HOLLISTER
County officials estimate that property tax revenue will drop by $800,000 this fiscal year and that it will decline by double that the following year, and it might lead to such cost-cutting efforts as furlough time for employees and elimination of coffee and bottled water service.
County Administrative Officer Susan Thompson told supervisors this week the negative trend this year likely will continue into the next fiscal year. She told board members she plans to look into potential savings wherever the county can.
Thompson suggested in her status report that county employees take unpaid furlough time and offered other ideas to cut costs for departments, including eliminating coffee and bottled water service and decommissioning some of the county fleet vehicles.
Thompson said the county will be taking a more “surgical” approach to cutting the budget rather than with brute force.
“We are doing this with a scalpel, not a baseball bat,” she said. “If we do it with a baseball bat, we’ll be hurting ourselves in other areas.”
The county has a general fund reserve of $5.7 million that could be used in an emergency.
