Cut, cut, cut

The Carbon County Council of Governments (CCCOG) gathered at 5:30 p.m. on Wednesday in a special meeting at the Jeffrey Center in Rawlins and all municipalities that had projects to be funded by the 6th penny tax had representatives present.

The special meeting had been scheduled after the regularly scheduled meeting on Nov. 14 had not resolved what projects should be pursued by each town (see “CCCOG gets project bids for tax” on page 5 of the Nov. 21 Saratoga Sun).

The meeting on Wednesday was intended to get each municipality at a fiscal number for their projects that could be attained with funds generated by the 6th penny tax.

“I think we better get started, because we might be here a long time,” Steve Nicholson, CCCOG chairman, said.

The agenda, minutes from Nov. 14 and the treasurers report for October 2018 were quickly approved.

Barbara Bonds, from Freudenthal and Bonds, was called by phone to listen to the meeting.

County Clerk Gwynn Bartlett started the discussion asking what towns were going to bond and which were not.

When a town bonds, the municipality gets the funds up front instead of waiting for the monies from the tax to come in over the years. By not bonding, the town will not have to pay percentage rates incurred by the bond.

The municipalities of Encampment, Rawlins and Saratoga decided not to bond. The town of Hanna bonded for $1.5 million of their projects.

“We have to cut about $30 million dollars here, so everybody is going to cut,” Bartlett said.

Some municipalities had come into the meeting not cutting any funds from their projects. Dixon, Elk Mountain, Riverside and Sinclair representatives said, because of their projects, the towns were not in a position to cut funds.

Starting the meeting, Baggs wanted $2.1 million after cutting $699,000 from their water and sewer project.

Dixon asked for $1,110,000 for their water and sewer project.

Elk Mountain wanted $3,068,000 for their natural gas distribution system project.

Encampment wanted $2,877,300 for their water, sewer and park improvements after cutting $273,200.

Hanna went from $3,834,850 to $2,959,413 for water main, parks and recreation improvements and resurfacing, shaving off $875,437.

Medicine Bow went from $3.9 million to $1 million for streets dropping $2.9 million.

Rawlins went from $19,320,481 to $13,574,492 for their streets and sewers, removing $5,745,989 from their original request.

Riverside requested $1,648,970 for water improvements and a maintenance building.

Saratoga originally requested $9,988,395 for water, sewer, streets, parks and recreation, emergency services and maintenance facilities and cut $1.6 million making their request $8,388,395. Sinclair’s second floor renovation to the town hall came in at $2,171,251.88.

Carbon County went from $25 million for a courthouse and Carbon Building remodel to $20 million.

The municipalities came down from the original amount of $75,991,447.88 to $60,797,821.88, cutting $15,193,626.

It was not enough. Bartlett estimated another $10 million needed to be cut.

Nicholson went back to each municipality representative and asked if there was any cuts that could be made.

Each representative’s answer was that they had cut as much as they could.

Bartlett offered another formula for CCCOG members to consider. She suggested to base it on population.

“Take everyone’s population and give $1,150 per person, plus a guaranteed $1,000,000 minimum guarantee, that gets you to $45,235,500,” Bartlett said.

Nicholson said this formula looked to be unfairly skewed to the smaller communities. Members of CCCOG did not like the idea.

Under this formula, Saratoga would get $2,943,500, a shortfall of $5,444,895. The town of Dixon would benefit from this formula getting an extra $1,150 and Medicine Bow would glean $326,600 more. They were the only two municipalities that would not be taking more cuts to their projects.

The idea was not popular and CCCOG members said no.

Nicholson proposed a mandatory percentage cut that was also nixed.

After his suggestion, there was a strong silence among all members that lasted several minutes.

“I guess we would be open for any discussion,” Nicholson laughed slightly. “We aren’t going to get anywhere if we aren’t talking.”

John Johnson, Carbon County Commissioner, said he could would cut another $2 million.

Nicholson said, although it was going to be tough to cut another project and justify to the citizens of Rawlins when the town accounted for 67 percent of the Carbon County tax base, he was willing to cut $1,384,116.

Leroy Stephenson, mayor of Riverside, said they would go down to $1.2 million

There was discussion on what figure they had gotten down to and it was realized more money had to be cut.

Nicholson suggested a 15 minute break for municipalities to talk amongst themselves to see what could be cut.

When CCCOG reconvened, all municipalities had made some more cuts.

Carbon County was at $18 million.

Baggs went to $1.5 million.

Dixon’s number was $1 million.

Elk Mountain cut to $2,818,000.

Encampment was $2,727,300.

Hanna went down to $2,374,413.

Medicine Bow was $1 million.

Rawlins leaned down to $12,193,076.

Riverside reduced to $1,230,000.

Saratoga went down to $7,932,440 and Sinclair jumped down to $1.5 million.

It was agreed the tax should go for no more than 17 years. This tax could be over in a shorter time, but by expecting it to go 17 years, the projects needed by the towns could most likely all be funded.

“Lets shoot for 17 years, but if it comes in under that, great,” Nicholson said.

The wind farms that are slated to be built in the near future had not been considered in the tax revenues and because the number was close to be achievable, CCCOG felt they had accomplished their goal.

The voting members approved $52,275,229 for the different projects to be funded by the 6th penny tax within 17 years.

Bartlett said she needed a final number and list of projects from all the municipalities by Friday.

The next scheduled meeting is at 6 p.m. on Jan. 16 in Rawlins.