RALEIGH (MCT) — Gov. Bev Perdue regrets having to ask, but counties including Wake should have to spend more on their own operations — even if that means dipping into the $2 billion in fund balances they hold collectively, a spokeswoman said Monday.
Not so fast, furious members of the Wake County Board of Commissioners said Monday, adding that every cent of the $95 million Wake has in the bank is already earmarked for ongoing expenses and specific projects.
It’s not the first time Perdue has suggested that counties spend more to help the state balance its budget. But a recent request for specific numbers from the state has raised county hackles again.
“To infer, without any research, that cities and counties are hoarding money and should be slain by the state is lazy and insulting,” Wake County Manager David Cooke said in a letter to the N.C. Association of County Commissioners, which had passed on the state’s request for counties to report fund balances. “But to answer the question directly, Wake County has no money ($0) in our General Fund Balance that is undesignated. Wake County plans to use ($0) in fund balance to balance the (fiscal year) 2012 budget.”
State budget officials are relying on a calculation that counties only need to have a fund balance representing 8 percent of their operating budgets. That adds up to nearly $1.3 billion the counties have on hand that they could use for programs that have been paid for by the state, Perdue figures.
“We have looked into it and found that North Carolina tends to be more generous to counties than other states,” Perdue spokeswoman Chrissy Pearson said, adding that counties should shoulder more of the burden.
Perdue had previously said counties would take on some state responsibilities.
But the association of county commissioners is sounding the alarm, and Wake Commissioner Joe Bryan happens to be the president this year. “It would destabilize all 100 counties in North Carolina. It’s preposterous,” Bryan said.
Cooke’s letter said that counties are required to explain changes in their fund balances to bond rating agencies and to the state’s Local Government Commission.
Rebecca Troutman, director of intergovernmental relations for the county commissioners association, said in a letter to county managers that the state may have its eyes on revenue sources such as county lottery funds and payments for the housing of state inmates in county jails.
“It is very disconcerting that county insolvency is being suggested as the silver bullet to manage the state’s budget crisis,” Troutman wrote Friday.
Tuesday, April 5, 2011 (Updated 6:25 am)
By News & Observer
