Rural counties face long, winding road to solvency

DOWNIEVILLE, Calif. - The heart of Sierra County government is a small, drafty building, jammed floor to ceiling with a maze of file cabinets stacked with planning books and years of maps.

Clapboards are streaked brown from rainfall that drips from the evergreens overhead. A bucket hangs from the ceiling inside to capture water seeping through the roof.

County Supervisor Arnold Gutman calls it a work hazard, but says it's unlikely to be replaced anytime soon. The county raided its reconstruction fund to pay its bills last year and it will probably swipe the rest to keep the rural county solvent next year.

With funds from the state scarce due to its budget crisis, times are tough in most counties around the state. But nowhere is the situation as dire as the smaller, rural areas, where the economy is hurting and counties must provide services across vast, wild terrain.

"What I tell people is it's a fantastic place to live," Gutman said as he strolled along icy streets in this former gold rush town. "We have clean air, clean water, no crime and no jobs. That's what killing us."

Like much of Northern California, the timber industry here is nearly dead, mining is a subject for history books and those who settled in the mountains are aware there's a price to be paid for getting away from it all.

For Sierra County, the cost is projected to be $700,000 in red ink, about 7 percent of its road and general fund budgets. Hard cuts have already been made and county officials are looking for other sources and preparing to visit lawmakers in Sacramento, 105 miles southwest, to beg for more funding.

Those who track county government say that Sierra and Trinity counties are probably in the worst financial shape across the state.

Both suffer from losing most, if not all, of their timber-based economies. Huge swaths of land are national forest that don't pay property taxes. And they're located in remote locations unlikely to draw other industries.

Trinity's problems are due mostly to its county-run hospital, which accumulated a $4.5 million debt. The county was on the brink of bankruptcy at the start of this year, but has since moved to transfer the hospital to the Trinity Public Utilities District, which would be able to save money by managing the facility for the 13,000-resident county.

Howard Freeman, chairman of the Trinity Board of Supervisors, said all other county departments have balanced their books and the county will be solvent when it's not saddled with the hospital's debt.

Rural health care has long been a drain on resources, but those facilities are considered vital from cities.

"County hospitals are often significant money losers," said Steve Keil, legislative coordinator for the California State Association of Counties. "But if you're in Alturas or Weaverville, having an emergency room can make a life or death difference."

Struggling counties get hit twice when the economy sours. Not only coffers suffer when tax collections dwindle, but demand invariably jumps for the kinds of services that counties are required to provide - namely welfare, public health and law enforcement.

Tough choices must be made.

In Colusa County, an agricultural area in the Sacramento Valley, jobs were cut and the county nearly shut down around the holidays. The Sheriff's Department, normally staffed by 55 deputies, is short 17 deputies. Several departments are over budget and now accounts are reviewed monthly instead of twice a year.

"We're in trouble right now," said David Womble, a Colusa County supervisor. "If things continue ... this time next year we'll be hollering for state assistance. Maybe sooner."

In the words of the Brent Harrington, executive director of the Rural Counties Association, many of the state's outposts have been abandoned along the road to economic development.

The upside is they don't have to deal with vexing growth issues that have saddled some counties with big city problems of crime, traffic and development. Instead, they're left with envy for what they don't have as lumber mills close and jobs evaporate.

"They're asking, 'Why are you arguing about Kmart or Wal-Mart," Harrington said. "We'd just love to see a new store."

Yet the charms of rural life abound in places like Sierra County where Downieville, the county seat with 325 residents, sits in a canyon at the forks of two rivers with majestic pines blanketing the steep hillsides. Bald eagles soar over the Yuba River looking for fish. There's not a stop light in the county and nary a parking meter.

A sign on the stairwell leading to the auditor's office betrays the sense of serenity: "Good morning. Let the stress begin."

Inside a wood-paneled office, Van Maddox, the auditor and controller, sits behind a desk littered with bills and other paperwork. He put the sign up three years ago and the tension has only risen since.

He rarely gets time to balance the books between juggling bills and handling personnel and insurance issues. Like all officials in the county of 3,500 people, he performs tasks that five department heads would do in other counties. One is as copy machine repair guy.

Since 2001, the county has eliminated 15 of its 121 full-time jobs. The Roads Department, which shares crowded office space with the Department of Public Works, the engineering, building, planning and solid waste departments, has half the 40 employees it had 10 years ago, but still must maintain 400 miles of county roads.

Plows that once hit the roads with the first snowflake now wait until about 6 inches is on the ground, Maddox said.

Maddox complained of a state funding formula based on the number of residents, even though the population swells nearly 10-fold on the busiest days of summer when mountain bikers from afar hit the trails and fishermen line the banks of the Downie and Yuba rivers for prized trout.

"If we could charge admission at the entrance to the county, we'd do great," Maddox said. "Yosemite gets away with it."

County supervisors are considering raising building and planning department fees to cover the costs of those departments, which currently run a deficit. But with only 20 to 30 new houses built each year, fees would have to raised astronomically to cover the shortfall. There are also plans to ask voters to hike a local motel tax and street lights may be darkened.

"Three years ago I realized this was going to happen but no one else would believe me," Maddox said. "I was telling them right off, 'This is coming.' I was called Chicken Little."

The lights flickered for a moment in his office. No, the sky was not falling, just a power surge from the X-ray machine being used in the health clinic downstairs.

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Associated Press Writer Tom Chorneau contributed to this story.