CROWN POINT | Lake County government officials unveiled Tuesday their proposed list of employee layoffs, benefit reductions and service cuts to reduce spending by $15 million next year. (Download document)
County Councilmen Larry Blanchard, R-Crown Point, and Ted Bilski, D-Hobart, and County Attorney John Dull said a plan drafted by the council represents the opening move in what will be a painful effort to construct a 2009 budget by September, possibly cutting hundreds of jobs along the way.
The most sweeping of the recommendations would be to save $5.8 million by cutting the county's entire payroll by 5 percent -- about 150 jobs.
Eliminating 490 jobs from the county government's part-time payroll could save about $750,000, according to the recommendations. Laying off 22 part-time lawyers representing indigent defendants in Lake Superior Court County Division courts for a savings of $696,000 also is among the recommendations.
"It's a new age, and we must adjust," Bilski said Tuesday. Blanchard said the alternative to the cuts is "we'd have to shut government down."
The new age is being brought on by legislation that will cap individual property tax bills between 1 percent and 3 percent of assessed value beginning next year. The caps will reduce tax revenues upon which local government depends to make its payroll and pay other bills.
The Lake County Finance Committee, a group of elected officials including Bilski and Blanchard, came up initially with 73 cost-cutting ideas. But the committee pared down the list to the 44 recommendations that member believed had the best chance to win a majority of votes among the seven-member County Council.
Another suggestion is to save $3.5 million by cutting 45 positions from the Sheriff's Department, eliminating the sheriff's Lake Michigan marine patrol, reducing county police patrols to only unincorporated rural areas and the town of Winfield and eliminating take-home cars for uniformed officers.
Blanchard and Bilski said they hope as many as 200 senior citizen county employees will take advantage of an early retirement program, allowing them to receive health insurance at the same cost as full-time employees for five years. Proponents of that program say it could save the county as much as $1.6 million by shifting medical costs to the federal Medicare and Medicaid plans.
Other recommendations include borrowing from unspent funds that were earmarked for anticipating health insurance claims, new parkland purchases and other capital costs.
Blanchard and Bilski said while none of the recommendations is yet mandated, they hope the proposals will generate cooperation and leadership among other elected officials and department heads to come up with less painful or more efficient ways to cut spending.
Public budget hearings begin Aug. 5 on the matter and are set to conclude Sept. 2.
County officials will have to decide next year how to cut an additional $5 million from the budget because of deeper tax cuts scheduled in 2010.
