000 savings.
“A large chunk of that is the jail, which has significant savings,” he offered. “They’re looking at roughly a net savings of $370,000, primarily from not boarding out, medical savings, food savings. They budgeted boarding out males and females and, obviously, they’re not boarding anybody out.”
Beyond that, Landers said the county health department’s preschool (ages) 3-5 program will see a savings of $308,000 as schools have been closed. This program primarily consists of occupational therapy, physical therapy, speech and other programming.
Moreover, the county’s hiring freeze and furlough strategies are on track to produce savings of $236,000 and $160,000, respectively, he said.
Landers said that additional revenue is expected in tax foreclosure properties ($131,000), contingency costs not utilized ($35,000), forfeited bail ($25,000) and delaying of projects ($100,000), which more than offset losses in interest earnings ($100,000) and Western Regional Off-Track Betting revenue ($35,000).
“At this point in time, I’m happy to see that we’re a million-four to the good versus a million-four to the bad … but we’re really at a wait-and-see situation right now until we can really see what is going to happen with the state reimbursement on state aid, the sales tax money and (federal) stimulus four,” he said.
Landers also said that a fourth federal stimulus package to help states and local governments would make paint a much brighter picture for the county.
“If we receive a windfall of money to help offset our sales tax losses, the ripple effect is huge because that would also mean that the state is receiving something else,” he said. “And it would not need to give a pass-down, devastating state aid cut that could be from a couple million to seven or eight million dollars they could hit us with.”
County Manager Jay Gsell advised the committee that Gov. Andrew Cuomo has three state budget “measurement periods” at his disposal.
The first (the month of April) has already passed but an announcement is “imminent,” Gsell said, and the others are May 1 through June 30, and July 1 through the end of the year.
He said that negotiations are taking place at the federal level in regard to another stimulus package, expressing the opinion that the bill recently passed by the House of Representatives will not pass as presented.
“That does not look like that (HEROES Act) is going anywhere,” he said. “Our NYSAC (New York State Association of Counties) people last night were telling us that looks like it is strictly a negotiating standpoint, and not a viable piece of federal legislation.”
Gsell said if a bill that is acceptable to both the House and Senate does materialize it likely won’t happen until June.
In a related financial development, the committee forwarded a resolution authorizing County Treasurer Scott German to distribute mortgage tax money to the City of Batavia, towns and villages – an amount totaling $388,967.72 – as follows:
-- City of Batavia, $103,929.86;
-- Town of Alabama, $7,911.34;
-- Town of Alexander, $15,902.45;
-- Town of Batavia, $46,467.74;
-- Town of Bergen, $14,956.42;
-- Town of Bethany, $7,929.85;
-- Town of Byron, $18,118.73;
-- Town of Darien, $31,923.49;
-- Town of Elba, $9,388.03;
-- Town of Le Roy, $33,675.72;
-- Town of Oakfield, $13,118.74;
-- Town of Pavilion, $16,232.73;
-- Town of Pembroke, $31,468.05;
-- Town of Stafford, $18,986.41;
-- Village of Alexander, $1,649.66;
-- Village of Attica, $565.80;
-- Village of Bergen, $1,998.11;
-- Village of Elba, $1,154.38;
-- Village of Le Roy, $9,670.41;
-- Village of Oakfield, $2,021.87;
-- Village of Corfu, $1,897.
The total is more than $126,000 that was distributed as the first payment of 2019 and the most for the same time period in the last eight years.
