Commissioners face county budget cuts

With substantial county budget cuts on the horizon, the Hot Springs County Commissioners began the difficult job of discussing budget cuts during their afternoon meeting Tuesday.

“I think we all agree there’s concern about where we're going this next budget year,” said commissioner John Lumley to open the discussion of budget cuts.

The commissioners, alongside County Attorney Jerry Williams, then discussed the possibility of certain groups overspending their allotted budgets. “My concern was that... just because we pass a budget, what is our ability to hold a department to that budget?” said commissioner Tom Ryan. Williams noted this problem has occurred in the past and gave brief examples, but also said there was no black and white answer.

“It’s realistic that our assessed value will be down $100 million,” said Basse. “We have to find a way to cut 1.2 million,” he added. “I'm not going to sugar coat it. There’s going to be cuts. There will be a reduction in force.”

Williams noted a number of infrastructure costs, such as removing phones from offices, have already been made. The attorney noted that this will both make cutting budgets easier and harder; easier because the county knows where to make small cuts, and harder because a number of those cuts have already been made.

Basse suggested a sit-down with the county commissioners and all of the county's elected officials to discuss the upcoming year’s budget. “You have to make budget cuts on informed decisions,” he said.

The county currently has to pay unemployed claims, a decision reached “years ago”, which will make job cuts less effective in cutting costs. The commissioners plan to conclude their discussions after meeting with elected officials to discuss concerns.

Brad Johnson presented the County’s “performance review” for insurance, predicting a “very good year” for the county. Johnson noted the county currently has a 33 percent loss ratio, adding that this is a good sign and should not create a rate increase this June.

The county is currently three years into a five-year contract with the Wyoming Health Fair. Board members voted to extend the contract for another year.

Peter Fox gave a brief presentation to the board over the digitalization of the records of the County Clerk's office via ArcaSearch, a company that specializes in records digitalization. Nina Webber noted that the process has reached through the 1970s, and records are being compiled on the Historical Records Research Site.

Although the site is currently restricted, and access can only be granted through the County Clerk's office, the digitalization of the records from 1911 will certainly have a great impact on the work of not only the clerk, but of the commissioners as a whole.

Fox gave the commissioners a brief tour of the current site in its present form, first going through commissioners' minutes from 1913.  The files shown were archive-quality PDF files, which allow viewing but do not allow editing. Fox then noted that all scanned documents are searchable, and as an example took the phrase “Emory Hotel” from the 1913 minutes and found 40 other documents throughout the decades that mentioned the hotel. Webber estimated that the digitalization process was about 40 percent complete.