Levy County Chief Financial Officer Jared Blanton discusses next year’s county commission budget as Board Chairman Matt Brooks and Commissioner Lilly Rooks listen to his remarks.
By Terry Witt – Spotlight Senior Reporter
Levy County Chief Financial Officer Jared Blanton Tuesday said Levy County’s unemployment rate is 4.9 percent and rising but he doesn’t foresee Levy County Commission employees being laid off in the ongoing economic shutdown.
Blanton, who advises Levy County Commissioners on budget issues, said the board has about $12 million in cash reserves and can probably weather the bleak financial conditions likely facing the country.
“Do you think we will have to let people go?” asked Commissioner Lilly Rooks.
“No, we’re in a position we can wait and see,” responded Blanton.
On the other hand, he said, no one can accurately predict what the future holds as a result of the national economic shutdown.
Commissioners haven’t ruled out future hiring freezes or voluntary retirement of senior employees if the economy bottoms out, but they aren’t to the point of discussing those options yet and the preliminary revenue numbers for next year’s budget could change.
Blanton, who works for the clerk’s office, said that while there are no solid numbers to forecast exactly what could happen by year’s end, he said he does know the economy suffered a terrible economic shock from the national shutdown.
“The economy has been essentially mandated into unprecedented shutdown by state authorities on advice of federal authorities and this is generally a worldwide phenomenon,” Blanton said. The sudden shock to what was an otherwise apparently healthy economy is something no one knows how to analyze and predict.”
Blanton warned commissioners of the potential downside of the economic shutdown if the impact is long term.
“If the impact is prolonged, the great risk is that we eventually will see property values drop and significant destruction of local wealth and loss of small businesses,” he said.
Commissioners are in the early stages of preparing their budget for the coming year. The 2020-21-budget begins on Oct. 1 and ends on Sept. 30, 2021.
Blanton said the sales tax numbers from two months ago won’t be available for a week. March was the beginning of the national shutdown.
“We won’t know April’s until late June. We expect those to be very bad,” he said.
While still on the subject of the upcoming budget, Commissioners agreed to a request from Tisha Whitehurst, who manages the county tourism bureau and serves as grants coordinator, to create a full-time grants position to free her up to devote all her time to tourism.
She said the grants coordinator position needs to be a full-time employee to oversee the growing number of grants and to ensure all compliance issues are met. The coordinator would also stay in touch with Tallahassee looking for more grants.
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Board of County Commission Budget Meeting May 19, 2020; Posted May 23, 2020
