With sharp pencils and red ink, members of the Marshall County Council only took half a day to pare down the 2016 budget requests and adopt a final budget of $8,318,705 on Monday morning.
Members had determined a nearly $680,000 of cuts during the budget hearing in August but there was a need to reduce the $9,832,586 in requests by nearly one million dollars to have expenditures under the estimated income of $8,850,512.
The first thing the County Council did was to move the PERF and Social Security from the Sheriff’s Department and Jail out of the General Fund and to the Certified Shares. There will need to be an additional appropriation of $170,420 for the Social Security and $109,805 for PERC the first of next year to absorb that cost.
The Council also reduced the Commissioner budget by $500 in Office Supplies, $4,900 for the Maximus fund – using IV funds instead, $207,200 from Insurance, $150,000 for fuel and $5,000 for the Special Bicentennial Project. They also reduced the $5,000 for professional services in the Rainy Day fund and $390,000 in software maintenance in the Cum Cap Development fund.
The County’s Building and Maintenance fund also took a major cut. Initially $170,000 was reduced for the County Building roofing project that will be completed yet this year using rainy day funds. After taking a look at the bottom line the Council had to come back and cut an additional $25,000 leaving them $110,000.
The Special CAGIT Correctional Facility fund and a reduction of $2,000 in wages part-time turnkey/dispatchers and the in the Sheriff’s Certified Shares fund $500 out of part-time Clerical, $5,000 from Wages overtime, $5,000 from Wages holiday pay, and $3,000 from Wages security officers. Still with the Sheriff’s Department under Certified Shares Jail was a reduction of $5,000 for Wages part-time Turnkey/Dispatchers and $10,000 under Radio Repair.
The Statewide 911 fund has an estimated income of $507,373 and their budget request was $670,905. Their income comes from a fee on land lines and cell phones for 911 services. The County Council moved $46,000 for PERF from this fund and reduced Wages overtime by $10,000 and Wages holiday pay from $2,500. It was also suggested to look at moving some of the 9 employees from this fund next year into another fund to help the budget.
The Plan Commission’s request for an additional clerical position was denied and $17,096 was deleted from their budget along with $2,000 for legal services since they haven’t used any in 2014 or so far this year.
Judge Dean Colvin from Superior Court II requested a full-time law clerk and the council didn’t feel that they could fund the $54,993. They also removed $1,000 from the Travel/ Mileage budget and $45,200 for a project in the office to improve efficiency and confidentially.
The Probation Department was cut $39,441 for a probation officer and $33,560 for a vehicle purchase. The vehicle purchase will be considered in the lease vehicle project the county is working on instead.
There were a few other minor cuts of $100 here, $500 there and up to $1,000 but nothing debilitating to the various funds.
After getting the 2016 budget requests down to $8,757,846 Council members started the discussion of pay increases. It was determined that all full-time employees, elected officials and department heads will receive a $500 increase for next year and all part-time employees will receive a $.25 per hour increase. Council members voted not to give themselves a raise in 2016.
