Calaveras County finances improve – Boost from $100 million project may be only temporary

By Dana M. Nichols
Record Staff Writer
May 21, 2012 12:00 AM
SAN ANDREAS – What a difference a $100 million project makes.

Calaveras County’s finances improved in the third quarter of the fiscal year, according to a report presented Tuesday to the county Board of Supervisors.

No one was doing cartwheels.

Clay Hawkins, chief assistant county administrative officer, told the board that the 9 percent year-over-year increase in construction fees and sales-tax revenue is probably temporary.

“Something’s going on with consumer retail spending,” Hawkins said, speculating that it may be workers who are temporarily living in the county to build more than $100 million in structures for a new criminal-justice complex.

Permits for the new county jail also figured into the bump in construction revenues. Remove the jail project, and construction permit fees continued the decline that started in 2008. Hawkins noted that there are fewer permits and lower values for each permit as most construction shifts to remodeling jobs rather than new construction.

The county’s fiscal year began July 1.

The third quarter – January, February and March – was “promising,” Hawkins said. But he also noted in his report that the warmer-than-usual winter has spurred consumer spending and suppressed heating fuel costs, a trend that will not continue into the summer months.

Hawkins said the county has benefitted from some unexpected, one-time savings, including lower-than-anticipated costs for unemployment, workers compensation and liability insurance this year. That saved the county more than $500,000.

Hawkins said county department heads have kept a check on spending, with net expenditures $2.6 million lower than a year earlier.

Yet officials are already aware that they will face some steep increases in expenses in the coming year, including increases in some insurance costs.

Calaveras County also faces new demands in the 2012-13 fiscal year that begins in less than two months, including pressure to begin hiring and training additional jail staff well before the new, larger jail is scheduled to open in August 2013.

Hawkins noted that home valuations and thus property tax revenues are expected to continue declining.

After listening to the report, supervisors said they are unlikely to be in an expansive, ready-to-spend mood as they assemble a budget for the coming year.

“It still doesn’t look pretty,” Supervisor Merita Callaway said. “It doesn’t even look like holding our own.”

Contact reporter Dana M. Nichols at (209) 607-1361 or dnichols@recordnet.com. Visit his blog at recordnet.com/calaverasblog