By Bob Cicero
Special to NKyTribune
On June 30, the Boone County Fiscal Court passed its 2016 fiscal year budget without much fanfare. The $114 million budget didn’t generate much public interest as attendance at the Fiscal Court meetings during budget discussions, the public hearing and the approval voting was virtually non-existent. Not even the local media considered it to be very newsworthy as no article was written on the budget contents or its approval.
That may be because Boone County is extremely fortunate as it enjoys the financial benefits of having a strong diversified economic base with both large commercial and retail businesses and a growing residential population, so finding enough tax dollars to spend doesn’t seem to be a problem. Unfortunately, because the local economy does generate an abundance of tax revenues, county management and most elected officials of the Fiscal Court are not nearly as judicious with those taxpayer dollars as they could and should be.
Although all of the voting members of the Boone Fiscal Court were elected by running campaigns touting their fiscal conservatism, their actions many times do not reflect that claim, especially when spending cuts or hard financial decisions are involved. Apparently procrastination on those decisions until some undetermined time in the future or just pretending a problem doesn’t exit has become the new definition of “fiscal conservatism” by some Fiscal Court members.
As one commissioner privately suggested, they would rather hold off on addressing what was the most contentious budget issue until next year and review again at that time. In other words, why make a difficult but fundamentally sound decision this year when you can just continue to spend taxpayers’ dollars and procrastinate until next year.
The issue I refer to is county spending on their health care program. A plan that is available to all county employees, members of the Fiscal Court and even some county associated ancillary organizations. A plan that is much richer in benefits than the majority of comparable public and private sector plans and in which the cost to participants is minimal as the county covers the majority of its costs.
Over the past three years I have analyzed spending in the county’s budgets and determined that healthcare costs in particular are quickly spiraling “out-of-control.”
In fact, during the five-year period of 2011 through 2015 healthcare expenditures increased a whopping 50 percent, from $1.9 million to approximately $2.9 million. A rate of increase that is unsustainable over any extended period without either making changes to the program’s benefits, increasing costs to Plan participants, or increasing taxes.
Unfortunately while the Fiscal Court acknowledges there is a problem, no real attempt to correct this situation has been made.
However, after the Fiscal Court passed the 2015 Budget in June last year, two of the commissioners – Commissioner Walton and former Commissioner Dedden – took note and requested county management engage an outside consultant to review the healthcare program and suggest recommendations prior to the preparation of the 2016 Budget. The county’s insurance consultant prepared and presented their findings to the Fiscal Court in September 2015. Their evaluation concluded that the county’s program was overly generous and suggested some alternatives that would make the program more market competitive.
As a result, county management incorporated into the initially proposed 2016 budget, the consultant’s suggestion to increase the plan’s participants’ contribution to their health care cost. While the budget proposal still did not raise the participant contribution level to where it needed to be, this was a good first step to finally addressing the problem.
However, ignoring their fiduciary responsibility to taxpayers and against what would be considered sound business judgment, Judge-Executive Moore and Commissioners Flaig and Kenner voted to leave the participant contribution to their healthcare costs unchanged, with taxpayers absorbing the additional costs. Commissioner Walton, who continues to take his fiscal conservatism seriously, was the lone dissenter.
This strategy among the majority of our Fiscal Court members is strikingly similar to most politicians who proclaim to be fiscally conservative; campaign as a fiscal conservative to win the popular vote but when difficult but prudent decisions must be made, all is forgotten and the wasteful tax dollar, easy way out is their solution.
Bob Cicero is a Florence resident. He has a bachelor’s degree in accounting, a master’s in business administration, and has 20 years experience in various financial capacities with USS and its affiliates. He spent 10 years as the CFO of a local company and currently owns and operates a small business. He can be reached at bcicero@yahoo.com