When Jackson County’s new commissioners announced they would oversee all hiring to determine whether positions should be filled or wiped off the books, the mandate had a fiscally prudent, vigilant-watchdogs-of-taxpayer-dollars sound.

“I have to admit, this is causing somewhat of a problem in being able to manage this,” interim County Manager Chuck Wooten told the board last week, just more than a month after commissioners so tightly grabbed the reins.

Though commissioners control the budget, statutorily speaking the sheriff and register of deeds — both elected positions — have full powers to do the hiring and firing in their own departments, Wooten pointed out.

Wooten also asked: did commissioners really want to clog-up the system (about 4 percent of the Jackson County workforce is currently open) by scrutinizing positions mainly paid for using state dollars, such as at the health department and in social services, which have their own overseeing boards? And, what about contracted and grant-paid positions? Take a transit driver, 85 percent grant funded, as an example of the latter category, Wooten said. Do you need to personally approve who is hired?

Well, no, now that the problems being created by practically their very first official decision as commissioners (during a Dec. 6 meeting) has become clear, it turned out the board didn’t really want oversight of those hiring decisions. In a 5-0 vote, they agreed in those cases to let others — the departments or boards directly involved, or Wooten — make the hires.

Unlike municipalities in North Carolina, county commissioners must vote for their manager to be given hiring oversight. State law gives town managers that right without elected leaders’ say-so. Most of the state’s 100 counties’ board of commissioners automatically extend that power to the county manager hired to, well, “manage” the county.

Jackson County commissioners did, however, retain the review-before-advertising-any-county-positions paid for purely with county money, via the general fund. Though, it should be noted, Wooten advised the five men they might want to reconsider that decision, too.

Wooten was hired as a temporary replacement for former County Manager Ken Westmoreland, who either elected to leave voluntarily before the new board convened in December, or who was shown the door. This depending on whom you believe, Westmoreland (who said he was forced out) or Chairman Jack Debnam (who said “it was his decision”).

Wooten retired Jan. 1 after 30 years of experience overseeing Western Carolina University’s finances. He has said he expects to help commissioners hire a replacement county manager within six months or so.

Jackson County has three new commissioners: Debnam (a conservative independent); Doug Cody (a Republican) and Charles Elders (a Republican). Democrats Mark Jones and Joe Cowan round out the board.

Haywood County commissioners have cut five full-time jobs and frozen four open positions to stave off a projected budget shortfall for the current fiscal year.

It marks the third straight year commissioners have cut county jobs to counter recession-driven budget deficits. Commissioners held a work session on the issue last week, where County Manager Marty Stamey suggested the job cuts to keep the budget in check.

The job cuts will target county departments involved in the construction trade. Building is still off from pre-recession levels, with a requisite drop in workload for county building inspectors, erosion control officers and well and septic tank permiters. Those departments are also bringing in less in fees. Stamey showed commissioners financial data to demonstrate the decline in building and real-estate-centric services.

The cuts will take the county down to 507 full-time positions, the smallest number of staff they’ve employed since they started keeping count in 2005. The employee count peaked out in 2009, when the county employed 557 full-time staff members, and the number has been dropping steadily every year, to 534 then 516.

Making the cuts would, he said, save the county $200,000 in the 2011-12 fiscal year, while keeping the four unfilled positions frozen would save an extra $250,000, for a total of $450,000 in savings.

Stamey recommended freezing the assistant county manager position, a title he formerly held until being promoted to the top job last fall. Other open positions that will be frozen include project specialist, IT technician and a human resource specialist.

Commissioners questioned Stamey about what effect these cuts would have on county staff, whether they would require layoffs or could be achieved through early retirements.

“Do they have people that are close to being ready to retire?” Commissioner Mike Sorrells asked of the three departments going under the axe. Stamey answered that, yes, some did, but it remains to be seen whether all five positions can be eliminated with retirements or relocations.

Commissioner Bill Upton expressed his reservations, saying he wasn’t sure how much further they could go following last year’s cuts.

“Down the road, it’s going to be tough, because I thought last year we got down to the bare bones and this is probably getting into the bone a little bit,” said Upton.

