Jefferson County disasters, natural and unnatural

Last week I asked Jefferson County Commission President David Carrington how long the county could continue with its current budget deficit before it would have to cure the problem by laying off more employees and shuttering some county departments. It’s an open question and one I’m now glad the commissioner hasn’t pulled the trigger on yet.

In almost every answer to that particular question in recent months, and in our conversation last week, Carrington factored in the county’s response to unforeseen crises. In the spring, we could have tornadoes, he said, and in January and February, we could have ice storms.

Oh, but Mother Nature is so impetuous these days and her temperament in line with Jack the Ripper. Just a few days after my conversation with Carrington, Oak Grove, Center Point, Clay and Trussville were torn by tornadoes — in January. The county’s emergency responders, again, were there to help the public.

(I need to disclose here that Weld Publisher Mark Kelly is under contract to provide services to EMA as public information officer during local emergencies. His contract began before Weld existed and is paid for by the Jefferson County Emergency Management Council which is funded on a pro rata basis by the county government and all municipal governments in the county. In house, we have a strict policy that, when on duty, he does not provide Weld with information not concurrently provided to other news outlets, nor do I discuss county finances with him before writing about them.)

The commission and its lawyers have made it clear in bankruptcy court that they would prioritize the needs of citizens, especially in an emergency, before the wants of Wall Street. Tornado recovery comes before bond debt payments.

But the county might soon be in the position of being able to pay neither.

The county still has a $40 million hole in its budget. That deficit is the result of losing its occupational tax in a series of court battles, combined with a general downturn in all tax revenues due to the recession. If something does not happen soon, the county will run out of money completely.

One option is to fire people, in addition to the roughly 500 sent home already.
I’m writing this on Tuesday morning. In a few hours I’m going to go to the next commission meeting, but I can already tell you what I’m going to hear.

“Thank God we haven’t made these cuts already,” Commissioner [Fill in the Blank] said. “If we had sent these folks home last week, we’d be up the creek right now and a lot of people would be suffering.”

Melodramatic? Yes. But it’s also true.

In recent weeks, County Manager Tony Petelos has conducted another round of budget meetings with department heads. Petelos and the commissioners asked those officials to explain what would happen to their departments with further cuts. For departments not mandated by state law, such as inspections, they asked to explain what would happen if their departments were zeroed out of the budget. Obviously, their stories were rife with gloom and doom, but this is Jefferson County, where gloom and doom can literally fall out of the sky while you sleep.

Since taking office, the current commission has reduced the county’s general fund budget by about one third. Going deeper, they all agree, would cut through the muscle and into the bone.

Curiously, when politicians are forced to govern, the ideological distinctions begin to fall away. If you look at ballot from the last commission race, you’d see three Republicans and two Democrats made it to the commission. But after a year of having to make those tough decisions so many campaign ads talk about, they’ve come to a consensus.

Unfortunately, that consensus is not one that a lot of people are going to like. Last week, the commissioners announced that they would again seek a reinstatement of the county’s occupational tax. The tax they proposing would not have any of the legislative hemming and hawing that previous bills have included. There will be no sunset. There will be no public referendum (which most lawyers I’ve talked to agree is illegal and another target for a court challenge). The commissioners want a clean bill and a legal tax.

There is a major public misconception that the previous versions of the occupational tax were struck down because occupational taxes are themselves illegal. That’s not true. The previous versions of the tax were struck down by the courts because of bungling by the Alabama Legislature. The last occupational tax was so heavily amended by legislators that it did not represent the bill that had been advertised, the courts ruled. The tax before that was struck down the by Legislature itself, albeit with what’s called an “implied quorum,” which the Alabama Supreme Court upheld with an act of legal contortion so that hundreds of Alabama’s local laws wouldn’t be nullified instead of the occupational tax.

The tax is not popular. Commissioners realize that and understand that supporting the tax might end their political careers, but they’ve decided to make that sacrifice if that’s what it takes for the county to survive.

However, don’t count on any such acts of selflessness from the legislature.

In the Alabama House, there are several representatives who could kill the bill. In particular, Rep. John Rogers has always played games with the occupational tax. Rep. Arthur Payne, who introduced the original repeal of the tax, is also no fan. It take four votes to kill a local bill in the House. Rep. Mary Moore usually walks in lock step with Rogers. That’s makes three. So where is number four?

A lot of lawmakers, especially Republicans, will likely walk to the cabbage patch when the tax comes up for a vote — in effect, supporting the bill without voting for it. Others will introduce their own versions of an occupational tax that will not meet the county’s needs and probably won’t survive the next court challenge. This is a favorite tactic of Payne and Rogers.

And in the Alabama Senate, there’s always Scott Beason. (Unless some sly senator sneaks the bill on the calendar when Beason is on the campaign trail.)

Regardless of the county’s lobbying strategy, the odds of getting an occupational tax through Montgomery are almost hopelessly long. If that doesn’t happen, the county will be broke, and bankruptcy won’t fix it.

In Jefferson County, not all disasters fall from the sky. Some are man-made and quite predictable.