Whiteside 
'10 budget deficit 
at $1.1M: 2010 will mark second year in a row in the red

MORRISON – By a 20-3 vote, Whiteside County Board on Tuesday passed a $1.1 million deficit budget, inflated by rapidly dwindling cash reserves and extra borrowing against the landfill’s cleanup fund.

Next year’s budget features pay freezes for most county employees and a $125,000 tax hike on ambulance service to the Sterling-Rock Falls area, although the board managed to avoid layoffs and forced furlough days.

This is the second year in a row the board has opted to work in the red – this year coming up about $800,000 short – thanks to declining sales tax revenue and ballooning insurance costs. It’s a move finance officials say the county can withstand through 2010 but will have to change if the economy continues to suffer through next year.

“If we have another year like this one, we’ll revisit furloughs,” Finance Committee Chairman Glenn Truesdell said in the run-up to Tuesday’s vote.

County departments managed to shave $300,000 from next year’s deficit through a combination of cost shifting, replacing full-time positions with part-time staff, and passing health insurance costs on to the Whiteside County Health Department.

Two of the three no votes came from members of the county’s Landfill Committee, whose chairman opposes the board’s practice of using $450,000 from the Prairie Hills Landfill to subsidize day-to-day operations.

“I’ve never seen it this bad,” Landfill Committee Chairman Scott Mohr said of the economy, “and I’ve been on the board since 1986.”

The issue of borrowing against the cleanup fund is one Mohr has called “easy money” and “irresponsible” because the revenue stream will dry up when the landfill closes and there will be less money if the county ever needs to do a big environmental project.

“Easy money is hard to turn down,” Mohr said Tuesday. “That money is supposed to be there in case we ever have to do major environmental work around the landfill. These guys are trying to avoid layoffs, and I understand that ... but it’s putting cleanup on the next generation.”

Myron Hofmeister cast the third no vote because he opposes deficit spending and borrowing from the landfill, he said.