“We’re drilling into bone,” replied Stamey, who said that remaining county staff have been working increasingly hard over the last two years to makeup for the shortfall caused by losing colleagues.

Commissioner Kirk Kirkpatrick noted that in governmental situations it isn’t as easy to adjust budgets to revenues as it might be in business, because there’s still a certain threshold of services that need to be provided, regardless of how many people use them.

That is, in part, why trimming any more fat will be difficult going forward, and with $3.7 billion in state budget cuts looming, Commissioner Chairman Mark Swanger said he was uncomfortable with the unknown of what that might do to county budgets.

“The unknown here is what bothers me, what kinds of costs will be going to counties,” said Swanger. “It remains unknown what effect it will have on our budget, but it will not be a positive effect.”

By definition, the lottery is a gamble. There’s no guarantee of winning, no assurance that you’ll look back on your ticket purchase without regret.

Sure, it can pay out big sometimes, but you could just as easily come up empty. And in North Carolina, for the school districts the education lottery helps fund, it turns out the story of what happens to that money might be much the same.

For the last five years, regulations on what can be done with lottery money have been pretty strict. But with state and local budgets in crisis, the General Assembly last year lifted some of those strictures, allowing schools to pay other expenses that were losing state funding with lottery money; a consolation prize for losing the big pot. So many districts started clutching money they once spent freely, fearing state budget cuts that are just over the horizon and wondering if they’d made the right choices with lottery money given to them in the past.

SEE ALSO: GOP may loosen rules on lottery proceeds

In Swain County, lottery money has always gone to debt service, paying down notes taken out for school improvements. County Manager Kevin King said that’s what they’ll continue to put those dollars toward for the foreseeable future. The same is true for Macon and Jackson counties.

In Haywood County, however, they’ve taken fuller advantage of what the funding rules allow. The way lottery money allocation works today is pretty simple: school districts get a percentage funding based on their ADM, average daily membership, which is basically how many students are attending their schools. Districts used to get extra money based on their property tax rates, which put western counties with historically low rates at a disadvantage. However, after years of lobbying by school officials, the General Assembly removed that inequity during its last session.

Lottery money ‘icing on the cake’

But regardless of where it comes from, lottery funds have, in the past, been earmarked only for capital improvements. That means new buildings, repairs to existing facilities and, as in Swain County, debt service for similar projects that have already been paid for.

Back in Haywood County, they decided to use their funds to install artificial turf on their sports fields, a project that’s taken their yearly lottery funds, which average about $600,000 annually, since they started receiving them.

After last year, though, when the extent of state budget woes became increasingly clear, Assistant Superintendent Bill Nolte said they started saving as much of that money as they could, aware that the state would have to find $3.7 billion dollars in cuts somewhere, and schools might be first on the chopping block.

“You … want to save the lottery money because it’s the only source that you have as an emergency source,” said Nolte, noting that, after paying the remaining two turf payments that are still outstanding, Haywood’s lottery fund balance would leave about $600,000 to fund teaching positions or address liability issues and emergency facility needs, which is as low as he’d like to see the fund get.

“We’re down pretty close to a pretty uncomfortable level of having a reserve there,” Nolte said.

But when asked whether, retrospectively, the turf still seem like a sound decision, Nolte defended the choice. He said the school system used the money for one of the few things it was allowed to spend it on.

“It [lottery funding] was never intended for emergency crises, it was never intended to pay for teachers, it was never intended to buy paper. That [capital expense] was the only thing we could spend it on at the time. It was a very logical expenditure,” said Nolte. “If we had a crystal ball and we knew that two to three years later we would be in an economic crisis, we may have not done that project.”

But, as Nolte points out, crystal balls were in short supply, and in what seemed like a healthy economy, they would have been decried for saving the money then.

“Back when we did the fields, there was no opportunity to spend the funds in another manner. If we had saved those funds back then, people would have said, ‘what are you saving for?’” said Nolte. “At the time that we made those expenditures it was a very popular decision.”

Now, however, there is no decision more popular than holding onto what you’ve got, in case things continue to decline.

