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| County Reduces Budget |
| By themonticellonews.com |
| Published: 06/18/2009 |
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County Reduces Budget, Hears 2008 Audit Report Kathy Mudd The Jasper County Commissioners heard a review of the draft 2008 audit at their called meeting Monday evening, which showed the account was over budget more than a million dollars. The auditor, Mark Hardison, outlined several deficiencies, and told the commissioners they do not want to have them. He again told how to avoid them. They must keep good records and prepare their financial statements, but they also must make budget amendments when needed, he said. The problems with the budget included a more than $536,000 error with funds being counted twice in the revenues�a mistake that was made in 2008 and 2009. The auditors found the mistake a couple of months ago, and the commissioners have made budget adjustments to offset that shortage. In addition, many departments went over budget�some by a large amount. Overall revenues for 2008 totaled $7.9 million, whereas the expenditures were closer to $9 million, which was budgeted. The commissioners have taken action to avert that problem this year by cutting the budget. Department heads, elected officials, and component units will get a memo this week telling them how much their budget has been cut, and they will have to figure out the adjustments to make with less revenue. Commissioners discussed the cuts in an amicable meeting last Wednesday, June 10, and on Friday, County Manager Greg Williams along with Commissioners Alan Cox and Ronnie Payne figured the cuts. Commissioner Cox tweaked them somewhat, because he felt Public Works had already been cut enough. At Monday�s meeting, the commissioners adopted the cuts outlined by Mr. Cox. Component units include the Water Authority, Health Department, Economic Development authority, and E-911 Authority. In addition, the hospital and library budgets were affected by the cuts. Those two entities, and others, are not considered departments or component units. Jeff Tomlinson, executive director of the Uncle Remus Library System, provided information to the commissioners showing the library�s entire budget, and the cuts it has suffered, and asked them to consider limiting their cuts. He showed that the library�s local funding has been reduced, largely because of the Board of Education eliminating its support, and showed that the library�s budget is flat. Representatives of Jasper Health Services and the Extension Service were present at the meeting, but did not speak. Larry Kaiser of Collaborative Infrastructure Services (CIS) the county�s engineer for road improvements, presented the results of the unit price bids, and went on to explain how he had calculated the unit price options on the Pitts Chapel Road project, and met with Cummings Grading, the apparent low bidder, with a project scope. Cummings agreed to a price of $465,003 to finish the work on Pitts Chapel. Commissioners had a number of questions about the unit price way of bidding and questioned Mr. Kaiser. Commissioner Alan Cox, who represents voters on Pitts Chapel Road said he thought it was a good price and would like to move ahead, but since his fellow commissioners have questions, he would defer until the next meeting. Commissioners were presented a contract for tire recycling at the landfill and had numerous questions. The contract is for 36 months, and the commissioners were definitely not in favor of that long a term. In addition, they were concerned about minimum fees and other items. Ken Tillman, landfill director, and a representative of Quality Tire Recycling are to be at the next commission meeting, scheduled for July 6, to answer questions. Commissioners had extended the public hearing on the proposed Planning & Zoning ordinance with architectural standards begun at the previous meeting, and received little comment. However, the commissioners had numerous concerns, and agreed to extend the public hearing until the next mid-month meeting, July 20, at which time the public will be invited to speak about concerns. The proposed ordinance has been passed by the Planning & Zoning Commission, and reviewed at length by a zoning review committee. Numerous public meetings, hosted by Planning & Zoning and the review committee, were held on the ordinance last year. The commissioners appeared ready to pass the new ordinance in January, but the architectural standards had not been reviewed, so they deferred. Monday, they talked about adopting the architectural standards as �guidelines� and the ordinance, but most of their concerns were about the actual ordinance. Commissioners agreed to open a separate bank account for donations to animal control. They had discussed the option at the last meeting and were looking into several alternatives. The concept is that donated monies do not need to be mixed in with the general fund. If people donate to animal control, that�s where they want their money spent.Read more. If link has expired, check the website of the article's original news source. |
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