The county took numerous steps to mitigate the impact on its bottom line, including reducing contributions to outside agencies, freezing new hires, instituting furloughs and holding off on previously scheduled capital projects.
It also, through the health department, has kept a close eye on coronavirus positivity rates and has been diligent in the testing and (now) vaccinating of its residents.
As a result of these measures, county leaders have learned that the Office of the New York State Comptroller Thomas P. DiNapoli gave a passing grade to Genesee County’s strategic planning in an “Adequacy of 2021 Budgets” review released earlier this week.
The report’s “key finding” was that county officials adequately assessed the impact of the pandemic on financial operations while developing estimates for significant expenditures in the 2021 adopted budget.
Going forward, the review’s recommendation can be boiled down to “keep doing what you’ve been doing," as follows:
In consideration of the continually new and evolving impacts caused by the pandemic, County officials should carefully monitor their budgeted-to-actual revenues and expenditures and make amendments to the budget as needed throughout the year.
County Manager Matt Landers (photo at right), said he and his staff, in concert with the Genesee County Legislature, took a “commonsense approach” to preparing the 2021 budget – recognizing early that things were going to be much different as the coronavirus pandemic took hold and analyzing any and all data and information to make educated decisions.
“Genesee County put together the 2021 budget using honest, conservative and realistic estimates,” he said. “We are happy to see that the Comptroller’s Office agreed with our process, and agree that we must continue to monitor the actual results in 2021 as compared with our budget, which is something we do every year.
“The county took very conservative cost-cutting measures in 2020 leading up to the 2021 budget, including instituting a hiring freeze, furloughing county employees and putting off capital projects. These proactive 2020 moves put us into a better position to weather the difficult 2021 budget."
County Legislature Chair Rochelle Stein also said the conservative approach worked well in finalizing a $143,712,993 overall budget ($110,276,137 general budget) and reaching a property tax rate of $9.80 per thousand of assessed value – 31 cents less than the 2020 tax rate. About $2.4 million was appropriated from the county’s fund balance to balance the budget.
“The strategy that Matt and the legislature employed was one of very clear, concise and transparent communication,” Stein said. “Matt has provided to the legislature, in his reports and updates during that budget process, every piece of information that we could glean from the New York State Association of Counties, Office of the State Comptroller, daily conversations that the governor held – every place that we could possibly pull information from – along with all of our department heads and outside agencies.”
Stein said she is “proud” of the job that Landers, his team, department heads and outside agencies did in putting the budget together “because we used the best information that we could possibly have at that time.”
Landers said the county continues to face challenges as it deals with circumstances and situations coming out of the pandemic.
“We are bracing for additional state budget cost shifts as we work on Phase 3 Water Project to ensure water supply keeps up with demand and as we seek to fund the new county jail,” he said.
The Office of the Comptroller selected 20 municipal governments in New York for budget reviews, noting it sought to understand how municipalities worked through difficult times and understanding that the pandemic affected local governments at different levels.
Click here to read the full review.