Hold on tightly

That’s the opinion voiced by several commissioners at a recent Haywood County Commissioners meeting, where they expressed concern about what’s happening to the county’s lottery money.

Commissioner Bill Upton, who was formerly a principal and superintendent in the Haywood County school system, questioned school officials on the wisdom of using lottery funds to fix decrepit bleachers instead of saving the money in case it’s needed for teacher positions next year. Commissioners eventually approved the bleacher repairs, which had been flagged as a safety hazard by the school’s insurer for several years, but their reluctance to dole out lottery money on non-essentials was clear.

“The ballgame’s changed and that’s my big concern,” said Upton in an interview. “In the past, you know, you had to use lottery monies for projects and all. I think that’ll change.

“The unknown is what bothers me, and you hate to make decisions that will come back and hurt you this summer [when the state budget is set].”

According to North Carolina State Superintendent June Atkinson, a lot of districts around the state are thinking along the same lines. She said that few chose the option to use lottery money for teacher funding or other non-traditional uses last year. There were more hoops to jump through, including extra scrutiny at the local level, and there was still some federal funding available that gave many districts a buffer for state losses.

But this year, said Atkinson, those federal appropriations will be long gone, to the tune of $1 billion statewide, and the $3.7 billion hole at the state level is going to hit schools hard. This year, she expects many more districts to take the General Assembly up on any offer of unrestricted lottery funding they choose to make.

“In the leadership in our schools, people are making a concerted effort to stretch every dollar as far as they can go. When those federal dollars dry up, I’m sure school districts will be looking at those lottery funds,” said Atkinson.

However, she doesn’t think the lottery will ever become a staple to school funding — no matter how many restrictions are removed — because it’s just not enough to make up for what’s being lost.

“The lottery really is just icing on the cake,” said Atkinson, “because it is an unstable source of dollars. It changes based on the whims of people that buy lottery tickets … the percentage of the lottery dollars is such a small amount of money in comparison to the total amount [needed for school funding].”

And, just as in other retail sectors, those ticket-buying whims have been severely curtailed by the economy. Lottery revenue saw about a $44 million drop last year, and if those patterns continue, schools will have even fewer dollars to deal with.

But as for the money that’s left, Atkinson said she’s confident that lottery funding in the future, at least in the short-term, will surely be re-routed to needs other than capital projects, which would leave the state’s school facilities languishing.

Feeling the budget squeeze

Nolte said they’re already experiencing that squeeze in Haywood County.

“We swallowed very hard and did not do a building replacement at Waynesville Middle because we knew we might need that fund for schools or teachers,” said Nolte. That decision, he added, was pretty unpopular.

But they’ve been told to brace for a 10 to 15 percent cut from the state this year, so they’re hanging onto what they’ve got.

Nolte said he knows people might look at Haywood’s past lottery decisions as questionable, but would counter that argument by pointing out that the school system has long been recognized as fiscally responsible, running every project on time and on budget.

“I know that people want to make the arguments of bleachers versus teachers, or they want to make the argument of athletics versus academics, or they want to make the argument of don’t do anything to buildings, just keep people in jobs,” said Nolte. “But I hope people understand that we make the best decisions we can make with the information we have at the time.

“It’s real easy to second guess, and I just hope that people understand that we’ve got a long history of making very good decisions when it comes to capital expenditures. We’re taxpayers too, so we want to be very prudent with the revenues that are allocated to the school district.”

Statewide, Superintendent Atkinson hopes that lottery funds will help schools survive, but concedes they are a band aid on a hundred bullet wounds, and schools will have to shore up for a hard hit that’s coming soon, prioritizing student success over all else in the face of a bleak financial future.

“We’re at the point where we can’t make cuts without harming students. North Carolina ranks about 42nd in the nation as far as school funding. We’ve mad a lot of progress, and I just hate to see our not being able to continue that progress,” said Atkinson. “Money does matter.”

Staff Writer Quintin Ellison contributed to this report.

Up to 1,700 jobs, perhaps a whole campus eliminated — the dire picture painted this month by Erskine Bowles, president of the University of North Carolina system, on the state of higher education during these tough economic times isn’t pretty.

