These county departments may not get all the funding they hope for. Commissioners could grant their wishes
Manatee County department heads laid out their prospective budgets for next year and defended their wishes Tuesday, giving county commissioners the opportunity to flag certain items for further inspection as budget discussions continue.
Six departments were unscathed as County Administrator Ed Hunzeker looked for ways to trim the fat in the recommended operating budgets. This means the following departments had all of their "desired," "continuation" or "base" asks funded: county attorney, financial management, human resources, convention and visitors bureau, building and development services and county administration.
Hunzeker had previously noted that not everyone would be happy with unfunded programs. This county department review did not include capital improvement projects.
From greatest to least, listed below are the departments that had requests recommended as unfunded in this part of the budget process:
▪ Public works: $18,488,108
▪ Property management: $1,410,356
▪ Parks and natural resources: $1,312,255
▪ Neighborhood services: $1,222,904
▪ Public safety: $1,199,301
▪ Information technology: $507,326
▪ Redevelopment and economic opportunity: $11,000
Department heads Tuesday generally said they were grateful for what Hunzeker had decided to fund. For some departments, the ability to flag certain unfunded programs, which needed a "friend" on the board to approve, gave county commissioners the chance to give a second chance to unfunded programs.
The public works department by far had the largest cache of unfunded programs, the majority of the high-dollar cuts residing in the stormwater management and operations section. Commissioners were caught by surprise.
"I am concerned about the cleaning out of the ditches and so forth," Commissioner Vanessa Baugh said, recalling the August 2017 storm that caused flooding in a few south county neighborhoods. "It's a necessity."
Rather than flag these programs, Hunzeker noted that a stormwater fee was in the works to be presented to the board later this year. If passed, which means a fee would be added to residents' utility bills, it could mean a fund of $18 million just for stormwater-related projects.
Commissioners agreed to flag a one-time $50,000 program related to landscaping county welcome signs on U.S. 19 and State Road 64 for the public works department. Chairwoman Priscilla Whisenant Trace, citing a need for improving shell county roads, flagged an already funded $400,000 in order to consider upping it to $1 million.
"That's like putting a forest fire out with a bucket," she said.
Other than the shell road, the next largest flag was in the property management department. Director Charlie Bishop said that many of the cameras out in the county were at the end of their lives and would soon need replacing.
"We are fastly approaching desperation mode," Bishop said.
The $489,048 requested wouldn't cover all camera replacements, he said, and paying for the servers is more costly than the cameras themselves.
Library services within the Neighborhood Services Department had requested an additional nine positions for staff support for a grand total of nearly $569,000. Only two positions were recommended for funding with Hunzeker's proposal. Trace flagged this item, requesting that two more be funded.
In all, commissioners flagged 10 items for reconsideration over six departments, which totaled at least $1.78 million. In the end, the budget must be balanced, so commissioners will have to decide where other funds may come from or if something else will get cut.
Commissioners will discuss constitutional officer funding Wednesday at 1 p.m. at the Manatee County Administrative Building, 1112 Manatee Ave. W.
This story was originally published June 5, 2018 at 5:21 PM with the headline "These county departments may not get all the funding they hope for. Commissioners could grant their wishes."