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The housing downturn and the bleak state budget situation are giving Placer County government officials the willies and they indeed will be sweating out myriad fiscal uncertainties for the next several months. The board of supervisors was given a mid-year budget review this week and, like the overall situation, it was filled with uncertainties, largely because of the state’s $14.5 billion deficit and Governor Schwarzenegger’s call for a 10 percent “across the board” reduction in state spending. Placer County officials and those in California’s 57 other counties and the hundreds of cities and special districts therein are hoping the Legislature will reach a compromise with the governor and ease much of the pain. If the Schwarzenegger plan were to go unchallenged, it would see Placer’s health and human services’ programs take a $7.5 million hit. Numerous other programs, including those involving public safety, would also be clobbered. And keep in mind that as of last June 30 the state still owed the county at least $10 million in deferred reimbursements.
In their report to the board Tuesday, budgeteers Jeff Bell and Linda
Oakman noted that the county’s housing market continues to slow “and
single family dwelling unit permits are down 17 percent when compared
to last year.” Sales tax revenue is down about five percent while property tax
revenues “are generally tracking slightly higher than were budgeted,
but are well below the year-over-year increases the county has
experienced in previous years.” Aware of the uncertainties, the county ordered tightened hiring
standards in December under which “each proposed hire is reviewed under
more stringent criteria on a case-by-case basis.”
The supervisors will hold a strategic budget planning workshop on March 18. The slowing pace of new construction has also affected the Placer
County Water Agency, which is now reevaluating plans for water system
expansion projects. Einar Maisch, the PCWA’s director of strategic affairs, told his bosses
last week that the agency had anticipated about 900 new water
connections in west Placer’s Zones 1 and 3 last year but recorded only
320 — the lowest number of paid hookups since the PCWA began keeping
such records 22 years ago. Brian Martin, the agency’s technical services chief, said construction
of the new water treatment plant in the Ophir area probably will be
delayed a few years.
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