Locally, staff and faculty at Western Carolina University in Cullowhee, Southwestern Community College in Sylva and Haywood Community College in Clyde are preparing for significant budget cuts.

Most likely, a 10-percent reduction is coming. State colleges and universities across North Carolina, however, are outlining what they’d do in response to higher and lower reductions, as directed by the UNC system and The State Board of Community Colleges.

“We are hearing talk of impending heavy slashing and have been asked to prepare scenarios of how we would deal with 5-, 10- and even 15-percent cuts,” said Rose Hooper Garrett, public information officer for SCC, via email.

A year ago, the UNC system took a $70 million cut, or less than 3 percent.

Sorting it out

“At this point, it’s too early in the process to provide the actual impact of what a 10-percent budget reduction would do to the overall operations of WCU,” said Chuck Wooten, vice chancellor for administration and finance for the university.

“It’s fair to say that most likely we will have fewer class sections, more students in each class, more dependence on part-time faculty, reduced funds for faculty travel and professional development, fewer funds for general operations such as supplies and equipments, elimination of vacant positions, possible elimination of positions that are currently filled, and reduced funds for general maintenance of the physical plant of the campus.”

Here’s what is happening: North Carolina is facing a budget deficit of $3.5 billion.

At 5 percent, the UNC system would cut $135 million and likely eliminate 800 jobs. At 10 percent, the UNC system would cut $270 million and eliminate 1,700 jobs.

“We’re really going to impact the academic side,” the Associated Press quoted Bowles as saying.

Rose Harrell Johnson, president of Haywood Community College, said the community college would lose more than $1,306,478 with a 10-percent reduction.

“For comparison, the college received an increase of $1,213,111 in state funding this fiscal year because it had a 10.77 percent enrollment increase,” Johnson said. “If the budget reduction becomes reality, the college will lose its enrollment growth budget increase and potentially more.”

Among other measures, Garrett said SCC has been considering tuition increases.

“At the system office we will look at operations, contracts and personnel,” she said.

Preparing for the worst

Wooten said WCU anticipated budget reductions by making a number of decisions in the 2009-2010 fiscal year to take in budget reductions totaling about 8 percent, which eliminated 93.92 positions.

“After satisfying budget reductions for 2010-11, $4,404,792 remained for use against future budget reductions,” Wooten said.

WCU would see reductions of $8,638,874 at the 10-percent level and $4,319,437 at the 5 percent level, he said.

“WCU’s plan, which was submitted to the Office of State Budget and Management, would first offer up the full amount remaining from previous budget reductions ($4,404,792) to satisfy the 5-percent budget reduction plan, and campus divisions and departments have identified additional budget reductions ($4,234,082) to satisfy a 10-percent budget reduction plan … (this) would potentially eliminate 41.08 positions in the 2011-2012 fiscal year budget.”

With the Jackson County budget a few short weeks from completion, a split emerged among commissioners concerning raises for county workers.

Last week Commissioners Tom Massie, William Shelton and Mark Jones voted to eliminate employee raises in the upcoming budget and save the county $294,000.

Both Chairman Brian McMahan and Commissioner Joe Cowan opposed the measure.

McMahan isn’t happy with the decision, which he sees as abandoning an employee compensation system the board has already paid dearly for implementing.

Last year, the board commissioned a salary study for all county positions. The study recommended big raises for those already in the highest paid county positions. Commissioners enacted the raises but at a high political price.

“We took a lot of criticism about salary increases and the Mercer Study, and for us not to stay with the system was just backing up,” McMahan said.

Nonetheless, Massie proposed cutting step raises for 400 employees, an automatic increase of 2 percent of their annual salary.

Massie suggested the cuts in a budget work session last week. There have been more than a dozen budget work sessions in recent months, but last week was the first mention of cutting employee raises.

Massie said few workers are getting raises these days. State employees, school employees and the employees of surrounding counties haven’t gotten increases for two years, he said.

“We’ve bucked the trend the past couple of years, but this year just isn’t the year to raise salaries,” Massie said.

