Cutbacks hit county Planning Office again

Faced with a projected shortfall of $52,000 in planning-fee income by the end of the fiscal year next June, the Flathead County Planning Office has laid off another planner and is faced with further belt tightening as a construction slump continues.

Andrew Hagemeier, a Planner II staffer, was released in mid-November.

In just four years, the Planning Office staff has shrunk from 13 full-time employees during the height of Flathead’s building boom to a current staff of five full-time staffers and a part-time board secretary.

“It’s not pleasant but we have to respond to the changing economy just like everyone else,” Planning Director BJ Grieve said.

Grieve had projected $100,000 in planning-fee income during the fiscal year that began July 1 and ends June 30, 2011.

Those fees cover a number of permit applications — conditional uses, lakeshore, flood plain, zone changes, subdivisions, and so on — and account for a sizable chunk of the planning budget.

But when Grieve realized four months into the fiscal year that fee projections already were lagging by 49 percent, it was time to make the tough call to reduce the staff, he said.

“If I had waited until the end of the fiscal year, it would have put the county commissioners in the awkward position of making [the Planning Office] whole from the beginning of the fiscal year,” Grieve said. “I didn’t want to take money from the general budget to do that. Responsible stewardship of public resources requires corresponding staff adjustments as fee-generating workload continues to decline.”

Grieve figures his office is on track to collect roughly $50,000 in planning-fee revenue by the end of the fiscal year. It seems like a pittance compared to the record $471,000 collected in fees in fiscal year 2006.

The Planning Office processes about 30 different kinds of land-use applications and enforcement actions. Some generate fee revenue but many are done for public benefit, Grieve said.

It’s the drop in the biggest fee-generating applications that has hit the hardest. In calendar year 2006, for example, the office received 87 applications for final plats, one of the bigger fee generators. As of Nov. 17 this year, the office had received 11 similar applications for calendar year 2010.

Beyond the latest staff reduction, Grieve had to find other ways to trim the Planning Office budget to compensate for the lack of fee revenue.

Deferring a planned transfer to a capital-improvement project fund would save $15,000 and further scrutiny of line-item expenditures should save another $5,000. Those trimmings, combined with a drawdown of cash reserves of about $8,000, should balance the budget, Grieve said.

Looking ahead to fiscal year 2012, Grieve said the latest staff adjustment will save about $48,000, which should compensate for low planning-fee revenues.

Declining revenue

Flathead County Planning and Zoning Office

Planning fee collections by fiscal year

2002 — $134,000

2003 — $174,000

2004 — $242,000

2005 — $302,000

2006 — $471,000

2007 — $343,000

2008 — $258,000

2009 — $163,000

2010 — $114,000

2011* — $50,000

* Projected

Features editor Lynnette Hintze may be reached at 758-4421 or by e-mail at lhintze@dailyinterlake.com