Sure, there’s the bad news: Macomb County’s tax base is evaporating. Services are shrinking. And there are fewer assistant prosecutors and deputies tracking down criminals.
But that’s not the whole story, county Board of Commissioners Chairman Paul Gieleghem said Tuesday in an interview with the Free Press.
“Everyone was predicting doomsday, but it never happened,” the Clinton Township Democrat said.
Gieleghem was alluding to some commissioners who warned two years ago that the county was headed toward eventual receivership.
“Now, we are seeing real savings that are protecting public services,” he said.
Though the county faces a $15.7-million deficit next year, Gieleghem pointed to recent developments that indicate a stronger future — a new finance director with fresh ideas; a superior bond rating, and growing emergency reserves.
Hired in late March, Finance Director Gilbert Chang is demanding what he calls “more robust financial planning” and tighter scrutiny of the $470-million budget.
The idea, he said, is to identify priorities, such as health and senior services, and eliminate waste that may be hiding in some departments’ budgets.
A little more than a year ago, the Board of Commissioners chose Gieleghem as its chairman at a time when the county’s emergency savings were dangerously low, employees were retiring with full benefits at age 50 and a county-run nursing home was costing taxpayers more than $7 million a year.
Now the picture is brighter: The county began replenishing its reserves, prohibited employees from retiring at age 50 and reduced the nursing home subsidy to less than $1 million per year.
Along with additional cuts, including closing a section of the jail and eliminating more than 125 county jobs, the savings this month prompted the key credit rating agency Standard & Poor’s to give the county its highest bond rating, AAA — a ranking shared with only 66 other counties nationwide.
“It shows that we’re on the right path,” Gieleghem said. “We still have cuts ahead, but we’re getting through it.”