Massie said he doesn’t believe the commissioners should have to insulate the county’s workers from the economic troubles everyone else is feeling.

McMahan countered that a major portion of the money saved through the cuts is merely being reapportioned to other programs rather than used to lower taxes. Indeed, $112,621 is set to go back into the community in the form of contributions to the libraries and resources like the Community Table and the Jackson County Animal Shelter. Another $50,000 was placed back into the county’s contingency fund, and more than $200,000 will be set aside for future capital projects.

At a public hearing on the budget, the county heard from several community organizations requesting financial support.

For McMahan, the step increases are part of a larger employee compensation system that he said has helped the county attract and retain quality workers. He also objected to the late timing of the decision.

“If we were going to do this, it should have been brought up in January so the employees could plan for it,” McMahan said.

County employees had their insurance benefits changed this year, and their annual deductible was raised from $500 to $1,250.

The debate over the step increases was the one hot point in what has been a relatively amicable budget process.

The budget drafted by County Manager Ken Westmoreland called for a 9 percent overall reduction from last year. But the decrease was achieved primarily by leaving vacant positions unfilled, reducing capital expenditure outlays, and nickel and diming across the departments.

Jackson County has not had to cut services or jobs this year.

The commissioners also designated $80,000 for commercial investment in the county’s economic development fund, a signal that the county intends to get its Economic Development Commission back into action after years of controversy paralyzed it.

The county’s total budget in its most recent form weighs in at $66.6 million.

While university leaders are nervously hoping state lawmakers will pass a budget that looks something like the Senate version, many K-12 school officials are openly rooting for the House version.

Seeing public schools and colleges compete for the same budget dollars is not unusual, especially during this recession.

John Bardo, chancellor for Western Carolina University, said the budget would ideally not pit educational systems against each other.

“We cannot get good students in our institutions if the K-12 sector or the community colleges aren’t doing their jobs,” said Bardo, adding that lawmakers should consider the various entities as one system that builds competitiveness for North Carolina.

Bill Nolte, associate superintendent for Haywood County, added that he understands the dilemma leaders across the board face during this recession.

“We know it’s not the mayor’s fault or the state superintendent’s fault. It’s just the state of the world economy right now,” said Nolte.

According to Nolte, the governor’s budget is the least desirable for K-12 schools. To prepare for the worst, that’s the version Haywood County schools is working with in crafting its budget.

Last year, Haywood County’s school system lost 44.5 positions. This year, Nolte estimates Haywood will lose around a dozen more.

“Out of 1,200 plus, it’s a lot, but it could be a lot worse,” Nolte said, citing the total number of school employees. About 10 of the 12 positions would be absorbed through retirement and resignations, avoiding actual layoffs but impacting staff levels nonetheless.

Other budget cuts will likely limit textbook purchases, replacement of school buses and staff training.

While state lawmakers make mandatory cuts for all public schools, they also require individual school systems to decide where to make additional cuts. Under the governor’s budget, Haywood has to come up with $2.3 million in additional cuts, compared to $1.4 million under the House budget.

Gwen Edwards, finance officer for Jackson County Schools, said the K-12 school system will probably have to make $750,000 of its own discretionary cuts above and beyond what state lawmakers slash.

Federal stimulus money may make up the difference this year, but that money, which has eased the pain of state cuts for two years now, will dry up come the 2011-12 school year.

“We’re anticipating that that’s where a lot of hurting is going to be,” said Edwards.

Jan Letendre, finance officer for Swain County Schools, said many have likened the cutoff in federal stimulus money to a “funding cliff.” What’s also worrying for Letendre, though, are state cuts in funding for custodians, school secretaries and substitute teachers.

Letendre pegs the discretionary cuts for Swain’s school system at about $575,000 this year.

Western Carolina University Chancellor John Bardo fears the budget passed by the General Assembly this year might cast a shadow over the state’s future for years to come.

Like many university leaders across North Carolina, Bardo opposes the House version of the 2010-11 budget, which requires UNC campuses to cut spending by $232 million this year.

