“On the next few slides, we contrast changes in ‘dollars’ with ‘purchasing power,’ to understand what has happened.”
— From the Powerpoint slideshow presented to the Archuleta Board of County Commissioners by Finance Director Larry Walton, December 12, 2018
I left the Archuleta Board of County Commissioners meeting yesterday, feeling frustrated and angry. After 14 years of covering government meetings, and watching both sensible and idiotic decisions made by local elected leaders, I can usually handle disappointment without getting too upset. But yesterday’s meeting… well, let me tell you about it.
The BOCC meeting had been convened to approve the 2019 County budget, which is a usually relatively simple matter. The Commissioners vote either ‘Yes’ or ‘No.’ (Typically, they vote ‘Yes’ because they legally need a budget in order to spend our tax money.)
Yesterday, however, we had to sit through a 55-minute sales pitch delivered by County Finance Director Larry Walton. The sales pitch had very little to do with the details of the 2019 budget. To me, it appeared to be an attempt to justify a BOCC decision to put Archuleta County taxpayers millions of dollars in debt in order to build a new 54-bed jail — without the approval of said taxpayers.
Mr. Walton is a very intelligent person, and his sales pitch was carefully constructed, and thoroughly illustrated with numerous charts and graphs. We learned, for instance, that one dollar in 2018 is worth less than it was in 2006 — and therefore, I suppose, the millions of dollars that the BOCC has stashed away in various savings accounts over the past decade are not worth what they were when the stashing was performed.
Being an intelligent sort of person, Mr. Walton had gone back to 2006 and looked at the Consumer Price Index (CPI) and had determined that one dollar in 2006 is now worth maybe 76 cents.
It’s my understand that the calculation of a “Consumer Price Index” depends heavily upon housing, food, and fuel costs, and other things purchased by “Consumers.” The County does not spend its money on housing or food — at least, not in the 2019 budget, except maybe on inmate housing and food. The County spends almost all its money on staff salaries, and on road maintenance. But using the CPI to help justify a 54-bed jail certainly seemed intelligent, on the face of it.
When Mr. Walton showed us a chart purportedly comparing the increases in the County’s sales tax collections to the “adjusted” value of the money per the CPI, however, he did not begin with 2006. He instead started with 2007 — the year that County sales taxes began to decline, just prior to the Great Recession. (The huge $1 million spike in 2010 was the result of accounting errors at the Colorado Department of Revenue.)
According to Mr. Walton, the solid blue line indicated the sales tax collections in actual dollars, and the dotted line showed the comparative ‘purchasing power’ of those dollars, when adjusted for inflation. As we see above, the actual sales tax collections in 2019 are projected to be almost $2 million more than in 2007. But when Mr. Walton applies the CPI adjustment, the sales taxes appear to be worth only about $500,000 more than in 2007.
Commissioner Steve Wadley explained that the chart began with 2007 because it was too difficult for the County Finance Department to find sales tax records going back to 2006 and earlier.
Was the Commissioner joking, perhaps?
It took me about 30 seconds to find the County sales tax records going all the way back to 1997. The information was included on page 10 of the 2006 Archuleta County Budget, which you can download here.
If Mr. Walton had included sales tax information going back to, say, 2004… the graph would have looked something like this:
As we can see, the projected ‘actual’ sales tax for 2019 is twice the amount collected in 2004. I mean, like, double. But I guess Commissioner Wadley was not comfortable letting the citizens see the massive increase in sales taxes collected by the County since 2004?
As the sales pitch continued, Finance Director Walton noted that the County has a significant number of capital projects pending in the future. Millions and millions of dollars worth of capital projects that need to be funded over the next decade or so.
In excess of $42 million worth of projects over the next ten years, if we are to believe Mr. Walton’s calculations. And some of the needs are “immediate.” A $13 million jail, for starters. (Total cost, with interest payments included? $830,000 per year X 25 years = $20.8 million)
Mr. Walton mentioned some of the other ‘immediate’ needs:
“The Courts need a home. We have no price tag for that, at this point. A Sheriff’s Office. We have nothing planned for them at this point…”