This is Part 1 of a four-part series to recap and understand what went wrong with Greene County’s financial state. Coming Monday: How did it get so bad?
SNOW HILL — Greene County is teetering on financial disaster.
Just three cities and one water and sewer district in North Carolina have had their financial records taken over by the state’s Local Government Commission since it was created in 1931, according to pewstates.org.
It could happen to Greene.
Interim County Manager Richard Hicks said he would give Greene County a 10 on a scale of one to 10, with 10 being the worst financial situation.
Former county manager Don Davenport presented to the Board of Commissioners a budget in June with a 5.4 percent property tax increase.
Following citizen outcry, the board announced in June that the assistant county manager/economic developer’s position would be eliminated as of September to save $81,600. This would be the start of shaving down the $518,000 budget shortfall to avoid a tax increase. But further events began to unfold.
A Dec. 12 letter from Sharon Edmundson, director of the Fiscal Management Section of the State Treasury Office, stated, “Fund balance declined primarily because the county significantly over-estimated its revenues in the 2012 budget.”
Davenport took early retirement in December following the announcement the June 30 reserve fund balance was at 6.32 percent — below the 8 percent minimum to cover a month’s worth of expenses.
With the hiring of Hicks in January came numerous revelations of budgetary mistakes, and the finance officer, Shawna Wooten, resigned in February.
Out of 192 revenue accounts in the 2011-12 budget, 105 were overestimated to the tune of $2.67 million, but the under-budgeted expenditures offset it by $1.2 million, leaving a shortage of $1.6 million.
This year’s budget also included a slew of omissions and revenue overages. With Hicks making cuts and amendments, he said he hopes to get the current $700,000 shortage down below $300,000.
One recent omission was a $693,000 loan payment for the new intermediate school.
But a group of citizens say they knew back in June something was drastically wrong with the budget. A budget workshop — one of two held before the budget was passed — was held in what was termed by the group as “the closet,” a small office conference room.
“Following that meeting,” Arba resident Jody Tyson said, “the parody of answers that were given made a lot of people leave scratching their heads.”
There were more questions than answers.
Carolyn Newcomb of Snow Hill said the budget “numbers did not fit.”
Scuffleton resident Chuck Stokes agreed and added further insight.
“Things we were being told just weren’t adding up,” he said, “and (commissioners) tried to raise property taxes 5 cents and that was a pretty significant jump and they were trying to do it pretty quickly and they were having meetings, not necessarily in an open forum. I’m not going to say they were trying to avoid the public, but they definitely were on the fast track for a property tax increase.”
Snow Hill resident Laura Exum asked questions at numerous board meetings to a silent board and county manager, while referring to the “smoke and mirrors budget.”
Rather than answering citizens’ questions, Commissioner James Shackleford directed them to ask Davenport their questions, which brought out heated remarks from the public.
Susan Blizzard of Hookerton began to appeal to the board on behalf of the employees, who hadn’t received a raise in four years.
“If they continue on this path they’re on with the county employees,” she said about the commissioners, “they’re going to break (the employees’) backs and that is going to be a crisis.”
Commissioners said they were surprised by the budgetary revelations and didn’t know the fund balance was in critical shape until the December audit report.
“No, I did not think it would be this bad,” Commissioner Jack Edmondson said, “but then when you’ve got a jail payment of $517,000 and a new school at $693,000 — that’s a million-210 — you’ve got to set aside for those payments every year.”
Margaret Fisher can be reached at 252-559-1082 or Margaret.Fisher@Kinston.com. Follow her on Twitter @MargaretFishr.
GreeneCountyfiscal year 2012-2013 amendments
Budget line items Budget Actual Shortfall
Intermediate school loan 0 690,000 690,000
State inmate fee 360,000 140,000 220,000
Federal inmate fee 100,000 0 100,000
Ambulance fees 825,000 735,000 90,000
Justice Center loan 517,000 568,000 51,000
Quarter-cent tax 80,000 43,500 36,500
Tax-exempt status renewal 0 30,000 30,000