Earlier this year I became interested in the governance and operation of my home county. As I began to review the public documents available on the county website, I noticed one important omission from agendas and minutes of the Patrick County Board of Supervisors. I could find no agenda item or minutes that evidenced a discussion in the public meeting of the county’s finances. As a result I made a FOIA request to determine what financial information the board of supervisors received on a regular basis. In response to that request I was informed that the board only received an expense summary budget report on a monthly basis. No revenue summary is provided or requested and no management discussion/analysis of the overall financial condition of the county is provided to the board.
I was also informed that as of this October the board had not requested or received a financial summary, review or analysis for the financial operation for the most recently completed fiscal year 2016. I was further informed that no such annual report or analysis would be provided to the board until January 2017, six months after the close of the fiscal year. I don’t know how you all handle your personal finances but I have to balance my checkbook every month. That means tracking both my income and my expenses. I cannot go a whole year without looking at my income. I do not have the luxury of just looking at how much I spend without considering what my income is. Yet the supervisors of Patrick County never look at the revenue. How can they set a tax rate? How do they know when to stop spending? Why is it important for the board to review complete financial summaries and receive a management analysis on a monthly basis?
First of all transparency, the taxpayers deserve to know the financial condition of the county. Second of all is accountability. How can the board be held accountable by the voters and how can the supervisors hold management accountable if they do not do regular complete financial and budgetary reviews?
Last of all, for all parties concerned, regular reviews of financial statements and a management analysis should mean no surprises. Why do the county supervisors not let the sun shine on the people’s business? With documents provided to me by the county, I compared the actual 2016 revenues to budgeted revenues for 2016. According to the county’s records in fiscal year 2016 the county collected taxes in excess of the budget by $1.3 million dollars—$644,000 in real estate taxes, $464,000 in personal property taxes and $194,000 in local sales tax.
Why do we need additional taxes such as the meals tax if the tax receipts in 2016 exceed the budget by far more than the projected tax receipts from a meals tax? Seems to me the county could afford the EMS service without any tax increase. The next step in my analysis was to compare the actual tax receipts of 2016 in the same three categories to the budgeted number for 2017. The results of that analysis showed 2016 actual receipts, 2017 budgeted receipts and the difference in order:
Personal Property Tax, $3,384, 188, $3,084,224, <$335,964>; real estate tax: $9,168,718, $9,065,929, <$102,789>; and local sales tax: $1,194,803, $1,000,000, <$194,803>.
The county is budgeting for 2017 to collect $633,556 (4.6%) less tax receipts than were collected in 2106. How is that explained? Did we have a tax decrease we did not hear about? Is there a prediction of business decline? Did property values go down?
Why do we need a 4% meals tax when the 2017 revenue budget is already padded by 4.6%, well in excess of what tax receipts the meals tax would generate?
I would encourage the board to rethink their tax increase predisposition and instead focus their attention on managing what the county already has! Perhaps we could have had the EMS service they have promised for the last nine years.
Bill Moore Woolwine
