More Shared Services

When you read today's Washington County Daily News, you'll see that the County is looking to do more partnerships with neighboring Counties.  This could be similar to the partnership we formed with Ozaukee County where we merged our Public Health Departments.  It could also be more extreme, to the level of merging county government with another county (Ozaukee makes a lot of sense here).  The goal is to maintain a fiscally sustainable financial model for County government.

For me, the only thing that is off the table is partnering with Milwaukee County.  That is a non-starter for me, and I suspect that many other Supervisors share this sentiment.  Milwaukee only looks to form partnerships for the purpose of dumping their out-of-control costs on other communities.

Our County Administrator is inviting several other Counties to open a dialogue with him on potential shared services arrangements.  The Counties he sent this invitation to include Ozaukee, Waukesha, Fond Du Lac, and Dodge. 
Since this is all in the very preliminary stages, the timetable for any changes in fluid, and it would probably be at least a few years before any changes would be implemented.

Why is our fiscal situation unsustainable?
The simple answer is tax levy limits. 

A normal organization, any organization, experiences an increase in costs of about 2% each year.  For our County, this cost takes the form of increased costs for purchasing sheriff's patrol vehicles, pay raises for employees, increases to costs in service agreements, etc..  Since our County's budget is $125 million dollar, this equated to about $2.5 million in new expenses each year.

On the revenue side, levy limits only allow us to raise the tax levy based on the net new construction in the community (excluding TIF districts).  This typically works out to about $350,000 per year.  Any other increases in tax evaluations go back to county property owners, people like you and me.

The difference between our increase in revenue (about $350,000) and our increase in expenses (about $2,500,000) is a gap of about $2 million in unfunded new expenses each year.  So far, we have utilized various cost-cutting processes to make up that gap, and we know we can keep doing that for a few years.  I was just assigned to a committee that is geared entirely towards moving organizations like the History Center, EDWC, AIS, and the visitor's bureau off of the tax levy.  In a few years, we will reach the point where there is nothing we can cut without severely impacting the core services we provide. 

What's the alternative? 
The alternative is, in my view, a bad one.

We could follow Illinois' example, fund the excess out of our reserves, and then when our reserve funds are exhausted we could borrow lots of money.  Ultimately, we would end up in the same situation Illinois is in now, broke and with bills we can't pay.  I believe in fiscal responsibility, so I could not support recklessness of this sort.