UNC system President Erskine Bowles has estimated 1,700 jobs would be lost across 17 UNC campuses by July should the budget cuts become reality.

About 80 percent of WCU staff is funded through state money. Such a deep cut would jeopardize the ability of universities across the state to accept students — even if they’re perfectly qualified.

House leaders have threatened to fund no more than a 1 percent increase in the number of students who attend UNC colleges in the 2011-12 year, contrary to claims by legislators that enrollment growth is being funded.

“We’re making it incredibly difficult for North Carolinians to go to college,” said Bardo. “We’re restricting access. We’re restricting ability.”

Producing fewer graduates in North Carolina would not bode well for its economic development, Bardo added.

“We cannot cut areas of education and expect this state to have the capacity to compete globally,” said Bardo. “North Carolina tends to lag the rest of the nation in coming out of the recession. This is going to increase the lag, most likely.”

Skimping on faculty would lead to drastic cuts in the number of classes offered, making it harder for students to graduate on time.

WCU is nearing maximum seating capacity for many of its courses already. Only one of the university’s four lecture halls can seat more than 150 students.

On the bright side, the Senate version of the state’s $18.9 billion budget calls for cuts of $105 million, far less than what the House has proposed.

“In this economic situation, nothing is perfect,” said Bardo. “But the Senate really did attempt to make sure the universities had the resources they needed.”

Meanwhile, the governor’s proposed budget would cut $155 million from the university system.

The governor’s cuts equate to about 5 percent of the UNC system’s current budget, the Senate’s version includes 3 percent in cuts, whereas the House budget requires almost 7 percent budget reduction.

The House and the Senate have appointed their repsective delegates to a joint budget committee that will hammer out differences between the House and Senate budget starting this week, to arrive at a mutually agreeable budget hopefully by July 1.

Unfair treatment?

WCU greeted last year’s budget season armed with a plan. The college made painful, but strategic, cuts to reduce its budget by 8 percent.

In 2009, WCU’s budget was permanently reduced by about 5 percent, while the governor asked Western to make an additional 5 percent in cuts.

After passing the state 2009-10 budget, lawmakers left WCU facing the task of cutting the equivalent of 94 full-time jobs.

This year, WCU’s plan to cope with cuts under the worst-case scenario calls for freezing 45 full-time equivalent positions that are vacant. Depending on the kind of budget that’s passed, that number of positions left empty may go up.

On the other hand, Bardo estimates the Senate version of the budget might leave room for WCU to fill some of those positions. At a June 4 meeting of the WCU Board of Trustees, Bardo entreated college leaders to begin campaigning for the Senate proposal.

“We have to be seen as players in making things better,” said Bardo. “We have developed a reputation for being apathetic to what they’re doing.”

That could have led to last year’s budget, which was less than fair to the UNC system, according to Bardo. Although appropriations for the systems 17 campuses equate to 13 percent of the stat budget, 29 percent of cuts imposed across state government came from the universities, according to Bardo.

“We do understand that they have a short-term problem, having to deal with the budget,” said Bardo. “At the same time, we want them to take their responsibility.”

Having already committed to a 1.5 cent tax rate increase to pay for building a new school in the north part of the county, Macon County commissioners were forced to cut departmental budgets to the bone this year in the budget adopted Monday night (June 14).

County Manager Jack Horton’s draft budget has been available since May 24, and since then, the commissioners have met four times in work sessions to discuss changes.

“There’s really no growth in the budget at all,” Horton said. “It’s just trying to hold back on operating expenses and fulfill the commitment we made to the schools.”

The board’s view of that commitment is apparently different from Horton’s. So far they have proposed reducing the $200,000 allocated for capital outlay at schools –– a pot of money that would come in handy if a roof needed fixing –– to nothing. School leaders asked for $800,000.

The decision by commissioners to cut the capital outlay was based on the fact that the board has committed so much money to school improvements in the past two years that everything should be ship shape for now.

Horton’s draft budget came in just slightly higher this year than his proposed budget last year, and that is in part because of one high-priced item a previous board committed to — a $313,000 contribution to an FAA grant that will help pay for the county’s airport runway expansion.

