Gannon: County will pay its bills

Responding to reports that the county was as much as two months behind in paying its bills, Cannon County Executive Mike Gannon said Thursday the fault lies with the spending habits of past county commissions.

Gannon also said he hoped the county would be up-to-date on its bills by the end of the year.

"We are holding some bills back because our money has not come in yet," Gannon said. "Our fund balance today is $271,000 after payroll. That gives us enough to pay part of them."

Gannon added several of the bills he has did not come in until this month. He said they will first look at paying the October bills.

"Usually December is a good month as far as revenue so I think after then we will be OK," Gannon said.

Gannon said the situation was created several years ago when the county commission began depleting the General Fund reserves.

"The problem is we do not receive revenue in 12 equal monthly installments," Gannon said. "Some months less money comes in than it does in other months. From July 1 until about November, very little property tax money comes in.

"This period of time right now is always tighter," Gannon added. "If we still had a nearly $1.4 million fund balance like we had in 2009 this wouldn't be an issue. We could operate off of our fund balance until our money came in.

"The commission in 2010 made a decision to lower the fund balance and pay it down. We had $1,344, 146 on June 30, 2009 and by June 30, 2010 they had lowered it to by almost half that, to $700,805. It went up a little the next year, but then it went steadily down and by June 30, 2015 it was only $169,546," Gannon said.

"Along about 2015 is when we were forced, due to them (county commissioners) spending down the fund balance, to set bills back until our money comes in, because we have to make payroll first," Gannon said.

Diane Hickman, Gannon's administrative assistant, said on Thursday the county payroll paid out of the General Fund is around $150,000 per month. She also said the Comptroller's Office has directed the County Commission and other officials to take the steps necessary to raise the General Fund reserve balance to $1,000,000 and to maintain it at that level.

Gannon said no local merchants have cut any department off from making purchases, including gas. He said one credit card company did discontinue the use of a card. Gannon also said there are two other local businesses at which gasoline can be purchased by any department.

In October of last year, Gannon and the county commission were told by Comptroller of the Treasury Justin P. Wilson that, "Cannon County is in a financial management crisis."

Wilson sent a letter to Gannon and the commissioners which stated, in part, "we believe the county is at a crossroads. The Commission needs to take immediate action to control the County's spending and overall financial situation. Without strong, decisive action by the Commission, the County will spend more money than it receives during fiscal year 2017, as it has every year since fiscal year 2012."

The county commission passed a resolution establishing a fiscal management plan in February of this year.

Gannon said he did not believe the county's finances were in danger of being taken over by the state.

"I would not think so. I haven't heard anything from the state about that."

Gannon said it would not be necessary to delay payment on the county's bills if the county had an adequate General Fund reserve.

"It was not necessary when we had over a million dollars in fund balance," Gannon said. "The problem is the commission allowed the fund balance to get too low. This is what exactly what I said would happen when they started doing it. I told them in 2012 it was getting dangerously low. That's why I refused to sign the budget that year."