The Marshall County Council spent just over two hours reviewing the 2020 budget requests and putting their red pencil to several increases.
The Council estimated they needed to cut $960,000 from the requests for next year of $14,198,913 to match the estimated revenues for 2020. When all was said and done the council pared down the budget to $13,331,533 cutting $966,175 from next year’s budget.
Cuts were made from many of the budgets including the Commissioners offering to reduce their budget by $380,000. They gave $280,000 from Group Health Insurance, $10,000 from Professional Services and also Legal along with $25,000 from General Insurance and $55,000 from Repair of Buildings.
The County Council also made the determination of moving the HR Director from the Auditor’s Office to the Commissioners. Councilwoman Penny Lukenbill said looking at the eight counties of our size, five of them have a separate HR department under the county’s administration. The vote was 5 to 2 to move the HR position to commissioner’s control. Both Jon Van Vactor and Heath Thornton voted to keep the position with the Auditor.
County Building and Grounds had their budget cut $73,500 and Sheriff Hassel will see a reduction of $103,500 in the Sheriff’s General Fund budget. The council also cut $18,500 from the jail budget including $6,000 from wages overtime and $5,000 from wages part-time cook. The Special LIT fund saw a cut of $115,00…$100,000 from machinery and repair and $15,000 from part-time turnkey/dispatchers.
County Plan Director Ty Adley listened as the council cut $500 from wages overtime, $500 from wages code enforcement, $500 from vehicle maintenance, $250 from travel and mileage and $250 from training. The Building Commissioner also saw cuts of $2,000 from vehicle maintenance, $500 wages clerical, $5,000 wages building inspector part-time and $1,000 from training.
The County Council made cuts to Judge Bowen’s budget for Superior Court I. Over all they cut $36,693 including $22,000 from pauper council and $5,000 from the department head wage. Cuts were made on almost every line item on Judge Dean Colvin’s budget from Superior Court II. He told the council he basically increased his budget by 10% and the council didn’t like the idea of an across the board increases without justification. Over $93,000 was cut including $55,000 for a full-time law clerk, $22,000 from pauper council and $5,000 from the department head wage.
While the budget ended up at $13,331,533 the council isn’t quite done with it. They also approved the recommendation of the sub-committee that has been reviewing the recommendations of Waggoner Irwin and Scheele wage and job description overhaul. It’s taken over a year to wade through the recommendations and on Monday they council motioned to move forward with making it equal pay for equal work in the various county departments.
While department heads were told to increase salaries by $1,500 across the board this recommendation is by category and the council is not sure what impact it will have on next year’s budget until Auditor Julie Fox plugs in the new salary increases. It was noted that 7 employees will not see an increase next year.