That money will come out of the county’s fund balance, but Commissioner Jim Davis was pushing his fellow commissioners to cut deep enough to reduce the tax increase to 1 cent per $100 of valuation.

In order to accomplish that goal, he suggested the county cut its $413,000 teacher supplement contribution. Davis also suggested that Horton cut another 1 percent from the department budgets to save another $750,000.

“I am adamant in my feeling that we are dealing with a real recession and that all government sectors should share some of that pain,” Davis said.

County Chairman Ronnie Beale and the rest of the commissioners didn’t want to do away with the teacher supplement.

“I’m in support of the teacher supplement for a lot of reasons,” Beale said. “When the county put this in, those teachers put it into their household budgets.”

Beale said trying to find ways to cut deeper was getting difficult, but he liked the idea of sending Horton back to the drawing board in search of another 1 percent.

“We don’t have much wiggle room,” Beale said. “Our job is trying to find ways to postpone purchases and to do everything we can not to cut people.”

Last Friday, the commissioners met for one last work session, and Horton had come up with an additional $821,000 in cuts from across all departments. Still, the tax hike couldn’t be reduced.

“We looked at it, but there was just no way to reduce it to less than 1.5 cents,” Horton said.

Davis had said on Friday he wouldn’t support the budget unless the tax hike came down, and on Monday night the commissioners voted 4-1 to pass a budget that tops out at $42,021,521, just a fraction above last year’s budget total. Davis was the lone dissenting vote.

Kaleigh Davis, 12, comes to the Haywood County Public Library with her aunt Marlene Arrington almost every Thursday night. Arrington said the family can’t afford a computer at home so when Davis had to do a project that was a fifth grade requirement, the family depended on the library.

“There’s no way without the library that we could have done it,” Arrington said. “Thursday night is the only time I can come. I work during the day.”

Thursday is the only night of the week the library stays open past 6 p.m. But starting June 14, the Haywood County Public Library will terminate evening hours completely.

The four branches of the Haywood County Public Library system will see about a $60,600 cut in the county’s budget for the upcoming year, according to Julie Davis, Haywood County finance officer. That’s brings the libraries budget down more than 4 percent from last year’s $1.42 million.

This year’s library allotment is about $162,000 less than it was in the 2007-08 budget prior to the recession. “You’ve got to figure out how to keep the doors open and that’s what it comes down to,” County Library Director Robert Busko said. “It’s a big chunk of money to have to make up.”

To deal with the cuts, the Haywood libraries will restrict hours at some libraries, reduce the materials budget and cut one full-time position — the director of the Maggie Valley Branch who is retiring.

“It’s only one position, but it comes on the heels of last year when we lost two full-time and six part-time positions,” Busko said. That year, the county made budget cuts across all county departments in response to the recession.

Fines Creek Public Library will now be open Monday and Wednesday, and the Maggie Valley Public Library will be open on Tuesday and Thursday.

Both libraries were previously open Monday through Thursday.

No hours will be cut at the Canton Branch, which had to cut nine hours of service with last year’s budget cuts, said Nan Williamson, the director of the Canton Public Library.

“We are as skeleton as we can be in providing services to the public,” Williamson said.

Busko said part-time librarians helped cover schedule gaps created by the later night hours and staffers’ summer vacations, but after last year’s cuts, the library now only has one part-time staff member. The small crew makes it near impossible to cover shifts when employees take their vacation.

“My concern was getting into the summer season and getting in a position where we can’t cover the hours,” Busko said. “In my mind, we are going to reinstitute those (evening) hours in the fall.”

But given the lean staffing, a bad flu season or other unseen events could keep the library from having the staff to open the library on Thursday nights again in the fall, Busko said.

The evening hours are critical to some — whether its working parents with schoolchildren or those who simply can’t get away from their jobs during the day to check out a book or use the Internet.

But the library will keep its Saturday hours so those who are on the job during normal workweek hours will still have access.

Alan McRae from Canton is a computer consultant with a flexible schedule. The cuts in the Thursday hours won’t keep him from coming to the library. But McRae said he is concerned about the budget cuts to the libraries and fine arts in general.

