SNOW HILL — Greene County’s last audit was not the first time its commissioners and county manager had heard the reserved funds were being siphoned away.
For two years prior, the county’s auditor, Jay Parris of Barrow, Parris and Davenport in Kinston, had warned the board they were spending more than they were taking in.
Still, none of the five commissioners imagined the 2011-12 budget would be $1.6 million short, nor the current budget also be laden with omissions and revenue overages.
“I think we did not realize we were going down the direction that we were going,” Commissioner Bennie Heath said, “… I was presented a budget that I thought was a solid budget — that was balanced.”
Commissioners James Shackleford and Denny Garner said part of the problem was a lack of property tax increases for several years, while county expenses rose.
“Nobody wants to raise taxes unless they have to,” Shackleford said, “but sometimes not raising taxes can cause you more problems than raising taxes.”
The county hasn’t raised property taxes since 2008 when it increased from .746 to .756 per $100 of property value.
Garner said taxes should have been raised incrementally over time, but he and other commissioners had told then-county manager, Don Davenport, not to raise the taxes after the citizens protested over a proposed 5.4 percent increase.
Heath had told the audience at a public meeting in June the board would probably pass an interim budget to give time in July to study the budget further. But instead, it was passed in “the closet.”
Interim County Manager Richard Hicks, as well as others, said the problems didn’t happen suddenly. Hicks was hired after Davenport retired in December.
“I think it was more of a long-term problem,” Hicks said, “where they just kept anticipating the revenues.”
The budget was passed with the commissioners knowing it was partially based on funds that were not guaranteed — federal inmate rental fees at the jail that never materialized and the quarter-cent tax that wasn’t voted on until November.
“We felt like that, you know, that we could go ahead and pass it without doing an interim budget,” Garner said. “But, in hindsight — you know hindsight is 20/20 — that’s probably what we should have done.”
Chairman Jack Edmondson said getting the budget late in the fiscal year was part of the problem. When some citizens became angry over the quickly-approved budget, the board held a workshop in July to look at additional cuts.
“We only had one workshop,” Edmondson said, “and cut a few items, but we didn’t cut no ways near enough.”
He said another problem was not performing routine maintenance for county facilities and then paying more for it later.
“We didn’t maintain the courthouse,” he said, “and look at the expense we had to go through to get it back in shape and we’ve still not fully solved the moisture problem there.”
Snow Hill resident Carolyn Newcomb said lack of oversight, transparency, financial accuracy and long-term planning, as well as mismanagement, are what caused the county’s problems.
Jody Tyson, an Arba resident, cited lack of management, poor oversight, inaccurate data and an unresponsive board contributed to the crisis.
“The majority of the county commissioners sat at a table all summer,” he said, “when citizens repeatedly expressed concerns and questions and they didn’t respond, nor reply, nor, frankly, seem concerned enough to even investigate the factual concerns that were placed before them.”
Several residents said the only commissioner who has stepped up to the plate is Edmondson, who from the beginning of the crisis informed a group of citizens of the problems, brought them his copy of the budget to study line by line and later, when employee cuts were made, gave up the remainder of his travel and commissioners’ stipend — $435.80 plus $150 for travel each month.
A couple of months later, the rest of the board gave up their $100-per-month travel pay, but not their regular stipend.
Garner said last week he had told Hicks he would take the 4.61 percent furlough with the rest of the employees — that equates to $17.42 out of $377.92 each month.
Margaret Fisher can be reached at 252-559-1082 or Margaret.Fisher@Kinston.com. Follow her on Twitter @MargaretFishr.