NORTH SALT LAKE — As state legislators grapple with cutting budgets across the board, Davis County officials want them to understand that local governments are also struggling and can’t pick up where the state leaves off.

“We’re not as flush as everybody thinks we are,” Bountiful Mayor Joe Johnson told state Representatives Roger Barrus and Becky Edwards last week at a Davis County Council of Governments meeting.

Annually mayors, commissioners and other policy makers meet with state legislators just prior to the beginning of the state session to discuss proposed legislation and share concerns.

Johnson told the two legislators that he understands the issue of removing sales tax from food may be considered in this legislative session. He said that especially in some of the county’s smaller cities which have only one store, that sales tax is an important component of their tax base, and even in Bountiful, it’s becoming a bigger issue. “A lot of our income is coming from food because (car) dealerships are moving out.”

Davis County Commissioner Louenda Downs told the pair she’s concerned that as the state cuts programs, counties will be expected to carry them out through unfunded mandates.

“We realize that you have to make significant cuts, but one of our greatest fears is that you will cut state programs, but keep the mandates. Please remember that all the cuts you make affect us as well,” she said. “If you don’t have the ability (to pay for programs), we don’t have the ability.”

Edwards said counties provide such an enormous amount of service, especially in the area of health and human services, that there’s no way to get out of all the mandates, because many come from the federal government, but she said legislators would try and see that the counties are adequately funded.

mwilliams@davisclipper.com