“It’s a shame with our financial issues in the States that we have to cut back on all these things,” McRae said. “I hope we do come up with creative solutions to these problems.”

Busko said the library has examined the budget and cut where they could, but a lot of the budget is fixed. Certain line items such as utilities and the Internet can’t be cut, he said.

Last year, the Internet cost the library $10,000 more than anticipated, Busko said. In order to cover it, the library had to move money around from other areas in the budget.

“Right now, there’s no money to move around,” Busko said.

In case something like that happens again, Busko has cut excess money from the new materials budget to save up a reserve.

The total cut to new materials budget is $25,000, which affects the number of copies of new releases that the library can buy.

“Basically we will be working with a book budget that’s been the lowest it’s been in 15 years,” Williamson said, adding that book prices are also much higher than they used to be.

In the past, the library could buy nine or 10 copies of a popular new release. Now they can only afford five or six copies, Busko said. To make sure everyone still gets a chance to read the books, some of the most popular authors and books will have shorter circulation times.

“It inconveniences the reader because they don’t have three weeks to read it, but it insures that everyone gets a fair shot at the materials,” Busko said.

The libraries in Jackson, Swain and Macon counties are a part of the Fontana Regional Library system and have been mostly unscathed by budget cuts.

For the past three years, Macon and Swain counties have not changed library funding.

“We are so fortunate and blessed that the counties don’t cut us at all,” business manager Deb Lawley said. “But our expenses are getting higher and higher, and it’s getting harder to make ends meet.”

Due to a new library in Sylva, scheduled to open in early spring 2011, Jackson County has actually increased library funding by $121,000 to cover the new library’s operation costs for the last four months of the next fiscal year.

The tri-county regional library network receives about 20 percent of its funding from the state, Lawley said. State funds have decreased between five and 10 percent the last two years, Lawley said. Whether the state will again cut the network’s budget for 2010-11 fiscal year remains unknown.

Jackson County Manager Ken Westmoreland said he would deliver a balanced budget with no cuts to services or staff and that is exactly what he did on Monday night.

While neighboring counties are taking drastic measures to offset budget shortfalls for the second year in a row, Jackson County is once again holding steady.

Westmoreland presented a draft budget to county commissioners at a county meeting Monday (May 17).

“We have not had to cut services. We have not had to furlough individuals. We have met all of our obligations,” Westmoreland said in his characteristic business-like language.

The one exception to a budget that essentially holds last year’s line items is the additional money to outfit and operate the county’s new library branch at the old Jackson County Courthouse site.

Westmoreland’s proposed budget includes $121,000 for staffing, collection materials and additional operating expenses for the library. Since the new library is not scheduled to open until January, the extra money in the budget is designed to cover costs for six months. The funding will have to be continued into the following fiscal year.

If there was a surprise in the proposed budget, it was Westmoreland’s decision not to meet the Jackson County Schools’ request for an increase in operating funds to offset their anticipated decreases in state funding.

Jackson County Schools Superintendent Sue Nations asked county commissioners to help the schools bridge an expected budget gap that could extend to nearly $1 million if Gov. Perdue’s proposed discretionary cuts take effect.

Westmoreland’s draft budget includes a meager $18,000 increase for the schools’ operating budget, when Nations requested an increase in excess of $350,000 to help pay for faculty and support staff.

Westmoreland said as early as March that he would produce a budget that held departmental funding levels steady but would not involve service cuts or tax increases.

Commissioner Tom Massie welcomed the draft budget and commended the county’s department heads for recognizing the difficulty of the economic climate.

“We’re finding savings every day in the budget and that’s why we’re not having to make some of the cuts going on in neighboring counties,” Massie said. “That reflects good management.”

Massie pointed to the fact that the county could carry over money from this year’s budget if their spending rates hold steady through June.

In the current fiscal year, Jackson County’s expenditures are 11 percent below their budgeted allotment to date, despite the fact that the county’s revenues are 1.6 percent below their predicted levels.

The county will hold a public hearing on the draft budget at 6 p.m. on Monday, June 7, in the county boardroom.