Worley: Departments need to cut more

Barrow County commissioner Steve Worley said this week that he believes the county budget can be cut more. The county is facing a $2.2 million deficit for FY2010.

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County Chairman Danny Yearwood has called a special meeting of the Barrow County Board of Commissioners for 6 p.m. Tuesday, Sept. 1, to work on the FY2010 budget. The meeting is open to the public and will be held in the commissioners' meeting room of county administration building at 233 E. Broad St. in Winder.
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While nearly all of the departmental budgets are lower than the current fiscal year, Worley said most of the budgeted savings are due to the board layoffs and salary reductions – not to managers cutting the operating expenditures they do have control over.

“I think we can make some more cuts in the budget,” Worley said. “Most of the department heads turned in the same amount or close to the same amount they got in 2009, or a little bit less. Most of them, the savings are not really savings. The cuts made were salary adjustments and layoffs and corrections of the Archer Study (pay scales). They actually didn’t sharpen their pencils and cut on their operating expenses.”

After going through each line item in the proposed budget, Worley said he believes managers can cut another $500,000 in operating expenses.

“Knowing the county is facing a shortfall of $2 million, we might have to revamp how we make copies, how we do this, how we do that,” he said.

Worley said he has scheduled a meeting with the finance staff later this week to go over highlighted items in order to find out if all of that spending is justified.

For complete coverage of the county budget crisis, see the August 19 issue of the Barrow Journal.