With costs rising, level-funded county budget seen as unrealistic

LACONIA — The proposed Belknap County budget for next year is substantially higher than this year’s spending package. That increase is unavoidable due in large part to inflation, according to the head county commissioner.

“With hyperinflation it’s impossible to level-fund the budget,” commission Chair Peter Spanos said Tuesday in advance of Thursday’s public hearing on the $33.4 million budget proposed for 2022. “We can’t run the county as it needs to run with the same amount of money when the cost of everything we need to buy is going up.”

The overall inflation rate is currently at 6.2%, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. But some expenses have increased at a faster rate, such as energy prices which are up 30%, according to the agency.

The hearing before the Belknap County Delegation is scheduled to get underway at 7 p.m. Thursday at the County Complex on North Main Street. The proceedings will also be live streamed on YouTube.

The total proposed budget is $33,381,273, of which $18,170,132 would need to be raised by taxes. That compares to this year’s gross budget of $31,648,089, of which $13,145,309 was raised by taxes. The overall budget proposal reflects a 5.3% increase. But the increase in the share which the taxpayers would shoulder is up 32%.

A large part of the increase is due to a proposal to significantly increased pay for the staff at the County Nursing Home which has been losing employees to other health-care facilities in the area which offer substantially higher pay — double and triple for some categories of nurses.

Overall, the proposed nursing home budget of $13.4 million reflects an increase of about 15%. The amount which county taxpayers would pay toward the operation will more than quadruple under the proposal, from $237,000 to $1 million.

The largest part of nursing home expenses are covered by reimbursement from Medicaid and non-government insurance programs.

The staffing crisis has resulted in the home operating at two-thirds of its licensed capacity of 94 residents. A feared further reduction in staff was staved off recently by the ability to hire four temporary contract nurses and a court injunction against enforcing the federal COVID vaccine mandate for health-care workers.

Nursing Home Director Shelley Richardson, along with other county department heads will be outlining their respective budget proposals during Thursday’s hearing before the 18-member delegation will vote how much the budget will be sometime early next year.

Spanos said most of the budget explanation during the hearing will come from county department heads.

But the commission chair said he expected he will have remarks regarding the need to approve funds to pay for higher pay for nursing home staff.

“In a cautionary way I will be telling the delegation that we are looking to pay substantially more to compete with private entities in order to keep the nursing home operating well into the future,” he said.

Last year the delegation used $3 million from the county’s $5.6 million fund balance to lower the amount to be raised by taxes. However, there are no plans to use any of the fund balance for that purpose in next year’s budget, County Administrator Debra Shackett explained, because the $2.6 million currently in fund balance is less than the recommended fund balance minimum of $3.5 million.