Members of the Marshall County Council spent about 6 hours reviewing the 2019 budget requests with the various department heads in the county on Tuesday. Budget requests for next year’s General Fund are $14,176,945 which does include an across the board 4% raise for county employees and elected officials.
At the beginning of the meeting, Council President, Judy Stone said she felt the council needed to cut $800,000 from the budget request and councilwoman Penny Lukenbill agreed with her.
Next year’s budget has eight requests for new employees in it. The Building Maintenance Department is seeking another custodian while the Sheriff wants to add a bookkeeper.
Prosecutor Nelson Chipman asked for a fifth prosecutor. He told the County Council his salary and benefits and the Chief Deputy’s are totally paid by the State. One deputy prosecutor is currently paid entirely by the general fund and the second deputy prosecutor is partially paid for by the general fund, Pretrial Diversion funds and Title 4D. While his request was to pay this fifth prosecutor entirely from the general fund, when asked he said he may be able to assist with partial funding.
The prosecutor’s office has seen a drastic increase in caseload and presented stats on other counties case loads and numbers of deputies. It appears Marshall County is lagging behind on the number of prosecutors.
Ty Adley, the new Planning Director asked for an Office Manager and an Inspector in next year’s budget. He presented members with statistics on case load and revenues his office bring into the county’s general fund.
County Building Inspector, Chuck DeWitt warned the council two months ago that he was going to seek help in his office. With state mandates, the building department will be required to contact area fire departments on all new construction using advanced structural components. There is also a state mandate that to receive federal funds, energy audits are being required prior to receiving building permits.
DeWitt said the Insurance Service Office has given Marshall County the worst residential rating because we are not doing pan reviews prior to issuing building permits on residential projects and only sporadic reviews on commercial plans. He has asked clerical office help and an inspector.
The final request for a new employee comes from the Auditor, Julie Fox who needs an additional deputy.
While the council reviewed budgets, only a few minor reductions were made. They also discussed the recommendation of HR consultants, Waggoner Irwin Scheele to move all employees to the external mid-point of the compensation survey. That increase would be $587,678 in the general fund.
Council president Judy Stone said, “We can only do what we can afford.” She noted that many of the county employees are between the low and mid-point already while a few are at the mid-point or surpassed it.
Council member will spend the next two weeks review the budgets individually and on September 4th they will conduct a work session where each member will discuss their recommendations. Budget cuts will be made at the September 10th meeting.
