Too soon for county to tap contingency fund, Sylvia says

LACONIA — The Belknap County Commissioners are asking a committee of the County Delegation to authorize the use of nearly $19,000 in contingency funds to cover the costs of expenses they say are underfunded in the county budget.

But the delegation chairman said it was unlikely that infusion of money would be approved anytime soon.

The decision came during the commissioners’ meeting on Thursday, just nine days after the delegation approved a $30.3 million budget, a spending package Commission Chairman Peter Spanos has called unsustainable.

The commissioners are requesting $15,841 to cover costs to conduct financial audits, plus another $3,000 to cover a shortage of funds to pay for health insurance benefits for some employees in the Finance Office.

The delegation’s Executive Committee cut $1.7 million from the commissioners’ recommended budget of $31.9 million, including money from both line items that the commissioners are asking to be replenished with money from the contingency fund.

Spanos said the county is obliged to perform an audit on the county’s books and special audits that show how the county used money received last year through two federal grants.

“This audit is compulsory,” he said. “It’s like getting a summons from the IRS.”

If the special audits are not performed, the federal government would be a position to ask the county to return the grant money, county Administrator Debra Shackett said.

Commissioner Hunter Taylor suggested the commission could transfer the necessary money from the $200,000 in contingency without bothering to get the Executive Committee’s approval. But Spanos shot down that idea.

The motion asking the committee to approve the funds transfer passed unanimously.

“We will get a good result in going before the Executive Committee,” Spanos said.

But state Rep. Michael Sylvia, the delegation chairman and a member of the Executive Committee, called the commissioners’ request premature.

“I think it’s too early in the year to know if those particular departments are going to run short,” Sylvia said after the meeting ended.

He said at this time there were sufficient funds in other areas of relevant budgets, and commissioners can transfer funds from one part of a department’s budget to another to take care of audit and health insurance expenses.

Meanwhile, Corrections Superintendent Adam Cunningham told the commissioners he is concerned about possible shortfalls in his budget for operating the County Jail and House of Correction.

He pointed to numerous areas in his budget where the delegation cut money for expenses he is required by law to provide. He said one of the few areas where he is free to cut is the CORE program, a comprehensive, multiphase treatment program for inmates with substance abuse problems.

However, he said the recent multimillion-dollar addition to the corrections facility was designed in order to accommodate a program like CORE, and the space was not designed to serve as a typical incarceration facility. If CORE were eliminated, he said, that part of the facility would be underutilized.

Cunningham further told the commissioners that judges often prescribe the CORE program as part of a defendant’s sentencing.

In a memo to commissioners, Cunningham said there are currently 55 inmates housed at the facility, with another three being held at the Carroll County corrections facility. So far this year the inmate census has averaged 51 — a 5 percent increase over last year. The budget for the Corrections Department is 1½ percent above last year’s expenditures, he noted. At the same time, Cunningham pointed out that his department is facing a contracted 5 percent increase in wages, a 5 percent increase in the physician’s contract, and a 9 percent increase in retirement expenses.

“It is my projection that the Belknap County Department of Corrections will not be able to sustain the current level of service given to our population numbers and remain within the allocated budget,” Cunningham wrote.