County finance director Beth Horacek said the BCSO was projecting cost overruns including $230,000 in salaries and wages, $52,000 in fuel costs, $19,000 for maintenance and $60,000 for outside prisoner housing.
As a result, the sheriff’s office has asked for a budget amendment to cover the extra costs.
Barrow County Board of Commissioners Chairman Doug Garrison said Sheriff Joel Robinson was invited to attend Tuesday night’s commission meeting to present the budget request. Neither Robinson nor any of his staff attended.
Dist. 3 commissioner Bill Healan motioned to table the request in order to provide the county attorney with sufficient time to review the cost overruns and determine exactly what the county was required to pay.
“Before we obligate to spend money we don’t have, we want answers to some questions,” he said.
The motion was unanimously approved.
The board did approve a budget amendment for the Magistrate’s Office.
Chief Magistrate June Davis explained that her court had higher than anticipated expenses for judge’s salaries. The total projected costs are expected to exceed the amount budgeted by just over $9,400.
In addition to the budget amendments, Horacek presented an update of the county’s financial status for the year to date.
Of primary concern to county officials is a projected revenue shortfall of $3.2 million. With sales tax revenue off by $477,000 and $1.1 million remaining to be collected in property taxes, the county anticipates having to tap reserve funds by the end of the fiscal year.
The county currently has $9.02 million or 2.88 months of reserves. With most departments finishing the year at or under budget, Horacek said she anticipates a net decrease of $1.3 million in the reserve fund for fiscal year 2008.
In other business, the board:
• unanimously approved an agreement with Schuetz’s Container System to provide sewer service to the company’s new Barrow County facility. Dist. 4 commissioner Isaiah Berry said he expected the project to bring some much needed revenue to the county, especially for the Carl and Auburn areas.
• approved the county’s proposed health care plans. Barrow County will spend $3.2 million in the next fiscal year to provide health care benefits for employees.
• appointed Coleen Jenkins and Johnny Smith to the Board of Commissioners personnel review board.
• appointed Bob Akin to the Clerk of Court, Magistrate, Probate and Tax Commissioner personnel review board.
• appointed Towanna Johnson and Bobby Garrett to the ethics board.
I've heard one or two commission members state something along the lines of "you can't touch the Sheriff's budget" ... Well looks like you will be touching it now ...be it a little late in the game.
If nothing else comes out of this....Let's determine who at the annex is going to monitor all department budgets (Finance Director maybe?) in the future and attempt to be a little more proactive in evaluating expense trends.
And Murray and Joe should have had the courage to show up and explain the request. Although the Chairman and Finance Director should feel some heat for not being on top of the spending trends at the Sheriff's department.
This County is growing way to fast for the care free attitude that we have experinced over the past years.And I myself am glad to see Sheriff Robinson go.And can only hope the next Sheriff of Barrow County will move Murray Kogod to litter patrol.
(d) Nothing contained in this Code section shall preclude a local government from amending its budget so as to adapt to changing governmental needs during the budget period. Amendments shall be made as follows, unless otherwise provided by charter or local law:
(1) Any increase in appropriation at the legal level of control of the local government, whether accomplished through a change in anticipated revenues in any fund or through a transfer of appropriations among departments, shall require the approval of the governing authority. Ordinance or resolution shall adopt such amendment:
(2) Transfers of appropriations within any fund below the local government's legal level of control shall require only the approval of the budget officer; and
(3) The governing authority of a local government may amend the legal level of control to establish a more detailed level of budgetary control at any time during the budget period. Said amendment shall be adopted by ordinance or resolution.
Clearly, even an elected official responsible for oversight of taxpayers dollars is required to request a budget increase from the commissioners. The commissioners have egg on their faces for not being furnished a monthly or quarterly overview of the status of the budgets in all departments. There is simply no excuse for any government entity to exceed a budget. Exceeding a budget within a business entity by a department head would result in the department head viewing the business from the outside. Shouldn't taxpayers expect and demand the same?
OR Is the Commission Chairman the Chief Executive for Barrow County? It can not be both. I'm sure someone is familiar with this topic and it would be interesting to learn more about how our county government operates.
Yearly each department attends several budget meetings.A department head or their designee ask for and must justify requested increases in both total budget and individual line items within the budget.
2) Regardless of the reasoning for the increase or how well the request is justified, each department is then told what they will actually be given for each line item( which is almost always far less). If they run out of money they are asked to transfer funds from a diffrent line item to pay for the shortage.
This method of doing business allows the ones that control the money to say,That department is over budget,w/out mentioning the department asked for sufficent funds and those funds were denied.
More to come later........
We all know the basic budget tricks:
1. ask for 10% you get 5% and some how you come in under budget
2. spend everything you get to keep your run rate up for next year's budget
Let's see some leadership at the Administrator level (not sure who that person is) and challenge the department heads to look at their budgets like a newly formed department. Let's start looking at staffing models to determine the correct number of people based upon the "units of work" performed by the department. You can say it is not a perfect science, but it has to better than what we are doing now. It is time for some private industry practices to come to the County Annex.
Or maybe the didn't save it and that is why they "want answers"
DuWayne R. Anderson
Winder, GA