Budget Scorecard: Accounting for County Taxes

u u u

Bucking the trend of high tax bills and spending rates are Saratoga County and, to a lesser degree, the smaller counties of Herkimer and Madison. More worrisome budget numbers call for greater scrutiny of several counties, particularly Sullivan County, the highest-taxing jurisdiction in the sample, as well as Delaware, Greene and Warren.

As in previous columns that compared budgets for dozens of towns and villages, the county rankings are a preliminary tool that may overlook sound financial or political reasons why one municipality spends more than its peers. The detailed county rankings are available at our website, www.littletownviews.com, under the heading "Budget Scorecard Database."

Columbia County’s total levies per capita — which include property and sales tax receipts as well as various smaller charges — ran 16 percent higher than its peers in 2004, while its neighbor across the Hudson River, Greene, spent 28 percent more in tax revenues than the 22-county average. Dutchess County fell right in line with the average. Rensselaer County to the north distinguished itself by raising 23 percent less in property, sales and other taxes than the sample’s $680 per capita average.

u u u

The star performer among the 22-member sample is Saratoga County, which boasted total per capita tax receipts in 2004 of only $400 and ranked consistently among the lowest in per capita spending on the major county programs, including social services, police and public safety, transportation and general government.

"We don’t solve problems with a huge workforce," said Spencer Hellwig, Saratoga’s assistant county administrator. "Our 1,200 employees work hard and are extremely skilled... All budget requests are carefully scrutinized."

Saratoga’s unique degree of success in holding a lid on county spending calls for further analysis in a future column that will aim to identify management practices that less disciplined counties may want to adopt.

One county that could find fiscal guidance from Saratoga’s example is Sullivan County, which collected the largest amount of taxes per capita in the sample by a wide margin. Sullivan also spent the most per head on "general government" operations, which cover the executive, legislative, clerical and judicial dimensions of running a county. At $345 per capita in 2004, Sullivan spent twice as much as the sample average and nearly three times more than Rensselaer County, the most frugal on the general government ledger.

Sullivan County officials did not respond to repeated requests for comments.

Delaware County, which along with Sullivan and Greene had the highest taxes per head, also suffered from the fastest growth in taxes between 1999 and 2004, a rise of 63 percent.

u u u

Construction of a new $23 million state-mandated jail was one reason for the rapid rise in county costs, said Delaware Board of Supervisors Clerk Christa Schaefer. She also claimed that Delaware assumes more of the cost of maintaining town roads and bridges than do other counties.

One key contributor to Delaware’s fiscal burden is a substantially higher than average cost for social services, which include welfare, Medicaid, child care and other programs designed to assist the poorest segments of a county’s population. Delaware spent nearly $600 per capita on social services in 2004, more than twice as much as nearby Herkimer County, which, according to U.S. Census figures, has similar per capita income levels and 30 percent more people subsisting below the poverty line.

A more detailed review of the "Budget Scorecard Database" on our Web site suggests additional conclusions and identifies specific county comparisons that merit further analysis, among them:

• Columbia County boasts one of the lowest per capita debt loads, giving it ample room to leverage its balance sheet for the large capital projects it is now considering.

• Sullivan County has 45 percent more road mileage than Columbia County, but spent twice as much per road mile in 2004.

• Warren County has 63,000 residents, roughly one-third the population of Saratoga County, but it spent 35 percent more in total dollars on police protection and public safety in 2004.