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September 8, 2010

Time for change in budgeting practice

Randy Cowling Managing Editor

CLAREMORE — Rogers County is one of the fastest growing areas in Oklahoma. With about 80,000 residents county commissioners are quickly discovering it takes more money to meet the needs of the bustling population growth.

Among the challenges commissioners face is providing the necessary funding to help keep Rogers County residents safe.

Sheriff Scott Walton asked commissioners to expand his budget so he could hire more deputies. Walton wrote in a letter to commissioners that he only had 18 deputies and without hiring at least four more he might not be able to provide basic services.

While commissioners Kirt Thacker, Dan DeLozier and Mike Helm understand the need to  provide public safety, they also face the statutory mandate of presenting a balanced budget. The county’s fiscal year began on July 1 and commissioners are still tweaking the 2010-11 budget, which makes no sense.

It is a regular habit commissioners have fallen into and needs to be rectified.

How can county departments budget from year to year when the actual balanced budget isn’t finalized until 90-120 days into the year?

Without a clear working document from day one of the fiscal year, every county department is working with limited power.

Walton and others have asked for more money for more staff members, which very well may be needed. However, how can county residents know if there are funds to pay for the essential services much less an expansion some 90 days into a fiscal year?

Should Walton and other county officials get more money for more staff? If there are funds to pay for it, sure. But shouldn’t these requests been made months ago before the FY 2010/11 budget began?

While the budgeting practices of Rogers County may be considered complicated, it does not bode well for commissioners for residents to see they are still tweaking a balanced budget when it should have been sent to the county’s excise board this spring well before the fiscal year began.

Until a much more managed approach is implemented, the county will continue to find itself in this catch-up mode of budgeting. It’s time for a change in the way county commissioners prepare and approve the budget.

Randy Cowling is editor of the Claremore Daily Progress.

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